A new chapter

I have decided against making any New Year's resolutions this year. Like 99% of the population, I've made resolutions in the past and failed to keep them, so I figured that this year, I would avoid the inevitable and just not resolve to do anything.

Instead, I'm making plans. Big plans. Ginormous plans. Monumental plans. Plans that will (hopefully) change a lot of things in my life.

• Business - I am going to start my own business. I am going to take the $200 leap and get a business license so I can do all of *this* above board and legitimately as possible. 
• Organization - Keith gave me a wonderfully awesome day planner for Christmas and I intend on using it daily. I also plan to have my desk cleared off and organized by the end of the week. I can't live lurching moment to moment anymore.
• Family - Because I plan on working from home, for the most part, I don't want to spend my family time - pretty much anytime that Keith's not working - playing catchup with housework or dealing the inconsequential stuff that I've been taking on. I know that there's no way for us to spend all of our family time doing family stuff, but I want to spend more of it together and not doing laundry or dishes or running errands.
• Creative/Skill Building - I want to learn how to make jewelry this year. And I plan on making a lot of Maddy's summer clothes. I would like to either take a photography class or even just learn by trial-and-error how to take better pictures. No point in going overboard, but those three are on the 'must do' list this year.

I think 2010 will be a good year for me. Now that I'm not guided by a job, I have to think for myself and choose my destiny (ooooh, look at me wax philosophical...), and by doing so, maybe I'll learn a bit more about myself. This year was the year of some pretty massive changes, so why can't 2010 be the year where I apply what I learned from those changes?

The only thing holding me back from my plans is a lack of will. And a bit of disorganization. More the former than the latter, really... it's time to, as they say, put up or shut up. I think I'm ready for a bit of a fight this year.

Sticking my toe in the water

I've been spending a fair amount of 'free' time I have lately trying to find inspiration to get moving on my somewhat-potentially-misguided attempt at working for myself. I've been scouring various - 100+ plus at this point - design blogs, looking for something to make me go 'I can do that. In fact, I can do it better!' in hopes that I will, in fact, do something that is better.

I am not a fan of replication. I have no problem with variation, but trying to do something someone else has done without even trying to put your own style on it? That's not design; that's no better than plagiarism, and as a journalist in a former life, that's completely sacreligious. A big no-no. I like to be inspired to do something fresh and new, not something that looks like 15 other things out there.

And there will be an occasional case where something I come up with will be quite similar to someone else's product, but it is more than likely pure coincidence, and not an attempt to move in on their territory. I know what I like, and I know my skill level. There are a lot of things out there I have no hopes of replicating or want to. I don't like frou-frou stuff, but I do have a great admiration for a lot of pre-WWII art and will take full advantage of being influenced by it.

As for the blogs I've been scouring, I've bookmarked a lot of them here. One day, I'll try to get around to including them on my blog as a permanent, always-evolving list, but for now, this is the easiest method. And because I'm not only a graphic designer but a crafter, too, there are a small, but growing, number of non-GD blogs I've got on that list. I want to try my hand at jewelry design sometime in the next year and would like to start sewing more, but as with everything else in my life right now, time is not on my side. But with a little organization and help from Keith and my mom (and anyone else who's willing), I should be able to set aside some time to actually work on my products. *fingers crossed*

Needle in a haystack

Now that Christmas is over and we've been stuffed and spoiled (Maddy infinitely more than either Keith or I, of course), it's time for me to actually do something about this whole freelance/crafter/designer thing I've been humming and hawing about for months now.

Problem #1: My desk.

 This is my desk as of 10 minutes ago. Abysmal, isn't it? The sad part is I used to be perfectly okay with working like this. Not anymore, if only because I can't find my notebook. Cleaning my desk requires a decent chunk of time, what with the filing and sorting and general need to not lose this month's bills.

Organization is definitely not my forté, but I'm also not the only one who uses my desk. (I say 'my' because I brought it into the relationship and have had it for close to 27 years.) However, because I use it the most, it becomes easy to take on the organization/cleanliness of when it has to be done. And right now, it has to be done. Boo.

Maybe I should be doing that rather than this...

Here goes...

My attempt at getting some freelance work. This is actually a business card prototype - likely the winner in final bracket of 7 - that I'm planning on handing out and pinning up on bulletin boards around town. I like it, I think people will like it and it's hopefully what will get me some work and help pay the bills.

In case you're interested, I work (and have for 13, almost 14, years) in print. I have a wee bit of web experience, but it's nothing to write home about. Compiling a portfolio to put online is on my list of things I need to do, but haven't yet. I'm the first to admit that my skills aren't the greatest, but they've improved vastly over the last 6 or 7 years and I'm always willing to learn and figure out new techniques. I'm quick and try to be original, but take a lot of influence from eras gone by, especially pre-WWII.

So, that's it. My first step into the wonderful world of freelance. My name is out there. Or, rather, my prototype business card is out there. Kind of exciting, yet nauseating all at the same time.

Now what?

Now that I'm officially done working at the paper, I'm feeling slightly rudderless. This is the first time I've been willingly unemployed. No job to move on to in the near future, no prospects (outside of random minimum wage jobs that any carbon-based life form could get), nothing. Well, not nothing, but nothing.

There's a timeline I'm trying to stick to to get things on the move. I want to have a whole pile of stuff done by Christmas, but now that I've finally given in and accepted that Christmas is in fact on Friday and not Saturday next week, I don't know if I'll have enough time. Add into the mix the Christmas dinner we're hosting (and cooking) and shopping and family/friend obliagtions... eep.

I'm seriously thinking about making time management/life organization my number on resolution this year. I have an idea of what I need to get done most days, but accomplishing even half of that list is becoming more and more impossible. And it's not like I've taken on a lot of extra work or anything - it's just simple mismanagement of my time. Maddy does not need me right beside her when she's playing anymore; she can play with her toys quite well by herself and I can still see here and talk to her from the kitchen while I do dishes/bake/cook. There is no harm in starting to integrate a little independence into her life at this age. But my time with her is just the tipping point of my time management issues.

I've thought about using an organizer and scheduling my life hour-by-hour, but that just seems like it would suck. And be depressing. No spontaneity, no freedom, no relaxation. But an organizer/day planner is going to have to make it's way into my life as a permanent fixture in the new year, I fear. I used to have a good memory and not need to write everything down; apparently having a child robs you of that ability. Sigh.

But it's nice to be done work. And not be stressed about it anymore. My two weeks weren't as bad as I feared and it was nice to see a lot of people I hadn't seen since I went on leave 15 months ago. I don't see myself ever working out there again, but I will visit. For the most part, there's a lot of good people in my company, but they tend to operate only according to predetermined policies and procedures, which, in turn, makes one want to stab themselves in the eye several times with a red-hot poker when dealing with them.

Onwards and upwards, I guess.

Precipice

With less than 2 days of work to go (Friday is our company Christmas party and an early release from work afternoon), I've managed to keep fairly 'busy' doing 'things' at my not-as-ugly-as-I-remember job. I didn't have much to do with the last issue of the year last week during production and have spent the majority of my 8 days archiving and tidying.

The excitement. It never ends.

This is why tomorrow, I plan on spending my day doing as little actual constructive work as possible. I have one thing that has to be done - a wrap-up/to-do list for my replacement. If all goes according to plan, she'll be the one who's been doing my job for the last few months. And because my company is completely inept when it comes to being proactive about training and management, she's missing big chunks of how the office is actually supposed to run. It doesn't help that the previous manager is/was a moron and that the new one wants as little to do with the non-newspaper side of the office as possible. He (the new boss, who just strikes me as off in a way I can't quite put my finger on) has yet to realize that he's the one who is responsible for everything that goes on in the office and that he is the face of the office. He is expected to attend certain events; he is expected to do things that he is asked to; he has responsibilities that his staff can not, nor should not, do. And then there's his abject opposition to the weather...

Tomorrow is my last real day of work at the paper. I don't know if I'll ever work at another paper, but if I do, it won't be for a while. A long while. I think this job has done what every other newspaper job has threatened to do: change my approach to my career. I like designing. I like editing. I hate writing. I want to design and edit for a living. There are no jobs for designing editors around here, so I have to make one for myself.

My plan tomorrow is to have a cup of coffee (or several) and go through 50 of the world's best design blogs (found via Etsy's Twitter feed). I'm not sure if I'll find inspiration or discouragement by gorging myself on other people's designs, but I think it's a nice way to spend a day, trapped in a sunless office with a boss who barely speaks.

I'm still working on what I'm going to do after Friday. I have a list that I'm working on of what I can do, what I want to do, and what I have to do. I've been tossing around the idea of setting a deadline for myself - if I don't make $X by X day, I have to find a job - but I worry that doing something like that is only going to force me to either produce shit or give up and just get a damn job. I don't want a damn job, I want to work for myself. Problem is, what the hell am I going to do to keep from having to get that damn job?

Soul stealing

The Big Picture

Now I know what I'm doing with my afternoon.

Brr. Brrrrrr. BRRRRRRRR.

A couple of nifty finds for this very frosty (-17C, -27C with the wind) Friday:

Historical Anatomies on the Web An extensive collection of scans from anatomical atlases from the 15th to 20th centuries. I've been on the hunt for unique and interesting scans from old books and texts lately to use for my 'products' and came across this site late one night. I don't know what I like more about the artwork - the looks on the models faces as they pull up their skin to show the reader what is where, or the reliance on proportions in the earlier books. I haven't gone through them all yet, but I'm imagining there's some real treasures hidden in the scans.

