Last night, I went out for dinner with my Mother.  When I left my apartment, at around 6:30, it wasn’t raining, so I didn’t think to bring an umbrella.  By 6:45, it was pouring.  After an uneventful subway ride (aside: I will never refer to it as the “Canada Line”, so please stop correcting me, random Vancouverites!), we walked through Gastown, only to discover that the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed because of a private function.  Some quick googling found us a different restaurant to go to, but at this point, dry was a feeling I had only ever known in passing.

Several hours and a bottle of wine later, I was once more forced out into the cold, wet, umbrella-less night, and when I eventually got home and dried off, my hair looked like this:

Now, my hair is normally quite large and unmanageable, but it has never before seen such heights (or widths).  (Please forgive the awkward bathroom myspace iPhone photo with terrible lighting. It was late! It was for documentation purposes only!) Despite the awkward proportions, I sort of secretly wish it could always look like this.  It’s a little hard to believe that not very long ago I used to look like this, in 2006. It was way hardcore, and much easier to maintain, if you can believe it.

(I swear that this post has a point, somewhat.)

Among my regular blog reader are two blogs that I’m sure everyone is familiar with: Dainty Squid and Little Chief Honeybee.  Now, I’m probably never going to be brave enough to join their ranks, but I love (love!) their ever changing hair colours.  On that note, just the other day one of my very favourite blogs ever, Door Sixteen, posted a very true comment that hair is just hair and if an experiment goes awry you can always cut it off and try again.  While I completely agree with her in theory, in practice I think that if I ever cut my hair short again, I will probably leave it that way, if only to avoid the awkward growing out stages that result in daily pigtails.  (Since I’m linking to everyone anyway, have you seen Elizabeth’s new haircut on Delightfully Tacky? Mine never, ever looked like that when it was short!)

Ok, I take it back, I don’t think this post did have a point.  Oh well.

Hope you have a lovely day!

XO

ps! I’m still looking for a few more guest bloggers for Valentine’s week. Get in touch, bloggers!

Now that I’ve been back for a few days and made the requisite “new apartment” trip to IKEA (if you follow me on twitter, you’ll have read all about how well that went…read: not at all) I feel like I can finally settle in and start producing work, as well as cross off a few things from my resolutions and 26 lists.  As a fairly goal-oriented person, I find that lists are extremely helpful for me, so I’ve been writing a short list every morning of what I want to accomplish for the day.  I don’t always manage to cross everything off, but I find that it’s way too easy to accidentally spend the entire day on twitter or googlereader, so the lists kind of keep me in check.  I’m working on it!

Hello fellow bloggers! I’m currently searching for a few bloggers who’d be interested in contributing a valentine’s themed post to Crook & Villain in February! Shoot me an email at mynameisracheldian(at)gmail.com if you want more info!

XO!

{image above via weheartit)

I’m completely dreading the sheer number of emails I have to attend to in the next few days.  That said, if I owe you an email, I promise, you’ll hear back from me soon! Hopefully tomorrow! I’m back in Vancouver now, so expect daily blogging and hopefully lots (and lots!) of designs and prints over the next few weeks.  Thanks for sticking around! XO

I’ve been vacationing in Toronto lately, which has been a particularly nice reward for the non-stop schoolwork I did these past few months.  I have about a week left until Meebo and I move back to Vancouver, and although I’m going to be sad to say goodbye to all of my friends here, I’m looking forward to starting my “grown-up” life in a new/old city.  That’s not to say that I’m not super scared about everything…particularly the unemployment aspect of things, but I think it will be a challenging, and hopefully fun (!) series of events.  I’m also not especially keen on bringing my kitty back to Vancity on a 5 hour plane ride, but as I have been repeatedly assured, it will be far worse for me (and my fellow passengers) than for Meebo.

Anyway, before “real life” starts again, I’ve been trying to fit in a lot of socializing with my nearest and dearest, as well as lots of sleeping in (which I’m justifying because of the time difference…? Cough cough).  This afternoon the boy and I ventured into the deepest, darkest Beaches (all the way East!) to run a few errands and meet up with my lovely friend Olga for lunch and a catch-up.  She lives in the sweetest coach house I ever did lay eyes on; it’s a tiny little two-story with exposed brick and pipes, ceiling beams, wood floors, and a gas stove, and I fell in love immediately.  We wrapped up our day by finally finishing up with Firefly and watching Serenity (his first time!) and ordering in.  It was a lovely and relaxing way to spend our Sunday, especially since I’ve been out and about virtually non-stop since I arrived on Christmas Day.

{Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Rulin’s, 1942}

Even though I’m going to keep working on my 26 before 26 list, I thought it would be fun (not to mention useful!) to keep a smaller, more action-oriented list of goals to accomplish in 2012.  Granted, my “resolutions” are always more of a giant to-do list for the year.  Now that I’m finished school (for now, at least!), I feel like I have a really amazing opportunity, to say nothing of the time afforded to me by being unemployed, to put all of my energy into designing and creating things, hopefully on a daily basis.

Something I figured out about myself recently was that I would love to be self-employed.  Luckily, many (if not all) graphic designers are at one point or another self-employed, if only by virtue of exclusively doing freelance work.  Of course, I’d still be completely ecstatic to be offered a position as a designer (or, lets face it, unpaid intern) at a creative company, but it feels a lot less overwhelming now that I have an end-goal in mind, albeit one for the distant future.

Woah! Tangent.  I confess, sometimes these things get a little bit away from me.  OK! So!

Rachel’s Giant 2012 To-Do List of Goals + Resolutions:

1. Make a print portfolio for my design work.

2. Create a “cold-call” design package to send to cool places that should hire me.

3. Set up a regular blogging schedule (aim for 6 days a week!) and start weekly features (including tutorials).

4. Create, photograph + blog a recipe to be featured on foodgawker.

5. Unpack all the things + create an inspiring studio space in my new apartment.

6. Collect and frame and hang art.

7. Create and document the “scallop” wall for my bedroom.

8. Debut the first issue of makeout magazine.

9. Take letterpress classes.

10. Create a print every week for Society6, and restock + create new prints and buttons for Crook & Villain.

11. Make something like this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this.

12. Spend more time behind a camera (and not just instagram!)

13. Document everything & write things down.

14.  Be in bed by midnight.

Bonuses: Organize bookmarks, get hair done, read a lot of books, drink more water, create a board game, write + illustrate a comic, throw a housewarming dinner party, go dancing and on monthly thrifting expeditions, take driving lessons, eat breakfast every single day.

Whew.  Lists tend to get away from me, I’ll give them that.  Something I didn’t put on the list because it’s currently in-progress is updating the look of ye olde blog.  One thing that I’m not a huge fan of with wordpress.com is that you can’t make changes without them “going live” right away.  I’m more of a trial and error kind of gal, so I find this particularly irksome.  I’ve been slowly chipping away at this new template, but it still has a ways to go before I “announce” a new blog design.  One day I’ll switch over to wordpress.org (which is where racheldian.com was temporarily hosted) but in the meantime I have to make do with what I’ve got.

Anyway, to all of my dearest real life and internet friends, and whomever else is reading this, I hope you had a lovely 2011, and wish you the happiest 2012 imaginable.  Let’s make pretty things together!

xoxo

Rachel

Dearest Gals + Fellas + Lovers + Others:

Happy New Year!

Love,

Crook&Villain

xoxo

When I was packing up all my stuff to move, I got the chance to look through a lot of my old yearbooks, letters, and journals.  I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I started keeping a diary when I was 8 years old, and I religiously documented everything until I was about 20.  I started a brand new journal when I moved to Toronto right before I turned 18, although I ended up using it quite sporadically after the first year or two of having it.  (I blame livejournal, which was my very first blogging experience.)  Even after I stopped officially keeping a diary, I still wrote in it occasionally, including a few times during my final months in Toronto (although I didn’t know that yet). Because I wasn’t particularly prolific after 2nd year, I was able to use the same journal for the entire time I lived in Toronto.  Even though the last five years aren’t as exhaustively documented as my adolescence (or – ugh – my teenage years), it’s nice to have snapshots of my life that I can read through occasionally.

I only had a few blank pages left, so I decided to write one last entry before putting it in storage with the rest of my journals.  I’m not sure whether I’ll start a new one now that the last one is finished, since I have a hard enough time being a faithful blogger.  Still, there’s something nice about having a collection of memories that you can look back on.  (Granted, I spent an afternoon last week reading through my teenage diaries, and I really wish I hadn’t.  I sincerely hope that everyone is as repulsed/horrified by their past selves as I am.  It’s quite embarrassing, really, particularly ten years ago.  Yikes.)

Alternately, I’ve been entertaining the idea of doing some sort of “daily journal” project, maybe something like the postcard box idea from Design Sponge.  I don’t think I’d do individual cards, but maybe a daily Moleskine of some kind?  I need to get my act together if I’m going to start it on January 1st, at any rate.

Do you keep a journal/diary? What do you use?  {Tell me your secrets.}

XOXO