WEBSITE !!!!!

My rug web site is up. I procrastinated all summer to get it done, and now today on the last day of September I've finished it. It is really rough and I have to call GODaddy to find out how much I have to pay for them to take their banner off the top. That thing is tacky. I'll work on it some more and figure out all the cool saavy design tricks that I didn't have time for today and it will get better. It certainly doesn't scream "Design Professional", but I have a web presence and today that is all that matters.

I also need to figure out a way to get all 20 rug designs on there. I'm only allowed so many images on my current site. I will probably have to upgrade $$$$$.

BUT I am officially impressed with myself. At least now I can pass out my cards and not tell people that the site isn't live yet. That is always awkward.

So here it is......... Enjoy and buy........ http://www.mweaverrugs.com/.

Long Beach Highschool Reunion

This was, surprisingly, the view from our hotel room this weekend. It was a beautiful day in Long Beach Saturday. We got in around 4:00 and went for a walk at Shoreline Village. It was so gorgeous and clear that we had to stop at the Yard House just to sit and watch the boats and the people go by. I actually had a cocktail which I never do. It was some crazy cherry vodka lemonade mix and all it did was give me a headache. We headed back to the hotel to get ready and showed up at about 7:40 for the reunion when dinner was supposed to start at 8:00.

There was no one there. The little book that was given out listing all the people attending only had about 40-50 people in it. This was out of a class of over 600. WTF? We went inside anyway, took a quick look around, and bailed. Carl didn't know anyone there and as we perused the reunion book we quickly realized that most of those attending were divorced single moms who still lived around LA and then about 5 guys from Carl's class who he didn't know who were cops in the LA area. Needless to say that is not our crowd.

We left and headed to Roscoe's. Carl called up a friend of his who he knows lives in LB and he came over and met us. We hung out for a couple of hours at Roscoe's sipping lemonade and people watching while Carl and Orlando talked about the good old days of rock n roll.

Carl seemed a little disappointed, but then pointed out that the real reunion was in June when we came down and went to the Crucified show and Carl saw all his old band friends. Those were his buddies, not the people he never knew and never liked from highschool.

So we ended up spending $190 for a reunion we didn't attend and had great chicken and waffles instead of hotel catered food just like we wanted to anyway.

Overall it was a good trip. Like I posted on Friday it's just great to get into the city and be with other people, walk along the ocean hand it hand, eat great food, and spend time with the one you love.

Los Angeles

Since we're heading to LA this weekend without the kids I'm getting pretty excited. There never seems to be enought time to drive by all of our old haunts, eat at all of our favorite restaurants, and shop at my favorite stores. The list seems endless and usually we only hit up the one thing we are craving most. Roscoe's is at the top of the list most of the time as well as some good Asian donuts from the OC. Since we'll be specifically in Long Beach that rules out most of the OC and shopping, and since we have already paid for what will be, I'm sure, a fabulous hotel catering dinner consisting of some sort of grilled chicked and frozen butter for cold day old rolls we will not have the option of eating some place great Saturday night.

This is frustrating yes, but I'll still get my fix just by being in LA. When I sit in my little office everyday and write these blogs and watch the storms roll in, watch all the neighbors dogs and horses frolicking on their own private 3 acres, and watch the school buses drop off first the highschool, then the middle school and finally my own grade schoolers, I sometimes forget about the big bad world out there. I forget there are ghettos and barrios and gated communities with full time gardeners. I forget to wax my eyebrows and to wear something other than old torn jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. I forget about smog and traffic and the daredevils that drive 85 on the 405. I forget that all the people I read about on Perez Hilton are real people who are living their lives in LA. They take their kids to school and pick up thier dry cleaning like anyone else. I am so insulated here. I miss hearing and seeing all the different kinds of people that we don't have here in my mountain village.

I might not want to live there anymore, but I think I would suffer from withdrawal if I didn't get to visit LA every few months like we do. It's a completely different world and I love it and miss it. I miss the history that the city has, the old buildings and the startling new modern ones. I miss seeing people walking in their neighborhoods with shopping carts. I miss the old people. We don't have too many here due to the high altitude and sometimes I forget what the world looks like when it is populated with every conceivable kind of human being. LA has that and sometimes it is refreshing and sometimes it is scary.

I won't come home from this weekend with any shopping bags or a belly full of great food, but my eyes and my mind will be full and that will be satisfaction enough for me.

Career Crisis

I finally collected payment on the last of my projects. I think it is time to say that I am officially done being an architect. The same day that last check came in the mail is the same day my State of Arizona license renewal came in the mail. How very coincidental.

Do I renew it? What is my status as an architect? Do I continue paying all the registration fees just in case I decide one day to go back to being an architect? I was going to hold off on this decision, but here it has been thrown into my face and I'll have to decide. At this point in my life I can't ever see myself wanting to work as an architect ever again. I don't ever want to sit in an office and look busy trying to work for someone else that's for damn sure. But what if someone asks really nicely and offers me a lot of money for a one off project? It could happen. Am I just grasping at straws? Am I just reluctant to give up something I spent years of school and apprenticework trying to achieve? Argh! I don't know.

