Who in your life needs a CaringBridge?

I was having a rough day today until I received an e-mail from my old pod mate at CaringBridge that absolutely turned my frown upside down! 

Caryn informed me that 9,883 CaringBridge users are currently using the themes I designed this summer.
THAT'S ALMOST 10,000 people!!! 

I miss so many things about CaringBridge - the people, the story behind it, helping families, friends and strangers, the designing, the food :)  I miss working for a place where everyone had a heart and cared.

CaringBridge has been in my life since high school when two classmates had pages. I cannot image going through a difficult health crisis without CaringBridge.

Which brings me to my next point: Who in your life needs a CaringBridge?
If you don't already know, CaringBridge is a website that helps keep loved ones informed during difficult times. In return, family and friends give patients and caregivers support through guestbook messages. It reduces time and emotional energy spent on repeated phone calls and emails and keeps everyone informed with the same, accurate information. www.caringbridge.org

I could not be more proud of the work I did this summer. I hope everyone is having an equally excellent day!

Trip to Philly :: Fall 2009

Abhrajeet and I are apart from each other most of the year so we try to see one another as often as our schedules allow. Each semester I take a trip to Philly to visit all the Mask and Wig boys, see a few shows, eat delicious food and of course try to catch up on chilling time with Abs.  


Since everyone has been asking how my trip was, and "good" doesn't even come close to describing the week I had I though "hey, why not a run down of each day." ready... begin!














Day 1 : Wednesday

I love my time in the airport because I always meet at least one person that changes my perspective about something or I get to share a bit of my life to a complete stranger. I also usually end up sitting by Chatty Cathy on the plane, (even if I have my headphones in, or am sleeping, the person next to me always seems to ask me a question or gets to talking about their life.) However this time was a little different - both the ladies I sat next to didn't say anything and went about editing papers without the slightest hint of wanting to get to know who was sitting next to them. Sad that I wouldn't get a glimpse into a stranger's life on this plane ride I took out my computer and began designing a logo for Cedar Country Co-op and pulling together inspiration for Sarah's invitation. Suddenly both Silent Sallys got really interested in my work and we all got to talking about what we did and where we were going.  I think I may also been hired to do one of the woman's son's wedding invitation!



I landed at the Philly airport around 10:30pm and arrived at Abhrajeet's place just as he got back from the show (more about that later). Our original plans were to go to center city and celebrate Lee's 21st birthday but the Philly game just ended so traffic was horrible and cops were lining the streets in riot gear. It was pretty intense and after waiting to merge onto the main road for 10 minutes and $20 dollars later we jumped out of the cab and walked back to the house. Each time I go to Philly I desperately want to take a photo with the LOVE sculpture on campus but Abhrajeet always says I look too much like a tourist - so walking back gave us the perfect opportunity to sneak a photo while no one was around.

Day 2 : Thursday

We went to our favorite Vietnamese place a couple blocks away for lunch. They have speedy service, cheap prices, delicious food and outstanding milkshakes. The day went by pretty quick since Abhrajeet had to leave to get ready for the Mask and Wig show. This is was a very unique year - not only is Abhrajeet a senior and this is his last fall show with Mask and Wig, but he also directed the show. Mask and Wig is the nation's oldest collegiate all-male musical comedy troupe that Abhrajeet joined as a freshman. This year the title of the show was Conquistorira the Explora. The first half of the show are sketches or bits then the second half of the show follows more of a story line and has many more music selections.  So when Abhrajeet left early I walked to Ian, Weier and Andrew's house to hang out for a bit. It's so great to see familiar faces and genuine people, even if it is for only a couple hours each year. Thank you Thank you Thank you to everyone for putting up with my Minnesota accent and making sure I don't get lost in the city.

The show was great! The boys are all very talented and it's definitely a highlight of the trip to see them perform. After the show we were presently surprised when the guys brought over delicious pizza, beer and insomnia cookies to the house.

