Tag Archives: MaryJane’s gift for gab

Emoticons

Posted on September 22, 2012 by maryjane

So maybe I am a little late on the trend … but these emoticon things are crackin’ me up like yesterday’s egg scramble. A quick way to show computerized emotion, these little push-button faces are the Internet equivalent of gestures, facial expressions, and body language. Surprisingly, these aren’t something new; emoticons (referred to below as typographical art) go back as far as 1881!

Emoticons printed in 1881 in the U.S. magazine Puck. Puck no. 212, p. 65. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Here are the more modern versions of “typographical art.”

Smiley face : )

Smiley face = )

Upturned smile :] …

Smiley face with nose :0)

Smile with sunglasses B )

Double-eyed wink >.<

Big smile! : D

Smile ‘n’ wink ; )

Sticking tongue out : p

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Why love?

Posted on September 20, 2012 by maryjane

I just received an e-mail from my book editor and noticed her tagline had a quote from C.S. Lewis: “We read to know we are not alone.”

For sure, but if you think about it, prior to that, we write to know we are not alone. When we write, we’re talking to someone, right? A letter is specifically TO someone, but a blog, manifesto, book, graffiti? Writing. Writing with the desire to connect. Even some of the highest profile anti-social people like the Unabomber weren’t really anti-social. He wrote. To you. To me. To anyone who would listen. Yes, he wrote with deadly anger, but he wanted us to know him. He craved witness to his life, his beliefs. If a person can’t engage someone in love, do they attempt to engage them in anger? As long as they’re still wanting to engage, can it be changed to love? Here’s a Newsroom piece we published in our magazine 10 years ago. With today’s news, I got to wondering this morning if …

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Longhand

Posted on September 18, 2012 by maryjane

I was going through old photos and came across this little tidbit I hadn’t seen before that my mother wrote for a newspaper when she was 13 years old.

By the time she was 14, the largest Utah newspaper (some 50 miles away from her home) had hired her as a regular columnist.

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glamping fabric

Posted on September 17, 2012 by maryjane

You’ve got mail, said hubby as he delivered a box of what the fabric industry calls “strike-offs.” It’s the first time I’ve seen my fabric on anything but paper. Strike-offs are irregular bits of printed fabric the mill sends for a color check.

This moment can’t go to waste, I thought! I’m thinking these scraps deserve to be made into something. I know what this occasion calls for—a new dish drainer quilt for my teardrop trailer (instructions in my Glamping with MaryJane book).

I’ll be showcasing my new fabric line in Houston at the end of October at the Quilt Show (we’ll have an actual teardrop in the Moda booth; how fun is that?). My fabric will begin showing up in quilt stores across the country in early March. Next on my list? Getting my hands on an actual bolt of fabric. Hopefully, getting this box of scraps will help me remain patient. Oops, I feel an entire trailer remodel coming on in the meantime. I think the brown and yellow rendition. Or maybe the pink and teal …

Montana’s Biggest Weekend

Posted on September 16, 2012 by maryjane

Here are some more photos from the rodeo we stopped to watch in Dillon, Montana, on our way back from glamping in South Dakota.

And here are the ladies of the rodeo. From trick riders, to the drill team, to barrel racing.

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Rodeo Behind-the-Scenes

Posted on September 16, 2012 by maryjane

Okay, so there I was in the bleachers, enjoying the rodeo, when I looked down and behind me, only to discover I was sitting right above where the wrangler-butted GUYZ were suitin’ up to ride. (My camera was instantly redirected.)

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Well, ain’t that darn cute!

Posted on September 15, 2012 by maryjane

My ’68 Airstream, ‘Lily’, and I had a real bawl on our recent trip to South Dakota. Get it, bawl? Hahaha, ok sorry! Don’t have a cow. I mean DO have a cow, a backyard cow, a miniature Jersey to be specific. 😉

I am in the midst of writing my next book, Milk Cow Kitchen, and here’s the deal …

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June/July Magazine Cover

Posted on September 14, 2012 by maryjane

We had a request for some close-up photos of the vintage wedding dress I wore on the front cover of our June/July magazine.

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photo-of-the-day

Posted on September 13, 2012 by maryjane

Round ’em Up!

Posted on September 13, 2012 by maryjane

Is that a wagon train in the distance?

(On our recent glamp romp to SD, we’d been driving for an hour or so and hadn’t seen any sign of man, beast, or habitat.)

Good golly miss molly … decidedly not. And not a soul in sight, or on site, for that matter. We saw this, um, ghost town in the middle of nowhere. Can’t recall which state we were in, but clearly the state this area was in, wasn’t too good!

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