LAC/BAC Photostream The Library and Archieves of Canada has a wonderful collection of photos and artwork available for everyone to look at online. I know this isn't all the items they have, but from what I've gathered just skimming through, the majority of what they have available on this photostream are from pre-1920. There's a lot of WWI items and a fair amount of 'how this country was built'-type of photos. Things that history (and old photo) nuts like me love.

---

I spent the last couple of days polishing up my resume to apply for a job I've had before. I worked at the 'other' weekly here a few years ago and loved it. I made some good friends and learned a lot; it was a no-brainer that I was going to apply when I saw the job posting in the paper the other day. Now, I'm not sure what to do if I get the job.

I still want to work for myself, but I know that if I were to get this job, I would be happy. I don't know what kind of hours they are looking at, but if it works with my ideal schedule, then great. I had been planning to work for a bit at my soon-to-be-former job anyway, so if I can make it work, I will. But I don't want to keep delaying this other thing I want to work on. Can I find time to do both? Sure, if I can convince Maddy that just because I'm on the other side of her gate does not mean I can't talk to her. I love her, but sometimes, the needy-clingy thing gets a little old. I'm trying to work with her on playing by herself and it seems to be working, sometimes. Othertimes, I'm surprised she doesn't just start throwing toys at me.

I don't want to start thinking I've got this job sewn up. There are a few other designers here in town that I know are looking for work and if one of them gets chosen ahead of me, fine. But I don't think I could have lived with myself if I hadn't at least tried to get it. In the meantime, I start back at work on Monday for my last 2 weeks and then it's Christmas and all that fun stuff, so I'll be busy enough to keep my mind occupied. Or, at least, I hope so.

Awe.Some.

I go back to my job next Monday, working 2 weeks at full-time hours in order to avoid repaying my employer the few thousand dollars they used to 'top up' my EI payments for 17 weeks. I am also starting the last 2 weeks at said job next Monday.

Because I work for a procedure and policy crazy company, I am not allowed to either be demoted or cut my hours for my position. So I quit. Not officially yet, though... I'm making them wait until Monday when I can access my work email to send the official word. This also delays their search for my replacement by a week, missing out on the ever-popular weekend help wanted ads. But I know, and they likely know, too, that the person who will get my job is doing my job right now as my 'replacement'.

Maybe this happened for a reason. I certainly was not looking forward to going back to work. Especially at this job. I've lost a lot of admiration for my job over the last 18-20 months. I like being a designer and editor, but not under severe restrictions and rules. So maybe this decision by my boss and his boss (and likely with heavy handed input from HR) is going to make my hopes to be self-employed move a little faster. I haven't really done anything beyond work on some designs and collect some graphics for the last few weeks, but now, with no job after the 18th, which also means no income, maybe getting back to work on actually legitimately starting this 'business' is something I should be doing.

Or maybe I should just go and find a part-time job for a bit to help with bills while I work on my plans. I don't want to assume that I'm going to find a job immediately - it is the Christmas season, but I finish at my job a week before Christmas, so it's pretty unlikely I'd start anywhere for a while - but I need to have a plan. Or several.

I have no idea what the future holds, but I don't plan on just throwing in the towel and taking whatever job I can. I need to keep my family in mind when looking and I'd like to actually like my job for a change, and if I can find something that's a little different from what I tend to end up doing (cooking, newspapers), even better. A little change of pace probably wouldn't hurt.

In a perfect world, I wouldn't go back to work at all and happily do my 'specialized stationery', as I've started referring to my projects as, staying at home, raising my daughter. Money wouldn't be an issue and it would be all sunshine and rainbows all the time. In reality, we have bills to pay, a house to maintain and a daughter to raise. I have a feeling that I'm going to lose this battle and end up working full-time anyway, putting my dreams on hold, yet again, potentially forever this time.

Garg.

As I head back to work in a couple of weeks (full-time for 2 weeks, part-time {27 hrs/week} after that), I've come across more than one debate on stay-at-home-moms versus working moms.

I plan on being a work-from-home-mom within the year. In the meantime, I will work part-time at my newspaper job while working on building my from-home business up to a point where I can still have a decent (ie. one that allows the bills to be paid) income. My boyfriend will be our daughter's main caregiver while I'm at work, supported by our respective mothers.

I do not, for one second, think I am lazy or inconsiderate of my daughter's future because I don't want to put her into daycare. The decision to not put her into care was an easy one - I never went as a child and turned out fine. Most kids I knew growing up didn't go into care. In fact, I don't think there was a daycare in my hometown until I was well into elementary school. Yes, we did attend nursery school and some of us were sent to relatives' homes to be babysat, but never an 8-hour child care situation where there are 8 kids for every adult.

I plan on putting Maddy into a few activities as she grows up. We want to get her started on swimming lessons soon; I have a few friends with kids around Maddy's age; we have nephews who, while 4-8 years older than Maddy - really like playing with her. I certainly do not plan on locking myself in the house with Maddy while I work from home. I'm not sure if that's the scenario a lot of working moms think of when they hear someone is going to be a SAHM, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Yes, there are days when we don't leave the house. But - and I can't stress this enough - it's not like I'm lying on the couch, eating chocolates while Maddy stumbles around the living room in a dirty diaper with a knife in her hand looking for an open electrical outlet. I have much, much fuller days now that Maddy is in my life. Today alone, I baked 7 loaves of bread, did dishes, portioned out the pears I made for Maddy's breakfast, made some apple-cinnamon pancakes for Maddy, and baked a ham. It is 3:30pm CST right now; I've been up since 6:30am. More often than not, the baking/cooking/cleaning is a typical day; and that does not include feeding, changing, and playing with Maddy, which is a fair amount of time.

I like to be active, and now that Maddy is more independent, I don't worry quite as much about her throwing a fit if I leave the room for a few minutes. I do most of my baking while she's asleep - I don't want to either burn her by accident or end up ruining whatever I'm baking. If I do leave her in the living room - we have this gate which has been a lifesaver - she can see me unless he goes on the other side of the room. And yes, I have been known to use the TV as a temporary sitter while I'm out of the room. I'm not happy about it, but here's how I do it (before I get labeled a bad parent) - Maddy enjoys Sesame Street a lot. Like A LOT. After her breakfast, she gets her face washed, teeth brushed, changed, dressed and I put her in the living room (where all of her toys are), check to see that there's nothing she can hurt herself with within her reach and go back over the gate to the kitchen where I spend 5 minutes doing dishes or tidying up. The entire time I'm in the kitchen, I talk to her - I can hear the TV and will ask her if a favourite character is on or comment on what might be going on. Once I'm done whatever I'm doing, back over the gate, throw a few pillows down on the floor so I can be on her level and play with her until her naptime.

Those 5 minutes I'm not in the room with her? Not the end of the world. At least in my mind. Leaving my daughter with people I don't know from Adam for 8+ hours a day? Big problem.

I may have mentioned it before, but in order for us to send our daughter to day care, I would have to work 2 full-time jobs. One to pay for life, one to pay for the care. So I'd likely be out of the house for at least 10 hours a day (some, probably closer to 15 or 16). What the hell was the point in having her if I was going to work myself to death if I was only going to foist her off on someone else to raise? I did say that we are going to have support from our mothers while I go back to work, but neither of them live here - my mom is 45 minutes away, Keith's is 3 hours away. We can't expect them to quit their jobs and come sit for us whenever we want them to. It's just the way it is.

What's been frosting my ass lately is the working parents/people in general who think that SAHMs or even WFHMs are lazy and are leeches on society. I can guarantee that the vast majority - at least based on my circle of friends - are not leeches. Nor are they lazy. Yes, we do get support from the government, but my $320 a month goes strictly to Maddy. Most parents I know do the same - the child benefits go to the child, no one else. There are a few ne'er-do-wells who have ruined the concept of staying home to raise your children to make them better people for the rest of us (ie. those parents who have kid after kid after kid and don't work as a personal choice). I am quite tired of explaining to people why I want to stay home and raise our daughter over working like a madwoman in order for her to be taught life's lessons by a virtual stranger.

I am well aware that I may end up working outside of home for longer than the next year. I am not going to put my family at risk of losing their home just to fulfill a dream I have. I have no problem (now, at least) of pushing things back a few months or even another year if it means we stay out of the poorhouse. I'm not that naive, but I would like it if people would stop looking down their damn noses at me when I say I want to stay home rather than working in an office while my daughter is growing up. Just because other people couldn't do it - or wouldn't do it - should have no bearing on me and my situation, but in this day and age of lightning-fast commentary, everyone has an opinion and thinks that it's the only right one.

Sunday morning

First off, two (re)finds of the day:

1000 Awesome Things - I haven't had a chance to go through the entire site, but just based on the first page, I can definitely say it's awesome. Came across the link at PostSecret.

FOUND Magazine - I remember spending an entire afternoon at one of my design jobs going through this site, reading other people's shopping lists and love notes and just random bits of paper. I often wonder what other people think of notes that I've dropped while shopping or walking, and if one of them will end up on this site one day.