In the meantime my writing is going slowly as writing tends to do and my rugs are going just as slowly as money allows. So I'm going nowhere fast. If I only live to 68 this could classify as my mid-life crisis.

Waxed and Colored

I'm getting ready this week to travel to Long Beach, Ca this weekend to attend my husband's 20th High School Reunion. (Yes, he is a few years older than me). I spent the morning getting waxed and then hurrying home before I could run into anyone who would notice my unusually red face. This afternoon I will be coloring my hair. I am trying to decide between my usual dark red-brown color and my old bright red color I used to wear when we used to gallivant around Hollywood. I miss that color, but it seems like too much for taking the kids to school and shopping at Target. Part of me says to just go for it and change it back later if it's too much, but I'm getting older and I don't know if I can pull off that color anymore. We are just going to some cheesy hotel in Long Beach, it's not like we are going to LA or Las Vegas, but still I think I might try the color out 1 more time just for fun.

I've noticed my posts are further apart than I would like and not filled with the vim and vigour that I would like them to have. I have also been neglecting my FaceBook status updates as well. I haven't figured out why yet. I'm busy yes, but never to busy to broadcast my comings and goings. Until I figure it out, or until something more interesting starts happening you'll have to bear with me.

Today's Show and Tell

This afternoon I am going to attemp to bring a large lap cat to my son's school for 'Show and Tell'. This sounds like a great idea to my 6 year old, but sounds like a lot of work for mom. He is large, meows louder than an ambulance siren, sheds excessively and has a disgusting backside that is only partially concealed by his tail. Due to his large size he is not able to cleanse himself as well as he (and I) would like. This means that I have to find a box large enought to contain his enormous body, comb out his fur, and try and find a way to make his backside look presentable for a room full of 6 year olds who will surely comment if he is less than fastidiously clean. I am not looking forward to it at all, but anything to make a 6 year old happy.

I am trying to remind myself that this is why I am not working. This is why I work at things that leave my schedule flexible enough to take the afternoon to cart around an enormous white cat to my children's school. It's what my mom would never have done for me. So I make it a point to do it for my kids. I complain about my boredom, running back and forth to school will forgotten homework, lunches, and permission slips, and the kinks it puts on my ability to get stuff done at home, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Although I love the fact that I once had a 'career'. I genuinly think that if a woman wants to have kids she should stay home with them and be there for them the way a mother should be. I strongly believe that you can't really know your child unless you are there when he goes to school in the morning and you are there in the afternoon when he gets home. You have to be able to take time off when they are sick, and not make them feel guilty about it if you work and have to take time off to stay home with them. Kids need a parent who is there for them 24/7. Someone who has the ability to drop anything if they are needed.

I struggled with this enormously those first 3 years when my oldest was young and I worked in an office. I worked in a predominately male field and it was always looked down on by my bosses when I had to take time off when my son was sick, had a doctor's appt, etc. It made me feel horrible. Maybe I just needed a more understanding employer, but to me having children pulled me in too many directions, and they won hands down.

Architecture Blog

So I started a couple of new blogs a few weeks ago. The writing and reading one is going like gang busters. The architecture one is dead where it stands. I was so excited about it too. I love architecture, but aparently I don't have enough to say about it. I tried with good intentions to find something interesting and fun to write about, but I had nothing. A big zilch. I'm taking that as a good sign though. I am not meant to be an architect. I've been writing about it forever, but it keeps coming back around and smacking me in the face. It's just not my thing. I love it like a rock. It will always be a part of me, but I don't care enough about it to have something meaningful to write about it every day. It's kind of dis-heartening, but helps me to know that maybe I'm heading in the right direction. I love old buildings and not too many people are still talking about old buildings. I love history, and again it's not a popular topic in architecture circles. I was going to write the blog to try and find my place in architecture, but what it helped me realize is that in modern architecture there is no place for me. I'm a history and old bricks kind of gal.

So I'm going to post the location of the other new blog that I love writing. http://emilyjweaver.blogspot.com/. I'm reviewing the books that I read and talking about me trying to write.  We'll see what becomes of it, but for now I'm having fun writing it and heaven knows I will never run out of books to review.

MWeaver Rugs

My gun is fixed! I am so excited. I am really going to finish this rug. I don't get to spend as much time as I would like out there. My arm gets tired after about an hour and a half. But it's fun and I almost feel like it would be fun to try and sell somthing that I created all by myself. I'm proud of myself that I've come this far. It's taken over a year to get all this stuff together and to get my studio up, all the bits and pieces and equipment and materials. I still need a couple more things......the $1500 rug trimmer that shaves off the top ofthe rug to make the surface even and finished, a bucket of laytex to seal off the back of the rug when I'm done, the canvas rug backing, and I still need to figure out how I want to finish off the edges when I'm done and pull the rug off the rack. It's been a process and I've had to learn as I've gone along.

I made all kinds of plans about how this rug thing was going to work out, but in the end it's still a fly by the seat of my pants kind of thing. Planning only gets you so far, the rest has to be done in the doing. I think there is still a lot of distance ahead before I get to selling 4 or 5 a month, but in the meantime I'm having fun. I feel like I've accomplished something major. Some days it feels like I never get anything done, but then if I step back and look at the big picture I can see that everyday takes me a tiny step closer to where I am supposed to be.

