Thank you all so, so, so much for your wonderful comments on my freelancing announcement. I can’t tell you how much it pumped me up in the midst of a very stressful week, and quieted some of the fears rattling around in my brain. None of this would have been possible without this blog and everyone coming back here and supporting me over the years. I’m so grateful to have so many people rooting for me, so many of them practically strangers. I hope that this shift will mean that I get to spend a little more time on this blog and introduce more features. Next week I’m launching a redesign of the blog – which will come sometime mid-week (tried for Monday, but did you know that moving and quitting your job in the same week causes stress? Who knew!) and I couldn’t be more excited.

Onward!

1. That hilarious McSweeney’s monologue “I’m Comic Sans, Asshole” was made into a stop motion video.
2. It’s a sign of a cool blog that two of my favorite ladies, Stephanie and Anabela, were both interviewed on the The Iceberg in the same week.
3. Is Route 66 Dead?, a beautiful looking Kickstarter project to produce a documentary about Route 66. Our drive across the country got me so interested in its history, so I hope they make their goal!
4. Heartbreaking, beautiful photos of the memorials in Oslo. via Anabela*
5. I LOVE this Society for Rational dress on Of a Kind. It comes with ties so you can turn it into a shirt, too.
6. Vic is putting together another photo project (a la Other People’s Houses and 1010 Project), but this time it’s open to the public! (photo by me of Vic)

*(I know, two mentions of her in one post. Crush!)

Have a wonderful weekend.

click on the photos for possibly more info on flickr!

So, I don’t know if my announcement properly explained this, but the reason my weekends aren’t too terribly exciting lately is that All. I. Do. Is. Work. I’ve been busting my ass working essentially two jobs so that I could leave my day job, taking on enough projects to test my sanity level, and I cannot wait for that to be over. I realize that freelancing means possibly working more and weird hours, but nothing is harder and weirder than ALL DAY EVERY DAY. But I did back off just slightly this weekend and manage to have a decent last weekend in Venice before the big move. We even lounged on the beach a little, rode our bikes during sunset to a place we’ve been meaning to go to since day one, had a bbq, and in typical Venice fashion, witnessed crazy town unfold before our fence all because of one very drunk homeless man.

Venice, I will miss you. Sometimes. Internet, I’m excited to share more than just photos of food I ate all weekend.

I used to tell people that I wouldn’t ever want to work for myself because I wasn’t a go-getter. The idea of freelancing made my former lazy self sink into the comfortable seat of my office chair and be very okay with the fact that maybe I wasn’t exactly at my dream job, and it wasn’t particularly that fulfilling to me when it came right down to it, but it allowed me to pursue my passions on the weekends while maintaining a steady, not too shabby paycheck, and work with lovely people who supported me. And for a long time, that was good enough for me.

When I was at home my mom and I were having a conversation about how I’m different from a lot of the people in my family, and she pointed out that it was because I was a go-getter, a quality she didn’t think all of them had. I was shocked – you think I’m a go-getter? Of course, she said. I think it was the best compliment she has ever given me, and while I don’t 100% agree with her, lately I’m trying to own up to that quality. To not take the comfortable route all the time, to not wait for opportunity to come my way, but to instead create it for myself.

Two weeks ago I put my notice in at my job of four years, and on August 1st, I will officially be working for myself full time – mostly on graphic design, but also on growing my jewelry business to have more frequent shop updates. The part of me that doubts my go-getter qualities is terrified, but the part of me that believes and trusts in my creativity and resourcefulness is really effing excited. There are definitely things I will miss, and my fellow freelancing friends that I’ve consulted for advice have given me plenty of things to consider.

There are way too many things on my mind right now that I want to share, and too many people to thank for making this possible, but I’ll leave it at this for now: here’s to the future. If you have any design projects in mind for the coming months, get in touch! As for For Me, For You? Expect a re-vamped design very soon – because August is all about new things for me. A new apartment/neighborhood and a new job. A new me. A pajama wearing, Cheddar Bunny eating me.