It's an untypical Sunday around our house. Keith is off to the big city for the celebration of a family friend who is dying of cancer so Maddy and I will hang out with my mom for the afternoon. In reality, my mom will play with Maddy - or chase her, as she's started to walk lately - while I clean the house in anticipation of Keith's parents' visit this week.

Typically, Sundays are relaxing days. I try to keep the TV off for as long as I can when Maddy's up so she can play with her toys (or me) instead of getting distracted by the picture box. Today, with my mom here, the TV will likely be on more than I want, but it happens and I'm not going to get upset by it.

Another reason I've been trying the more music-less TV scheme is Maddy's attrocious sleep patterns. She sleeps fairly well during the day, 2 naps, usually 1.5-2 hours each. It's the overnight sleep that's the issue... well, still the issue, even after 10 months. There's so many back issues with her sleep that I just don't want to go into, but we've been working with her for a few months now to get her to sleep through the night. I have had success twice - only 2 times in 3 months has she slept straight from the time we put her down at 9pm and stayed asleep until 6am.

Her usual sleep pattern through the night is bed at 9pm, awake at 12 or 1 and up, fussing, crying or attempting to play until 2 or 3 and then co-sleeping with me until 6am. I'm done with co-sleeping; it's gotten to where she sleeps and I don't. I go back to work in 3 weeks. Co-sleeping has to end and it has to be now.

We tried the cry it out method to little success. I mean, it has worked in some ways - she went from sleeping in 45 minute stretches to 3 or so hours and being able to fall asleep in her crib rather than us holding her, but otherwise it was a pretty big failure. I don't take blame for it, nor do I blame Maddy, but I do place a fair share of blame on the public health nurses we had when she was born. (For more of a background on this, see this post.) With me going back to work so soon, I've become so frustrated with her and her inability to sleep at night that I've passed the job of 'fixing' her sleep off to Keith. I don't recommend this method to everyone, but in our case, and only our case, in my opinion, his method worked - he let her cry. For an hour. He was 10 feet away, in a different room, but he let her settle herself and she slept. I had a hard time waking her up this morning, in fact. But she slept. And that's the main thing.

Do I think we've messed her up by doing this? Hell no. I think she'd have much bigger problems if we let her sleep issues continue (and I'd have problems, too, with the sleep deprivation I've had for 10 months and going back to work and driving back and forth to work, but this is about Maddy), and we had discussed what we would do at length. I love her to pieces and would not hurt her on purpose. I think she feels the same way about her dad and I, too - she's still the same kid she was yesterday, with the exception of the walking. I don't think there will be any long-term ramifications from letting her cry herself to sleep. I refuse to be a helicopter parent and want her to be as independent as possible at this age. I will be there when she needs me, but she needs to start being her own little person, too.

At freaking last

I've got the printer. I've got the graphics (some of them, anyway). I have what may pass as a plan.

And apparently I have a dozen or so designs done. This, the design on the left, is one of those dozen. It's not bad, I think. I spent the better part of what free time I've had the last few days working on the designs. They certainly aren't my best work, but considering I haven't done any design in over a year, they're not bad.

There's a strong pre-WWII theme that seems to be influencing what I'm doing. And I have no problem with that. I don't intend to stay in only one era with my designs, but I do like the sleekness of Art Deco/Nouveau, while admiring the complexity of the artwork that came out of Medieval Europe. I'm not a fan of 'newer' design - in fact, I would have to say that almost everything post-1980 seems really contrived to me. Perhaps it's because that's what I've been exposed to most being a member of the illustrious Generation X, but I really do find it boring. And overdone.

So a few designs under my belt and I've got tons more floating around in my head. I'm still fiddling with the printer situation - my inkjet isn't printing in black and white the way I want, while the laserjet is printing beautifully in black and white and does not do colour. And it was probably a good descision on my part to buy the cheaper cardstock rather than the $15-for-25-sheets pack. I've got a nifty stack of 'wasted' cardstock (don't worry, they will be recycled) sitting here, proving that I am a designer and everyone who thinks that I would be better off stuffing envelopes for a living can piss off.

(The design is one of a series of bookplates that I'm working on. I'm not sure I'm happy with the end results and may not offer them up for sale, but if you're interested in them, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do.)

Smooth

I go through phases where I just turn against my usual musical tastes. Apparently, there isn't a single thing I want to listen to in my 32GB+ library. When that happens - the sudden hatred - I tend to turn to the list of radio streams on iTunes. More often than not in the past, I've fallen back on my favourite indie station - CBC3. A great selection of independent Canadian bands, many of which I've become a fan of over the years.

This past week, I've apparently completely turned against 'my music' - indie/alternative, 90s Canadian rock bands, Beatles, stuff like that. So radically that I have become addicted to the Sentimental Journey stream from 1clubfm.com. I don't know if it's because I've been searching out more and more pre-WWII images to work with for my stationery, or it just complete boredom with the music I've been listening to for almost 20 years, but I love this station. I love the music. LOVE IT.

I've tried to always have music on when we're playing with our daughter. At first, I tried having more kid-friendly music, but she's never really gotten into it, outside of a small handful of old Disney songs. And for the last few months, we've been listening to the music I've got on my computer. She got bored with that around the same time I did. This new choice in music - songs from the 40s-60s, old crooners and big band stuff - she loves. LOVES.

And because I've never heard most of these songs or, if I have, they were snippets in movies or something, I'm not finding myself bored with it. Which is nice, considering how many times in a row I was hitting the 'next song' button with my music. And this music - the instrumentals, the old classics sung by the original singers - is incredibly relaxing. Maybe it'll help me actually get some work done.

Running out of excuses

The Art Institute of Vancouver has a Right Brain vs Left Brain Creativity Test. I've been doing a lot of self-debating lately over my future prospects with the designing/crafting stuff I'm looking at getting into and thought the test could be a good gauge for me to see if I do have what it takes.

Just a bit of background - I was never pegged to be a creative person in high school. With all the aptitude tests we took, my results always came back with more labour-intensive jobs than anything. I never flexed my creative muscles in high school - I didn't start doing anything creative, outside of typical childhood crafts, until I was in my third year of university and joined the student newspaper. And, as they say, the rest is history.

My results:

Thank you for taking the Creativity Test. The results show your brain dominance as being:

Left Brain	Right Brain
44%	56%

You are more right-brained than left-brained. The right side of your brain controls the left side of your body. In addition to being known as right-brained, you are also known as a creative thinker who uses feeling and intuition to gather information. You retain this information through the use of images and patterns. You are able to visualize the "whole" picture first, and then work backwards to put the pieces together to create the "whole" picture. Your thought process can appear quite illogical and meandering. The problem-solving techniques that you use involve free association, which is often very innovative and creative. The routes taken to arrive at your conclusions are completely opposite to what a left-brained person would be accustomed. You probably find it easy to express yourself using art, dance, or music. Some occupations usually held by a right-brained person are forest ranger, athlete, beautician, actor/actress, craftsman, and artist.

Dead on. And scarily so. Except for most of those occupations - definitely not cut out to be a forest ranger, athlete, beautician or actor/actress.

So maybe it's not so far-fetched that I could be successful at this design thing as I thought. Guess now that I have the printer, and these results, I have no excuses not to take the big leap and let people see my work and maybe, just maybe, buy it.

Or not.

Who knows.

Pessimism, thy name is me.

Making something that appears to be progress

After humming and hawing for weeks, if not months, about what I'm going to bring in the income I need to help keep a roof over our heads, I think I've finally nailed down what I can (and can't do).

Stationery. I've mentioned that before, but this time, it's definite. There's even a printer on the way to make this happen. I wanted to be able to do some Christmas gift tags to sell in my soon-to-exist Etsy store, but there's no time this year. By the time I got the printer, did some test runs, set up the store, and started promoting my stuff, it'd be December 1. Pretty unlikely that people would be getting their purchases in good time for putting on Christmas gifts. So I'm putting the 20 or so tags that I've already done on the backburner until next year.

For the time being - probably until the end of December - I'm going to work on bookplates, notecards, stickers and some photos (some, definitely not all). In the new year, I want to start spreading the word locally that I can - and do - design wedding packages (but not arrange for printing. My main selling point is I'm not choice #3 at the local mega print shop. You want a grinning tiger on the invites? I can sure as hell try to find one.) for a decent price. Will I be successful? Maybe, maybe not, but I won't know until I try.

I also plan on making baby slippers/houseshoes. I wanted to get my daughter a pair of slippers for the winter to wear around the house and could not find a pair for less than $35 or, if they were decently priced, in her size. So I found a pattern, was given some material by my mom and made a pair. And then another and another and another. The final pair are the test pair for my design - a modified version of the first pair I made. Again, will it be successful? Who knows?

Baking. People love the fudge I make. It's a 'lite' version of traditional fudge. Really, it's more like chocolate brittle, but people love it. Every time I make a batch and drop it off at the restaurant I used to work at, I get told it's a guaranteed gold mine if I ever decided to sell it. I haven't really tried to, but it's one of those things that I'm convinced people will hate and decide that they can do it better... typical undermining of myself and abilities.

There's other stuff I want to do, too, like get into jewelry making and other sewing projects, like aprons and shopping bags. It's weird, this sudden drive I have to do crafts and handiwork. Until I had my daughter, I never really considered myself a 'handy' person, more of a technical/mental person, really. But I've proven to myself, nevermind other people, that I can do it and do it well. That surprises me the most.

