back again

I don’t know why, but I think I assumed when I came back to work things would be really different. So far it has been SO SIMILAR it feels like the past three months have not happened. I still love working with the same people and projects, and the same people and projects still annoy me. I can’t keep my desk clean for the life of me. I start every morning with the intention of working super hard and then end up chatting way too much and checking my email every 15 minutes.

 

It’s like so many other aspects of life post-baby. When David was born, my entire world was reborn. My perspective, my goals, the way I think about myself and my life. With all those things changing, it felt natural to me that the rest of the world should be different too. But somehow the rest of the world was unaware of the existence of my son. What, no parades? No renaming of expressways or airports? Everyone else is still attending work and school and driving around and going about their lives like nothing happened? Huh, strange. The first time I left the house by myself post-baby, I went to my beloved Target. Everything about it was exactly the same, but I felt like I was somewhere new and different. Hard to describe. 

Anyway, I'm doing surprisingly well back at work. I only cried once this week, and those were happiness tears when I saw his first smile after picking him up at daycare. The transition was mostly eased by the fact that Mike stayed home almost every day this week. The hardest part of going back to work is the whole morning routine getting myself and the baby up and ready and out the door. David doesn't start full time at day care until the week after next; so maybe it will be more challenging then. For now I'm easing into this life adjustment. It's going better than I expected. 

restless

feeling restless this week. can't concentrate at work, not making any art. Just in a little slump I guess. I don't mind the cooler weather, I welcome it actually, but the sun setting before 7 pm is totally on the not awesome list.

also, for the first time in my pregnancy, I am seriously missing wine. i'm realizing a lot of my fall and winter time relaxation/recreation involves wine. I mean, maybe it's good to change those habits, but right now, man. . . . thumbs down.

On a positive note I have been doing many other lovely autumnal activities. I started working on the baby's quilt and am really enjoying it. i hope my excitement doesn't fade as the project goes along, but for right now I'm always looking forward to the next time I get to cut and sew. I haven't ever taken on such a large sewing project and I'm seriously excited about having the finished product.

I think that' s all. Just wanted to pop in and say hi. Hope you're having lovely autumnal activities too.

happy home

i actually have a lot of artwork to share, but it's been so dark outside I've had no chance to photograph it. hopefully soon though. it's been a good week for my art book.

So. Today was a crummy day at work. Half the day I had too much to do, the other half I was sitting around doing nothing and waiting for other people to finish their projects. Not fun. Plus I seem to have some kind of mood sponge, and whenever someone close to me is in a bad mood, it rubs off. Not fun, part two. Then, the worst part. I had to attend a meeting with three of the biggest bigwigs of the company since my boss was out sick. I was slightly unprepared, not to mention feeling nervous and out of place. The actual meeting went fine. . . until they starting talking politics. Talk about uncomfortable. Two of them had opinions that could not be further from mine. . . . ugh, horrible. I wanted to puke and cry at the same time. Ouch. A topper on top of a bad day of feeling unsettled and moody.

But there's good news. As soon as I got home, I cleaned the kitchen and started making dinner, a chicken pot pie from scratch. I changed the sheets in the bedroom and did a load of laundry. Had an idea for a collage and started cutting some pieces while the pot pie was in the oven. And now i feel like I've flushed out all the bad of the day and reordered myself. Sweet relief.

All these simple things have made me feel so much better about myself than whatever dumb thing I accomplished at work today. And obviously, I don't feel like this all the time, I do enjoy my work. But after a rough day it's nice to come home and be comforted by domesticity.

thoughts on a day job

little yellow birdies, began as a doodle during some work meetings.

so, i have been thinking lately about my job. In the past week or so, I have had a big surge of creative energy, outside of work, and that always makes part of me wish I had more time to dedicate to my personal art.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure if I didn't have the outlet of my job (doing graphic design for a small corporation), I wouldn't have the same kind of creativity outside of work. I really do love my job. Loving my day job energizes the rest of my life; I know this now because I've had jobs I haven't liked, and it totally sucked away all my vitality and spirit. Now I'm content with where I am. I really respect and admire my supervisors, and I enjoy spending time with my coworkers--many of whom I now consider good friends, outside of work. I get to work on some pretty neat projects, too; signage, logos, invitations.

It's not always puppies and rainbows, that's for sure--during our busy times I work late a LOT and it can be stressful and crazy--but for the most part I feel really blessed to have finally found myself at a good place in my career.

Anyway, to bring it back full circle, one of the things I most love about my job is that no one ever seems to care that I draw through about 75% of all the meetings I attend. Last week I made doodles through an entire meeting, and that's essentially what I was there to do. Seriously! It's great.

+ / -

November 1. It is finally appropriate seasonal weather outside, chilly in a real, winter coat kind of way. It's nice, but not really. Today I am cold, grouchy, bored at work, and I have one of the most depressing songs ever stuck in my head. (he stopped loving her today, george jones.)

I'm trying to look on the bright side though:
+ project runway starts in two weeks! once again, meaning and order will return to my life and my weeks will rotate around wednesday evenings at 9 PM.

+ my mom is coming to visit this weekend.

