Roxy was the first child of David and myself. We got Roxy the summer after our first year of college. She was the tiniest Chihuahua on the face of the planet. And, I know what you're thinking: Chihuahua, great. No, really. Roxy was fantastic.

This dog was as not-Chihuahua as a Chihuahua can be. She loved people, never yapped, and was not spastic. Think of her as a pint-sized golden retriever. With bulging eyes.

As we grew our family, Roxy stayed very much so a part of it. She's moved with us everywhere. She traveled with us everywhere. She ate every crumb that fell from the table. She was "the Roo."

In July she ran away. She wandered off. And this time, she didn't come back.

We've had a hard time letting go of this. Her bowl is still in the kitchen and her bed is still in our bedroom. But I think we're ready to move on.

David and I had discussed a new puppy for 2 weeks or so; weighing our options and looking at all the things that are coming up in our lives. As impossible as it will ever be to replace Roxy, I do think we're ready to add a missing element to our little family.

Maybe I'll get to show a new squishy face around these parts real soon.

Woo! A launch!

I've been working on several projects, all of which have about the same launch date. It always makes me antsy when I don't announce a launch for a while, even though I'm hard at work. But that's about to be remedied.

Cashmere Suitcase is a project I've been working on for about 3 months, which is pretty long compared to most of my projects. But, I built the site from top to bottom: branding, design, load of both information and products, and a blog design. And it's ready to go.

Susan, the travel lady behind Cashmere Suitcase - a high-end boutique specializing in destination shopping - actually contacted me first this past winter/spring for a preliminary contact regarding her project. We discussed her desires for the project and a potential timeline. Several weeks later she contacted me again, ready to start her project.

Cashmere Suitcase is built on the Business Catalyst platform, giving Susan everything she needs to build her business online.

Check Cashmere Suitcase out, and join me in drooling over this convertible tote by 49 Square Miles. I so want it.

I am looking forward to the food the most.

Sure, my impending trip will be a chance to learn (whoa, so excited about Blogshop) and a chance to have some much-needed alone time to explore my favorite city on the face of the planet. But, really, I can't wait to eat more food (mostly carbs) than any human being should be allowed.

Bagettes, croissants, les fromages, les bon bons, wine, cafe au lait, croque monsieurs. On and on and on. Oh, and macarons.

Macarons are something I've wanted to try my hand at for a while. So, this weekend I gave them a try.

I followed this recipe by David Lebovitz and they turned out super yummy, but a little too well done. I cooked for the 15 minutes requested, but I think they could have done with 1-2 minutes less. But, really, who cares; there's ganache in there.

So, Paris, my taste buds are reacquainting themselves. I hope you're ready.

This weekend was the first in about two months where I didn't go into the studio once. Unless you count that 30 seconds when I ran in for a pair of scissors, I stayed away all weekend.

No work; all play.

Fall is in full swing in the mountains. It's chilling off, the leaves are already a myriad of autumn hues, and festivals are abounding.

This weekend we took the opportunity to enjoy mountain life a bit. Saturday we headed off to the farmer's market and coffee shop - our usual Saturday routine - and then packed up for a little road trip.

About an hour from our house is the whole of Yadkin Valley, the wine-producing region of North Carolina. As a bit of a wine snob, I'm well aware of the cold shoulder NC wines usually get. But this trip wasn't for a pinot. This was a trip for hard cider.

We visited McRitchie Winery this spring (I'll never forget that crazy llama) and I now get their email newsletter. The latest newsletter announced the release of this year's hard ciders. David and I knew we had to go.

So, go we did. We drove over to McRitchie, enjoyed some great food, a live blue grass rendition of "Brick in the Wall" that completely changed how I look at that song, and watched Lily entertain the crowd with her self-proclaimed "smooth dance moves."

And then we walked away with a case of hard cider, pressed from fabulous local apples.

Life in the mountains.

But that wasn't all. After leaving McRitchie we drove about 20 minutes to the Yadkin Valley Pumpkin Festival, where Lily posed beside an 1100-pound pumpkin. Not quite as big as last year's, but still a giant.

It was a good weekend. A work-free, all-about-family weekend was just what I needed.

What did you do this weekend?

I mentioned in the last Prepping for Paris post about how I'm resisting the urge to plan the hell out of this trip. I am a planner. I plan. Everything. I meal plan, party plan, travel plan. Painfully, painfully plan. And schedule. I'm a control freak and I can't help it.

I also love things that help me plan: printables, notebooks, containers, apps.

For my impending trip, I'm all about some planning. Even more so than usual - I think - because I'm traveling alone. If something goes wrong I have no one to fall back on.

I have printable shopping, packing and to-do lists, notebooks for jotting down metro stops and addresses of chocolatiers I simply must visit, containers for organizing my packed things, and apps.

Apps are what I want to discuss now. I have found two that I'm crazy in love with.

I first ran across TripIt right after making the decision to take this trip. TripIt is a website and app that takes all your reservations and plans and turns them into a master itinerary for you and anyone you wish to share it with.

When I booked my flight I simply forwarded the confirmation email to TripIt and it was automatically entered into my itinerary, with confirmation numbers, phone numbers and even my seat assignment. Coolest thing ever.

I even put in my airport pick-up reservation and hotel. It was really nifty in that it automatically generated a map for the area around my hotel for 10 minutes after I'm due to check-in. Again, coolest thing ever. Finally, an app that's as retentive about planning as I am!

After making all of my bookings, and meticulously making sure they were entered into my itinerary correctly, I realized that I needed something to help me track expenses. As this is a business trip with some personal things tied in (I don't think that shopping on the Rue de Rivoli is a tax write-off, sadly) I needed some fairly simple way to keep track of the separate expenses so I didn't come home with a purse full of receipts in a foreign language that I'd have to hire someone to help me translate and record.

So, I found an app for that.

My Travel Assistant is an app that logs travel expenses for as many trips as I need, divides expenses into categories, and even comes handy with up-to-the-minute currency conversions. So nifty. You can have multiple expense accounts for multiple trips, so I can keep track of personal and business spending in one easy place. Freaking love it.

So, this is me being me. The type of Type-A that even makes me want to throw a stick at my head. But I can't help it, and being organized keeps from from hyperventilating.

Are you as nuts about planning trips, or do you go with the flow?

Prepping for Paris: Part 1 - The Decision
Prepping for Paris: Part 2 - The Shopping
Prepping for Paris: Part 3 -The Language

Image Credits: Beachbody.com

I posted last week how my insane focus on work had replaced my focus on life. Both physically and mentally. So not ok. But at least I realized there was a problem, right?!

Even though I've been missing around the blog, I have been working on getting my crazy to-do list down to manageable size, I implemented a new maintenance scheduling policy yesterday that I'm sure will keep my to-do list from getting so scary, and I've been taking lots and lots of snuggle breaks.

Today I want to start another phase: a 30-Day Get-Back-on-Track Challenge. For myself.

My big trip is approximately 30 days away, so before I go stuff myself with pastries and cheese and too much good red wine, I want to get back on my regular work-out routine. Meaning daily craziness.

I started P90X back in February or so and followed in religiously for 60 days. After 60 days I slacked off, but still kept doing periodic workouts. And I still have the muscles to prove it. My weekly yoga classes are keeping them in line a bit (may we talk about how much I love being able to hold plank position?) and about 2 months ago I picked up TurboFire.

One of the things I wasn't thrilled about with P90X was the lack of cardio. Not that it was bad about the system, as I can't rave enough about it, but I just personally needed more cardio. TurboFire certainly made up for what I was missing. I do it 3-4 times a week, but really need to get back on top of it.

So, today begins a 30-day hybrid of P90X and TurboFire. And I need a bit of public accountability to keep from designing until midnight and then flopping into bed thinking that I should have taken a break to exercise.

I hope to do a weekly update on how it's going. I'll keep you posted.

Want to join me? I'd love to have some bloggy buddies going with me. (I'm looking at you, Heather.)

Snuggle-fests like the one above, trips to the grocery store, and going to bed early shouldn't make me feel guilty. But they do.

Because I'm a workaholic.

I still feel like I'm rolling out of my summer job frenzy, getting caught up on all the things I let slide while David spent early August in Montana, and fumbling to get the laundry done and dinner cooked. I'm a stressed out mess. My to-do list is a mile long and no end is in sight.

But now it's time to pull myself back together, reorganize my business, my home, my life. My priorities.

Here they are:

Priority #1: Worry less, snuggle more.

Priority #2: Bi-weekly manicures. Either self-administered or professionally done.

Priority #3: Return of the daily workouts and daily showers. (Not kidding about this one, guys. I've been too busy to shower.)

Priority #4: Cook good food. Food makes me happy. Cooking good food makes me happiest. And we've been in a nasty food rut, brought on by my stress- and word-induced kitchen absence.