Day 3 : Friday

We had to wake up a little earlier than planned to get sushi for lunch. Aki Fushion is the first place we tried sushi in the Spring and we were so excited to go back and show how much we had learned from eating sushi all summer. This time we ordered sashimi, which is just the raw fish, no rice. DELICIOUS. Very fresh, very meaty and we started to be able to tell the fish apart from one another by their texture and taste without the rice getting in the way. We devoured our plate with 16 pieces of Sashimi, 8 rolls and 12 Nigiri and ordered some Aki Fusion Rolls. 

 Abhrajeet had two shows Friday Night and after we met his dad and brother, who also flew in from Minnesota to visit, for a late dinner.

Day 4 : Saturday
We took Abhrajeet's dad and brother to the Vietnamese place for lunch - like I said before: FAVORITE PLACE! They also thoroughly enjoyed their meals and Arny especially enjoyed the Milkshakes with Bubbles. We also tried the new Gelato place before heading to the show

The 2nd half of the show follows a story line: The President of Penn infects the students with Swine Flu to improve Penn's rankings. She catches H1N1 and goes to heaven where she meets Michael Jackson. Michael tells everyone that there is only one hope to cure the swine and that lies in his clone, and upenn student: Miguel.  (I definitely didn't do the plot any justice in those 3 sentences but I tried.)

Day 5 : Sunday
We met Abhrajeet's dad and brother for lunch and spent the day around Philly.  We stopped in China town and tried Jelly Fish (not my favorite but Arny definitely enjoyed it). We also went to a bar that serves over 200 beers - 5 pages of menu.

Day 6 : Monday
Sadly I had to get back on a plane and go back to Minnesota.


It was a wonderful trip - and I can't wait to go back in the Spring. 

CLICK HERE FOR MASK AND WIG PHOTOS 

CaringBridge :: Featured Template

Very excited to share this with you -

My friend and old CaringBridge pod mate Caryn sent me this link earlier about one of my CaringBridge templates being a feature on a news story   Click the little video camera to watch the video. Here is a direct link to Shelia Davis's CaringBridge site: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/sheilatdavis/journal

 

Desi Delights :: Product and Packaging Assignment

Think of Betty Crocker... Make her Indian ... Now you've got Desi Delights

Think of Chocolate Chip cookie mix... Make it Savory Rice Pudding... Now you've got Payesh

Here is my first Product and Packaging assignment.

My absolute favorite Indian food Abhrajeet's family makes is Payesh, which is similar to rice pudding. I like mine with noodles instead of rice, and thicker rather than thinner.  This idea sprang to mind when Abhrajeet suggested I start learning how to cook Indian food from his Grandmother. Coming from a mid-western family where my mom thinks that Ketchup and Salt is the only spice needed, it's taken me a bit of time to get use to the Indian dishes made at Abhrajeet's house every night. When I first had Payesh I was so thrilled that it wasn't spicy I asked for seconds. 

This package ideally would be used for as a gift to give to culturally interested individuals so they can start learning how to cook Indian food and as an introduction to Indian spices. The paper I chose is Mulburry Bark and Banana Leaf paper to relate it culturally in both colors and in resources. The shape of each individualy wrapped package is taken from incents containers and allows everything to be stacked nicely in the box. 

Lots of different ideas with this project and I'm very happy with how it turned out. 

Can't wait for the second packaging assignment.

Sphinx Senior Society Website :: Abhrajeet

I just want to move the spotlight on Abhrajeet for a little bit, as humble as he is about this I would like to show him off :)
This summer Abhrajeet took up the task of helping me with my own website after having very little experience with web design and CSS. At the end of summer he began working on the University of Pennsylvania's Sphinx Senior Society new site.  I can't find the original URL but the new site is here: http://www.sphinxseniorsociety.com/

It amazes me that Abs can write code better than any of the multimedia students I know at Stout and has more to show in his portfolio too. Can anyone say change in major? Kidding. 


