new family member: ginger!

i finally have a free moment and some exciting news to share!

brandon and i now have a dog! we named her ginger, and she is soooo sweet! someone abandoned her, and we tried for days to find her owner, but no luck, so now she is ours :D.

she is just the sweetest dog ever and we already love her. this isn't the best picture of her, but it's the only one i have so far. i'll bet that you'll be seeing a lot more of this cutie here on my blog in the future, though ;).

hope everyone is keeping cool and having a great summer! times have been very stressful for me lately, and long story short, i won't be graduating until may. a few of you have scolded me for not being more writey on my blog lately, and i'm sorry! stress stress stress.

i'll post again soon, i promise :).

♥,
melissa

the origins of maoiliosa

if there's one thing i get asked the most since i opened my business and called it 'maoiliosa', it's "what the heck is a 'maoiliosa'?". well, i'll tell you!

'maoiliosa' (pronounced 'mow-lee-oh-sah' or 'male-lee-oh-sah') is roughly the irish gaelic equivalent to 'melissa'. my beloved great-grandmother baldwin, who passed away when i was a teenager, not only gave me her part-irish ancestry, but also boasted that the family had japanese blood (this one is still up for dispute). she avidly collected japanese items, and when she died, the items went to me. as we both had shared a love of a good story (i've got some good ones!), being crafty, and all things japanese, as well as redish hair (a trait not common in the family), i always felt a close bond to my great-grandmother, and in honour of her, i took up the moniker 'maoiliosa' to commemorate the irish roots i got from her.

thus, while the name 'maoiliosa' isn't the least bit japanese, i feel a special connection with it, and i'm happy to use the name for my japanese-inspired brand. it's my hope that my great-grandmother would be proud of me for everything i have accomplished, and that she would adore the items i create, as she so loved japanese items.

so that's the story of that :). now you know!

♥,
melissa

goodies

3rd post of the day?! i'm on a roll! :p

i was just so proud of my little self that i had to show you this:

it's the basket full of things i'm taking to my consignment meeting tomorrow! it's all lookin' so cute in that little basket :).

and speaking of goody baskets...

behold: the cutest giftwrap you'll ever see that also looks like everybody's least favourite halloween candy! :p

brandon has a little half-sister named hannah (who is the sweetest little girl ever, and is just 3 1/2 years old), whom i just met for the first time at the wedding. normally, little girls don't like me (although little boys love me for some reason!), but hannah really did like me, which is fortunate, as we are now sisters :). she is the only semblance of sibling i will ever have, so i wanted to do something cute for her for halloween, my favourite holiday. at the wedding, she went on and on about how much she likes reeses peanut butter cups, so i got her the miniature ones in halloween foil wrapping, and also some tiny hershey's bars (heehee, hopefully she doesn't eat it all in one go... brandon's dad and stepmom will probably kill me the next time they see me! haha!). i wrapped it all up in this fun jack-o-lantern and candy corn tissue paper i found, and stuck it all in that adorable, glittery, happy giant candy corn gift bag (complete with googly eyes! yes!). and of course i made her a little card to go along with it, telling her 'happy halloween' from her big brother and new big sister. i hope she likes it :).

i never got to be around kids growing up, or even as an adult thusfar, and i can't have any biological children of my own, so it's important to me to spoil my new little sis :).

anyway, i just had to share!

♥,
melissa

a survey!

i used to do these all the time on my myspace account, but got tired of them after a while. my friend lea, however, had this one posted on her blog, so i thought i'd fill it out, too, for old times' sake :).

1. what were you doing 10 years ago? the year was 1998, and i was in 8th grade. i managed to miss an impressive 51 days of school due to being sick, faking being sick, breaking my index finger (in a tragic basketball accident in gym class), slicing my thumb to the bone (7 weeks before the finger breaking; this was caused by my gym locker, which opened up instead of to the side. the door dropped on my hand, which was holding it open, while i was trying to stuff my backpack in the locker just before gym class began), having the honour of reading a bajillion of names in french at the state capitol for that year's holocaust rememberance day (the names were those belonging to french jews who were killed), and going on a school trip with 14 other kids from my school to big bend national park (5 of the best days of my life). anyway, yes, i missed a lot of school. luckily, i was mostly an 'a' student, although that year i did manage to get my first 'c'.
2. things that i would do if i were a billionaire: pay off all my student loans, finish paying off my car, pay off my credit card, buy a really nice house in north austin with a big swimming pool, pay to fix my parents' house, put brandon through art school and buy him lots of cool stuff, travel to japan, donate a bunch to the international campaign for tibet.
3. places i've lived: just outside cleveland, ohio (parma) for 3 1/2 years. round rock, texas for 4 1/2 years. cedar park, texas for 14 years. cottonwood shores, texas for 2 years so far.
4. random musing #1: i have always wanted to be a singer. i really REALLY like to sing. i don't know if i'm any good, but i know i love it :p.
5. random musing #2: i'm afraid of kiwi. the fruit, not the cute little australian/new zealand bird. come on, it's green and looks like an eyeball when you slice it open! no one else sees it? oh well :(. but seriously, i am also afraid of its hairy outside (but i'm not afraid of other hairy fruits). my cousin justin (who introduced me to brandon, and who used to live with me) used to chase me around the grocery store with a kiwi until i screamed. i'm not sure what it is about kiwi, i just know i don't like it one bit, and that's that!
6. random musing #3: if i could sit down and have a long talk with anyone in the world, i would choose my great grandma baldwin, my mom's mom's mom. she was a really fun and unique woman. she died i guess about 10 years ago, and i still think about her all the time. my great grandma used to swear up and down that our family had japanese in us (probably not true, but i wish!), and she collected all kinds of japanese things, most of which went to me when she died. it's because of her that i fell in love with all things japanese, and due to this, i probably wouldn't be running my shop of washi paper jewelry and accessories if i had never known her. i was only a young teenager when she died, so i never got to discuss these things with her. great grandma baldwin wasn't just cool because of her japanese flair: she could tell a great ghost story! one in particular, which she swore was true, involves her grandmother and mother being terrorized by the ghosts of native americans in the woods of ohio (which she called 'the denmark woods'). i don't know if the story was actually true, but i still remember it, and it still gives me goosebumps. i'll always miss my great grandma and wonder what things would have been like had i not moved to texas with my mom when i was 3 1/2.

now it's your turn to share! if you want to do this survey, post your answers on your blog, and i'll read 'em :).

little critters

i'm sure i've mentioned this before, but brandon and i are the proud parents of 4 leopard geckos: asuka, trent, sonny, and mike. it all started when brandon bought me asuka for christmas nearly 3 years ago. she was a feisty little thing at the time; i fondly remember, she bit me almost immediately. a few days later, brandon caved in and bought sonny and mike for himself (we weren't living together yet). those guys are albino leopard geckos. two months later, i wanted a second one, so i bought trent. trent, it turns out, might actually be a female, but i think he just has an identity crisis :p.

and here they are:

asuka - named after asuka langley soryu from our favourite anime, 'neon genesis evangelion'. here she is, sleeping on her food bowl (wtf?):



trent - named after trent reznor, my favourite musician and hot guy behind 'nine inch nails':



sonny and mike - named after the characters from 'the godfather'. here's mike (sleeping so cutely on top of his log!):



and sonny. he's an illusive one:



we're probably going to get another leopard gecko in the near future. we already decided on a name: chopstick :).

♥,
melissa