Month: September 2014

The Week That Got Away…

Just for Fun

Ever have one of those? Several times this week I’m in the thick of things and think ‘hey, this would make a great post’ only to have no time to actually write it. Instead, you get snippets.

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If Health is Wealth, I’m Overdrawn

Still sick, anyone surprised? Just when I think I’m getting better I regress. The fact that Mom, the germ spreader, is still sick herself does not give me hope that I’ll be miraculously better after this weekend.

Aside from that, though, Monday and Tuesday were pretty good. Tuesday was a bit of a slog of data entry, but my usual tactic of cracking up some 80s hair bands to power through worked. Crisis averted, or so I thought.

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Re-Action Jackson

I’m not usually a fan of actions taken out of fear, panic, or anger; coming from a negative place it’s hard to turn them into a true positive. HOWEVER….

Something happened on Wednesday at work* that made me take a serious look at the end-game goals I set 2 years ago and it wasn’t pretty. Not discounting the major milestone that finishing my book was and the progress on that front, I’ve been kinda coasting on other matters. And while getting married and buying a house all work towards the goal’s result of living a happy, fulfilled life, they also took my focus away from the rest of the tasks.

The blessing and curse of starting your own business (whether freelance in nature or otherwise) while working full time, is that the pressure is off. The pressure to perform, to pay the bills, it’s gone. On the one hand, it means you get to build at a comfortable pace and aren’t sweating small set-backs. On the other hand, though, it’s a helluva lot easier to put off the things you need to do and coast. After all, there’s no pressure, right?

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Sacrifices Must Be Made

I am eternally grateful for Todd’s easy-going attitude. I’ve begged off cooking supper twice this week and while I ordered pizza in (and the delivery guy referred to the Dollhouse as the Pepto Bismal House, sigh, gotta get a plan for those shutters) the first night I declared the second a fend-for-yourself evening (there were plenty of leftovers in the fridge, I’m not that heartless) so I could build a new business website and get some client work done, respectively.

The new site will hold my illustration portfolio as well as highlight my book (and future works) and some other options I’m making available. I made excellent progress on it Wednesday night and hope to have it ready to unveil sometime next week. The phrase “miles to go before I sleep” seemed oddly appropriate.

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Does Anyone Else Still Listen to CDs?

So the ‘miles to go’ bit sparked a song in my head, namely a Celine Dion tune by the same name and I knew I had that on CD somewhere in the Abyss. Flipping through the CD binder I spotted a few more and grabbed them all on the way out the door Thursday. (For the curious they were Evanescence and Barry Manilow.)

I have a decent-sized CD collection, to the point that buying them all digitally would be cost prohibitive and even then I couldn’t fit even a fraction of them onto my iPod. Not to mention my music tastes tend to go in phases. It was both novel and nostalgic listening to CDs as I ran errands (new GA driver’s license with my new last name? Done!) and headed to work, but I realize that it’s a little archaic, too.

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 Delayed Gratification is Not my Strong Suit

And, yet, apparently the Universe is still trying to teach me patience. About this time last year I bought a wallet at a Thirty-One party and, since it arrived shortly after the wedding, I decided I’d wait to use it for all my new-name items. Little did I know that it would take a good 10 months to get to that point! I hate having things sitting around unused. I’m the type of girl that transfers her belongings from the old purse to the new one while sitting in the parking lot!

And then there’s something else that took only a few weeks to develop but which I can’t really talk about yet but I will, soon, and while it’s a big deal for me, it won’t mean much to anyone else. But it was a nice way to start Friday morning off of this snippy snippety week 🙂

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*For those prone to worry, have no fear. The work incident doesn’t affect me or my job directly, it was just something that sparked a tiny panic, then just enough anger (at myself) to light a fire under my ass. All is well and, now, as it should be 😉

My Mommy Went to Alaska and All I Got Was This Lousy Head-Cold

Just for Fun

Does anyone else remember those souvenir t-shirts? Are they even still a thing? If not, there’s a very good change today’s title will not be nearly as funny to you as it was to me.

Oh, well.

To elaborate: Mom went on a 10-day Alaskan cruise with my aunt and when I picked her up from the airport way back on the Thursday before the holiday weekend, it was a very snuffly parent that greeted me. Sometime between me driving her home and her coming to work the next day was just enough time to expose me to enough germs so that by the following Tuesday (that would be last week) I was starting to feel a bit off.

