Category Archives: The babes

Can’t wait for the dog days of summer!

Its been a long and interesting Winter/Spring here at Mimi Green. Professor Chicken fell in love, and I mean IN LOVE, with one of our employees, Hilary. Everyone was super sad in March when Hilary moved to France to take care of her grandpa, Chicken was especially hurt.  Although we admired what she was doing, we have all taken her move really hard.   We've all joked about mailing ourselves to France to see Hilary, but Chicken seems to be taking it seriously. 

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Mimi Green had some exciting news this Spring too. We were honored by being featured by In the Company of Dogs catalogue! They took some awesome photos of our embroidered personalized webbing collars, and the collars have had great reception. It is so exciting to see our work in print, especially with a company as cool as In the Company of Dogs! 

embroidered webbing dog collars Other than that, we have just been super busy filling orders — so busy I have again been neglecting my blog! But hopefully that will change this month because on May 21 I am going to be lucky enough to get to stay home half days with Augustine.  

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He is getting gigantic (and really scary!) and I am feeling a bit nostalgic about when he was a baby and I got to hang with him all day. 

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He will be 4 this year — I can't believe it since I started Mimi Green when he couldn't even sit up on his own yet! I figure I don't have much time left till Kindergarten and I have my whole life to work 😉 Good thing I have such an awesome, supportive husband that is willing to work twice as hard to cover for me! 

Anyway, Auggie and I are planning super fun stuff to do with each other (and the doggies) so I will have lots to blog about. 

I better run for now, goodnight from everyone here at MG, especially sleepy Chupa! 

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Where did last month go?

I got so busy in Dec. that I didn't get to post a single photo of my favorite pups, Noah and Augustine. Here is a recap f the past month, starting with Mr. Noodle- Head.

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Auggie thinks it is SO funny to wear food on his melon. And who can blame him really.

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Noah volunteering with Watermelon Ranch Animal Rescue. He wants to adopt every dog he sees, just like his momma ;) 

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Auggie is finally growing hair!

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And an attitude problem!  His personality is so funny. He is so super chill, but if you make him angry, his wrath is EXTREME!

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The boys opening presents..

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Good thing Aug got a leather chair (just what every baby needs right?) from his Grandma, he was exhausted!

It was great being so busy, but I am kind of missing being able to do normal things like have dinner with friends or even posting on my blog!

Okay, gotta run. I have 2 pugs pushing my computer off my lap right now. More about Olive next time — she has quite a good story!

Fell off the Radar…

I don't know how it happened, but I haven't written a post in a month!

So much has happened since then, so I will give you a quick photo essay to explain my absence.

First, the super awesome Paws on the Run placed a HUGE order with us! I was sewing sewing sewing and then suddenly it was Nov. 12 — time to go to Mexico!
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Here we are riding horses on the beach in Cabo San Lucas.  I would have had a better time if I hadn't missed my boys so much.

We came home after a week and I had to sew like a crazy woman once again! Got the order out in the nick of time since my order board was starting to overflow!IMG_8575

Then Auggie put jelly all over his belly.  (No this isn't Dan, it is Auggie. I know it looks EXACTLY like Dan but I know my own child and this is him. It is a good thing my husband is the most handsome man in the world, eh? I am tempted to have another baby just to see if it comes out looking like a clone of myself. It would only be fair.)

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Sometimes the things this guy thinks are a good idea scare me. You've seen him eat coffee grinds, eat the dirt from plants, now jelly on the belly. I have my hands full, oh boy.

In my downtime I was surfing the net and read about this poor old, fat, black pug who had been dumped on the side of the highway and had no home. He was sleeping in the shelter, which although very nice, is still a shelter and kind of scary for dogs.  Dan owed me one for a stupid thing he did (no, I don't have pictures of that;)  ) so I was able to convince him to let us bring this little guy home just until he gets adopted. IMG_8569

Isn't he sweet? The name the rescue gave him is Rajah, which I love, but he won't answer to it. He does, however, answer to Harpo and Pug. And trust me, I must have called him a thousand names before he descided which he liked.

