Expressing Thanks

Some of you know that I hand make bags from upcycled or recycled fabrics as a hobby and that I have a shop on Etsy under my company name of Chucka Stone Designs where I sell these little goodies. Well about a week ago, Jackie over at Etsy Item of the Day got in touch with me and asked if she could feature this


as today’s featured item of the day. As if I was going to say no! The funny thing is that I have been contemplating marking all of my Etsy shop items at 50% off as a moving sale next week so I can possibly unload some merchandise before I have to pack it and take it to the new place. I would much rather take it to the post office and send it to a fine, yet different, home.

This morning I was suggesting, over on one of the thousand or so social networking sites I now belong to, that perhaps I should get a couple huge posters made up that look like this

to mark the sale’s occasion. I guess pimping out my glorious feature (and the fact that I am thinking of having the sale at all) right here on my blog is going to have to be enough. Never mind the fact that there is no time to print up these babies, I am pretty sure my current landlord would not be expressing her thanks for my hanging them all over the building.

One of the people I recently started following on twitter, @EnlightenYurDay, posts these little excellent quotes a few times a day. They come from philosophers, musicians, writers, Saints and (who some might call) sinners alike. I don’t know where they find them but they never cease to inspire me and make me smile or chuckle too. My very favorite from today is:

If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.
- Anatole France

This goes right back to being thankful today. I could ask Jackie how she found me, wonder why suddenly my long ago deserted Etsy shop is suddenly being noticed again or how I have been so lucky to make such magnificent connections but instead I will just say a big rock on to the Universe at large and bask in the accolades being vibed my way right now.

Easily Translates into Five Thousand Words

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Instead of my usual incessant rambling, I’m going to let the photos do the talking for me today. Well, most of it anyway. OK, not much really but here it is anyway.


On June 8 my mom, her friend Eileen, Matt, and myself went down to Central Square to the bar All Asia to see a comedy show. The host and Comedienne of the evening was Janet Cormier, who my mom met because (as Mom pointed out just now) she was the leader of the Think Tank workshop at the Career Source. The show was great, we must have laughed our way through at least ten up and coming comedians. If you are in the area and want to check it out I think they are on the second Monday of every month and it was super inexpensive, just a $5 admission charge!

The Arlington Farmer’s Market opened on June 10th and although there was not too much yet there were some fantastic deals to be had! S got Hammer and Anvil bundled up in their best winter outfits (because this is late spring in New England people), she swung by to grab me and off we went! This is where I acquired the fifteen pounds of dill and yummy cacao nibs used on that fateful burnt sugar night.

I decided to pick up some last minute tickets to They Might Be Giants for Matt. Live music is never bad in my book so even though I had no familiarity with this band, he loves them so it seemed like the right thing to do. We had great seats, somewhere around the 10th row and the place was really tiny for a performance hall. These guys were awesome! What an incredibly fun band and come to find out they are originally from Massachusetts so it was like a big reunion show with their family in the audience too. They performed their album Flood in consecutive order, tossed in a few warm up songs and did two encores. I had only ever heard one song before that night but would definitely see them again. It was the perfect way to end the day after a fantastic time at a friend’s fortieth birthday party!

We helped my dad and Wicked Stepmother move this past Sunday and after literally half of a day of lugging boxes, emptying the water bed, sweeping water away from the house so it would stop seeping into the basement and driving back and forth to the mid-western part of the state to unload and unpack I was so physically worn out yesterday that I wanted to do nothing more than lie around and relax all day. I managed to do just that for a better part of the day but a good friend of mine, John, called to let me know he was in town for just a couple days from Florida so we had to do lunch.

My goal for today consists of nothing more than finding this product. During my down time yesterday I checked around locally and could not find it here in Arlington so today I must branch out to track it down. I need this lovely little item to complete the kitchen reorganization project I am working on right now so this, or the equivalent in a different brand, will need to magically appear today so I can heroically finish up tomorrow.

Talk about your whirlwind! So much to do, so little time.

Maybe this upcoming weekend will be a bit calmer? Nah, I doubt it

Broken Thought Process Thursday

Yup, it’s Friday. Hey, it’s my theme I do what I want!

There is a fine line between determination and insanity. Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again hoping to get different results; or something close to that. He was clearly onto something there. I wish he were alive and well, it would be nice to ask him to move on over here next door to one of my neighbors and share that pearl of wisdom because although they might not be insane just yet, they are quickly driving me there. Come to think of it, they are not driving much of anywhere.

For the past two weeks, every day, at multiple and various times throughout the twenty four hour period, my neighbor has gone out to their car and tried to start it. The car makes that cheg-cheg-cheg-cheg-cheg sound as if it is about to start but it never turns over. I almost feel bad for them, they must imagine that the car fairy comes at night and sprinkles magic motor oil all over the hood in a blessing for their success the next day. What would be the explanation for trying it every morning otherwise? Now, I am certainly no genius like Albie but it sounds to me like perhaps it is time to call a tow truck and go have a starter put in. I don’t know though, just a thought.

