check this out

my love for magazines started with printed magazines that come in the mail every month or that you pick up on the newsstand. anyone who visits our house knows that i love magazines after seeing the stacks of them sitting around the coffee table and through the house. but i am starting to pay more attention to online magazines (especially since Remodel is officially part of the world wide web now) and there are some pretty cool ones out there. I'm not convinced that they will ever take the place of the original paper copies, but I just found this new magazine that is only available online: Sprig.

It is created by some of the former editors of Organic Style (a magazine that was published by Rodale for several years and unfortunately folded about a year ago, just before the green movement got big) Those of you who are designers should appreciate th logo, it's very pretty.

Sprig stands for: Sophisticated People Are Into Green. clever, huh? I'm not quite sure what the purpose of the site is. It seems mostly product driven, but maybe there will be more content in the future.

More and more magazines are taking the plunge into online arenas, and it's interesting to see that some are forgoing print editions all together in favor of online. I love the idea of how much easier (and cheaper) it is to launch a magazine this way, but I don't know if it's really feasible. It's hard enough to be successful as a print publication, and there is so much more competition online (you still have to drive people to your site), but I guess if you can drive people to your site there are so many possibilities for interaction and video and community that maybe it's feasible.

As you can see, I love this stuff. I love it that I am paid to immerse myself in it and see what works and what doesn't and even get to try some things myself.

B Ave

I was back in Cedar Rapids a few weeks ago. I've lived in Des Moines for 6 years, it is truly my home, but Cedar Rapids, and more specifically B Ave NE will always be my home, where I grew up. My parents moved to a new house a year ago, and when I'm home now I still have to ask my mom where things are. I go "home" to see them there, but that will never be my house. I have a room there, but it's really the guest room, and that's fine with me. I'm not there enough to really put my mark on any thing (except for all the memories I can't part with that I insist my mom keep either in that room or the basement).

If Adam and I are driving somewhere when we're in CR I usually ask him to drive by the old house. I can close my eyes and know exactly where we are by the curves in the road. Some of the houses have changed, but there's still the stop sign (by the mailbox) that I remember barely pausing at as I rushed to make it home by curfew, the park around the corner where Adam and I would park his car and makeout before he dropped me off at home, the side street that we would splash in after it rained, and learning the rules of looking both ways before crossing the street so I could go play with Maggie who lived right across the street from us. Those are my childhood memories.

the Cooleys

At church people refer to Adam and I as "the Cooleys." That is who we are, but every time I hear it, I kind of pause and become aware that I'm not a Schmidt anymore. I am used to signing my name as Andrea Cooley and hearing people refer to me as Andrea Cooley, but for some reason it's still funny to hear us referred to as the Cooleys. Maybe it's because I associate that with a family. Obviously we don't have kids yet, but I guess we are a family between the two of us.

des moines highlights

1. Fireworks after Friday night I-Cubs games. Tonight was the first home game and we didn't go (it's still too cold for that) but we could see parts of the fireworks show from our bedroom window.

2. Tulips and daffodils blooming (even after the snow on Wed)

3. Fruit snacks (Adam and I rediscovered them at Target. somehow they are deliciously artificial)

4. Spring weddings (and the cards and gifts they entail) there are a lot of them this spring and I love going to Target to check the registries :)

5. Chinese food. Adam and I had a date night this week at P.F. Changs. Lettuce wraps, crispy honey shrimp, and cashew/almond chicken with plenty of leftovers. yum

6. Days spent in the photo studio. I worked on producing a tile shower set this week that we shot, and I think it turned out really well. You can see it in the Aug/Sept issue of Remodel.

7. Taking a nap on the couch and not feeling guilty about it.

to be a writer

I am a writer. Even if I didn't write for my job I would still be a writer. Sometimes I lose site of the fact that I get to write at work. Like today, a Friday, when I have this story about low-maintenance remodeling products that I've been pushing around all week. Not very exciting, but it's what's on my plate to write about at the moment. I've done the interviews, the research, all that's left is pulling it all together on the page. So I start crafting the lead, and while remodeling products can only be so exciting, I think I found a good one. I didn't finish the story, but it will still be waiting for me Monday, it's my job.

at immersion last night we started a series called "The Office" about how God created us to work and how our attitudes at work need to be positive even if we aren't in our dream job. I was convicted of that today at work. I haven't always had the best attitude about my job, but it really is a good job, a great job. not many people get to sit and craft a lead, write snappy titles, and just generally create and get paid for it. It's definitely something i take for granted.

I am not just a journalist or a magazine writer. I'm also a journaler, a creative writer, a letter writer. My friend Sarah Kay, a writer, says "The role of a writer is to say what we are unable to say." I like that.

Thank you notes

My mom trained me to write thank you notes. I remember after Christmas we always had to have all our thank you notes written before we went back to school. Kyle, Karen, and I would sit at the booth with our lists of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins to write. I wrote thank you notes after birthdays, graduation, and most impressively more than 100 after our wedding. I've said before that I like writing letters, but there's something about thank you notes, handwritten, not e-mailed, that is very intentional and maybe a little old fashioned. I just read an article in Esquire about someone who decided to write 100 thank you notes in a month. It made him realize how many times a day he said thank you without thinking and how many times people said the same to him: waiters, coworkers, kids, friends, and strangers. interesting.