He has been such an awesome guy. I am just dying to find him a new owner. 

And then there has been Christmas orders for Mimi Green. More on that tomorrow!

Lastly, I got the best Pottery Barn knock off desk I have ever seen for my studio. I was gifted some money for my birthday and I figured I owed it to myself to make my work space nicer since I practlcally live in there!

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I am so loving the shelves below it. And the room! I can actually put more than just my computer on my desk now. Plus, you might have noticed that I have shelves under my table now.  We moved the sawhorses out, which were genius but served no purpose, and replaced them with shelving to hold all my webbing supplies. Another idea I stole from Pottery Barn, only their table like this costs $1000.

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And Cessie loves were her bed sits now — Right in the sun!

Where did I get this desk awesomeness? You might of heard of it, it is a very exclusive little shop called Targ'et Boutique. And last week they had free shipping and 15% off.  What a very happy early birthday present to me huh!?!?

Meet my black son and grandpa

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I am going to preface my post by showing you a recent photo of my grandfather and a recent photo of my son Noah.  I am also going to say that my grandfather is first generation New Mexican, but his family came from Mexico. Noah is Navajo Indian and New Mexican (Hispanic) and both he and my grandfather are SUPER dark complected. Okay, onto my post….

Noah woke up this morning to see a historic day in our country's history. Even at 8 years old he knew the great significance of this. Here is what his unblemished heart said:

Noah: "Mommy who won the election last night?"

Me: "Obama did baby."

Noah: "Yes! He changed history right?"

Me: "He did. Isn't it exciting?"

Noah: "Yes. Has anyone else other than Obama ever changed history Mommy?"

Me: "Everyday. Sometimes people do small things to change history, sometimes they do big things."

Noah: "Like when do they change big things?"

Me: "Well when Grandma and Grandpa were born black people couldn't even vote for President …"

Noah interrupting: "You mean Grandpa couldn't vote??!!"

Me laughing a bit : "No honey, Grandpa isn't black."

Noah in shock : "He isn't?? Are you sure? Because he looks like Barack Obama"

Me trying not to giggle: "Yes I am sure. He isn't black. If he were black then I would be and so would you."

Noah in extreme shock: "I am black!!"

Me really really trying not to laugh at him: "No honey, you aren't black you just have dark skin"

Noah looking down at his very dark arm: "But Mommy are you sure?"

Me: "Yes, babe, I am sure. You are Indian, it is different than being Black. Remember we have talked about how you are Indian." 

Noah with a very sad disappointed face: "Oh. But Mommy are you SURE Grandpa isn't Black?"

And then I spent the rest of the day smiling about how beautiful youth is. No one has polluted his brain, no one has killed his innocence. I wish he could just stay that way. 

But maybe this win tells us that people are putting race issues aside for the better good of everyone.   Really it doesn't matter if Noah is Indian or Black or white, nor does it matter what color Obama is. What matters is that we are all people and we all deserve to be seen for so much more than just the color of our skin. 

I am so glad that Noah got to feel a sense of pride this morning, I hope everyone did. Even if Obama wasn't who you wanted to win, we all did get so witness a great moment in our history and I think that it gives way for many more to come. We can all take pride in that.

Easy Like A Sunday Morning.

Auggie and Momma had such a nice Sunday together. We sat on the couch, ate the most amazing vanilla cinnamon gelato, and watched some TV– what was on I don’t even remember. The taste of the yummy gelato was mesmerizing. One bite for mommy, 2 for Auggie. He went into a total gelato comma.

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But then we went to hidden park and met up with Auggie’s friend Nigel and all was good again.  Picture_120

We napped the rest of the afternoon. Aug has grown 2 teeth in the past week and a half, plus he had his shoots on Friday, so he has been so super cuddly.