Hearing this occur every morning makes me want to quote the movie Mallrats:

“That kid, is back on the escalator again!”

OK well I am going to go take a nine hour break from typing so I can get out to my kitchen reorganization job out in Ayer. Today we are working on the two kitchen junk drawers and the “it used to be a broom closet but is now the toss it in there and hope it doesn’t fall out when the door gets opened” closet. Can not wait to get before and after shots of this job for all of you to check out. Its so liberating to toss stuff and get it into a more organized manner. Well at least for me, I hope it feels the same for the client!

Back now. Hope everyone had a fantastic Friday!

Yup, definitely all about pizza for dinner tonight. So now I have to decide if we are going to make the trek out to Revere beach to get our favorite from Bianchi’s or if we should just stick close to home and do a margharita from Nicola. Ooh choices are so fun, especially when it comes to good pizza.

Oh my, I am pretty sure that was just a really booming rumble of thunder. Perhaps we will stick close to home and forego the beach tonight after all. Decision made.

I don’t know if any of you are Lost fans but we started renting all of the episodes again from season 1 on and let me tell you, I have even more questions now than before going back to re-watch them! There was a whole lot of information, situations, circumstances or subtle nuances that I completely forgot all about. Plus some characters they got rid of that really bummed me out to see them go. We have three left until the end of the season, it is pretty likely that will be tonight’s activity of choice unless I can convince Matt to play a little Rock Band of course.

Speaking of, I think it is time to go tap the pads for a few before Matt gets home. This is about as broken a thought process blog as possible. I like this theme, think I’ll keep it up. Hope everyone enjoys their night!

Let the Sales Begin!

I am a big old pimp for my shop today; do I look good in the fuzzy hat?

Maybe in purple…

In addition to my own shop I also want to highly recommend some items that simply amaze me. Cyber Monday is right around the corner so get with the shopping before these fabulous goodies are all gone!

Favorites from my own shop





Favorites from other shops





Happy shopping, happy sales!

Buy handmade and go green!

Beyond Cool

Wowsa, yesterday was great! I chatted with so many different people, handed out tons of cards, discussed the importance of using upcycled material in my designs, saw some family and friends and even sold a few items which had me not only reaching where I wanted to be but exceeding the goals I had set out for the day. WOO HOO!

My Mom did this fair last year and convinced me to give it a go because there was fairly decent traffic and a nice mix of buyers and sellers. She was not wrong! We were lucky enough to request tables right next to each other which was great so we could man each other’s booth when one of us had a need to venture out. Here are the original set ups; we both adjusted placement of materials as the day went on and after doing so both of us got more sales. Coincidence?

I promised to keep everyone updated on the progress of the entertainment center construction as well and Matt certainly got his pallet on yesterday! He located a coffee house in Brighton who was advertising on craigslist that free pallets were available behind the store for anyone to come and snag anytime they like. Some of the reasons he went with that particular one were because he figured they would be sturdy pallets due to the weight they would have to bear as well as a lack of leaked material on the wood which could mean mold or just yucky smells. Other than the aromatic smell of coffee, which if you know us at all is not exactly something we consider a detriment, the wood was mold and smell free.

He was able to acquire a good number of pallets that could be broken down on site (not always possible) and where he did not have to take everything just to get a few good ones (something many places actually required). When I arrived home yesterday he was out on the balcony removing nails and pieces from each other with a bunch of tools.

It took him a good five or six hours to complete everything yesterday from driving over there to completing disassembly but at the end of the day he had a nice stack of lumber drying on the balcony, ready to be planed down.

Since we are attempting to construct this unit completely for free (meaning we do not want to spend any money we have earned from jobs to pay for necessary material needed for construction like hardware, screws, biscuits, glue, paint, etc), as well as reduce the clutter in our apartment, I knew it was time to sell a few more items on craigslist as well. Friday afternoon I posted our old dehumidifier that we still had hanging around from the days of owning a house with a wet-ish basement.

Up until Friday we had been using it as a stand for our bedroom fan; not really operating in the way it should be (plus Matt can just build us a new stand out of pallets right?). Well while he was deconstructing on the balcony, I was in our living room meeting up with a guy who saw the ad on craigslist and came to buy it. Cha-ching. Fifty dollars immediately went into the entertainment center fund and someone who needed it would be putting the dehumidifier to use in its correct function! That will surely acquire a goodly portion, if not all, of the necessary materials we need to finish this baby up.

Matt just wrote up a little something on his pallet retrieval experiences; those who are inclined can read it here.

Based on his calculations we are currently at +$49.18. Yippie!