Remember the ad for Reeses Pieces in the 90’s where they poked a perfect hole in the middle? Nearly every day after school in the 5th grade, I went to the Barnard General Store, 50 cents in hand, and got myself a pack. Turns out, it isn’t that tricky to do, but I got hooked to the ritual of Tess, my  dependable and kind bus driver,  dropping me off at the store while she headed up her Stage Rd. route, buying my Reeses and then sitting by Silver Lake or the benches under the awning . I’d poke holes while I waited for her to pick us back up and head home to Mt. Hunger.

I started remembering this Reeses Pieces ritual when I saw that the BGS would be closing it’s doors tomorrow, May 8th. It has had many owners in its 180 years, but for the last 20 years our good friends have poured ALL OF THEIR TIME into that store. Running small businesses, especially ones so easily affected by tourist seasons & the weather, is exhaustive and I totally get it. Totally.  These last few days as I have been very specifically letting my brain drift back, I have found myself actually letting go, from my furiously busy and somewhat chaotic life, to relive them. I wish I could bottle up my childhood and sniff it. That’s how good it was. These are 3 more of them. They are not especially eloquent  but they are mine.

1. We moved to Barnard when I was 8. We lived a couple miles from the BGS on a dirt road. Honestly, it felt much longer than 2 miles when I was 8. During the summers, my brother and I would gather any money we could scrounge up and head out to the store on our bikes. The ride up Mt. Hunger was  long and steep. Once we made it up the up we simply needed to get past the dog that furiously chased everything  (I was convinced it would be bite my feet off) and we were home free. It was a quick ride to the bottom of the road  where we hit pavement and another steep climb up Route 12 to the store. We were motivated by the thought of cream cicles, blowpops, airheads, lemonheads, tootsiepops, and Snapples to name just a few. The combinations of treats was always different depending on how much change we could find.

2. In 5th grade, one of the teachers at school took me to the BGS for lunch as a treat for achieving some goal. I remember leaving school and walking down the hill and being thrilled for the outing. I sat up on the swivel stool and looked into the big mirror and thought hard about what I wanted. I am pretty sure it was winter and I got an ice cream-Maple Walnut.

3. I worked at the BGS off and on for a bit when I was 15 or 16. I was actually filling in for my brother who was their full-time employee but he had football practices so I helped out.  I remember come lunch time, there would be a long line at the sandwich counter and Kim and I would pump out sandwiches; we were sandwich making machine.  Then I’d make myself one and head out the lake for a break. That’s when I decided  a  few strands of red onion made a sandwich taste fancy.

These are three from, literarily, hand fulls of moments passing in and out of my brain the last few days. It was important to me that my kids, even though very small, spend a few moments at the BGS so we went up the other morning to swivel on the stools and wander the worn wood floors. I wanted to take some pictures, for me, which you can see here. My son was noisy, my daughter was a bit fussy and I haven’t spent much time there in the past 10 years but it felt, and this will absolutely sound cheesy, like home. I gave big hugs to our friends and told them how glad I was for the respite they were going to soon have but what an incredible place and space they had curated and sustained the last 20 years.

I could now go on about how I have known Kim since I was 8 and she was the aid at my school and hung out with us every recess with her clay coffee mugs but this wasn’t meant to be that long. That’s how memories go huh? They weave in and out of each other, connecting one thing to the next, until you step back and you’ve remembered your way back to today.

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It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -

It gives a lovely light.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

The other day one of my dear dear friends sent me these words and they have been speaking to me ever since.

I haven’t created anything for creation’s sake  in a long time. The days come and go and sometimes I

feel like nothing has been accomplished.  But I guess I created this…

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I have been wanting to play around with some stop motion stuff and it was relatively easy. You can’t beat cute kids and boy are they cute. It’s also a cool way to capture the family in 2011. It was fun putting it together and our friend helped us edit it all together which I am very grateful for or else I would be seriously even more sleep deprived than I already am.

This our way to help spread a little holiday cheer during this lovely time of the year. I did also tell my nephew that we would get more views than we did on our video last year (2,600) and we have a ways to go…so share share share!

Happy week before Christmas.

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Remember last week how I mentioned how interested I was in visually depicting families, blah blah blah. Well this was a little project I worked on that I am kind of obsessed with actually. I had seen this image on babble.com over the summer and was totally intrigued and thought it would be fun to try but then I had a baby and I forgot how to think. My SIL asked me if I would be willing to do it for their family’s first ever Christmas card (like she said, BIG DEAL ALERT as her oldest is 7) and it was just the creative boost I needed to get out of the newborn town I had bought land in.

After photographing their family and mine, I have decided that I love doing this Silhouette Project. I learned some new techniques and I see many possibilites for future layouts. I also like the blend of photography and graphics and I finally experimented with the studio lights that I was given and had been housing a village of spiders in the garage. Getting consistent light on everyone’s faces can be tricky especially with toddlers and newborns. So although the layout I did for my SIL’s family had consistent light, the kids looks a little angry so I re-did the layout with happier looking faces from our very first test shoot but the lighting isn’t as consistent. See, all the little details you don’t think of initially.

