I wanted to share with you a little personal improvement mission…I want this blog to continue to grow and flourish and I am happy for it to continue to take over my professional life. To that end, I have enrolled in a class that is being given by Holly Becker of Decor8. The class started this morning and will be running for the next 4 weeks. I have no idea what is in store, what I will take away from this, or what will make it to these pages – but I just wanted to share with you that I expect it will be something.
Already I am having small revelations…we were asked to introduce ourselves and this is what I wrote….

My Name is Rochelle and my blog is Studio ‘g’ . (http://studiog.greayer.com)
I am a mom of 2 (girl 6 and boy 3) and I live in Harvard, MA. My blog is an extension of my business, though since starting it 8 months ago, I have become increasingly interested in it becoming my only business (which is why I am here). I am a landscape designer, a career change I made 8 years ago while living in London, England (previously IT – Physics). Studio ‘g’ is a design blog about all things garden design, landscape design, and stylish outdoor living.
My house is sort of rural (though Boston is close), and we have a bit of land. My husband is a smarty pants guy that is obsessed with becoming a gentleman farmer and I his design obsessed wife. In addition to our 2 beautiful children, we have 2 cats (chuck – because that is the best name for a fluffy orange cat and Lyle- because as a kitten his bedraggled look reminded us of our fav. musician Lyle Lovett). We are expecting a flock of chickens and guinea hens to arrive any day which will officially launch us into the farmer realm. Oh – and I almost forgot to mention Steve and Lisa…2 peacocks that showed up beneath my kitchen window on my birthday 2 years ago and adopted us as their summer home (I am still trying to figure out what that omen meant). They are a bit territorial and we are not sure how our new friends will be received. Wish us luck.
I also started and manage a Farmers market in my town (which in its second year became the biggest in Central MA) and I am wanting to start a second blog with my farmers market co-horts that is all about our market and the crazy amazing place that it is, and all topics related to creating, managing, and having fun at a farmers market. It will be at http://www.farmersmarketblog.com but there is nothing there yet.

I am sharing here, because as I wrote this, I realized how different this is from what I have on my ‘about page’ and is somehow a bit more me (and a little less Rochelle – “the design firm principal”). And I thought it seemed odd to be saying this to a group of new online friends (my classmates) when I hadn’t made this introduction to you all my existing online friends.
And just to make it more interesting…I put together this little collage of my animal friends that you have now been introduced to. I think it is a key element to every great garden or property (or even business for that matter) to have a mascot. Mitchell Gold has Lulu. The Memphis Peabody Hotel has the Ducks. The Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston Has Katie the black lab….and now that I am writing…I can’t think of any more gardens with animal mascots….I know there are more….can you think of any??

Here are my garden mascots.
Chuck, Lyle, Steve and Lisa.