Blogiversary and Giveaway!!!

I went to Britex for buttons, but I found one or two other things!
In fact, I found a beautiful charcoal stretch crepe—what I call a unicorn fabric because it's so rare!

Blogiversary!

It's my EIGHTH Blogiversary today! WOOT!

I thought that I hadn't blogged that much in the last year, but I checked and I published 24 posts, many of them quite long. That's more blogging than I'd realized!

I CAN'T WAIT, TAKE ME TO THE GIVEAWAY!

Where is my focus these days? It's in multiple places:

• I am posting more to Instagram. It's much easier to throw up a quick photo with a sentence or two than to spend hours: taking pics, uploading pics from the camera to the laptop, editing pics, uploading pics to the cloud, writing a blog post with tons 'o pics and links, and cross posting to social media.

• My work requires focus (and occasional overtime), and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I'm often too tired in the evenings to do more than stare, glassy-eyed, at a monitor. I was happy to achieve a promotion in this year, so it paid off!

• I am trying to get out more. Enjoy the activities that the bay area has to offer.

• I'm reading more! I was an avid reader when young, but had gotten away from it. Most recently I've been enjoying the Louise Penny Inspector Gamache series.

• I've been traveling! Travel is so important to me, and I had to virtually give it up while raising kids as a single mom—I couldn't afford it. Returning to travel has been an enormous joy. This year I traveled to Munich, Paris, Florence, Milan, and NYC. I have several trips already planned for the coming year, including Japan and London.

• I've started tracking my OOTD (Outfit of the Day). I'm tweaking my style, and keeping track of my OOTD (not EVERY day, but many days), is helpful while I sort things out. This is a personal journey and I'm not sharing it publicly.

• One thing that hasn't changed: I am so happy when I have uninterrupted time to sew! Along those lines, I have an almost-done top that I will be sharing soon. (The buttons for said top are in the Britex bag in the above pic, which also contains 30 yards of the waistband elastic I like, and 15 spools of white/cream thread. I NEVER used to sew so much white/cream.) If I hadn't been reading last Sunday afternoon, the top would be finished!

I used to post blog statistics on my blogiversary posts. I'm not bothering with that, though I achieved over 3 million page views this year! WOAH! That first million took awhile, but going from 2 to 3 million took less than 2 years.

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Giveaway!

Susan of Smuggler's Daughter has generously offered a giveaway in honor of my 8th Blogiversary! Leave a comment on this post and I will draw 3 names: one person will receive the 1st prize of a $50 gift certificate, and two runners up will each receive a $25 gift certificate.

I will perform the drawing next Friday (9/1), and will announce the winner here, so check back!

Susan posts new fabric every Friday, so check it out!

Thanks for your kind and generous offer, Susan!

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Misc

Just a few more pics.

I was shopping at Phyllis Boutique in Palo Alto recently and had fun with fellow shopper, Silvia.
She came to lunch several days later!
Of course I must include the gorgeous Sandra! She's wearing shoes that she painted, and just look at the giant pleated pocket on her tunic!
I enjoyed watching 80% of the eclipse from my office in the Embarcadero. Kathy, who took this pic, realized that not only can you see the Bay Bridge reflected in the window behind me...
But at the right angle, you could see the eclipse!
The aforementioned Kathy
It was a mostly overcast day but a hole burned through, allowing us to see, thank goodness!
My eldest daughter is in Thailand, having some adventures of her own! She's always had a simpatico relationship with animals, and it shows in these pics

Have a great weekend! I hope to be back soon with a new garment to show. (If I can keep my nose out of a book.)