+ have I ever talked about how igoogle is the greatest thing of all time? I know I say a lot of things are the greatest thing of all time, but this one might really take it. everytime i open my browser i'm presented with my gmail inbox, my calendar, the weather, an image of the Biblical Art of the Day, and a Wikipedia search box. This is everything I ever needed and more.

+ also, late this afternoon, I did my little parlour trick for my co-workers: drawing things on command in illustrator. I made this snowmen and then we dressed him up. "do an elvis!" "a ninja!" etc. Here's the carnage from my illustrator pasteboard

.

a nice bright spot in my day

been away.

checking back in, it's been months hasn't it?

more photos + commentary to come, but the past month and a half has been filled by:

- spending the last near two weeks at the national conference for my work. i wore a giant foam star costume every day and it was totally awesome. but it made me feel so removed from everything--my house, husband, dog, email, real food, real life. . . . it was so groundhog day ish. it was fun but i'm also sooper glad it's over with, back to real life now.

-a lovely wedding on lake superior in northern wisconsin. magical friendships that haven't changed in years. raspberries picked and immediately eaten. many beers. fun. and more fun.

-a short trip to northwest iowa and southeast south dakota. back to the tiny tiny town i spent my young youth in, which seems so much smaller now after the years. and my grandpas farm. it felt so natural.

- also. the garden growing. eating food i grew from a seed will never cease to amaze me. spent an hour or so weeding this afternoon, working up a sweat. it's really satisfying.

-other stuff. good books: about grace and four seasons in rome by anthony doerr. the girls by lori lansens, seven sisters by margaret drabble. i've been reading a lot actually. and music: feist, spoon, ryan adams. these words and music have been the steady undercurrent of all the craziness lately. so that's good.

i think that's it. i honestly feel like i've lost myself over the past few weeks, working hard at work and then being so removed at conference. i'm getting back into my life and trying to get every backward thing righted again.

shoes, new office

zappos, of course.

there's something about working in a legitimate office that makes me want to buy better shoes. not to say I don't love my shoes, I do, but all of the sudden I feel like there's a hole in the shoe closet. . . . a hole that needs to be filled by a pair of bone and tan spectator d'orsays. I can't really say why; I'm not really that kind of girl.

By the way, none of the above really do it for me. I can't find what I have in mind, I am on a quest though. I'd go into more detail but I'm fairly certain that's not necessary.

So yeah: my new, legitimate office. It's GOOD. great actually. People talk to each other. The women wear pumps! I know it's not a big deal, but it is to my girly self. It really is kind of showing me what a completely bizarre environment my last job was. One day last week I went to lunch with some co-workers; we had Thai food and afterwards stopped into a thrift store. yeah, NOT joking. good stuff.

I feel so excellent about the whole thing, feel like I've found a good fit for my personality and my talents. I just feel happier. It's pretty amazing what this change of scenery is doing to my psyche.

new everything

it's january already! i should probably do a 2006 wrap-up but don't have the energy for it right now. here's the last few weeks though.

Florida. Well, I didn't accomplish any of my three goals for my Florida trip, but it was everything I needed it to be. Perfect Katie vacation. you know: nature walks, thrift shopping, white wine with lunch, art, and of course, manatees.

I got to see a bunch of manatees. it was everything i had hoped it would be, and more. the pictures of me with a giant manatee-viewing smile on my face are being processed, I'm sure I'll post some eventually.

Who knew there is an awesome art museum in sarasota, florida? John Ringling, of circus fame, lived there and his estate and personal collection of amazing art was turned into a museum. there is also a circus museum which was fascinating so now I'm sort of into the "circus aesthetic."

Holidays. christmas was good, family time, playing with my nieces. it kind of feels like a million years ago now. new years was low-key, I ended up staying home, baked a pie, watched a girl movie, fell asleep at 11:30. lame but relaxing. I have been embracing the low-key loner-ish side of myself lately. mostly because. . .

Job. I got a new job, which starts in a week and a half. It's an awesome new gig and I'm super stoked. but putting my two weeks in at my current job was pretty terrible and the resulting stress makes me not want to do anything but watch the America's Next Top Model marathon on VH1. God bless you VH1.

Penguin Magellan

This is Penguin Magellan. He's the product of some nerdy riffing during a conference call + about two hours of work in illustrator. He's my little scamp. Sextant in hand, off to see the world!

Someone I worked with on an old project really loved Penguin Magellan. He loved him enough to spend an afternoon creating these:







Don't you love it? Best thing in my email in-box in weeks.

Resolve

It's been an eventful week in katieland. Last week I had my annual review at work and got a raise. The next day I had a job interview. Today my boss found my resume online (eep!) and we had a talk about it, which was pretty awful but unbelievably excellent in the end. It's been a lot of pondering all crammed into seven days, but I feel like I'm coming out of all these things with a new resolve towards my career.

I'm 26. But most days at work I feel like a fresh college grad—ambivalent, awkward, sloppy. I'm always thinking about what comes later rather than what is in front of me; it's dawned on me that this is immature and pointless. Selfish too. In the long haul my attitude is what has made me unhappier and more dissatisfied than I should be. I'm owning up to it and it's giving me a better perspective.

So here are my new career/workplace goals:
1. Work as hard as I possibly can.
2. Mind my own damn business.

I'm pretty sure between those two things I can vastly improve my situation.

(side note: so much for not talking about my feelings. that didn't last long!)