The underlying fear that I've mentioned before when it comes to what other people think is starting to subside (or it's burying itself deeper, not sure which). I think it's time to take the plunge and not worry about everyone else and just concern myself with me and my family. If I enjoy what I do and can still make ends meet, then all is good. Hopefully. Maybe.

"Busy"

It's been a hectic month - a fast-developing 9/10 month old, health issues, family visits, general lethargy with the inevitable winter... but I'm actually making progress on the 'make money' scheme.

I narrowed down what I want to do to make said cash to doing what I do 'best' - design. I'm going to (and actually am in the process of) designing gift tags, book nameplates, notecards and placecards for sale on Etsy once I get a store set up. I'm also looking at selling prints of some of my photos and eventually branching out into calendars and 'party kits' for kids.

And if I get going a good clip (and make some decent cash), I'm going to try expanding to also produce shoes/slippers for babies/toddlers and if that goes well, start making jewelry for children.

How successful do I think I can be with all of this? Marginally. At least for the first year. I want to be a stay-at-home-mom for my daughter until she goes to school, but that does not mean I plan on eating bonbons all day while watching soaps. I like being busy, and if I have the skills, why not use them?

There's still a bit of fear behind all of this, but there always will be, I think. This - the whole 'half-assed self-employed' thing - is a very different direction than I thought I would be going in. I had been looking into doing something along these lines a few years ago, but gave up due to boredom. Now that my life is completely different, thanks to a little monkey, why not keep heading down this different path and see what happens?

I still plan on having to work part-time for the first year. There is no doubt about that. Bills have to be paid, food has to be bought, etc. I don't want to be working for anyone but myself within the next 18 months though. I don't have a business plan or a set-in-stone time line or anything like that yet, but once I start doing the heavy planning work, I plan on contacting this man to find out what he recommends I do (and hope that he responds).

So, hopefully within the next couple of weeks, I'll have an Etsy store full of products just waiting to be purchased. Or collecting dust. Either way, it's nice to be finally on the move.

Clichés abound!

Now that fall's been eliminated from our calendars, winter's starting to set in and it's definitely not welcome. Take a very early season change, add in the craziness over H1N1, mix in a general feeling of 'blah' with everything else, and you've got the makings for one hell of a depressing 6 months.

But there are tiny, minuscule glimpses of potentially good things in the near future. Now that I've settled on what I want to do - various forms of non-traditional/standard stationery - I can start moving forward and doing research. I'm still debating the whole 'Do I become a small business now or wait?' question; there's the matter of all the upfront costs of not only becoming a small business in my province, but the money I'll need to actually get supplies to get started. Good thing I've got all this time on my hands to do the grunt work on all of this.

I did have a plan similar to the one I'm about to enter into a couple of years ago, before I got pregnant with my daughter. I know the very basics of what I need to do (incorporate or not? do a name search or not? come up with a business plan or not?), so I shouldn't have to go through all of that again. The only question is when - do I start going full steam ahead on all of this now, or do I start putting out feelers, see what products actually sell and then get the ball rolling on setting up a business?

Thinking about all the work I have ahead of me just to be able to sell little bits of paper makes my head hurt. A lot.

But I want to do it. It gives me the freedom I've been looking for in a job for years now; it also allows me to raise our daughter. Is there a local market for what I want to do? Yeah, no. Is there a more broad - perhaps, online - market? From what I've seen, yes. Can I tap into that? Yes, if I get my act together and take the plunge rather than harping on about wanting to do it for a change.

For the time being, I'm going to look into selling my photos. I'm hopefully going to get printing quotes this week from local printers and then I can go ahead and start hawking them online. It's not what I was originally planning on doing, but if I was going to do what I had originally planned on, I would be up to my eyeballs in papiér mache and craft paint. I think I'll be much happier in the direction I've settled on.

Fall? What fall?

Summer's over.

Officially.

Crap. We didn't even get a fall this year. Straight from gross heat 10 days ago to snow. Fantastic.

It's also officially 2 months until I go back to work. I'm reconsidering my pledge to not go back for more than the required 2 weeks. My boss quit (today was her last day) and her departure is making me think really long and hard about leaving for good. I may just try to make a deal with my new editor to work part-time when I go back. The money's almost worth it, but there's still a lot of other things to take into consideration, too.

I've started doing a bit of designing every day this week. With my return to work coming up and Christmas and winter, not to mention Maddy's ever-increasing development and the start of her realizing her independence, I'm finding myself wondering what I'm going to do to keep the cabin fever at bay. I think I've narrowed what I want to do to bring in some extra money (besides work) down to either a small stationery 'business' (I don't want to use that word necessarily, but it's the only one I can come up with right now) or an attempt to make little bits of jewelry and other small handicrafts. I'm probably going to set up an Etsy store to get my potential work out to the masses, but at this point, I'm still figuring things out. But I am much farther along than I was a week ago. Even pulled out the smelly laptop to do some work this week. Made me realize how craptacularly slow it really is, but handy nonetheless.

Fingers crossed I can keep up the small amount of momentum that I've got going for me.

---

I used a technique on the lily photo I found on Dooce.com. I love the look of Heather's photos and am always looking for new ways to make my pictures look just a little different than the original.

Also, should anyone pop by and deride me for supporting Dooce, stuff it. I like what Heather writes, but don't always agree with her. She seems like the type of person I'd probably be friends with if she lived on the edge of the Canadian prairies. In fact, I think I have a friend just like her and her personality (and sheer outrageousness) is what makes her (my friend) bloody awesome. So take your little junior high bitchfest somewhere else. I'm beyond caring what you have to say :)

Stumbling links

I'm a big fan of using StumbleUpon when I'm bored and feel like I've reached the end of the internet, something that happens on an almost-daily basis.

I've found some amazing sites by stumbling - FOUND Magazine, Gawker, The Pioneer Woman, and a re-make of the Star Wars opening credits. Of my 1100+ bookmarks on del.icio.us, most were found by stumbling.

Today's finds - craftgawker and COLORlovers were my prime finds. I have only spent a few minutes at each site, but I'm sure that when I find more than 10 minutes where I'm not trying to play catch-up with everything else on my to-do list, I'll end up lost in one of those site's depths.

craftgawker is already making me think about what I can do to possibly make some extra cash. The designs and ideas that some people come up with are just astounding and incredibly intimidating for someone like me, someone who hasn't really accepted the fact that I have, in fact, been a crafter for years and it may just be time that I take advantage of this 'talent' and make some money off of it. (And with craftgawker comes foodgawker, another site that will likely become a favourite fairly quickly.)

COLORlovers... god. What a beautiful site. Colors intrigue me - I'm fascinated at how some colors can work together so well and accomplish so much for a designer. I've used kuler as my go-to for color ideas for the last couple of years, but I think I've found a new favourite. (It's been really, really hard to write anything about this site without spelling it COLOUR. Damn Canadian spelling rules.)

So there's how I spent a chunk of my Sunday, when I wasn't occupied with my 9-month old (how the hell did that happen?) or baking bread or doing laundry. See, I can procrastinate and accomplish a lot all at the same time. Perhaps I deserve a slice of chocolate chip banana loaf for that achievement today :)

Running behind bandwagons

I'm notorious for not following trends - fashion, literature, entertainment, technology - so it should come as no surprise that I've just discovered the wonder that is Google Books.

I knew it existed, but never visited. It was on one of my many to-do lists that I've misplaced over time. I came across a link to every issue of LIFE Magazine ever printed. I'm a sucker for black and white photography and old advertisements, especially ones from pre-1965.

Think I might have to peruse some issues this afternoon during someone's nap :)

Skimming stones

I'm looking for clear glass stones - like these - but ones that I can (a) find in/ship to Canada and (b) are a resonable price. We have one craft store in our city and they don't carry them, or at least they don't carry the ones that don't have foil backs or glitter.

Any suggestions? Drop me a line in the comments. Danke :)

Crap shoot

As part of my 'how do I make enough money to keep us out of the poor house' research, I've come up with some pretty out there ideas to, well, make money once I quit my job in December. I will be working part-time somewhere to help - and to get out of the house and see adults for a few hours here and there - so it's not like I'm putting all of my perverbial financial eggs in one basket or anything.

I feel like I have to explain that - the part-time job - to everyone when they ask what I'm doing come the end of my materinty leave. In reality, it's none of their damn business, but I can see why some of my friends are concerned. For the last 8 or 9 years, I've always had at least 2 jobs at a time. I seemed to thrive on working all the time. I never made much above minimum wage, but I liked being busy.

Anyway, so my ideas to bring in the dough. I'm a creative person, but not in a drawing/painting way. I can draw stick people and even then, they're pretty pathetic. I can, however, build things and sew and cross-stitch and do crafts, for lack of a better term. So I'll probably try to focus on things like that to bring in some extra cash.

I've also discovered, or re-discovered, that I'm a half-decent photographer. True, evidence of this on this particular blog may not support that statement, but I have an affinity for nature, especially fauna, photography. Such as this:

This particular shot was taken earlier this week, around noon, in my backyard. We have a few birdfeeders for the vast variety of birds we have throughout the year, including a sunflower seed feeder. We didn't notice until a couple of weeks ago that there were some strange flowers popping up on the lawn and the patio. I thought they were weeds or something that may have blown into the yard, but no. They were sunflowers. It's too bad it was so late in the season by the time they started sprouting or we may have had a semi-decent sunflower seed harvest for the feeders over the winter.

