Reading goals

I am pretty excited that I met my goal over on GoodReads! About half of these books were Audiobooks - but I say they count because I spend a lot of time in the car. It feels like I just got an A on my report card! :) Here are three of my recent faves:

On my ipod...
The book I just finished listening too is probably one of my new faves - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. A husband is accused of murdering his wife after she disappears and it is told from both of their points of view. It was hard to put down! What's great about this book is that both Nick and Amy are pretty loathsome people, but their story is just so compelling.

On my nook...
Another book I just finished was one my friend Melissa recommended - Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs. It's kind of like a cross between the Sookie Stackhouse and Stephanie Plum series. It's about a normal librarian type girl who gets turned into a vampire and hangs out with her ghostly aunt and new friends in the supernatural world. Very funny stuff!

On my nightstand...
I finally read the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society this summer and I absolutely loved it! Such a great story and I felt like I actually learned about about post-World War II England and even just people. The story is told through a series of letters - which is just lovely because no one writes those any more - and the characters are so interesting and quirky. I told my mom she has to read this one next.

It's been awhile....

Looking at this blog, you'd think I quit scrapping. But I just keep forgetting to post my pages! I'm not going to list all of the credits because I don't want to be here all year, but if you'd like to see, check out my gallery. The designers I CT for (Kim Jensen, Emily Merritt, Michelle Godin, Amy Wolff), One Story Down and Doctor Who have been keeping me busy! 

My favorite plant at the botanical garden.

The girly girl and the tomboy (doing her Justin Beiber pose).

Hugs from Pooh Bear

Mikey's graduation

Some of my nicknames for Penny

That's me!

 My buddy!

All things Alice

Freedom Tower

My garden owl

I love fall

Mom's Bday

Nerdiness

Owly

More Owls

A fun day off

Fancy restaurants

Panorama fun 

Surprise sunflower

Who are you?

Some good eats

Pretty flowers

Potter potted

Let's go to the mall

So, here in New Jersey, we have lots of malls and some really huge ones. One of the most insane malls is Garden State Plaza in Paramus, and for some crazy reason, I decided to take a trip there by myself on Saturday. I usually go there with Randi, who's much better at navigating her way around. I don't like looking for parking and I don't like crowds - so you can see why going to the mall on a Saturday is a dumb idea. But I actually had a pretty good trip.

Mostly I was bored, but I also wanted to look for a new coat and a pair of orange Converse. When I shop with my sister, she's usually looking for something (usually sneakers) and I'm just there to tag along. I prefer to shop on my own at my own pace. Randi likes to walk fast, look at a lot of sneakers, and doesn't have patience when I want to look at things. So I enjoyed strolling around at my own pace and taking pictures of some cool stuff, even though the crowd was crazy. (As for parking, I avoid the craziness and head straight to the parking deck roof. Always spaces up there!)

My first stop was Francesca's Collection, which I just love.  I have been seeing this stores pop up all over lately. They have super cute clothes, vintage style jewelry and bags and fun chotchkies. I got a cute orange bag and some earrings.

At Torrid, I found some cute tops and this adorable coat! It's got a fuzzy lined hoodie and super cute rose buttons! I love it!!!

Coat: check!

I decided to go into Hot Topic for fun and I was so surprisd to see all of these Doctor Who shirts! The Doctor is cool!

I really don't get the brony thing but I now know that Doctor Hooves (Whooves?) is pretty awesome thanks to Melissa.

I also got this Tardis shirt...

I checked out a few stores looking for some Chucks. They mostly had the BRIGHT ORANGE ones.
I also saw some cool superhero and cartoon cons.

I kind of want these!

But then I found .....

... The mall's new converse store.

And the elusive rusty orange chucks!

Chucks: check!

I am a happy lady! The store does custom designs so I could get Penny shoes!

And then I made one last stop at the Lego store. I have a bunch of Lego keychains and they're always falling over, so I got some pieces to make them a stand. And this is just the coolest thing...

So remember how I parked up on the roof? I head to an elevator and ride up to the top, and can't find my car. I was in the wrong deck. Didn't realize the mall had so many! D'oh!

Speaking of shopping trips, I have another appearance on The Mommy and Gracie show! I found a set of dolls at Wal-Mart so I had to text Melissa since they've been looking for these for awhile. When I offered to pick them up, she told me I'd have to take some video and pictures and I did! I felt like a crazy person, but it was fun! Check out my doll hunt here!

And now let's sing... 

Fun With Newspapers

One of the cool things about working in the Design Studio is that we can pool our resources and work together when there's big news or universal stories. Most of our newspapers featured a special report about the Northeast power grid, but each paper wanted the design to reflect their style and feature their local information. So we had about 10 newspapers with 10 different takes on this report. These are two that I did.

Just keep swimming.... I have been craving these things all week!

This story about New York's yogurt boom was pretty hard to illustrate. They did not want to show photos of the new yogurt plants or cows, so here's what we came up with. The illustration was sort of my idea. The editors and photographers were talking about arranging a bunch of yogurt cups in the state of New York and I was having a hard time picturing it. So I went into the fridge at work, took a picture of a yogurt (probably in there too long!) and made a quick mock up of the lid inside a map I found online. Well, they liked my approach better and the photograph and graphics editor came up with this. I like. 

And here's an image I stole from one of my former co-workers at The Journal News. They are packing up the newsroom to get ready for a big move to a new home. And in the packing, they came across this paper. It's a front page from the movie "The Paper," which featured scenes filmed in the TJN pressroom. Remember when Michael Keaton is all "Stop the presses!!!!" No one really ever says that at newspapers, btw! The rookie photographer got sent out and took a Hail Mary shot at the prep walk. It's a pretty cool find.