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Nebraska Copywriting Services for Small Business

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The Local Awesome: Penelopy Paper

The Local Awesome category has been quiet for a while now. . . and I’m going to change that today with a business that, although not geographically local to me, is definitely local to my heart.

There are a few things in this world I’ve been questing for . . . scouring The Pinterests like a brave and relentless (okay, let’s be honest, actually fairly lazy) adventurer.  One of these things is a meal-planning printable that is EXACTLY what I’m looking for. After what feels like 500 years of learning how to meal-plan, I have finally found a meal planning style that works for me.  I use an app on my phone for my actual grocery list, though, so it’s been hard to find a printable that meets all my needs.

Of course I could make one myself, but, frankly, I don’t want to, and I don’t have the design skills to make something that would fit the image I have in my head.

Enter my uber-talented cousin, Meghann.  She’s been here a few times in blogger form, but now she’s got a brand spankin’ new stationery business that goes by the name of Penelopy Paper.  You should totally check it out.  What makes me so happy about this situation is that she is fluent in the language of scatterbrained creative frazzled lady. . . without actually being scatterbrained and frazzled herself.  Somehow, with the fantastically awkward instructions I gave her, she managed to create just the thing I’ve been questing for.

lilie-meghann-beach

You would think, what with me considering myself a writer and all, that I would be able to communicate my ideas a little bit more effectively… but, for some reason, when it comes to telling someone exactly how I want something to look, I really struggle to find the right words.

Even with me giving directions like this . . .

“Hip and trendy, but like a house you admire but are a little afraid of spilling wine in. Oh my gosh, did that make any sense?”

. . . Meghann was able to crank out just what I was looking for.  Since I use a grocery list app, I didn’t want any space to be wasted by an official “grocery list” section.  Our lunches/breakfasts/snacks are pretty interchangeable, so I just wanted official weekday sections for dinner, and some generic sections for the other meals.  Finally, I just wanted a little “notes” section so I could jot down some list items when they popped into my head.

penelopymealplan1

 

She also whipped up a matching calendar and household planning sheet to go along with the meal plan.  She had the totally brilliant idea of sliding the calendar into the clear plastic sleeve of a binder and using a dry erase marker to fill it in . . . I don’t think I could have thought of that in a million years.

penelopymealplan2

 

I’m so pleased with my meal planner for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it’s a total match to what I had in my head . . . and I had to put almost zero effort into making it come into existence.  Don’t you think this occasion calls for a giveaway?  I know I do.

Just do your thing in this little giveaway box doohickey thing down here, and you’ll be entered for a free (already designed) printable of your choice from Penelopy Paper.  Giveaway ends at midnight on Tuesday, March 25th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

There are plenty of awesome products at the Penelopy Paper store, but if those aren’t your style, just send her an email!  Chances are, she’ll be able to translate whatever language you speak into a design that makes you happy.

Meghann also makes some gawwwwgeous art.  I contacted her a while back, asking her if she could do an ink drawing of four birds (2 parents, 2 babies) on a mostly leafless tree.  What I got back blew me away:

penelopypaper3

She’s got this super cool Society 6 store where you can purchase her art not only as prints, but in about as many different forms as you can imagine.  Clocks, coffee mugs, stretched canvas, totes, pillows . . . plenty of totally sweet options.

 

(Maybe not ANY form you can imagine.  You probably can’t order a real tattoo from there.  Actually, I’m pretty positive you can’t.)

 

ANYWAY.  Enter the giveaway!  Buy some printables!  Plan your meals!  Climb a mountain!  Watch an entire season of something on Netflix!  Hug somebody you feel comfortable hugging!

 

(But seriously, enter the giveaway.  Maybe share with your friends.  High five?)

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The One Where I’m a Rock Star in my Brain

If my brain had a tattoo, it would say “meh.”  No capitals, only a period, and in Times New Roman.

 

I have been in a ruttttt.  Whenever I sit down to write, I get this sudden urge to just take a nap.  Since I only really have time to write at night, this usually results in bedtime, and no writing.

 

Three or so weeks of crying “writer’s block!” should be enough, right?  It’s time for some action.  A group of my blogger friends and I have started a little prompt group to help dig ourselves out of the rut that that jerk February threw us all into.  Anyway, here’s the first prompt:

 

If you were part of a band or musical act, what would the name of your band be? Why? What kind of music would you play?

 

I’ve been lip synching in my mirror for a long time, and I always had one recurring image in my head when I did so.

 

Me.  Heading up a girly pop-punk band.

 

I know it’s not the most sophisticated fantasy to have, but ever since college, I’ve wanted to dance around singing angsty-but-catchy pop-punk music in front of a bunch of angsty-but-hopeful pop-punk kids.  I’ve also had a band name in my head, too.

 

We’d call ourselves Spade & Archer, after Humphrey Bogart’s detective agency in the Maltese Falcon.  I’d dye my hair red . . . like, the fake red that all of the redheaded female cartoon characters have gracing their animated scalps.  I’d wear jeans (not skinny jeans, just regular ones) and a button up shirt with one of those skinny black ties.

 

Also, in my imaginary rock-star world, my boobs would not look horrible in a button-up shirt.

 

Since our band would be named after a Bogey movie, we’d also probably wear fedoras.  Under my fedora would be a mane of kick-ass, bright red hair.  Long or short?  I don’t know.  I’d also try to find my old green-tinted contact lenses from high school.  Actually, that would be gross… I’d have to get new ones.