To get the shot, I held my Nikon Coolpix P80 under the flower and shot at roughly a 120º angle. I should mention, too, that the flower was only 4 or 5 inches tall, too. I used the Close-up setting, the one setting I've found to be the best for this type of photography. For my next major camera, I'd love to have one with a manual lens, but that's a long way off; right now, this is the perfect camera for me and what I use it for (mainly the close to 10,000 photos of my daughter... thank god for digital).

I've got lots of photos along the same lines. I was on a kick this summer of shooting up from under plants, trying to catch the sunlight through petals and leaves to get interesting illuminations. Some worked, some did not. Trial and error and all that, I guess. I've always loved taking pictures, something I inherited from my dad, but this is probably the first time in years that I've actually thought about what I'm taking pictures of.

And now that I've got a decent collection of random shots of fauna from this summer, I'm going to make a calendar. I plan on making it the Christmas gift to most of my family and friends and maybe, just maybe, finding somewhere to perhaps sell it, should it turn out. I will never, ever profess to be the 'best' at anything, but I think this idea may be a profitable one. If I ever get around to it.

One of these days... I swear

I haven't actually designed anything for over a year now. And suddenly, with less than 3 months until I go back to work, I'm finding myself wanting to design. I've been coming up with ideas for different things - finger puppets, desktop wallpaper, pillows, jewelry boxes - but haven't really done anything about it.

Yes, procrastination rears it's ugly head... again.

But this it's more than procrastination. It's trepidation and a realistic lack of time. I'm mom to a very active 8.5-month old, and while I don't work, I have very little time to myself to do anything besides housework.

The trepidation comes from the knowledge - and I admit this freely to anyone who asks - that I have no formal training whatsoever in design. I was working towards a Bachelor's degree in History (with minors in Political Science and Geography) when I quit 7 years ago. Not exactly an education that screams 'creativity'. Heck, it was barely an education to begin with - I only stayed in university so I could keep working at the student newspaper where I learned to write properly (take that, grade 9 English!), take decent photos and the basics of graphic design.

So, yes, I have experience designing, but no formal education, which has been my downfall when it comes to getting a decent job. But I have experience, which counts for something.

As an aside, I tend to over-rationalize some things, like this whole design thing. I know I can do it, but will I let myself? And what list of excuses will I use this time to prevent myself from doing so?

But back to the point I'm attempting to make (and if you've stuck it out this far, yay!) - there's a craving to start designing again somewhere in my head. The only thing I can realistically see holding me up (outside of the usual suspects of procrastination and trepidation) is the logistically problem of actually designing something. I looooove working with vectors and I've tried using some of the free programs out there and nope, can't do it. My only other choice is to go back to my 2002-ish iBook and use Illustrator. That'd be the one for the first edition of CS. I don't have the money to splash out on CS4 right now (or perhaps ever) and I'm technologically inept when it comes to getting it the **other** way.

And there's the fact that my laptop smells, too. That stinks. Ha. Ha.

I have a design for a desktop wallpaper that's been bouncing around for a couple of days, working it's way into something that I could theoretically do, if I have the right tools. And it looks like I've got the right tools... I just need a push (and time) to actually do it.

A Stitch In Time

I had all these intentions on putting my daughter down to nap, grabbing breakfast and a coffee and sitting down to do something productive that doesn't involve housework or my daughter.

I guess spending a good chunk of time hunting down album covers for iTunes is productive, in a sense. I mean, it's not like I ever use the full-scale iTunes player - I always use the mini player or the FoxyTunes extension on my brower, so my desperate obsession with having all my albums have covers is a little redundant.

I'm still working on some 'projects', mostly for my daughter. There's only one that has gone from the stuck-in-my-head phase, an animal mobile that will eventually hang over her change table. Maddy's fascinated with animals of all shapes and sizes, especially jungle/zoo animals. That probably comes from the overabundance of quilts in her room with that particular theme, but it's much easier (and cheaper) to go along with that kind of theme than some of the other ones available.

I didn't want to buy a mobile for her because a) I can make one and b) I'm cheap. I'm pretty sure the total cost for this mobile, with it's dozen or so animals will cost me in the range of $12, most of that on felt. I went to this site and downloaded some of the pages to use as templates to make the animals. The biggest challenge for me, the inept crafter, was figuring out how to keep the template on the felt while I cut it. I solved that problem the only way I could - with staples. Looking back, pins would have been an acceptable solution, but I don't have pins for some odd reason.

I do, however, have skeins and skeins of embroidery floss, which I've discovered is infinitely easier to use than yarn when sewing these animals up. They're only 4 or 5 inches high, some less than an inch wide, so the thinner the thread, the better. I'm not an expert sewer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know how to do a simple whip stitch along the side to at least attach the two pieces of felt together, keeping the stuffing inside, and make it somewhat attractive, perhaps even useful.

So I've got a dozen or so random zoo/jungle animals- lion, tiger, elephant, gorilla, giraffe (Maddy's favourite animal EVER) - to go on this mobile. All cut out, ready to be sewn and stuffed. Because I'm a mom to an 8-month old who's started to move very, very quickly around the living room, I have no time to do the animals during the day. The two 1.5-2 hour blocks I have during the day are times I need to run errands, do housework, have breakfast, shower, etc. so I can feel somewhat normal and productive as a human being. I don't sit on the couch while Maddy plays in her gated area in the living room, or anything. Well, not always. If she's content playing with her toys by herself, I let her be. If she's constantly trying to climb into my lap, I try to grab a book to look at or find a show for her to watch (yes, I let her watch TV. She's going to be the worst. child. ever. because of it. Whatever.). We spend quality time together. And because of that, I can't work on her mobile - little bits of felt and thread and scissors and paper within her reach? Yeah, no.

So I've managed to finish a seal, dolphin, monkey, rhino, tiger and gorilla in just over a week. It's not quite the speed at which I'd hoped I would be going, but at least it's something. I'm still being dogged by procrastination and moderate fear over doing anything else, but maybe once this is done (I plan on attaching the finished animals to a circle-shaped metal coat hanger with yarn), I'll be well on the way to creating a lot more. I'm trying to imagine how I could not only make money doing this (that goes back to my whole 'I sure as hell don't plan on working 2 full-time jobs so I can put my daughter in day care' plan come December), but also how satisfying this would be for me to do as a half-assed job. I really, really, really don't want to be spending the rest of my working life bouncing from job to job, hoping that whatever one I land at is it and that I'll finally be happy. I don't want to go back to full-time, out-of-the-house work until my daughter is in school, and that's 5 years away. There's still a semi-plan to go to school next fall for culinary arts; that idea may be pushed right off the back burner if I can't figure out a way to go to school but not work at the same time (also falls in with the 2-jobs-to-pay-for-day-care' thing). I need to make a decision soon... I go back to work for 2 weeks in less than 3 months. I'm not going to be there beyond my required 2 weeks, but I still need to pay bills.

But back to the point. I'm making a kick-ass mobile for my daughter. I may even try making a felt book for her next (one that I'll attempt to write) so she doesn't chew the hell out of her other books before she gets to actually enjoy them. I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself in my creative plans, but if I don't have something sort of lined up for the next project, I know I'll just fall back into that procrastination/fear trap that seems to be just one step away.

Bitten

I don't know if it's the fact that I'm scheduled to go back to work in 3 months (almost to the day) or if I'm finding my life somewhat back to normal (thank you, Dr. Ferber), but there's been a niggling little voice in the back of my head for the last week or so, trying to encourage me to do some designing.

I have yet to actually do any.

For two reasons:

1. I don't have any decent design programs on my iMac. I've tried the free ones but I find them awkward and slightly clumsy. I do have an early, practically stone age version of Adobe CS on my iBook, but that requires me to actually use my iBook (I have one of the stinky ones). It's slow and old and in a small house with an 8-month old, hooking up yet another cord just isn't smart.
   
2. This part is two-fold, and has been mentioned before: I'm a procrastinator and I'm terrified of what other people will think of my work. The former is just a part of my personality that I haven't been able to solve in 33 years and likely never will; the latter is almost inconceivable as I've been producing work publicly for 13+ years now and never had a problem before. Now, though, because it's for a personal reason, worries about judgement and criticism (and not the constructive kind) are keeping me from sitting down and spending an hour even fooling around with what limited resources I have.

So, it sucks. I don't want to be the perverbial dowdy housewife who has no outside interests, or look back in 10 years and wonder why I didn't take a chance and do something with my half-assed creative skills. And if I complain about this one more time, I'll be that person, the one-note bitcher.

As tomorrow is my birthday (woo! 33! yay.), I'm going to take some initiative and set aside at least half an hour a day to work on some kind of designing, be it fiddling around with colour combos or figuring out how to use the new design programs I've got or even just checking out other design sites. I need to do something before my mind turns to mush and I end up smothering my child with overbearingness when she's 7.

