MaternityShare

Portland planned a “no cars” event this Sunday, June 22nd, in North Portland to coincide with an annual conference “Towards Carfree Cities”. This conference is part of the World Carfree Network, “an organization promoting alternatives to automobile use and car-centric city planning”.

This event is modeled after a very successful large scaled one hosted in Bogota, Colombia that is actually held once a week. More than 70 miles of roads are closed and about 2 million people show up for dance lessons and community events.

Portland will be the first city in North America to host the event due in large part to its “commitment to mass transit and urban planning”. It has been completely funded by grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Kaiser Permanente, Metro and other sponsors.

There will be three parks along a route that will be designated for biking and walking where people will be able to take dance lessons, listen to live music, watch yoga demonstrations, take part in bike workshops and enjoy food booths.

This is a link to an interesting article about the event.

Here is a link to a page that has a pdf both of the map and events as well as additional information about the event.

Heart and Dart Teacrafted Soaps makes beautiful soaps and sells them Etsy. They would make perfect gifts, guest soaps, or just to have for day-to-day pleasure for yourself.

When reading their shop announcement on their Etsy page, I saw that they have a blog, and being blog obsessed I headed over. On the blog I found a little secret:

They are having a SALE from now until June 24th, 2008. 20% off all soaps when you enter the code “CARFARE”. Sola, one of the creators of these soaps is needing to raise some cash to commute to a potential opportunity she has coming up. You can read about her opportunity and the SALE on the blog.

Support handmade products and a commuter in need! Why not start out with ordering the gorgeous Victorian Sampler Set? (You get to choose the 3 bars.)

Victorian Sampler Set by Heart and Dart Teacrafted Soaps

I get a kick out of the fun error pages I have seen lately. Thank you for brightening up a situation such as that, dear Etsy and Twitter.

Here are those beauties:

Uh o! Twitter is over capacity this morning (I want this image on a t-shirt!) :

The Etsy error page makes me nostalgic for the old school Nintendo games:

You can click on the images to see them full size.

It seems as if Barcelona is in my world this hour…

In the last hour I have conversed with Etsy seller and artist LOEY who was gracious enough to let me use her photograph of her beautiful necktie in the post just prior to this one. I just found out that she used to live in my neighborhood but she currently resides in Barcelona.

After finishing up posting Loey’s picture I turned to Current TV to find a link that I told my brother that I would send him. And would you believe I got sidetracked and came across a video created by a viewer (VC2 a.k.a. viewer created content) about a flamenco dancer who it turns out is also from Barcelona.

The video I watched made me think of my dear friend Eliza, also a flamenco dancer, who recently went to Spain to further her flamenco studies. I kept imagining a video about her and her art. She is amazingly beautiful and talented. It gave me visions of filming a pod for Current TV. I don’t know when I will have time to do such a thing, but I like the inspiration that surrounds me.

Etsy sends out a daily email called “etsy finds”. I have subscribed and am a loyal reader. This usually gets me lost in Etsy land for quite a while. It’s a viral trail.

Etsy Finds features different people who do the “finding”. Once a week it is GilBea’s turn and her theme is “get the look”. Each week she picks a different celebrity to inspire her search through the lands of Etsy where she comes up with several outfits to create the latest celebrity’s look which are entirely composed of handmade (or vintage) treasures from the Etsy community.

From the Etsy email (which is truncated) there is a link to her blog where you can read a full post about why she picked who she did this week, as well as a few thoughts about the celebrity, pictures of the outfits she used as her “finding” inspiration, and finally videos on how to achieve the look of the hair and make up.

I am not into recreating these looks but I always read her posts and click into several of the Etsy finds she links to because I find it another interesting way to discover new things that I would not have come across myself. It also further feeds my curiosity about what people are into and what they are making.

Here is my favorite find of the day related to Gilbea’s “Get the Look” inspired by the character Carrie Bradshaw:

Ladies’ Necktie with vintage 1940’s jewel by LOEY

Want To Get Behind Your Candidtate? If you are an Obama supporter, you can purchase this pair of cotton undies on Etsy by FablesbyBarrie.

While I am not in need of lactation help at the moment, I could very well be in about a month when my little baby comes out into the world outside my belly. Regardless, I was very happy to see this Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Lactation Cookies recipe posted on Bellies and Babies because I was thinking about fresh home made cookies tonight. It is something to look forward to as I cannot have cookies these days due to meddlesome indigestion that has been plaguing me the last couple weeks. This is not news as it is a symptom of pregnancy in about the 8th month (which is where I am).

Since I can be a bit of a health nut, I am happy to see that these are practically prescribed cookies. I mean, if I have to make and eat these, I will. I will however alter the recipe a bit to suit my need like using organic ingredients as well as unrefined sugars. I might even try to replace one of the sugars with Agave.

Ooo I can’t wait until I can eat without upset again. Cookies, here I come!

Billy made the news today on current tv. He posted this news story: Rotating tower in Dubai to generate 10x more power than it consumes. When you go to the link, click the pink play button on the page to watch.