Priority #5: No-design Mondays. - This one affects clients the most, and is in effect immediately. Mondays are for bookeeping, answering lingering email and doing maintenance. No designing on Mondays until further notice. This way I can really focus on design every other day of the week.

My impending trip (and lack-of-workout weight gain) has made me re-realize that I'm going under again. Burrying myself in work when I need to be burrying myself in life. If I work hard just to work hard, it useless, but if I work hard to enjoy the things I want to enjoy, then it's all much more worthwhile.

And I'd much rather it be worthwhile.

I am counting down the days (less than 40) until I leave for my trip. It's almost all I can think about. I'm being consumed by excitement, an overwhelming Type-A need to plan the hell out of this, and a little bit of worry. Just a healthy bit.

One thing I'm fretting about is my grasp on the French language, or the lack thereof. Or am I just being too hard on myself? Or am I really going to get terribly lost?

See. And I can't help it.

I have several years and an ok amount of French language experience under my belt. Three years of high school French (and I'm learning more and more that that old bat was a seriously wonderful teacher), four semesters of college French, including a summer in various regions of France. By the end of that trip, I was bafflingly proficient at understanding others, and getting better and better at using it myself, but that was years ago, so I dare say that doesn't much count anymore.

I have found in the past weeks, however, that I haven't completely lost it. I've been filling my head with, what is to me, French nonsense. And it's coming back really well. I'm fairly certain I can ask for and receive directions, order food, buy a ticket (to the Louvre, metro, etc), and scream for help. I feel as long as I have those down, that's a pretty solid foundation for just a week of culture shock.

I've been immersing myself in a couple of ways: French classics (think Edith Piaf - I've had La Vie en Rose in my head for weeks), Coffee Break French, streaming French radio programs, and Netflixing French movies. I'm considering ordering some French cartoons to watch with Lily, in hopes that she starts to pick it up too.

Side note: I love languages, though I don't speak any more than English (yea, really), some French and very basic Spanish. There was a short time in college where I actually considered becoming a Linguistic Anthropologist. I think I made a financially responsible decision there.

And there are videos like this that just make me want to shut it and leave now. Right. Now.

EF - Live The Language - Paris from Albin Holmqvist on Vimeo.

At the end of the day, what do I really need to know more than "je voudrais beaucoup de vin, s'il vous plaît."

Prepping for Paris: Part 1 - The Decision
Prepping for Paris: Part 2 - The Shopping

It's almost time!

Monday is the LAST day to register for my Indie Shopography eCourse. Four weeks dedicated to all the things you need to know to get your small creative business online, from content management systems to payment processors and beyond!

There are still a few spots left open at each level, and for September 9th through 11th, you can get in for 10% off.

Access begins today for Fab and Super-Fab subscribers, with Kits shipping out by Tuesday of next week. If you haven't committed yet, it's definitely the time to do so! Don't forget to enter ISTEN at checkout to get your discount!

Also, IS now has an affiliate program, where you can earn 25% of subscriber fees for every person your refer through your affiliate link. Affiliates get access to banners and badges for use on their website, blog and newsletters.

It just keeps getting better and better!

I realized a few days ago that I haven't gushed about Lily around these parts in a long while. Not that there isn't plenty to gush about - because believe me, there is - it's just that I don't ever have my camera on me anymore. Even as I say this, the battery is completely dead.

Horrible mother.

Bug is getting big. And smart. And so utterly full of herself. She's fantastic.

She's 3.5 this month, and I'm counting down to get out of these Terrifying Threes, like they'll actually stop as soon as her birthday rolls around. Threes are definitely worse than twos folks. Don't play.

However, even with the temper tantrums, shorter naps, and the vocabulary to declare "no, I don't want to" and other obscenities, comes the best hugs, snuggles and tickle-fests on the face of the planet. This kid knows just how to play me.

We've been working on learning fun things too, like recognizing numbers and counting higher and higher. We've been learning letters and sight-words. She can spell and write her name, points out letters in signs and books, and really is about the smartest kid I've ever seen. She's absolutely blowing my mind.

And as for the being-full-of-herself thing, I admit she gets that from me, but she's taken it a huge step further. Just the other day we were going through all of her clothes and David called her over to try on some old PJs. She puts them on and start posing so aggressively that she actually fell over. We had a good laugh over that one.

Same goes for the photos above. While outside working on a work project with my assistant, Lily comes out and demands that I take her picture as well, adding a sarcastic "pleeeeeeaaaase" when I give her "the eye." I point the camera her way and she gets in the zone. Three-year-old diva.

Never a dull moment.