Perhaps it's time to stop bitching and start doing

I'm still battling with time, for the most part, to get my act together and start doing something. There's a constantly growing list in my head of things I want to do in the next few months. In just over 3 months, I have to go back to work and my 'free' time will vanish. The plus to that (besides a better paycheque) is that I only have to go back for 2 weeks. After that, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I want to take the last couple of weeks of the year off, for both personal and career-related reasons (mainly, who the hell hires anyone at Christmas?); but come the new year, I'll probably have to find another job, hopefully one that lets me work part-time.

I wonder, sometimes, if I'm avoiding doing anything on purpose. I've always blamed 'fill-in-the-blank block' for preventing me from doing anything outside of what people may consider my normal habits. But really, who cares? If I'm doing something I enjoy, why should anyone else have the right to judge me? I guess in extreme cases (ie. criminal), my actions could be judged, but for the most part, it's my creative acts that I'm most worried about.

The kicker? I'm a graphic designer by trade. Also a semi-non-amateur (make sense?) writer. Yet, those are the two things I'm most worried about others passing judgment on.

Time to get over that hurdle. And fast.

---

Here's a sign of how much of a procrastinator I am. My iMac 'broke' a couple of weeks ago. I fixed it (thank god) and managed to salvage most of my files via backups. I have yet to create a single playlist in iTunes. Not even one for my daughter. Plain sad, if you ask me.

Pushing aside

I have a feeling, that like my last blog, I will write about procrastinating more than anything else.

So... would that really be procrastinating? Perhaps it's more of an aversion than procrastination. An aversion to what, I don't know, but it's there.

But that's beside the point.

I just spent 15 minutes cleaning up the inbox for an email account I haven't used full-time for 6 years. The last time I cleaned it up was probably in 2007. I had 4058 unread messages, most of them spam. Made me happy - yet again - that I moved over to Gmail when I did.

I wish I spent my time procrastinating more efficiently. Instead, I start reading gossip blogs and I'm sucked in for half an hour. I used to spend that half hour at places like NOTCOT or The Canadian Design Resource. Or, if I was in the mood for a bit of randomness, I'd click the 'Stumble' button on my toolbar for a while, looking for something - perhaps educational - to spend some time with.

I feel like I'm burning through brain cells like there's no tomorrow. I need to rectify this. Only question is, how?

Hrm... I guess this is where I should proclaim that I will avoid the cesspool of gossip blogs I visit every day and start moving back to the good side of the internet to keep my brain from turning to mush and leaking out my ears. But I'm a procrastinator - guess which choice will win.

Life

Things have been crazy lately - Keith gone for a week, Maddy growing so fast, my computer dying twice, doctor's appointments, yardwork... so, of course, I've put off a few things, like this blog.

Every time I think I should post something, 'life' happens. Right now, we're dealing with our daughter's sleep issues by using the Ferber method to help both her and us get a good night of sleep for the first time in almost 8 months. There's also the ongoing battle to organize the laundry room, our filing system and our finances. I'm still working on a plan to make some extra money this winter so I don't have to work full-time. And yet, life continues to roll on.

I have a pile of coupons that have to be clipped for our monthly shopping expedition next week, there's a pile of envelopes sitting beside my computer waiting to be opened (no bills, though, thankfully), and I know there's a million other things that I have to do to try to stay sane. Yet, I keep putting a lot of that stuff off, leaving me feeling very overwhelmed.

And no matter how many times I try to get organized, I fail. I don't know if it's a lack of knowledge about how to organize properly or if it's just laziness and cutting corners, but something has to be done so things aren't constantly being put aside, to do another day.

Perhaps today's the day I get organized. A girl can dream, can't she?

At the very worst, she'll hate bagpipes

Pretty much since we brought our daughter home, we've played music for her while she sleeps. Well, not music, per se... it's more like a playlist of nature sounds. Rain, waves, forests... that kind of thing. It was an attempt to try to soothe her while she slept with white noise that wasn't annoying.

She's got her own iPod, too. Really, it's my old 2GB iPod, but that's beside the point.

I've been noticing over the last week or so that the playlist I've got for her to sleep to just isn't cutting it anymore. Like most people, she's quite possibly bored of what she's been forced to listen to for the last 6 or so months every time she's been put to bed. So I've started a search, yet again, for nature sounds to create yet another playlist.

I haven't been playing music for her that much outside of bedtime, which I regret. I have tons of kids music available for her, but don't do anything with it. I wonder if it's because I'm not interested in hearing how the wheels on the bus went round and round over and over again. I do have a playlist (mainly pre-1970 Disney songs) on my current iPod for her to listen to in the car, but that's becoming rarer and rarer.

So I've decided to make her a real music playlist - no kids stuff. Songs I like (and her dad, too, because he's going to have to listen to this too). I think with her rapid development over the last few weeks (sitting, teeth x 2, crawling, standing{!!}, chattering) it's time to start treating her more like a real person than just a baby. I mean, we've never talked baby-talk to her, but I think she's way more aware now of everything around her than she's ever been before.

First song to go on the playlist? Jump Around by House of Pain. It's in a Telus commercial on almost every Canadian channel right now and Maddy LOVES it. I don't know if it's the pygmy goats are what attracts her or the song, but anytime she hears it (it's also in the Bridgestone Tires Super Bowl ad) she stops what she's doing and gets quite excited. So it's a start.

And really, she's got a mom (and grandfather) who are quite eclectic in their music selections. It wouldn't hurt to start introducing her to different musical choices. Her dad likes more classical music than I do, so I'll leave it up to him to introduce her to that. I see no problem at all in letting your kids listen to music - any music, not just Dora and Barney - from an early age. The least it will do is teach them a bit of rhythm an appreciation of music and the last time I checked, those weren't bad things.

Moderately overwhelmed

It's been a busy week with my sister visiting and a public health nurse appointment for our daughter and bloodwork for me and Keith going out of town. And now it's Saturday evening, Maddy's having her last nap of the day and I'm puttering about, trying to keep my slowly-eroding momentum going so I can stay up until 9pm or so.

I hate being this tired and exhausted. It seems like it will never end, that I'll never have energy again. I'm fed up with wanting to sleep - not nap - at 3pm every day. I don't remember the last time I slept for more than 3 hours at a time - it may have been a year ago. Long story, short - I'm on meds that aren't working and I don't know if they ever will.

But on a much (hopefully) happier note, I'm in the process of figuring out how I can legitimately stay at home with our daughter once I (hopefully) quit my job come December. Realistically, I will still probably work, but it will be part-time. There is no way, logistically, for me to work full-time - if I were to get a full-time job, I would have to get 2 because I'd have to pay for daycare. Keith's shifts are such that don't allow for one parent to be home taking care of Maddy while the other works. It just won't work. I did not have Maddy to let someone else raise her, at a cost to our family, both financially and personally.

But that whole can of worms is for another day.

I've mentioned previously that I was starting to get into crafts lately. Well, I'm seriously - like, dead - thinking of making this interest in crafts a sort-of, half-assed, maybe-kinda line of income. I know it's incredibly risky, but it's not like I've already quit my job and sunk what little savings I have into this idea. It's something that I'm going to work on, taking time and money into consideration, before I make an absolute final decision. Should I actually do this - this attempt to sell what I think people might want for knick-knacks - I want to do it right. And successfully.

So that's where I've been for a while. My mind's been full and would love a break from everything for a bit, but life just won't let me. May as well put it to good use, I guess.

Chroma

I've been thinking about colour a lot lately. There's a couple of craft-like projects I've been tossing around in my head for the last few days. It's all part of my desire to not go back to work in December - I'm determined to find something, anything, to do from home that will bring in enough funds to keep me from having to go to work, at least from going back full-time.

Anyhoo, colour. A couple of jobs ago, I would ravenously scour the internet for colour ideas for ads. I tried to avoid the typical red-yellow-blue-blah-blah-blah... I loved searching through the Pantone pallet to find just the right colour for an ad. I became a devotee of kuler, Adobe's web app for colour development. I also knew, however, that no matter how wonderful colours looked in an ad looked on screen, by the time they hit the newsprint, the colour ended up muddied or washed out. (Needless to say, I've never worked at a high-end newspaper.)

Now, I'm trying to figure out ways to get my hands on as many paint sample chips as I can without raising suspicion. I have plans for these chips and I want to make sure I have all the colours on hand once I get going on my next (first?) project. Perhaps I'll rope my sister into helping me gather the chips next week when she's visiting :)

To sleep, perchance to dream...

I know that all parents tend to gloss over the bad parts of child-rearing and like to over-embelish their children's accomplishments. I understand that; what gets me is when I'm trying to solve an issue with our daughter all I find is 'My child's perfect - what's wrong with yours/you?'.

I'm the first to admit that not attending pre-natal classes was perhaps a mistake. However, I was not going to attend a class where it was drilled into parents-to-be that if you did not follow their 'rules', you were a bad parent. I did a lot of research before our daughter was born, both virtual and personal. I read books and talked to moms about potential issues. I was rarely told negative stories, except when it came to delivery stories. For some reason, women seem to love playing the 'one-up' game with this aspect of pregnancy more than anything else.

Our daughter has major sleep issues. She can sleep during the day with virtually no problems. True, she does wake up on occasion, but we can usually get her back down fairly easily. At night, though, we seem to be losing the battle. I don't know what we did - it might be the darkness of her room or a hatred of the blankets we put on her. It's more likely that this sleep problem began when she was 3 days old.

