I just got back after two busy weeks on the east coast and I’m so happy to be home! In fourteen days I visited nine states and one district (Minnesota, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and DC), took four flights and three trains, and stayed in seven places. I got a lot of work done and saw my whole family as well as Andrew’s after missing Christmas with everyone… and now I am back in Portland and pretty ecstatic that I am not going anywhere for the next couple of months! Andrew also gets back today from a five-week work trip and I am so excited about March being relatively calm, with both of us together in one place. At nearly eight months along, that sounds positively thrilling.

But my one problem in this otherwise happy scenario is that on the trip, I haven’t been able to find my camera cord, which I swear I packed… didn’t I? So there are a couple of hundred photos trapped on my camera and my flickr is so quiet and boring — such a drag. So if anyone is psychic, or can send Nancy Drew over to solve the mystery of where that thing is, I sure would appreciate it! If it doesn’t turn up today, I’m just going to start the online search for an overpriced replacement… so if you have any suggestions for tracking down a cord for a 4 or 5-year-old Canon PowerShot S110 digital elph, that would be super.

So I’m sorry about the lack of posts over the last few weeks, but between being super busy with work, on the road for most of it, and sadly photo-free, I have been pretty out of commission. But now that I’m home I’ll be back to my regular crafty updates, and Andrew’s camera will be up for grabs in just a few hours!

I also wanted to post about something cool that my friend Jennifer Perkins just passed on: a jewelry design contest courtesy of Ponoko!

me and Jennifer on the set of Craft Lab a year ago…

Jen says, “Ya know all the cool jewelry made of cut acrylic and wood? Well, Ponoko is a place where any shape you cook up, they can make it for you. It’s similar to Etsy but they not only help you sell your finished product they will also make your product and even ship it out to your customer if you would like. It’s a pretty dang cool concept currently set up in New Zealand but they are moving an office to San Francisco as we speak. Oh, and you can make way more than jewelry!

“Anyway, Ponoko is currently having a 10 day contest for aspiring jewelry designers with prizes up to $10,000. If someone has always had an idea for something to get cut out of acrylic or wood and made into jewelry now is the time to enter and make it a reality! And yours truly is a guest judge of the contest so you know I will have an open mind and be a touch partial to tack-a-liscious, over-the-top, extra-large jewelry goodness!”

All the details are here — so best of luck if you enter, and I can’t wait to see the amazing results!