Missing Chris Isaak

 I've been listening to Chris Isaak non-stop the past few days. I missed him this summer. He goes on tour every summer and I usually see him at least once, but this year I missed him. I looked it up yesterday and he's currently in Australia and will be returning to play one show in October at the Fresno County Fair. Would I even want to see him there?

He'e been sliding lately it seems. He recently did an appearance on the Wendy Willams Show? That seems a little beneath him. And I've notice that his gigs in Vegas are no longer at the MGM or Planet Hollywood. They are at the Golden Nugget or Sam's Town way off the strip.

What's happened? He's still a great showman. He's still got good songs and he can still sing his old ones just like it's 1989. I know he's getting older. I think he's like 53 now, but still I want to see him in all his glory with girls throwing underwear at him while he wears his mirrored suit. It's disappointing to watch one of your favorite stars start to fade.

I'm hoping things will be better next summer and I can see Chris again at a decent venue. He's getting old enough that I need to see him while he's still alive. It's also a dream of mine to have him play a show here in Flagstaff for my 36th birthday. I think it only costs like $100,000 to get him to come play and if he keeps sliding I might be able to get him for less.

See ya soon Chris!

Classical Music

I am sitting in my office at 12:15 listening to classical music. I don't know what it is. I got it at Sam's Club from one of those "Great Classics for Romance" collections.

It looks like September outside. It's overcast. The thermostat says it's 73 degrees in the house, but I'm wearing a fleece sweatshirt and socks.

I'm trying to be positive today, but it's hard. It's hump-day. I'm hoping the mail lady brings me something cool....maybe something from Abe Books, the new IKEA catalog, a new New Old House magazine.

I'm bored. Maybe I'll take some pictures around the house today and upload them tomorrow. I've been really short on images on this blog. Technically, I'm a very visual person, but you would never know it by looking here.

I need more harp music. This is very soothing. Maybe Sam's has a collection of "Romantic Classics for the Harp".

My tufting gun is still broken. The Germans are working on it, but are very slow with a response. Until then....I'm bored. I knew I wouldn't be able to fill up my Mondays and Wednesdays.

Sorry for the less than stellar post. It's one of those days, and I'm not even hormonal today.

Completely Broke

It has come to this.

After all my ranting and raving and hopes and dreams of someday making more money, we are now completely broke. It is the 1st of the month. I have been able to pay the mortgage, the little ones pre-school tuition and the credit card bills. There is now less than $30 in the bank. There are still all of the utility and insurance bills to pay and all the food and gas needed for the month for which I have no cash.

I am waiting for 2 clients to pay me $1400, but in architecture you never know when a check is going to arrive. I billed both of them the middle of last month hoping that the money would get here by now, but it hasn't.

I've got until the 15th when the rest of the bills are due to try and scrape up some cash.

The shipping business is broke this month too. All of those rental bills at $1000/month for a truck, the 2 truck payments (one for a truck that no longer runs), and the repair bill (also for the truck that no longer runs) have taken their toll on the finances and there is a grand total of $30 also in that account.

The check cashing business is running slim. My 30% take was less than usual.

It all adds up to us being broke. My only partial salvation is my property tax savings account .We pay the taxes ourselves so I have an account that I save a little in monthly so that we can pay the taxes at the end of December. I also have about $350 in the Christmas savings account. I am going to have to dip into these to pay the bills and to eat for the month. I really don't want to, but what are my choices at this point. My goal to not charge anything on the credit cards has been going well, but seems like an impossible goal at this point. Come December we are going to be short on the property taxes.

I thought that if I quit being an architect and started doing the things that I love that money would easily flow back into our lives. That's what all the career and self-help books say......find the thing that you love to do and the money will follow.

I love writing. I love blogging. I love being here for the kids when they are sick and being able to take them and pick them up from school. I love designing rugs. I love making the rugs.

But where the fuck is my money? This is getting ridiculous. I don't want to live like this. Why can't I really have it all? The time with the kids, the husband, time for myself, and the money to afford all of the above? What is the thing that I am missing that will make all the pieces fall together and click? Who do I need to talk to? Where do I need to go to file a complaint?

I've also heard that if you are desperate enough anything is possible. I don't know how I could get much more desperate. I haven't bought new underwear in a year.

Awesomeness

I know I'm awesome, obviously you know I'm awesome or you wouldn't be reading this, but who else can YOU tell about my awesomeness?

I'm not big on self promotion, but the time has come to start pimping this thing out. As you probaly already know I'm kind of a hermit, so there are not many more people Ican tell about this blog. I have a grand total of 41 Facebook friends and that includes all the people who still admit that they know me from grade school, highschool, college and my short stint in the workforce. I've told all them about this blog, but if you are just some random person who stumbled upon me looking for info on Tony Robbins and you like what you're reading then PASS IT ALONG.

I'm only 1,000,000 followers away from a book deal, reality show, or guest column at Vogue. You can make all the difference. I'll pimp you out if you pimp me out. That's what bloggers do.