Did I mention that this really got my creative juices flowing?

So this is just the very beginning of some serious design fun times. It will be fun to have one for every year and see us all grow up and age. Serious keepsake. I am not completely happy with either of them  ( I have since improved) but I rushed to get it done so I could take full advantage of vistaprint’s Black Friday deal– which I have decided will also be my new tradition. That is the free part, not the rushed part. I am also developing (thanks to my big sister) this little idea of making these family logos in the style of the periodic table. Again, so many possibilites.

Like I said, I am keen to do more of these so let me know if you are interested in the Silhouette Project (or family logo) and we can work some family magic.

chris@sublimeeye.com

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Looking for a logo for your business? Contact me for quotes. I would love to work with you!

chris@sublimeeye.com

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Just as with my son, I am taking monthly photos of my daughter in front of a pillow her very own. We finally got the hand carved Mexican headboard, that we have had for 8 years, installed and I couldn’t resist doing a color picture with it but I also did a black and white version. I think I should do a color version of my son’s as well because the reason I bought his pillow in the first place was because it was so colorful. Whatever. Perhaps a little excessive you say? Yes. Perhaps. I swear they will appreciate these at some point in their lives but I am glad I do it.

She passed her 2 month mark the other day and I can’t believe how much she has grown. I honestly wound’t realize it if it weren’t for these pictures because I currently reside in the town of baby haze. She looks sort of scrawny in her first picture and all plump by her second. Of course, there are many multo cool monthly baby shots out there–much more creative than mine. Here are a few I have admired on pinterest if you search monthly baby photos.  I still like my pillow idea because I barely make the time to get the photos taken, let alone doing much else. It also guarantees my bed gets made once a month.

This one, of course,  blows my mind–mainly because of all the planning. My brain doesn’t function so creatively with a newborn.

If you think monthly photos would be hard to get, try these weekly photos! Aren’t the colors and patterns brilliant?

Part of what is so fun is visually measuring the growth which is why this one is fun, and this one, and this one.

This little kid is cute and I like the simplicity of this one too.

Recently, I have been very very interested in visually imaging families and visually depicting how we are genetically connected to eachother. I’ve been working on a few layouts that I will share next week sometime but this monthly project is another one that I love doing; it is fascinating to see how fast the grow. I also like doing this simple design project that involves my kids. The fact that little girlie face is adorable has nothing to do with it .(Note: do another post on how connected I feel to my daughter and how I never would have imagined this feeling.)

Have a fabulous first weekend in December. We’ve got the town tree lighting and Santa is visiting! Busy times.

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As a designer, I get a lot of inspiration from the incredibly vast blogosphere . Right when I think there can’t possibly be another beautiful design/lifestyle blog, I find 10. No joke. It kind of amazes me and sucks me in deep with all the pretty pictures and perfectly simple DIY tutorials. I start to get a bit overwhelmed by the sameness sometimes which is why I like pinterest– a lot.

I like that it is a community of everyone. There are so many perspectives. It isn’t just the perfectly curated blogs (they are there too which is great) but also your friend from grade school and friends of friends and lots of perfect strangers– so many people sharing what inspired them, their styles, their motivations, recipes, DIYs, and wish lists! It’s great and my first stop for inspiration these days. I still check in with my favorite design blogs but pinterest is the new blog–at least for me.

That’s where I got this incredibly simple idea to Christmas-ify the window of my husband’s office. I wanted to do some decals on the window but hadn’t thought about using a glue stick to adhere–duh. I found lots of people who had done it here. Thank you pinterest.

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I have mentioned multo times about my pal, Nathaniel Hansen, and this full length documentary short he made last year. It is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo great (that’s not even half as many o’s as it deserves) and this week he is waiting to hear back from Sundance. I feel a little nervous waiting to hear back–can’t imagine how he feels but I guess it is a long shot since there is something like a billion entries and it’s pretty political to get in but it deserves to get in because everyone on this planet should see it. That’s right, you heard about The Elders here.

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Oh hi there. No, I didn’t abandon this site. It’s just we added this little red head to our family and the last 2 months we’ve been figuring out how to keep a newborn and a toddler alive.  So far so good and I think I am finally adjusted back to the constant fatigue.

I have been working on a couple creative projects the last few days that have my juices flowing. I will post some pictures in the days to come. We are also gearing up for our 2011 Holiday Video for the Snapdragon that we will debut later in December.

I really hope to be back posting a bit more frequently but no promises.

Happy Holiday Season 2011!

–chris

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I just got word that our very own Snapdragon Inn has been mentioned on the Food & Wine website as one of American’s Best Inns! You can view the slideshow here and see the incredible list of establishments we accompany . We are absolutely thrilled by this news as we have just rounded our 1 year anniversary being open! If you haven’t ever checked out our site, we are right over here in Windsor, Vermont.  We also have a blog we try to update as regularly as we can.

It is always nice to have a bit of good news after a lot of hard work!

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