I think our new plan will be for me to design the sites and for him to code. Let us know if you're interested in a site... it's almost time to start paying off those student loans. 

6 years and counting...

Today is Abhrajeet and my 6th year anniversary.

6 years ago there was no squishing in. 6 years ago the biggest highlight of the day was if you came to school on time so I could see you for 5 minutes before the bell rant. 6 years ago there was no date nights or sushi or drinking beer at the zoo. 6 years ago neither of us had our drivers license. 6 years ago Arny was only 10 years old. 6 years ago we had no idea that New Years would happen, that we would graduate still dating each other, that I would go to Wisc and you would go to Penn, that we would be able to make a long distance work, that we would fall in love with Great Danes, that you would enjoy spending time fishing on the boat, that I would really like Indian food, that we would celebrate the Holidays four times with different family members and that we would be counting down the days until we're back in Minnesota. 6 years ago was a day I will never forget. Thanks for giving me your suit jacket to warm me up. Love you.

Freelance : Legacy Glass

My friend Josh and his cousin started a hand blown glass business and asked me to do all the promotional material including the logo, business cards, stickers and banners. They are making some amazing looking high quality products and I can't wait to get invited to see them blow. (hint hint... can that be soon please?)


Check out the website that Jared worked on: LegacyGlassWorks.com

Need your Vote

CaringBridge entered the Forrester Groundswell Award for Social Impact. Show your support by casting your vote for us or add your review of our service. http://groundswelldiscussion.com/groundswell/awards2009/detail.php?id=75


Caryn and I created this new page. Exciting to see it live. Please vote - I'm not sure what CaringBridge gets if they win but it would be exciting if they did!

Website is LIVE!

My Website is up! Go to KaydDesign.com to check it out for yourself!

I'm so excited and so relieved to finally check this off my to-do list. Isn't the coding great? Yep that would be my amazing boyfriend's work. (Who knew we would just be able to figure all this out?) You should have seen us this summer -we both just sat on the couch working on different elements of the website with either a glass of wine, a beer or a bowl of ice cream. I definitely miss those nights now that he's gone for the summer.




Check it out in Firefox or Safari please. There's still a few tweaks that I need to figure out when viewed in IE
Comments and Suggestions are greatly appreciated as well so shoot me a note.

Summer's Over

Last Friday Abhrajeet left Minnesota and flew to California to write Mask and Wig's Spring Show with his friends before returning to UPenn for the school year.

This summer was the best summer we've ever had in the past 6 years of being together. Of course, we can't wait until after graduation when we don't have to squash our hang out time into the summer months. (Get it... Summer Squashing... because we have to squash everything into summer? I think we're pretty clever)


In the beginning of summer we made a list of goals. Here they are again:

• Read 15 books - Abhrajeet read while on the bus for 3 hours a day but didn't get anywhere near 15 books
• Make Money - we both had internships this summer
• Go to a Music Festival - We went to Sound Set
• Try 10 new beers - We exceeded this amount and found many new favorites
• Screen print shirts -
  
• Eat Sushi 5 times - Succeeded and it was delicious!
  
• Design Shoes -
• Cabin 3 times - Love our vacations!
• Try 10 New restaurants - We ate out a lot but didn't try 10 new restaurants
• Make website - huge thanks to Abhrajeet for coding my website: KaydDesign.com
• Learn Flash -
  
• Study for GRE - Abhrajeet crushed the test. Studying wasn't very fun but we're glad it's done
• Go to Minnehaha Falls - We visited the falls and ate at Sea Salt Eatery
• Make Movies like the old days -
  
• Take a Trip to Menomonie and visit the creamery - The Creamery was Delicious
• Work out - we worked out twice. Does that count?

