The San Francisco Center for the Book posted this artwork on their Facebook page today. I love it.

Somehow, we're a third into August. That means I should be thinking about a Christmas card, as far as the letterpress is concerned. My goal was to open an Etsy shop in 2013 with at least a small inventory, so I have only a few months left to do so.

Speaking of a love rush, my time home with Isobel has been amazing and though it seems like I should have a lot of printing time, my days are mostly filled with play and meals, and my free time on freelance writing work, not to mention keeping track of the plethora of photos we've amassed in the past year. So, the printing days are out there, and I'll get to them, eventually.

new workspace!

Well, not really a new space, exactly, but a new way to be in the same space.

My husband and I share an office/studio space in one room of our apartment. He takes up most of it with his music equipment, but I have my own little corner. After we moved in, I began tacking up photos and greeting cards as inspiration, along with vintage maps of Paris and San Francisco. Eventually, though, it began to feel messy: the wall, the desktop, under and around the desk...

 

Then, around Christmastime, I received a calendar as a gift when I ordered Little Italy by Jennifer Altman, which is a lovely book of travel writing, recipes, and Polaroid photos taken in Italy (my reigning favorite country, with France, Mexico and England close behind). The calendar turned out to be equal in quality and beauty to the book. So, although I had at first envisioned adding the current month's photo to my motley collection of images, I changed my mind and decided I wanted them all up, year round. It's not only time for new inspiration, but for some order.

Although I can't seem to keep my desk clean or organized, no matter how hard I try, I have at least uncluttered the wall. Healthy habits start somewhere, right?

inspiration: yellow like the sun.

Winter must be getting to me because I am craving yellow. I've chosen (as in: folded the corners of catalog pages) a new yellow rug for the kitchen and yellow chairs, which my husband has yet to see. No doubt he will veto these choices, so in the meantime there are yellow tulips, which have been cheery in the dull, bleak mid-winter light.

I love the combination of film, sunlight, and flowers. The light and blooms remind me of Vermeer (although, to be clear, I'm drawing no comparison between myself and Vermeer), who seemed to rely heavily on natural light in otherwise dark and conceivably cold rooms:

Vermeer seems like a wintertime painter for some reason.

I think these pears want to be poached. Here's a recipe for making poached pears.