I’ve had a lot going on in my life lately…but my friends are always there for me in the most amazing ways.

Like my college roommate,  who sent me this card, even though it was HER birthday this week and I’m supposed to be showering her with love, and not the other way around.

Yup, this is one of those posts where I tell you how many fantastic people I know.

This is why I love paper goods! I had already chatted with her and emailed her like five times this week. But it wasn’t until I got this in the mail that I remembered:

I’m loved by some of the most amazing people

and

This too shall pass

and

There is so much to celebrate in my life.

So with that, I am going to tell you about some of the people that have helped propel me and my little blog and (eventually) my little shop along:

Misono is a very talented web and graphic designer who has been running the cutest blog, Blooming By The Bay, with her husband Dan. I met Dan and Misono through an organization that I am involved in called Nakayoshi. They are one of the only married couples I know, and they make marriage seem totally great. They also have the cutest little girl and I get to read about her on their blog all the time!

Dan, Misono, and their little bundle of joy Mio.

Misono has recently quit her job and is going to go freelance in something spectacular sometime soon. She has been supportive of my Etsy dreams since the beginning and was so quick to offer me some advice when it came to my website branding. I was at a point where I really needed some eyes other than my own on things, but I didn’t want to expose myself to people telling me what they “think” I should be doing with my time and effort.

She also offered up any help I might need with WordPress, but luckily I have more than one web guru in my life. I know she does this kind of thing for a living and I would have felt uncomfortable asking for free work. (She needs to keep her daughter in cute clothes!!)

Adrian is a photographer but he also dabbles in web design. He runs a photo blog called Bonafide Photography. He talked me into using the WordPress platform (well actually he told me “it’s better” and I did my own research to find out why), and then took my drawings and lists and brought them to life. He put up with all my “why doesn’t it work the way I think it should” complaints and let me do everything I wanted to do — namely, make all my own graphics.

Adrian's "serious" self-portrait.

I’ve picked up so much knowledge about the WordPress platform and maybe someday I’ll actually make my own themes and CSS codes. I seriously had no clue what CSS was or that it even interacted with HTML until I started this blog. In the mean time it is great to know that I have people I can reach out and ask questions to.

Hat: castoff from my sister, Tee: f21

Adrian also shot a series of photographs intended for my web presence and branding. I have only used a few photos and should probably just share the rest of them soon. He sent a set of prints to my mom and she’s been going around showing everyone. I got to play stylist while he shot everything (this involved a lot of “gimmee! I wanna see the preview!) and I think we made a pretty good team!

Brian is one of my best friends from college. He is very artistic and works as a web graphics designer in SoCal. Over the years we have developed a great friendship as well as a supportive relationship as it relates to creative endeavors. We have bounced ideas off of each other, motivated each other, and watched countless youtube videos to waste time. (Sometimes you just gotta let those strokes of genius come to you rather than seek them out. And what better way to keep your mind open to that lightning bolt than by watching dumb videos?) (Our favorite video subjects are: Maury Povich, Paula Deen, Maru, Adventure Time, and most viral videos out there.)

This was the least wacky photo we took the last time I visited him in LA. I had to sort through like 500 pictures to find this one.

Since graduating I’ve come to find that creative juices don’t always flow between two people. Not everyone will balance your blind spots and support your strengths. And not everyone is up at 3am to make you think it’s a great time to start a project  because you spent two hours earlier watching Adventure Time online. I really miss hanging out and working side by side with him.

Whenever I need a dose of cute cat in my life, Brian always lets me use Kitty on the blog.

Brian’s family also has a cat. Her name is Kitty, and she has her own blog. Kitty is fat. Maybe even obese. But Brian loves that kitty like no other. Unless facetime-ing with your cat is considered normal.

The last person I am gonna talk about today is my mother. She’s pretty much the best ever and has managed to let me grow up into an independent being while maintaining a codependent relationship with her. I realized this the other day when I went to the doctor’s office. My doc has got to be beyond annoyed with my mom. “Well I had (insert medical malady here) and my mom said it’s probably (insert probable medical term here).” Then I remember that my mom isn’t a doctor and that I went to the real doctor to get her highly educated opinion. Way to undermine the doctor, Katie.

Mama and myself in Firenze, April 2008.

Anyways. Like I was saying. She let me leave home for college when I was 17, leave college for Europe when I was 20, and stay in San Francisco when I was 22 and didn’t have the means to support myself. She taught me that there is more to life than dishes and laundry (sometimes this causes her shame because I’m not very tidy) and she has always believed in what I would become, far before I ever did.

When I decided to start a business, I was really nervous about telling people. I didn’t know how they would react — and I have definitely gotten my fair share of “are you kidding? you have no clue how to run a business!” reactions — and for a few minutes I wanted to wait to tell my mom until after I had started it so I could just say “look at what I did!”.

Except, that didn’t work out because I talk to my mom wayyyyy too often. So then I was like, “okay, how do I explain to my mom about how Etsy works?” but when it came time to tell her, she already knew what Etsy was. You’ve gotta love it. The woman couldn’t figure out how to call me from her iPhone, but she is an Etsy fan. And as you can already guess, she was totally on board with the whole idea. She even came up with more reasons why I should do it. (I think she has secretly been daydreaming about her own handmade business for a while.)

So umm yeah my mom is my best friend. Kinda dorky, but I couldn’t care less!

I have so many other wonderful supporters in my life, and I will try to tell you more about them later. I’m also constantly surprised and amazed when I find out who has popped on over to my blog — from other bloggers that I’ve admired to old friends I don’t see anymore to complete strangers — and I want to thank each of you for deciding that your time and interest is worthy of my little slice of the web!