Maddy was born with a not-quite-severe case of jaundice. It was something that was regularly monitored in the hospital, but it never got out of hand while we were in there. In fact, we were kept in an extra day because of it and the issues I was having with breastfeeding (I can't, physically). She also lost a fair bit of weight right off the bat, too - 5% is the norm, 10% is high risk; Maddy rose from 7% to 9% in just a couple of days after coming home from the hospital. I attribute this to the lack of food she was getting - I couldn't breastfeed, but was still trying, as well as supplementing her with formula (5 ml a feeling at that point).

The first Public Health nurse who visited our house the day after I got out of the hospital had a slightly-less-than-perfect bedside manner. I felt like I was being criticized over everything, especially about the breasfeeding. I was on Domperidone to help bring my milk in, but it wasn't working. Maddy had lost almost a pound by the nurse's first visit and their solution was to feed - and wake - her every 2 hours. They wanted me to feed her, even if she was sound asleep, at 7am, 9am, 11am, etc.

I thought it was ridiculous. My mom thought it was ridiculous. Our doctor, when we saw him for Maddy's first checkup 2 weeks later, thought it was ridiculous, but the damage, in my mind, was already done.

Within a week of the first nurse's visit, we had 3 more visits, all by different nurses. I had to go over our story for every single one of them - apparently, they don't read their files (or, in a more conspiracy-theory line of thought, they want to see if they can catch new moms up in their stories to see if they're following orders). Every time, they weighed Maddy, clucked over the lack of weight gain and lectured me on breastfeeding. By this time it was very apparent I wasn't going to be able to, but I, being a stubborn Scot, was determined to keep trying. This lead to massive bouts of stress for both Maddy and I.

We were now up to a 3-hour waking/feeding schedule. I wasn't supposed to let her sleep if it was her time to eat. It would routinely take over an hour to feed her, and by the end of it, she wasn't ready to sleep at all. I was lucky if she would sleep for 30 minutes. We had a lot of rough, rough days in her first month but we made it through. Somehow.

By March, I was at the end of my rope. We bought The Baby Whisperer for help. It did, at first, mainly by pointing out that swaddling was the way to go. I should have known this from the get go, but Maddy certainly didn't enjoy being swaddled in the hospital, so I stopped doing it once we got home. I'm coinvinced now that Maddy's a hot sleeper - she kicks off any blankets we put on her now and hates being hot - and the warmed layers of blankets they swaddled her with in the hospital turned her against swaddling.

The more I read The Baby Whisperer, the more I got confused. I would read ahead to see what we should expect in the next stage of Maddy's life and she'd contradict - at least in my mind - what she'd said previously. I got more and more frustrated with the book and finally stopped using it as a reference when she suggested a very contradictory feeding/napping schedule for when Maddy turned 4 months old.

Instead, I turned to my mom and the internet. I've always found BabyCentre Canada to be the best resource for me. (I've also used Health Canada on a regular basis, too.) I researched sleep issues and behavioural issues to see if there was a solution for us. I know that every baby is different, but with enough parents putting their experiences out there for the world to read, perhaps you can cobble together a few and it matches yours.

Every few weeks, I start my search on possible solutions over again. At this point, today, Maddy's not sleeping through the night. Not even close. I hate hearing about other parents and their wonderful children who sleep straight from 7pm to 7am. I call bullshit on that. I also call bullshit on parents who treat my child's problems as though they were conscious decisions on my part. I'm sure that not every parent is perfect, even if they think they are. I know that portraying yourself as the perfect parent and your child as an angel sent from above is the thing to do, but come on... all you're doing is making people like me, people who are good parents with minor-ish issues, second-guess ourselves and question our parenting.

I've lived in fear for the last 7 months, worrying that someone somewhere is going to take a look at my daughter and her eczema (definitely inherited from both of us) or her cradle cap or find out about her sleep patterns, and call the authorities. I know that we're good parents, she's a very happy baby (very much into blowing raspberries right now) and she's healthy. She eats like a horse and loves to move and play. She climbs and smiles and likes to laugh and has songs she likes and yes, we let her watch TV, but try to keep it to a minimum. She's a good baby. She just has a sleeping problem.

Well, son of a...

Find of the day - Brian Williams (he of NBC Nightly News) has an indie rock blog.

WTF?!

After just a few moments of poking around, Mr. Williams is now my #2 when it comes to recommending new indie music (CBC3 being #1, of course). It doesn't hurt when on the front page of his site, he's got Great Lake Swimmers plastered all over the place. Mmm... Great Lake Swimmers.

So now, in addition to his work on the Nightly News and his appearances on Sesame Street (my daughter's favourite is his reporting on the Mine-itis epidemic), Brian Williams is an indie music proponent. Awesome :)

Ooooh, crafty

Since I had our daughter in January, things have changed a lot. The usual changes - sleep, priorities, general organization of the house - were guaranteed to happen.

The one thing I didn't expect was an overwhelming desire to start crafting. And not simple crafts, either.

I've already pressed several flowers from our gardens to do shadow boxes. I'm planning on clipping fern and tree leaves to do a series of 'paintings' - basically just pressing the leaves into paint and then pressing them onto canvases. I'm going to start collecting paint chips (free!) to do some sort of collage. I've to a bunch of little wooden decorations (mainly animals) to colour for magnets, wall decorations or general knick-knacks.

There's still a couple of cross-stitch projects I need to finish that I started before she was born. There's a quilt I want to do this fall. I have a box of foam flowers and panels I've had sitting in a bag for months collecting dust.

One thing I will not do is scrapbooking. I don't understand it. I don't see the need to spend so much money on paper and little paper decorations for pages that hold one photo. When I was growing up, scrapbooking was something we did in school and all it involved was cutting out an article from the newspaper and taping it into the book with a little summary we wrote beside it. That's it. None of this fancy-schmancy lettering and stamps and cutters for us, oh no. All we had was lightly drawn lines so our summaries were written on somewhat straight lines. That and tape that dried out and yellowed within a year.

I don't begrudge scrapbookers. Everyone needs a creative outlet, but scrapbooking is not mine. No way, no how. I'll stick with my clumsy attempts at kitchy little things instead.

Sabbath

Ah, Sunday.

These days, it's just another day, taking care of our daughter, trying to keep some kind of semblance of normalcy.

I remember when I was younger where Sundays were actual distinguishable days from the rest of the week. Even with Sunday shopping becoming prevalent when I was a teenager, Sundays just had a different feel than the rest of the week. Perhaps it was because there was nothing on TV so we were forced to find something else to do, like read or - heaven forbid! - clean our rooms. Maybe it was because Sunday meant the last day before school started again for another week.

I liked Sundays as a kid. Sundays were much more relaxed and more often than not, meant a trip to our grandparents'. If we didn't go to our grandparents, we stayed home, and depending on our age, went to the school playground half a block away. If the weather wasn't cooperating, we stayed in our rooms and played or read our newly checked-out library books. Sunday dinner usually meant a roast with gravy, followed by The Wonderful World of Disney on CBC. Bath and bed shortly after, depending on our age.

These days, I can't distinguish Sunday from any other day other than the fact that Sesame Street isn't on at the usual 8am for our daughter to watch. Well, that and the fact that most - not all - stores aren't open until noon and close at either 5 or 6pm, but we rarely shop on Sundays anyway.

I want to return to the old days, where Sundays were different from the rest of the week. Where we could relax and not feel guilty about it. Not a day people use to catch up on the chores they've put off during the week. I guess, for lack of a better argument, I'm advocating using Sunday as a day of rest, as in, of all things, the Bible. I'm one of the last people to advocate for anything referenced in the Bible, but I guess anything is possible.

My plans for today include playing with our daughter, going for a walk and relaxing as much as one can with a 7-month old. It's a decent day out today (19ºC today, perhaps some showers later) so we should probably take advantage of it, rather than just wasting yet another day inside staring at a screen.

Looking ahead

I'm currently a graphic designer at a small community newspaper. Or at least, I am a graphic designer (and assistant editor, blargh) at a newspaper when I'm not on maternity leave. I haven't actually been at my job for 11 months. I've only been on mat leave for 9 months. I had 3 months of sick leave before my mat leave started thanks to an absolutely crazy blood pressure issue (also known as pre-eclampsia, which I was never officially diagnosed with, but things were getting scary for a bit there).

Anyhoo... my point is I don't want to be a graphic designer (or editor) anymore. I like graphic design, I really do. I find design to be quite facinating and even though I have no 'formal' training (13+ years of hands-on learning and experience), I've grown to appreciate various forms of design and still find myself dissecting ads and graphic works on occasion. I used to visit Notcot.org and the CDR on a daily basis, but since I've been off work, it's more often than not that I forget about them until I've gone through every other site that I regularly visit.

So what do I plan on doing to make a living? Well, for the short term, I plan to return to my job after my mat leave and then quit after fulfilling the required amount of time I have to (it's a stupid set up - I think it's 2 weeks, but if I don't go back at all, I owe them all the 'top up' pay they paid me while I was on my leave. Stupid...). After that, I'm going to likely be working, again, at a local family restaurant that I've been working at for 11 years, off and on. I like it there, my bosses are fabulous and I'm pretty sure I can just step in and pick up where I left off (after learning about the new quirky menu).