Noah joined us at the park for Aug’s play-date, he is such a good big brother. Here’s he and Aug in the tub.  Dan and I are the luckiest parents in the world. I wonder if all parents feel this way. Picture_086

Mimi Green, a Odyssey of Sorts

My Dog collars are slowly making their way into the shop today, I am so excited. Etsy has been good to me, I haven’t had the time to market much yet, but have already had 5 sales. What a rush that was! I can’t imagine how the sellers who have hundreds of sales feel, hopefully it isn’t one of those great feelings that fades after it happens so often.

Here is the first ad for the Mimi collars, yes I realize that I spelled Cecilia’s name wrong in the listing, and yes I feel pretty stupid. At 7 am this morning that seemed the logical way to spell it, at 10 I realized that I was so wrong, but it was too late to change it by then. Good thing Cessie doesn’t know how to read, she would have her feelings real hurt.

The husband says it is a bit "scrap bookie" which is probably good since I used digital scrap booking software to create this! I think it looks cool, makes me wish that humans wore collars cause I think I’d be smashing in this one (but not as Cute as Etta is looking in it)

CeceliacollageThis weekend Noah decided that he wanted to learn to sew. He was insistent that using a sewing machine "didn’t look that hard" which made me mad a first till I realized that it was probably a compliment that he thinks I sew with such ease. I finally got him to settle on making those shapes with plastic beads that you melt together with an iron– you know which ones I mean?Img_0276We went to Joann’s together, so much fun. Something I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to do with my kids since I have two boys. He also bought a Hannah Montana pillow that he is going to ‘kid sew’ and a sunflower grow kit.

Well by the end of the night he had big ideas. He told us that he is going to start a web site and sell these treasures on-line. When I asked him what people could use them for, he said that he is going to attach them to blankets, collars, make a mobile out of them. I wanted to giggle, both at how funny he was and how cute I found his sense of entrepreneurship, but I didn’t. If I know one thing about Noah it is that he doesn’t like to be laughed at. I explained to him how he needs to make his product stand out from the rest, how he needs to make people want to buy it. I could see the wheels turning in his head. He was making even bigger plans, I could see it in his bright eyes.

And then, at that moment, I was taken back to my childhood. My grandma had me sewing with her right out of the womb and by the time I was Noah’s age I also had some big plans. At the time I was crocheting baby bottles that held a bottle of baby powder, if you can imagine this in your head, see the nipple bending back to reveal the holes int he top of the powder. I then carefully weaved a ribbon in the middle of the bottle, for decoration and to distinguish if this should belong to a boy or a girl.

My step mother owned a boutique for babies in town, in fact it was called Baby’s Boutique. It was a high end resale shop in a pretty fancy shopping center, I didn’t realize at the time what a very cool shop it was. But, I did see the opportunity for a business of my own. I would make hundreds of these baby bottle powder holders and I would sell them in her shop. And I would make so much money, I mean they were $3.00 each and I would sell thousands of them.

She was nice enough to let me put them up on the counter where people checked out. Week after week past with no sales. I couldn’t figure out why no one wanted these goodies. I mean, they were so super cute, and the idea was funny, it was a bottle that was actually powder! At the time it didn’t occur to me that they had absolutely no function at all, I was just so proud of myself that I had made all these on my own. My mom and my grandma were proud of me too and kept encouraging me to make more of them, make different things– just keep creating.

So I did. And every Christmas, up in till last year, my family got gifts that I had spent the year trying to perfect. This has gone on for probably 22 years now.

In the years between the baby bottle debacle and now, I have been a bit scared to put my work out there in the world again. I only got the courage again after my family and friends told me that people would buy the things that I am making, that they had good form and function.

It is super cool to see Noah having the same thoughts that I did. I can only hope that my newest endeavor takes off and really works so that I can be inspirational to my boys, so that they can see that it can be done.

Most likely Noah will never sell any of his plastic race-car adorned blankets or collars, but I hope that this is just a seedling in his brain that will someday grow into a million dollar idea.
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Mace Windu hopes so too.