 

I would either be playing guitar or drums.  Probably guitar because this is my fantasy, and I’m probably going to have to be front and center.  Humble aspirations?  Not when it’s imaginary band-time in my brain.

 

I’ve had this scenario in my head for, like, ever, but it’s even more vivid right now.  I’m going through a pretty serious bout of “real world bleeeerrrrrgggghhhh”.  In high school, it was, “I FEEL SO MUCH ABOUT PROM BECAUSE IT’S IMPORANT AHHHHHHH” and in college it was, “I HAVE ALL THESE EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS ABOUT THESE THINGS THAT I’M READING AND MEMORIZING AND GUYS THERE’S A DRAG SHOW AT THE ROMAN TONIGHT LET’S GOOOOOOO!”

And now it’s all, “HEY, GAS BILL WHY ARE YOU SO EXPENSIVE I SWEAR YOU WEREN’T THIS EXPENSIVE LAST WINTER.”

Pop-punk music, for me, is a whole lot of feeling about a whole lot of things that don’t involve hugely-huge life decisions.  Decisions like, “What kind of school should I send my kid to when he turns five,” and “What kind of car payments can we afford to make?”

I’m not saying there isn’t any depth or real-world stuff in this music, but, for the most part, I hear it and think of the days when my biggest concern was usually getting on the private/internet phone line before my dad could get on to check his email.

 

I think, really, what all of this rambling means is that March is here.  March is when the weather flip-flops, the time changes, severe weather season looms in front of me, and my brain turns into the slush that lines the sides of the street and keeps melting, freezing, melting, freezing, melting, freezing. . . and I just have to turn up the music if I want to see April.

 

I need some rain boots for my brain, I think.  Can I find those on Amazon?

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Thoughts that may be going through one’s head while one frosts a cake.

1.) One always thinks that the frosting will be the fun part.  One is always, always wrong.

2.) The amount of food coloring it takes to make white frosting a bright, vibrant, Lego-like color is enough to make one uncomfortable about dyes and Red #5 and . . . you know what?  Pastel Lego cakes are just fine.  One will have to explain to everyone that they’re supposed to be Legos anyway.

3.) The crappy/delicious cream cheese frosting that comes from a plastic can is surely what Mrs. Doubtfire’s face must have tasted like.

4.) When the Betty Crocker YouTube ladies say that one will need a “crumb coat,” they are not fooling around.

5.) A “crumb coat” is a layer of frosting that goes on first and looks terrible so that one can catch all the crumbs in the frosting before cooling the cake and putting on another layer.  The second coat looks only slightly less terrible than the first coat.

6.) One may need to remind one’s self that their child loves them.  Their child loves cake. Their child also loves Legos.  A cake that one makes to look vaguely like a Lego will probably be greatly appreciated by one’s child.

7.) Probably.

8.) One genuinely used to love frosting.

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A Twinkling Inheritance

In my late elementary days, probably around 5th or 6th grade, I really used to be into fingernail polish.  I had a ridiculous amount of the stuff, and I loved the bright, fun colors the best.  One of my clearest and most favorite memories in the whole world involves two bottles of pastel blue and pink polish, and my Grandpa Blessing.

You see, I had developed this technique in which you swirled the two colors together (a very scientific and professional method) on each nail, and came out with this goopy bubblegum blob that I swore was so cool.

Now, I don’t remember the events that let up to this, but the scene in my head is one of my Grandpa patiently watching and chatting with me while I globbed baby pink and blue swirls all over his weathered, manly-man fingernails.

I can see the wood-paneled walls of the kitchen, and I can see the pretty little glass of whiskey (bourbon? I don’t know my brown liquors very well) and cola sitting on the table next to an ashtray.  Vices?  Of course, but I didn’t care.  I was painting my Grandpa’s fingernails.

I don’t know what we talked about . . . probably the fake rival “magazines” that another girl and I were creating.  (Seriously.  We would draw pictures of nailpolish bottles and clothing and hand them around to people.  [Mine was totally better.  I’m sure Grandpa agreed.])

I painted and talked, and Grandpa listened and talked back to me.  He sipped his drink and I sipped my Fresca and turned my head every once in a while to see if there was a squirrel perched on the corn cob feeder out in the yard.  It was a nice summer day and the hot breeze was trickling in through the door screen.  There was probably a football game going on in the living room that looked like a perfectly-preserved vintage time-capsule.  I can promise you that there was a line of big, fat, ripe tomatoes from Grandpa’s garden lined up on the windowsill above the sink.

If you wanted, I could tell you what was in all of those cupboards, and that there was most definitely a box of Neapolitan ice cream in the freezer, waiting for Grandpa to make the most amazing malts in the whole world.  The cupboard on the wall between the stove and the sink housed a container of Carnation malted milk, and it was just waiting to meet its frosty destiny in the pit of my sister’s and my stomachs.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve last seen my Grandpa, and I sometimes find myself quietly wishing to be painting his nails again, and to talk to him about things that are much more important than a fake fashion magazine and the fact that my parents won’t let me see the most recent Brad Pitt movie.

I can’t, though.  All I have are my memories, and this one is one of my favorites.

Lucy shares the same birthday as Grandpa Blessing, and I think she’s inherited his twinkle . . . the warning twinkle in her eye that lets you know she’s about to give you a little hell. . . but with as much love as possible.  The most good-hearted elbow-jab you can get.

I don’t think she could have gotten a more perfect birthday gift from her great grandpa.