And I went from slight sore throat and hoarse cough to my head wants to explode out of my cheekbones in less than 12 hours. By Saturday I’d gone from sinus-splitting pressure to it settling in my chest (which, pain-wise, is a good thing… good is relative in upper respiratory world). I’ve been doing a lot of sleeping and precious little else, totally botching my to-do lists in a major way.

Unless you count rewatching a few seasons of Buffy a valid to-do check point. (I’m almost through season 4, aka the point at which I consider the series effective ending except for a couple of special episodes that are purely stand-alone.)

In need of some small jobs that wouldn’t trigger the hacking up of a lung or super cerebral function, I’ve actually managed to start work on the dolly dorm for my numerous little Pullips, Blythes, and Dals. I drew up plans for sets of bunk beds (all but one of the 18 spots is claimed, I suppose that means I have to stop buying them) to fit on a single shelf of the designated doll bookcase, and now have 18 fabric-covered styrofoam mattresses and 20 stuffed pillows with their own pillow cases complete, and fabric cut for the 18 duvet-style quilts for said bunks. Todd was kind enough to pick up some hardware cloth on a recent trip to Lowes, and I’m a couple packages of clothespins away from having 9 sets of very cut bunk beds.

pint-sized sewing accomplishments

pint-sized sewing accomplishments

I realize it seems odd to work on a doll’s house when my own needs so much work, but the instant gratification feels pretty awesome. Especially compared to the long slog of  big house projects still ahead of us.

Needless to say, I think the housewarming party is indefinitely postponed. I need to be able to breathe before I can finish getting the house ready for guests!

I Have Yet to Unpack the Witty Title Vault…

Just for Fun

Labor Day weekend was slightly less productive than anticipated, but certainly not a total loss.

While there’s still work to be done in the living room and library, I did manage to get the majority of The Abyss boxes unpacked and sorted onto their shelves. Amusingly enough, it’s the eight boxes marked ‘desk’ that have yet to be dealt with, and yet me desk is rather cluttered already. Sure, I have two desks if you count the art table and they each have a fair amount of shelves and cubbies, but I’m still a bit flummoxed at how all those boxes are going to unpack into these two spaces.

Time will tell.

Our other big project was assembling our new storage shed, thus enabling us to clear off a lot of what’s clogging up our back porch. The ground was cleared (by me, thank you very much!) and the bottom frame laid in place. And that’s it. The ground is far from level out there (a fact which really shouldn’t have surprised us) and we lack a shovel to deal with a medium sized root that’s in the way. How we’ve gone this long without a shovel is beyond me, but there you go.

After some deep thinking by Todd, a combination of bricks, pushed-around earth, and maybe some sand will be used to level the corner I cleared and we’ll be able to proceed at some point.

On the upside, I did get my last round of pattern designs submitted this weekend, which reminds me: I had some goals I was going to work on this month. Let’s see how I did on those:

  • Unpacking: we’re getting pretty far along on that, though there are still a fair amount of areas needing attention. I’m going to call this a win, though, as all rooms are functioning with their stuff.
  • Planning the housewarming party: still up for debate. Had we gotten more done this weekend I’d be all set with it on the 13th, but now I’m wondering if we should push it to the 20th just to be safe.
  • Scrapbook 10 pages: hah! This didn’t get done at all. Resetting that goal for September.
  • MIID Summer School: complete! While I wasn’t really loving my second round of submissions, with a bit more work I think they’ll be closer to what I had in mind. The last set I love, though.
  • Portfolio redesign: begun, but far from complete. Definitely still on the list for September.
  • What to Feed Your Raiding Party substitutions supplement: considering I just found the forms and notes for this project last night I’d say it’s safe to say I’ve got a ways to go on this one, still.

Of course, the question then becomes what fresh goals to set for this month, or if there’s really room for more with the continued unpacking and the work still waiting on the portfolio and book supplement. After a half-second’s reflection, I think I’m going to stick with what I’ve got this month, and maybe try to blog a bit more.

Speaking of blogging, I’d set a schedule for myself that just isn’t working with the current time constraints and feelings of chaos at home. So I’m saying screw the schedule and I’ll post what I’ve got when I’ve got it. So expect a lot of house stuff, because that’s pretty much my life at this point, or ramblings of one sort or another. And then, once life finds it’s new stride, I’ll revisit the whole schedule idea.

We good?

Cool.

Got any goals of your own for September?