I don’t have enough finds this Friday to even fill up half of my dang Friday Bits grid (this pathetic blogging streak is almost over, I promise), so I thought I’d do an old school Friday Bits and free-form it as I do have a few things I want to share!

A great article in The New York Times on always amazing Miranda July. I don’t understand the hate towards her. In fact, I didn’t even know so many people hated her til reading this. I think she’s possibly my favorite person on the planet and I can’t wait to see her new film. via Alison.

Work.Place visits the OLO fragrance studio and it’s beautiful. via Clever Nettle.

I’m proud to share the redesign of Brett Bara’s awesome blog, Manhattan Craft Room, that I worked on recently. Brett just came out with a great book called Sewing In A Straight Line and she’s having some pretty stellar giveaways on her blog and Design*Sponge.

Lastly, I have a super exciting announcement on Monday, so stay tuned! It has nothing to do with babies, please don’t spread rumors. Actually the mention of that will start a rumor, huh?

Have a wonderful weekend.

PS. I have an ad spot open for August if anyone is interested! Email me at katemiss at gmail.com for more info. I think August is going to be a pretty spectacular time here on the blog, if you ask me.

Little Dragon’s newest album, Ritual Union, is streaming on NPR until it comes out on the 26th and it’s nothing short of fantastic. Definitely check it out for a good dancy time. It’s great for productivity, I swear.

The guys behind my favorite flickr uploader, theGOOD uploadr, recently launched a pretty awesome way to turn your flickr collections into a simple, sleek portfolio with the launch of flickfolia. It’s perfect for me because photography isn’t my main line of work, so spending tons of money and time on a portfolio site for my photos when I already upload all my photos to flickr isn’t in the cards for me. Flickfolia pulls from your flickr collections and, bam, you have a site set up. Affordable and super easy to use, too. I highly recommend it!

I like how it looks pretty seamless with my newly face-lifted portfolio site, which is a little prelude to a new look coming to For Me, For You soon! Ohhhhh! The excitement! The suspense!

This post feels like awkward self promotion when I really just wanted to tell you how cool flickfolia is, so you can now go view dogs dancing to Boys II Men and we can all have a good laugh together. Ok, thanks.

click on the photos to view them on flickr, where they may possibly answer your questions!

Insane weekend of barely leaving my computer. Thankfully I was dragged to the beach briefly and then a bike ride to a Casablanca-themed Mexican restaurant (has anyone else ever been to this place in Venice? It’s kind of amazing) where a margarita and enchilada made the stress melt away. Next week I will reveal what’s going on in my life and why every damn Bits Of My Weekend lately has to contain complaining about being busy. But a shop update and moving on top of this thing doesn’t help. I can’t wait to have a normal life again where I seek out fun things and can say to friends, “why yes! I would love to join you!” instead of, “let’s wait til August, okay?” August is the promise land.

A preview is up now of the shop update!

I’m a busy bee this week, so let’s just get straight to the goods:

1. You could probably put sea salt on a paper bag and I’d gladly eat it I love it so much, but this recipe seems more appetizing. Honey? Thyme? Oh jeez Deb, you kill me again.
2. Speaking of delicious things, I REALLY want to try one of these jams/spreads from SQIRL. I think strawberry + rose sounds incredible, but really, they all do. The packaging and presentation is pretty fantastic as well. I spotted them in Bonnie’s post about Broome Street General Store, so now I definitely have to make a trip there once we move to the east side.
3. GIANT Japanese washi tape for your walls!
4. Pluto, an awesome typeface, is on sale for $40 for the entire family.
5. I spotted MQuan’s beautiful bells all over Pinterest this week – for good reasons, they are incredible.
6. I’ve become more of a scarf wearer in LA as they’re the perfect thing to throw on when the sun starts to set and it cools down, or these random gloomy mornings. I wouldn’t mind these stunner in my collection by milleneufcentquatrevingtquatre. via where the lovely things are.

Don’t forget about the shop update this Sunday at 10am PST! If you’d like a reminder tomorrow afternoon, sign up for the newsletter. Have a great weekend!