I'll still update this blog with my personal work and events even though it's called "Summer Squashing"

Thanks for listening and following us
Abhrajeet & Kayd

Brew at the Zoo

Two weeks ago we went to a fundraiser for the Minnesota Zoo Conservatory called "Brew at the Zoo". It was one of our favorite date nights this summer and can't stop talking about how amazing it was.

Even before we turned in our tickets, zoo employees greeted us with Owls, Hawks and Eagles. Then we were handed a sample glass and and told to "have a great night."

18 different Beer companies were there - some were major but many of them were loco micro breweries... and we definitely love supporting the local micro brews.


Here's all the different beer either we both tried or one of us tried:

• Sheephead Ale - Brau Brothers in Lucan, MN
• *Wild Blue -Anheuser-Busch
• Choclate something... - Flat Earth in St. Paul
• Duke IPA - Granite City in Eagan
• Blueberry something... - Granite City in Eagan
• St. Peter Pale Ale - Great Waters in St. Paul
• Tighty Whitey - Great Waters in St. Paul
• Skinny Dip - J.J. Taylor in Minneapolis
• *Minnesota Tan - Lift Bridge in Stillwater
• Crosscut Pale Ale - Lift Bridge is Stillwater
• *Bastogne Blonde - Rock Bottom in Minneapolis
• *Hop Bomb Double IPA - Rock Bottom in Minneapolis
• Extra Pale Ale - Summit in St. Paul
• India Pale Ale - Summit in St. Paul
• Horizon Red Ale - Summit in St. Paul
• *Cynic - Surly in Brooklyn Center
• *Bender - Surly in Brooklyn Center
• *Furious - Surly in Brooklyn Center
• Anchor Stream - Wirtz in St. Paul
• Anchor Fog Horn - Wirtz in St. Paul
• Full Sail Amber - Wirtz in St. Paul
• Sessions Black Lager - Wirtz in St. Paul

As you can tell from the list above it was a great night. The zoo even arranged for shuttles to drive people back to hotels.

We can't wait to go next year!

Sushi Sushi Sushi

One of our goals this summer was to try out as much sushi our wallets could afford.

We tried 5 different restaurants and too many different types of nigiri and rolls to keep track of. Obvious favorites no matter where we went were the Salmon and White Tuna nigiri.



The restaurants we tried this summer were Fuji Ya, Oragami, Tiger Sushi, Akita and Kyoto.

Fuji Ya was by far our favorite place. The atmosphere was great and we can't wait to get a big enough party to sit in a blocked off party room in the back. We tried lots of different Nigiri that night and our waitress was great with helping navigate through the menu.

Origami was okay. To us the sushi seemed smaller and we were practically sitting with the table next to us we were so close.

Tiger Sushi hosted AIGA Cocktails with Creatives that me and a friend went to. We didn't get to try much but it seemed like a great place. (AND this is the first place where I had a Surley beer. Loved it)

Akita in Woodbury has the best deal. A $25 dinner buffet lets you try anything and everything you could imagine. The first time to went we misunderstood and ordered 4 nagiri or 5 different fish. Even though it was delicious it definitely filled us up way too fast. The second time we went we were pro-orderers and expanded our selection. Definitely try the Spider Rolls if you go.

Kyoto just opened up in Eagan and is owned by the same person as Akita. It's the same deal, $15 lunch buffet, $25 dinner buffet. I think it will take a few months before Kyoto will be polished but we are so glad it's only minutes away from where we live.






Looks delicious right?

We can't wait to get some sushi when I visit Philly in the fall

Szott Foundation VolleyBowl Tournament

A few weeks back Emmy organized a Volleyball and Bowling Tournament to benefit the Andrew and Abby Szott Foundation. She helped raise almost $2000! A huge thanks to Emmy for putting this event on. Since I cannot bowl very well without bumpers and Volleyball tends to make my arms really red I opted out and instead took photos the whole day.







Great job Emmy! Can't wait for next year.