I'm planning on attending the culinary school here next fall as well. I've already been accepted once - for this fall - but can't attend because I'm still on leave and I don't think it would work for this year. My finances aren't ready and there's the child care issue, not to mention the fact I have to go back to work in December for the aforementioned reason. So I've pushed it off until next year. The good part of this is I now know roughly how much it will cost for everything, including the non-tuition part, so I can start figuring out how I'm paying for it.

Why culinary school? Why not? I like to cook. I like to bake. I've been cooking since I was a little kid - I used to make denvers for breakfast when I was 7 or 8, using the plug-in frying pan. I've been baking since I was in Brownies. I'm addicted to the Food Network. It's kind of like gardening - you know you're accomplishing something. Everyone needs to eat, so why not provide that service for them?

And there's the point that, upon graduation, I should - in theory - make more than I do/did at the restaurant. However, my plans for after graduation may not bring in much more than I make/made when I do work at the restaurant.

I don't want to work in a restaurant ever again after graduation. I would much rather be on my own, catering or doing specialty cooking. I don't want to get bogged down working for someone else and their ideas. Essentially, I'm going to school to learn more about cooking than trying to get a better position at the local steakhouse or a ski resort (which is where a good chunk of the grads from this program end up).

I have a couple of ideas. I want to be an almost-boutique dainty-maker. I want to be able to provide my services to people who can't (or are afraid to) cook for their loved ones for special occasions. I have no idea how to get to either of these points, even upon graduation, but give me enough time, and I'll have researched both ideas to death. And hopefully come up with a game plan.

I guess in the end, I'll still be doing a bit of design, even if it is with food. Stick with what you know, I guess ;)

This is what I have to look forward to?

I don't think 10 year old boys are supposed to mock their moms in public.

Heck, I'm 32 and I'm not allowed to mock my mom in public without risking a quick whack with her purse.

Eep.

Also, playing with rakes? As swords? Yeah, no.

And this is a prime example of why discipline is a good thing. It makes me wonder what parents who refuse to discipline (and I don't mean beat - I mean discipline, actual lesson learning) think when they let their kids do whatever they damn well please and then have consequences like hospital visits or the cops showing up, holding little Tommy or Susy by the collar. It boggles the mind.

But to each their own, apparently. Perhaps one day our daughter will be a well-educated lawyer, prosecuting these little hellions. One can dream :)

Perpetually digging dirt from under my nails

I've always been a fan of gardening. I haven't had the chance to seriously garden for quite a few years - the last time I had the room to plant anything substantial was when I lived with my sister and her now-husband 4 or 5 years ago. Even then, it wasn't anything scientific or dramatic - I tend to think more practically when planning a garden. I'm not a frou-frou flower type; I like my veggies. There's actual progress when you plant vegetable seeds and raise them to maturity. With flowers, they grow, they bloom, they die.

We moved into our current house last summer, at about this time of year. When we looked at the house, there was almost nothing in the gardens. More weeds than actual flowers, the rose bushes had been left to their own devices, just general mayhem. I knew I had my work cut out for me this spring when the snow melted (finally... it was late April before it was all gone) - I wanted a vegetable garden, a flower garden, and to get the 4 or 5 rose bushes we had under control.

Like I said, I'm not entirely scientific about gardening. Heck, I'm barely competent. I know that you should always plant vegetables you eat together, together. So I did. I also had to keep in mind where the best sun was, and once we cut down a tree infested with mountain pine beetle, we had a lot of newly available sun. The vegetable garden runs east-west, about 45 feet in length, 6 feet wide. Before I even started planting anything, I had to weed and move and destroy what the previous owners had left for us. I ended up leaving a rose bush, a Bachelor's Button plant (that'd be the one up above, with the bee) and a Sedum plant. The latter two I plan on moving in the fall once everything starts dying off. But the weeding. God, the weeding. And the overabundance of crabapple tree sprouts threatening to take over my garden from our neighbours' yard. Grr.

So I started my year digging up old plants - including many, many, many lilies, tulips and daisies - and transplanting many of them to our perennial garden. Well, our current perennial garden - I have grand plans for this fall and next summer, but I'll get to that in a second. I had no idea what a lot of the plants were that I was dealing with and still don't, to be honest. I have 5 different varieties of ferns in the perennial garden. I just water everything equally and keep an eye on anything I'm unfamiliar with and try to figure out what to do if they start dying. Books and the internet (and the local horticultrual line run by the local university) are wonderful things.

I had no great intentions for my vegetable garden this year. I knew that there was a veggie garden planted previously - row stakes for spinach and carrots were still in the garden - but I knew it'd be a challenge to actually grow anything in my garden because of the random crabapple tree shoots, wall o'daisies and the 'is it a weed or a flower?' game. But I managed to get a fair bit planted, including:
-zucchini
-tomatoes
-2 kinds of cherry tomatoes
-green peppers
-yellow onions
-green bush beans
-yellow bush beans
-peas
And then there's the carrots, lettuce and radishes.

I decided to try something different this year with the carrots, lettuce and radishes. Because of the tree sprouts, I lost a fair bit - about a quarter - of useable land for my garden. So I planted the carrots, lettuce and radishes in containers. With little to no success. I starved the first batch of carrots and lettuce I planted; one of the first batches of radishes were growing fine and then started to drown. The other batch just didn't grow at all. Lesson learned - don't do this again. The cherry tomatoes, on the other hand... oh, sweet success.

I had tried growing cherry tomatoes directly in the ground before. No luck. So I tried them in containers - 3 plants to each 3-foot long container. I chose 2 different varieties this year as I had in the past and oh, wow... I don't know if they're officially cross-breeding, but the amount of fruit (and it is a fruit) they two plants have been producing is more than impressive. The two plants I have this year aren't nearly as high as the ones I grew in the first year I tried this - this year, they're maybe 4 feet high; first time, almost 7 feet. But the summer is not over... yet. As I've done with all my flowering veggies (which seems to be most of them), I've tried to keep some flowers in the general area for what pollination I can get. But this year's been slow for bees and other pollinating insects... and then there's the zucchini.

My poor zucchini. I've never grown zucchini before, but I did successfully grow pumpkins 13 years ago. And zucchini is perfect for baby food. And chocolate zucchini cake... mmm. So I started the zucchini in the house in late March so it would be ready for planting in May (or June, as was the case this year). Everything looked okay; some of the plants were a little weaker looking than others, but they all survived. They started flowering and perking up and growing... and then there were no little zucchinis anywhere. I tried to figure out what was wrong and the only thing I've been able to come up with is I have a whole bunch of male plants. No female plants at all. None. So this morning, in an act of desperation, I went out, armed with a dozen Q-tips, and pollinated my zucchini. We'll see if anything comes of my very desperate attempt to salvage my zucchini in a few weeks.

As for everything else, I have a couple of peppers, some peas (yay!), half a dozen tomatoes (beef steak) and close to a dozen yellow onions. The beans are still flowering, and if they're anything like the peas, they will be sprouting in the next few days and I'll be surprised when I see how big they've gotten. I'm hoping for a moderate harvest this year and if the weather cooperates - 10 days from now, the forecast high is 37C... crap - I should be able to use a fair bit of it for food for my daughter. And then I'll step back and figure out what to do next year to make the garden even better. We also plan on having the garden roto-tilled to try to take care of the tree shoot issue. I have no idea what else to do about them, beyond cutting the neighbour's tree down and that's not going to happen.

As for the flower gardens - the perennial strip garden in the back, the small garden on the north side, the garden under our picture window in the front of the house and the jungle on the south side - I have plans. I want to get more perennials, but have to deal with the south side jungle first. We have oodles of lilies and tulips, that while beautiful, are a bit overdone in such a small space. I plan on digging up the whole garden (14'x2' or so) and saving some of the bulbs. I'm going to try to find someone to trade bulbs with before just dumping them either in the garbage or trying to fit them into another garden.

I plan on taking up the lawn that's on that side of the house as well. We have a row of lilacs and caraganas between the lawn and the sidewalk that
provide some shade, but not a lot, depending on the day... and there's also a dogwood and an overwhelming vine at the west end of that stretch, too. I've been doing a bit of light research into English gardens to see if I could possibly do something like that in that space (14'x6-7'). But no final plans yet, outside of 'must remove everything there now'. I want something soothing and approachable, not something that is so overwhelming and frightening that no one wants to approach it.

We - or at least I, as this is my grand plan - are going to make some stepping stones, including one for our daughter along the same lines as those plaster casts parents do of their children's hands at a young age. I want to encourage her to get interested in gardening at an early age and totally plan on letting her have a small garden when she expresses interest. She's only 7 months old, so I'm pretty sure I've got a couple of years. We also have our rain barrell on that side of the house, too, which my dad wants to move in order to take advantage of both downspouts on the south side of the house. Rain barrels? Best ideas, ever.

But we plan on staying in this house for a bit so we've got some time to get everything done. There's also the vine we want to train in the patio. And the rose bushes I have to rescue and possibly move. And the potential hedge that will double as a fence in the front yard. And how I'm going to keep my lavender from being overrun by thistles. Sigh. I find gardening quite therapeutic, but also quite painful as I'm stupid and always forget to bend with my knees, so I end up paying for half an hour of gardening for a week. But it's nice to know that in the end, you grew something. Even if it's just a simple little flower, you still grew it. Makes one feel slightly omnipotent, really :)

My camera's a Nikon CoolPix P80.