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.