Creamery Restaurant + Inn

If you're ever in the Menomonie area you should check out The Creamery Inn + Restaurant. It's located just a few miles down Hwy 25 in Downsville. They renovated last fall and ever since I saw it at the opening I've been waiting to take Abhrajeet. The restaurant uses locally grown ingredients, supports local artists and is a really neat place to hang out. They also started to host weddings and their Inn fills up very quickly during the summer months.

Caryn gave me a gift certificate to the Creamery after I photographed her little boy Devon and it was the best payment ever! Abhrajeet and I went to brunch and the menu was outstanding; there were so many mouth watering choices! To start the meal off, Abhrajeet, who loves locally brewed beer, ordered a local Belgian beer while I ordered a peach mojito. Later on he also ordered a local IPA, which was delicious.

Soon after our waiter Adrian served us bread. Instead of rolls of bread or biscuits like any other restaurant we received a little basket of blueberry scones, warm bread and muffins. They were delicious to say the least!
As an appetizer we ordered Trout Cakes. Combined with the sauce and the greens each bite seemed more delicious than the previous. One of the meals we split was the Buffalo Sliders. (Don't they look HUGE!) We weren't sure how to attack them so we squished the buns together as much as possible and took a giant bite. The sauce and cheese were to die for and we ended up taking 1/2 of a burger home.
The other entree we ordered was the Blue Prawns. This house made pasta dish was super creamy and the Blue Prawns were huge.
Even though we were stuffed we just couldn't pass up on dessert once we heard they had pistachio ice cream. We're huge fans of pistachios and this dessert was the perfect end to our meal and the best pistachio ice cream we've ever had!

A huge thanks to the entire staff for the hospitality and phenomenal food! We will definitely be back as soon as we can.

Visit the Creamery's Website
My cousin, Amber Engfer, took the photos on the Creamery's website. Check out her blog

Studio On Fire :: Letterpress

As soon as I heard that Studio on Fire was hosting a workshop I jumped on the opportunity! Good thing I did too because the it was sold out in a mere 2 hours. I cannot thank Ben, Salina, Eric, David (and two other workers) enough for allowing a group from AIGA MN to tour the studio, pick your brain and give the press a try.

I've known about this studio for a few years and they are constantly being featured on blogs all around the US, so I just thought they would have some huge luxury space. However, their space is pretty small in comparison to their reputation and gives it a feels that a lot of heart and sweat went into make it what it is today. They are very proud of what they do and absolutely love letterpress. Ben used to work a 40 hour work week at a firm and went home and did 40 more hours a week on his hobby, letterpress. He soon figured out that he could create a business out of this and Studio on Fire has been going strong for 10 years. (man, I hope that happens to me someday!)


Letterpress machines are pretty much ancient. It took a great deal of muscle to get one page, I could never imagine doing a thousand sheets without going to the gym to train first.


I cannot wait to letterpress something... so if you're looking to get something designed and printed this way let me know!

Studio on Fire Website, Blog
More photos on Flickr

Up North

This year the 4th of July celebration was eventful to say the least. Over 70 family members traveled from California, Texas, Arizona, Illinois and Wisconsin to join in the family reunion. It was great to meet my dad's cousins who had not been up to the lake in 20 years and to hear stories of my grandparents and how life was back in the day.

This 8 day celebration was a bit exhausting but well worth all the time family put into making this a successful week. Each day, starting at 4 pm, everyone would gather at someone's cabin to eat and drink the night away. We caught up on what everyone had been doing for the last few years and what their kids were up to now. My cousins and I (the newer generation) learn how our great grandparents met and saw a slide show of the last family reunion when my dad was my age.




I absolutely love our place on Eagle's Nest. The water is always calm and only occasionally will you see a boat pulling a waterskiier or tuber. It's the perfect get away to forget all your troubles at home and enjoy nature. (did I also mention that there is not cell or internet service so you don't really have a choice but to sit back and relax?) I can't wait to go back up a few times before school starts up again.