What’s Kickin’, Chicken?

It’s been a craaaazy busy summer around here.  Kathy’s been summering in Mama Town, USA, after welcoming wee Carter into the world on July 13th.  And I’ve been furiously launching project after project, with no time to actually update the portfolio!  There must be 10 projects plus that need to be added. We’ve done a lot of awesome sites so far this year and I’m very proud of the designs we’ve done, so keep your eyes peeled for those!  We’re also going to be rolling out a new design for our site with a lot of new features in the coming months, hoping for an official launch by our 7th anniversary (yes, seventh!

) on Valentine’s Day ‘10.  It could be earlier, but it’s looking like it’ll be a very busy Fall and Kathy’s still successfully working on her second degree as a professional baby juggler.

Speaking of design…

Fabulous retro-inspired illustrator and the man behind our gorgeous Moxie Girls characters, Derek Yaniger, has some new serigraphs available that are the bees knees!  I’ve purchased his art before (I have number 3/100 of the sold-out Three Mad Cats hanging in my living room) and it’s even more beautiful in person than I expected.

Of his new releases are my two favorites: “Crazy” and “Daddy-o Goose’s Real Gone Rhyme”, which I’m thinking about buying as they are a “very limited edition” and you get 4 beautiful prints to hang together or mix it up by hanging them in different places.  If Derek keeps creating awesome art, I’m going to have it on every wall!

If you’re into coffee table books, Derek has his first book available now — “Wildsville: The Art of Derek Yaniger (Masters of Lowbrow)”, which contains over 150 original paintings and illustrations. Cover-to-cover coolsville, ya dig?

“Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile.” — William Cullen Bryant

Well, our Fall season is almost here!  Our Summer season is coming to a close and we’re wrapping up the last of the projects through the end of September and are looking to start our new projects beginning in early October for completion by the 1st week of December. (We need to take some time off in December for administrative stuff and time with our friends and family for the holidays.)

We are accepting requests for the Fall season at this time, so if you have not already submitted your Request for Proposal, please do so by midnight on September 1st, as we will begin reviewing requests on September 2nd. On September 1st, we will be emailing anyone who we were unable accommodate this Summer first and responding to all remaining inquires in the order in which they were received. From there, we will begin contacting you so we can set up phone meetings to discuss your project in more detail. 

NOTE: If you get your request in

September 1st, chances of us being able to get your project in for Fall are very slim. You would be put on the waiting list for our Winter season, which begins January ‘10 (project review starting December 2nd). Thank you!

While we did receive quite a few inquiries this Summer, not every request we receive will be a fit, so don’t be discouraged if our waiting list seems a lil’ longer than you’d like — there’s still an opportunity for us to work with you this Fall and we’d love to hear about your project.

Enjoy the rest of your Summer and we hope to work with you soon!

She’s About To Pop, Folks

One of the many other projects I’ve been wrapping up around here is my pending second baby.  Just wanted to let anyone interested know that I am taking Official Maternity Leave starting today July 10th until October 2009. Yes, Official even!  I don’t know why it’s official it just sounded better.  I’ll be delivering on Monday via c-section and will probably be out of touch for a week or two while I heal and get a grip on our new family member.  I will be checking email periodically through my leave so if any emergencies* arise I will route them to the appropriate avenues.  Auntie Joelle, bless her heart is holding up the Moxie Fort while I tend to the new baby.  However, she has a very busy schedule so please, if you are a client of mine, email me first and I will

make sure your problem gets handled appropriately.  I will be accepting new projects in the fall on a first come first serve so if you are an existing client or a new client, I will certainly take your projects once I am able.

Before I go, I want to say thank you to my wonderful business partner for being such a good friend, an amazing designer, and a supportive business woman.  Without her I could not rest easy on a maternity leave.  Thank you Joelle for being such a great friend.  Be kind to her while I’m gone, folks.  Thank you also to my clients… I appreciate your patience while I adjust to our new life.

*Emergencies include words like “gone, bleeding, death, dismemberment, expirations, deleted, crashed, missing, and !@#$!@” etc.  If you need a button made, it might take a bit so we appreciate your patience!

Its You and Me in the Summertime

It’s almost here!  Our Summer schedule review is coming on June 2nd.  It’s a unique project review this time because Kathy, being due to have Baby 2.0 in July, will be unavailable for most of the Summer schedule (July-September). You’re stuck with me, kids!  And lo, I am but one woman so your patience is appreciated!

