Revving the engine

First off, this

is the one of the most beautiful and amazing pieces of technology I've seen in a long time. I'm a fan of CBC 1 and 2 (and occasionally 3, when I get the chance to listen to something that isn't Disney) and this radio would fit into my life quite nicely. I love the design of it, especially the use of the CBC logo as cover for the speaker. I hope - hope - that Science&Sons, the company that came up with this concept, is able to produce it for fans soon. Christmas is only 11 months away. (found via The Canadian Design Resource)

I've been struggling for the last few days, trying to get into a 'work' mode that doesn't result in me throwing my hands up in frustration. It doesn't help that I seem to be finding every excuse in the book to not do any work. But, with a little determination and a bit of cajoling, I think we're caught up on our housework and there aren't any major appointments or meetings scheduled for the next 6 days (then Keith leaves for the Select for 6 days), so there is no reason I can't get something done.

Question is, what? I tried to make a few actual shopping bags, based on the ones you can buy in store - the very boxy, kind of bland... boring, really. Also more challenging that I need. I'm a competent sewer, not an amazing one, so when it came to piecing it together and actually sewing the seams so it would hold together, I lost control of the project and - long story, short - I have a few bags without handles and gaping corner seams in my possession.

Lesson learned: work from a real pattern. And don't try anything that's beyond my skill level. Sure, I'd love to design the next Birkin bag, but the reality is I'll be lucky to design the next dollar store reject. Well, not really, but I can't go into this thinking I can do much beyond some slightly-more-complex-than-simple projects.

So, tomorrow, I'm going to sit down and attempt to get 3 or 4 bags done. I'm hoping to stay away from anything that seems mundane, but I'd like to stick with simple. But practical. Kind of like these bags, but with more of a personalized twist. What that twist is, I'm still trying to figure out, but I'm hoping it will come to me soon. I'm probably going to be doing other bags, too, like little make-up bags and lunch sacks, but it's hard to keep from getting ahead of myself with plans when I haven't even started making anything that could be remotely sell-able.  Fingers crossed, it will all come together. Soon.

I'm still trying to dabble a bit in actual graphic design, too, but I'm finding that it's taking more of a backseat to everything than I like. We're still trying to work out a working schedule for me so that Keith can take care of Maddy more on his days off, leaving me more time to work on my stuff, but being a procrastinator and eternal pessimist, I have no problem finding things to do instead of work. The pessimism comes into play when I start panicking too much and pretty much convince myself that there is no way that anyone is going to ever want to buy anything I make. But then I come back to the argument 'How do I know that without actually trying?'. I'm much closer to taking the actual, real plunge and put myself and the products I make out there, but it's hard to keep the 'you and your work sucks' wolves at bay.

The more things change...

So.

After a rather intense discussion yesterday with Keith and a few family members about what I plan on doing to get a steady income, I've decided that I'm going ahead with my plans to make and sell bags.

I'm also going to try to get a job. I'm looking at something part-time, hopefully with flexible hours, nothing too out of my league... I don't want to go back to cooking, but I will if I have to. I'll hate it and want to quit every single day, but perhaps being in that situation will encourage me to work harder at this bag thing.

Ha. Ha. Who am I kidding? I'm a sucker for punishment and tend to stay in jobs that I despise for years. I quit the ones I like too soon and often regret it the second I leave.

I'm not giving up the graphic design thing, either. I've come to realize that the market I'm in is quite saturated with designers and I'm nowhere near the skill level of many of them. The ones who call themselves 'designers' and use Microsoft Publisher to produce their friend's wedding invitations are the ones I would be competing against, sadly. I live in a community that is very incestuous - it's all about who you know and what family you're from. I have the experience, but I don't work at one of the big print shops or know the movers and shakers, so I'm SOL for the most part. However, there is a bit of interest with the wedding stationery designing I'm offering. My mom's asked for samples to show to some prospective clients and the big wedding show is here next weekend - and I will have flyers in the goody bags of one of the bridal shops in town (thank you, Keith). So maybe I'll get some jobs from that.

With everything that's been going on lately, I feel like I'm in a much better place in terms of the future. The last thing I want to be doing is something I don't enjoy or can't be successful at, but I still need to help pay bills and put food in Maddy's mouth. It's hard coming to the realization that your plans are not going to go exactly the way you want them to, but I certainly do not plan on giving them up entirely. No matter how many fights or sleepless nights I have because of my decision. Do I think I can be successful? Yes, but everyone thinks that when they start out with some new initiative. My difference is I'm damn well going to be successful. Anyone who doesn't believe me can go poison someone else with their negativity because I'm sure as hell not going to take it anymore.

Proof is in the pudding

After months of procrastination and laziness (hey, why not be honest?), I'm finally finishing projects that I've started. It's sad, really... I've always been someone who can beat deadlines and actually enjoy pressure when I work, but when it comes to *this* - working on my own stuff - I've been pretty lax on finishing what I start.

Project #1 - A new background for my Twitter page. I've been meaning to do this for a while, probably since I signed up 3+ years ago (yep, I was an early joiner... and then forgot about it completely for 2+ years). I've been so used to doing what could be described as bland and lifeless designs for so long, thanks to my many years in print, that something like this takes me forever to do. Newsprint is horrible to work with - inks set differently, you have to hope and pray that your paper is at a good spot on the press run that it doesn't turn reds to orange or blues to grey. The few times I've worked with glossy or digital, I've gone with more gradients and levels of opacity. I like the final result here, but I'm sure I'll change it.

Project #2 - New blog banner. I've been working on this for quite a while. I didn't want something that stuck out like a sore thumb or too flashy, but also something that wasn't too boring or mundane. I'm not 100% happy with what the end result is, but it is infinitely better than what was there before. I've worked on some parts of the layout of the blog, too, to match up with the new banner. Not totally set on what I've done there, either, but it's a work in progress.

Project #3 - Maddy's summer clothes. My mom taught me how to sew when I was in Brownies. She made a good portion of the clothes my sister and I wore until she went back to work when I was 10. I did fairly well in the sewing portion of Home Ec in grade 8 and have been sewing recreationally - mostly repairs to jeans and work uniforms - since. My dad got my mom a new sewing machine about 10 years ago and I inherited her old (like 30+ years) Singer machine. I like the idea of creating something that is actually useable - clothing is way to expensive in the stores when you can whip together a shirt in an afternoon for a fraction of the price. Like this material - I hit the local fabric store this weekend during their 50% sale. There's enough material there to make 10-12, if not more, summer shirts/dresses for Maddy. Total cost? $28, including tax and the $8 spool of thread... so basically $20 for the material to make what would normally cost me $120+ in the stores. I'm determined to make as many of Maddy's clothes until she vehemently protests, which I figure is by the time she's 13.

I'm aiming to start using this blog better, highlighting more of my work and plans. Now that I've got two projects down, I should be able to work on my ever-growing to-do list of things I want to get done. I've been trying to figure out how to work on my 'stuff' while being a stay-at-home mom with a 1 year old. Time is always short, but as Maddy keeps developing and growing, she's able to play more by herself on her side of the gate without needing me every second of the day. She's trying to go down to 1 nap a day, which has been a massive adjustment for everyone, so what little time I had to myself is even less now. But I don't hold a grudge against her for any of this - it's teaching me how to be more efficient and organized if anything. And being more organized is something I desperately needed to learn.

I think things are going well. I just need to stick with it and not get disheartened by any slowdowns. *fingers crossed*

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*

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?

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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 ;)

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.