Well, Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I don’t know where the Fall went.  It seems like I was just sweltering away a couple weeks ago.

There’s been SO much going on over the last three months. I’ve got several projects I’ve been working on and a couple wrapping up that I’m looking forward to posting in the portfolio.  It’s been forever since we’ve had a chance to update that.

Speaking of updates, we’ve released our first book, The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie in October to a fabulous response. With so much going on, we’re still trying to get our redesign completed. Those are the famous last words of many freelance designers, but clients come first, so those jobs took precedence over our own internal projects.  Sorry to anyone who has been waiting patiently for our new features.

Now, on to my schedule: I am unavailable to begin new projects this year, but I am booking projects to start in January 2008. Please fill out one of our design questionnaires and return it to us with your request to move it along.  If you send a request without an accompanying form, we’ll only respond by asking you for to fill one out, so let’s cut to the chase, shall we?  Thank you!

We are so excited by the new projects we have coming up and can’t wait to share them with you.  In the meantime, have a glorious Thanksgiving.  May your pants be expandable so you enjoy every bite and enough champagne in you to tolerate your husband’s pervy Uncle Frank.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It feels like all crickets and tumbleweeds around here lately, but that’s mostly because we’re busy, busy girls behind the scenes.  We keep saying we need to hire an assistant, but we can’t seem to find the time! Funny how that works...BUT! We have recently acquired the talents and moxie of both a publicist and an agent, so that’s exciting news!  Hopefully, this will allow us to move forward, to keep coming up with great new ideas we can finally put into effect.  We’re so excited!

There is so much Moxie happening this Fall.  Not only is our book, The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie (Wiley, 2007), coming out, but we’ll be launching a long overdue redesign of this site, as well as a brand new site for to help indulge your Moxie fix.  We also are bringing back the much-loved Put Down the Donut, for those Donut fans out there.  Pack in the Krispy Kreme while you can, kids.  The Moxie Girls™ are kicking it into high gear!

Justin may have brought SexyBack, but The Moxie Girls™ are bringing MoxieBack.  *snap* We hope you’ll stick with us to see what unfolds. 

With all the book stuff going on, we’ve kind of let this site simmer on the back burner for a bit.  Now that we’re approaching our final edits on Blogging with Moxie, we’re ready to start thinking about the future!  We have a lot of plans for the Moxie Girls over the summer and into the holiday season. We hope you’ll stop by from time to time to see what’s new.  Since we’ve been so quiet, you may wonder what we’ve been up to…

Kathy put together a fabulous site for virtual assistant (VA), Mia Chambers.  Her company, Acumen VA, was looking for a new logo, as well as a completely overhauled website using a green and purple color palette.

Kathy also did this very traditional design for return client, Athenian Properties.  For their business, they requested a more “gothic architecture” style with minimal color, which Kathy delivered in an elegant, sophisticated format.

Brandi Baldwin wanted a fun design with a sexy blonde woman and lots of cake for her home bakery business in Wyoming, Brandi Bakes!. Brandi definitely wanted “more Anna Nicole, less Martha Stewart” and requested the popular palette of pink and brown.

FashionJunkie was one of the biggest projects we’d worked on to date.  Utilizing lots of illustrations by Micho Illustrations, the client Dara Fleischer requested a bold design with lots of color and action.  This site utilizes lots of bells and whistles and features a variety of scripts, plug-ins and modules.

Wifeville, the online wife-wear boutique created by Jen Gorman, was a bright, cheery design project with a whimsical concept. This project was design-only and developed by a another firm.

It’s a rare opportunity that I get to meet my clients, but I did get the pleasure of meeting Carol Flake at our 2006 SXSW Panel.  She hired us to create a logo and an inviting design for their woman-centric financial website, Woman with Portfolio.  This project was completed in summer 2006, but the client is still finalizing a launch date.

Whew!  So, in addition to a book and a handful of small projects, this is what we’ve been doing with our time.  We also are working on a complete overhaul of this website (including pre-designed exclusive blog templates and small business website templates for those of you looking for instant gratification), as well as the impending launch of our Moxie Girls website which will feature so much cool stuff, I don’t even know where to begin.

And, of course, don’t forget to grab your copy of The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie available for pre-order now from Amazon.  It’s been selling like hotcakes (or so we’re told) so make sure to get in on the action!

This won’t be the last you’ll hear of it, surely, but our first book, The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie is available on Amazon for pre-order!!!  *cue the parade* It’s very surreal seeing your name on Amazon.  I think we’ve said that like 10 times, but seriously. It’s weird. And awesome. It’s weirdly awesome.

We’re in the last leg of the writing phase, with a deadline looming next week for our final chapters.  What a joy it’s been to work on this book.  It’s been stressful a little, as writing a book is totally nothing like you see on TV and in the movies, but I don’t think Kathy and I have ever laughed so hard.  We’re getting similar feedback from our fabulously insightful editors, so we’re really excited for you to read it, too. Sure, there’s a little “oh my god, people are going to buy this, read it and have an opinion about it!”, too, but we’re very proud of how it’s turning out.  It’s a fun one, so don’t expect flavorless techie fare.  (No offense to any flavorless techies who might be reading. hee!)

Look for it in your local bookseller like Borders or Barnes & Noble this fall, around October, but if you want to be one of the first to own it, pre-order your copy today!

Kathy and I have finally been given the green light to announce the Big Secret we’ve been keeping for months.  If you haven’t figured it out yet… we’re writing a book!  *cue the confetti*

Late last year, we were approached by Wiley Publishing, the fine folks who put out the “for Dummies” instructional book series.  On recommendation from our colleague Susie Gardner (who I had the pleasure of sharing a panel with at SXSW in 2006), we were contacted by one of their acquisitions editors (Hi Melody!) about authoring the first book in a brand new series they’re launching called The IT Girls’ Guides.

The series is a technical instruction series with “girlfriends” conversational style.  It’s perfect for the savvy woman who’s interested in learning more — in our case, about blogging, podcasting, blog design and the hottest trends for women in the blogiverse!  Action-packed with all the juicy content you want and very little of the dry geek speak that bores you to tears.  Toss that waterproof mascara, ladies because The IT Girls’ Guide to Blogging with Moxie will be hitting a bookseller near you (and Amazon!) in Fall 2007.

So there it is, the cat’s outta the bag!  For more information, keep an eye on our site for more details as they develop!