If you have not submitted your Request for Proposal yet for the Summer schedule, please do so before 11:59pm, June 1st in order to make the list for Summer. (Otherwise, your request goes on the Fall review list, which may not suit your timeline.) This does not guarantee we’ll be able to take on your project this season, but we will certainly try!  Kathy will be taking limited projects for July (small blogs, mostly), but everything else goes to me, so if you are waiting for Kathy, you might need to wait until the Fall review. If you don’t mind working with little ol’ me, I appreciate it very much and thank you in advance for your patience while I work through the inquiries for Summer.  Anyone who was on the Winter or Spring lists who asked to be “rolled over” will receive first dibs, of course.

Speaking of schedules, I will be moving the week of May 18-22, so I will be in and out of “the office”. I will be checking emails, but won’t be setting (and may need to adjust some) milestones during the timeframe.  The move was kind of spur-of-the-moment, so I apologize for any timeline adjustments that may need to be made. 

There’s a lot going on around here and we’re very excited to be working on so many great projects. We did a portfolio update recently, but will be doing another update soon with a big project for author Jennifer Crusie, a fabulous new redesign for the premier Gay Love Coach™, a pet photographer, a fashion-centric city guide, a small animal vet, a popular food blog, and a knitting mecca, among others.  We’re working hard to wrap our Winter (we know, we know!) and Spring clients so we can make a fresh start for Summer.

Kathy and I look forward to working with you soon and hope you’re enjoying your Spring. :)  Now go outside!

Schedules Schmedules

Hello! Thank you to everyone who submitted a Request for Proposal recently.  We just began to review the batch of requests submitted for consideration in our Spring 2009 schedules (all those submitted prior to March 2, 2009), so if you haven’t already heard from us regarding your request, you will very shortly.  So far my schedule is filling up fast and I know Joelle’s is too.  We’re so thrilled with the variety of requests we’ve received and appreciate your patience while we get through all the email.  We have also already begun accepting new RFP’s for Summer 2009 (July - September) so get your requests in as soon as possible for that time period.

Just an update on my personal schedule, as you may or may not know I am expecting my second child this July and I will be taking maternity leave over the summer starting mid-July until September 15th.  We are still accepting requests for that time so please feel free to send them in and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.  Also, if you are an existing client and need anything updated prior to July, please submit your requests to me as soon as possible so that I may get your stuff buttoned up before I head into maternity leave.  Once I get my bearings I will be available to my existing clients for support and maintenance, and will be accepting new projects for the fall of 2009.

In the meantime, I hope you aren’t all still buried under the snow up north.  Let’s all do the Spring Dance and hope for some warmer temps for everyone!

The One Where Kathy Actually Blogs

Joelle might fall over when she see’s I’m blogging.  Hello! I just wanted to pop in and touch base with anyone reading our Moxie blog here for a few reasons.  I’m going to go all “Ben Stiller movie Keeping the Faith when he gets all honest with his constituents” on you.  I have been in a funky place lately… work has been constant and great but life seems to have a mind of it’s own.  My 3 year old started pre-school (I had no idea preschool cost money… ew).  I’m glad to have the extra time, believe me but it seems to all get sucked into a vortex somewhere. Then, my husband ran the Disney Marathon last weekend (his first! 3 hours 52 min) so life got sucked up by that.  This weekend is my sons 3rd birthday party, and let me just say, I am not one of those mothers.  In fact as much as I want him to have a birthday party - his first real one - I literally hate planning entertaining events in my home.  Some people just have a knack for it and seem to be throwing a party every month.  I, on the other hand, can live without the stress of planning and preparing.  To follow up a month of non-stop action, I need to fly up to New York for my dear sweet grandmother’s 80th birthday party next weekend.  So good-bye January.

Now, on TOP of all that’s been happening, I have been hiding a very important factor in all of this. I am pregnant, again. In fact I have been pregnant for almost 14 weeks and not in a fun way either.  I was sick and queasy from Thanksgiving Day through Christmas so the holidays were particularly horrific for me.  I am not due until July and will be working more of a full time schedule until then thanks to the aforementioned preschool arrangement, but will inevitably be taking another maternity leave later this year and poor Auntie Joelle will want to throttle me for having to handle business solo for a bit.  But she’s a trooper and she loves me so she’ll throttle me gently with love.

Looking at the portfolio it may seem like I haven’t done a thing since forever when in fact I’ve been working my tail off to stay caught up and have completed several projects (some of which are still not online due to the client not being ready to launch on their end) and doing maintenance on existing clients seems to eat up a lot of time.  But I am doing a couple proposals for some very interesting blogs for next month and will be taking on a load of new projects when we do our next RFP review in March. 

I hope everyone is settling into 2009 with a little less chaos than I did, and if you’re tired of my posting only cocktail recipes I can only offer the alternative… excruciating details of my pregnancy ailments or stupid YouTube videos.  :cheese: