What a week!

It's been quite the week! First my collection of fabric designs - Hello Sunshine - was released by Connecting Threads.

Woot!  There I am with all 19 fabrics on the first page and projects on the second page

Gorgeous projects to purchase! 

The back cover of the catalog! 

Are these not the most fantastic items?

Oh look!  The name of the collection by me on the selvage! 

Now that's not all...Connecting Threads and Spoonflower  have paired up to do a fantastic giveaway for 5 winners.  You'd get fat quarters of all 19 of my Connecting Threads designs and 5 of my Spoonflower designs.  And here they are here:

That's a total of 24 fat quarters.  That's a lot of fabric!  

So do you want to win them? You'll have to go here to the Spoonflower blog and make a comment for a chance.  Oh come on, go on, you can't win unless you do it! And you know you want free stuff right?  If you're a Facebook user you can go to the Spoonflower fan page and comment there as well. You can also go to the Connecting Threads Facebook page...there is a link to the contest there too.  While you're there you should LIKE them...because they're both worthy of likes!  Oh and go cruise around both sites; tons of fabulous buys! 

If you win I'd reallly like to see what you end up making. Pretty please? Nothing gives me more pleasure than to see finished projects.  Ok, maybe there are other things that give me that much pleasure: dark chocolate, really good cheese with fruit, latte, my husband (ahem), my kidlets...but seeing those projects is right up there on my list!

I hope you you like what I created because I'm always busy creating more!  I'm mad for fabric design! Mad for fabric! If you want to follow me at Spoonflower go to my profile there, rather here, sign in at Spoonflower and click the Follow This Designer link. And don't forget to comment! I love comments!

Ok, I'd better get going before I go way off the deep end!  

Virginia

Dreams do come true

Last Aug I won a fabric design contest.  At Connecting Threads, a really fabulous Internet (and catalog) fabric company.  I was so excited to win!  I had some worthy competition and that made it nerve-wracking and thrilling at the same time. Like watching your kids on a roller coaster. You know they'll be ok (right?) but you're just not sure that they can handle the fear of the loop to loop and up and down so you sort of close your eyes but you peek out between your fingers.

That's how it was for me.  After I won it took me a concious effort to breathe again! I started working with the staff at Connecting Threads, they were so easy to work with and I totally enjoyed every tweak I did (which they made so easy–it was minimal).

Well, all that roller coaster fear and thrill came back to me today. One year later. Served up in a tall glass of OMG, Look at that~my designs online with my name on it.  It was totally worth the wait.

Shut the front door as the youngsters say.  Errr, maybe that's what the oldsters say!

Hello Sunshine by me for Connecting Threads

Aren't they beautiful?  I think they are.  The colors are juicy and summery and I'm dying to sew more stuff with them.  The fabric has a gorgeous hand; I sewed my first quilt (see it here) with it last week. I must learn how to really quilt.  That said, I almost always think of quilters when I am designing fabric.  

Oh, so do you want to see the entire collection?  Well, don't wait any longer click here! There are kits to make, 19 different fabrics in the collections with a number of colorways. They've also made it easy to see other coordinates that you might be interested in. And thread! Don't forget to buy thread to match!

When I first started designing surface design I hoped I'd get good enough for someone to actually buy some of my fabrics.  Other than my family that is.  Today I get to pinch myself and say, "Yes, I guess others will buy my fabrics!"

I have so many people to thank.  My family of course. My friends who didn't laugh and point but said, "Oh, those are pretty good/cute/funny/beautiful."  My designer friends who always have encouraged me and gave advice when I asked.  I even have to thank those who were indifferent to my designs because I fought to win them over.  I owe a debt of gratitude to Spoonflower where I experimented; even the crash and burned designs taught me something.  My customers at Spoonflower! Every sale is thrilling and I always want to see what they've made!  And finally Connecting Threads...you've made a dream come true for me.  Truly and wonderfully I hope not to wake from this fabulous dream.

xo

Meatloaf anyone?

My fellow Spoonflower designer, friend, designer for Robert Kaufman and all-around fabulous quilter Cynthia created the best meatloaf pillow ever. She included my bacon design in her pillow and I couldn't be happier to be part of her household that way.

Go take a look at her blog entry about her pillow here Cynthia Frenette's blog

And then check out her art quilts here  She creates the artwork and quilts them as well as embellishes them with amazing textures using beads and crystals and all kinds of fun stuff.

Her stuff makes me want to hand sew.  Speaking of which last week I made a quilt. Yep, I did.  I've never made a quilt before...I've made things that are like a quilt but never really pieced anything together.  Mostly I've done cheater quilt type things.

It's a really, really simple quilt and I didn't use a pattern.  I tore strips of fabric into varying widths and then sewed them into a quilt.  I used a lot of white because I wanted it to be somewhat minimalist.  As I sewed it all together I found the balance of color was off some so I tore it in pieces over and over until I got something that looked balanced.  I stitched in the ditch for the quilt.  Here it is below.  See? Simple.  I did hand sew the binding which took longer than I thought it would but by golly you can't see any stitches so I'm pretty danged happy!

I made the quilt for some friends who expecting their first baby.  I can't wait to see him all wrapped up in it...although it might be some months since he's not expected until Sept and it'll still be hot here.  But he can lay on it!  LOL.  

I hope seeing Cynthia's stuff makes you want to do some quilting.  I hope you do because colder weather is just around the corner and you'll be glad you made it now. Happy sewing!

The Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library and me

A month or two ago I got an email notifying me of a Spoonflower sale.  I sell designs at Spoonflower regularly so an email isn't unusual.  A fat quarter sale, a few yards, even 20 yard sales can happen and have (and I jump for joy each time) but a 69 yard sale?

S i x t y n i n e yards. My eyes popped open at that one.  My first thought was "errrrr, I wonder if the buyer made a mistake and wanted 6 nine yard pieces?"  I had to verify the sale!

Verified, yes the sale was correct.

Now what in the world would someone do with 69 yards of fabric?

If you're the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library (with a central library and 22 branches) and you have a summer reading program called Gear Up you buy a boatload of fabric with gears as a way to decorate your branches!  Exhibits and displays are put together and my Gear Up fabric can be used in any way the participating branch wants to use it.  At the end of the program they announce the winning display.

I'm a HUGE reader. I usually have a couple of books going at the same time. I have a book near my bed, one in my car and one at work.  Depending on how good the book is I might end up carrying the most compelling story with me from home to work and will read in the parking lot while I wait for my daughter to get off of work.

When I was a kid I'd ride my bike 2 miles to check out 10 books a week.  That was the limit and I always got 10 books.  I filled the basket to the brim each trip.  I read everywhere...including while riding my bike. Ok, so I can't really recommend steering while reading but I wanted to start that book now.  I'd read at the kitchen table before dinner...until my mom would get dinner on the table and tell me to put the book away.  I'd lay the book face up on my lap and try to sneak more reading in by pretending to be downcast that I couldn't prop my book up on the other side of my plate.  She caught me every time tho.

I read in bed under the covers with a flashlight so my sister wouldn't be bothered by the light.  I read in the bathroom, in the bath, in the car...everywhere.

The only time in my life that I didn't read for fun was when I had 2 small children and they seemed to need me during all of their waking moments. Eventually I put my foot down and taught them if I was reading they'd have to ask their dad for whatever they needed.

I think reading is part of my DNA.  One of my biggest nightmares is not being able to read.  There is a Twilight Zone episode where a man who loves to read finds himself in the midst of a world calamity. Everyone is gone in an H-bomb blast and he retreats to the local library where there are books galore.  He accidently breaks his glasses and is left with thousands of books that he can no longer read.  He yells out: "It's not fair, all the time in the world and I can't read!"  (or something to that effect).  Oh that scared me to death!

I digress.

To me, having a one of my designs in a library is the perfect use. Mixing design with reading 2 of my favorite things in one place.  Libraries are one place where at your fingertips you can go anywhere, do anything, be who you want to be.  All for free.

The staff at the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library have been great. They've shared a few pictures with me (and they'll send more as their contest winds down).

Support your favorite library, there is always something new happening there.  And if you haven't been to a local library recently: GO! Oh, and I'd love if you left a comment telling me of your favorite books or what you're currently reading. 

Photo credits to the Indianapolis–Marion County Public Library, used with permission.

Graphic by me. :-)

A costume print

The next Spoonflower contest is for a theater company putting on How To Succeed in Business. The brief is a mid-century modern print on an 8 inch swatch.

This is what I came up with; it's shown as if it were under stage lights.  The colors are a deep blue with green and lavender elements.  Since it's a very small print I thought it would be good to have something that could change easily under lights that might have gels.  Lavenders can glow white in certain lights so they might be a nice softer color than a stark white.  There are also vertical lines to keep a nice vertical line on the chorus girls. The colors are also dark enough so the main character singing will stand out in the crowd.

If you want to see the actual print you'll have to navigate here to Spoonflower. Wish me luck, I think it will be hard to see how the design at SF will translate to a dress on stage under stagelights.  

Google image search and copyrighted material

I highly recommend using Googles image search to find your copyrighted images that may be shown on websites you haven't authorized.

The address is images.google.com.  Once the page loads you'll see a familiar text box with a camera icon over to the right. Click the camera and it'll ask you for an uploaded file or a web address to check against other images on the web.

That's how I found my bacon fabric out in the vast web.  The guy illegally selling my design on Zazzle products intimating that he doodles in MS Paint and thought he'd make some money off of his doodles.  I also found a low-res photo of the bacon on the Food Network.

The Food Network has a blog entry displaying my bacon fabric and has a link directly to my fabric.  I had no issue with them doing such but did ask that they replace the non-watermarked image with a watermarked image.  Within 24 hours it was changed out and I am one happy camper. They were easy to work with, communicated with me easily and it totally made my day.  They gave credit to me via the link from the time the post was first published, and they did use a low-res image originally so yay to them for doing the right thing in the first place!

Zazzle has been a little more difficult to work with. My original email to them was 6 days ago.  I sent links to the Zazzle products and my copyrighted upload which includes some dates (although the dates are vague by not showing exact upload date/time but does include copyright marks with my name on top of the image.   I asked that it be taken down and an accounting of the sellers commissions be given to me. My next email was to swear under perjury that the image belonged to me. The 3rd email offered up original photos (my design is seamless not just a single shot of bacon), I offered up an exact upload date and asked them to compare with their sellers info.  In the midst of all of that they asked if I wanted to exchange contact into with the seller.  I'm stymied why they don't suspend an account while there is an investigation going on.

I still have not gotten notification from Zazzle about the state of my design. Nor do I have anything that shows how much money he's made off of my design despite asking for that in my first email.

I wanted to be the nice girl about it, give the guy and Zazzle a chance to do the right thing.  Now that we're closing in on a week the attorney letter on letterhead is being written.  I'm lucky to have lawyer friends!  I really hope it doesn't come to me to have to send an attorney letter, I would really rather have a cooperative exchange like I did with the Food Network.

Zazzle.com and a stolen design

About a week ago I found one of my designs being sold on Zazzle.com.  Illegally I might add.  I did not give Zazzle or "theJakeness" permission to host or distribute my design for sale or otherwise.

My bacon design is hosted at Spoonflower.  It sells pretty well and I've licensed it to others but I did not license it to the Jakeness. Here are all 5 of the products he's offering at Zazzle using my design. Click here.

Here is my bacon fabric design hosted at Spoonflower.

Zazzle wrote me an email the other day asking if they could distribute my contact info to the guy who stole my design. I said no. I do not want a thief to have my email address because I'd rather Zazzle do the investigation and remove my design from their site.

Today I get an email from them, in part it stated: Please find below the contact information provided to us by the user in question so that you may reach out to them directly to resolve this issue:

And then it listed the email for the thief.

I've again asked them to remove it, I can provide upload times and dates where my original design is hosted. I'd like Zazzle to compare my upload time/date with his because I can guarantee that mine was first. Not to mention that I can provide the original photos where the bacon is not in a seamless repeat.

It upsets me to no end that this guy has sold my design on product and is making money off of my design. Money that is rightfully mine.  It upsets me that Zazzle wants me to contact the guy directly when I have an issue with Zazzle not doing the investigation and banning him as they have others who are using copyrighted materials.

Jakeness and Zazzle: please remove my bacon design and be upright and send me a check for the products you've sold using MY design. Thank you.

red comparison

The top red is the red from the Derby fabric, the lower red is from another fabric.

PA., NJ., NYC vacation

What a whirlwind trip.  9 days and everyone one of them filled up with things to do. First the wedding: Touring the grounds, visiting the butterfly house and some of the animals, being AT the wedding, hugging family thru the entire 9 days. 

A butterfly in the butterfly house

A baby goat wondering where her grass is. Funny, they got so excited if you hand-fed them the very same grass they had on their side of the fence. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence! 

The newly wedded couple

I love that groundhog, he was watching us have photos taken while chomping on fallen apples.  

Next up New Jersey.  At the shore.  Which was foreign to me. First the shore and then the boardwalk. 

My daughter having so much fun in the kid teacups.

I don't have any shore photos on my camera so these couple of boardwalk photos have to stand in to show I really was in NJ.

Off to NYC

Yes, we toured on a bus.  We did a whole lot of walking so this helped a ton. I also took this photo because the whole family there are wearing poof hairdos.  

The Empire State building and a church, I've forgotten the name of that church. St. Peters? 

The south pool.  It's so loud.  Like the noise you hear while watching footage of the buildings falling.

A different angle

A nighttime view from the Renaissance Hotel.  There were throngs of people below.  

hahaha, I am not a very good photographer and I always forget to take photos when it comes right down to it.  I have many more photos but I won't make you sit thru the slideshow.  But thanks for viewing this small offering.

I didn't do a whit of designing when I was back east.  Too busy and even in my downtime I preferred to sit on the deck and listen to the birds sing.  It was heavenly.  I loved hanging with my family.  My PA family comes out to California far more often than we travel anywhere but it's nice to see them in their natural habitat! I also loved that both of my children came out to be there with all of us.  As much as I wanted my husband to be there I was very happy he was at home taking care of our animals.  Now, when can I go on vacation again? 

Flitting about the country

I've been on vacation.  My niece who lives on the east coast got married and I had to be there for this momentous occasion.

I took a automobile, a plane and a train to get here.  It was an adventure as the airline booking got messed up and they nearly didn't let me (and 5 other people) on the train.  Not to worry tho, we all just entered the train without a ticket and the Amtrak ticket lady was fabulous and let us ride anyway.  I was sweating it!

Eastern Pennsylvania is gorgeous.  Not as gorgeous as my niece tho.  Here we are in a candid shot.

I love this shot because we're so concentrated together while there is a big expanse around us. That's how this farm was...rolling meadows dotted with huge trees.  It's also how I see this area of PA.  It's so green and lush everywhere.  The weather here has been unseasonably hot and humid.  

I've seen fireflies! They're so pretty! While it's dark and they're lit that is.  I enjoyed looking at them while I sat on the dcck of my SIL and BIL's backyard deck.  Actually all the flora and fauna in PA is great.  I saw cardinals and robins and tons of butterflies.  We don't have cardinals in So Cal and the butterfly populations are finally coming back after years of not really being seen.  That makes me happy.  I didn't really enjoy the 5/8 inch black ants tho.  They're kind of hugely giant if you compare them to our (nasty) little black ants that are less than a quarter inch.  However, the giant black ants don't march in a mile long by 1/2 inch line either so there is that.  Oh, there are squirrels here that steal the birdseed.  We do have squirrels but they aren't so brazen.

Oh yeah, I saw a couple of groundhogs.  I have a photo of one that was watching the bride and groom get their photos taken but dangit, it's on my dead camera at the moment.  A photo for another day.

I also have photos of the boardwalk at Wildwood, NJ and photos of NYC. All on my camera.

I travel home (I leave for the airport in 30 mins) so maybe tomorrow I can do a new post with MORE photos.  Uhhhh, and don't expect too much.  I'm only a point and shoot kind of gal so some of the photos will be abstract art. hahahaha.  

Until then, bon voyage! 

Geometric

A friend of mine suggested I do a tic tac toe design for the newest Spoonflower contest.  Sheesh, I was just going to do a plain chevron - I am so out of ideas.  Here are the O's of the game or if you prefer the hugs in hugs and kisses.

Looks like when I exported I cut off the top of the 2 O's but the design itself here at Spoonflower Click here to see it is perfectly fine and not cut off.And I didn't do any clean up of small white lines (I'm in a terrible hurry right now).

The choice of color was part of the brief rather than my own choice.  I'd probably do it in lots of color so it were bolder.  I'm ok with the green, I'm less fond of the grape color. 

The next contest is Endangered Animals and that should be realllly fun and way more to my liking.  Yay.

Ickly sickly

Oh, it's been a tough couple of weeks.  I was sick, sick, sick.  Flu? Walking pneumonia? Whatever it is, I've still got the tail end of it and it's wiped me out.

How many weeks can you cough because of icky goo?  So far albout 3 wks.

My sister was in a car accident: a few injuries and she'll survive but dang, hearing that the inside of her Camry is now only 24 inches wide sorta puts a bit of fear in you.

Got my ticket to go to PA for my nieces wedding. Huzzah. Even got a ride to the airport from a really nice friend who will drive me 60 miles there and then her 90 min drive home.  Boy, do I owe her!

Ok, that's it for tonight: I hope to do a post with some crafty things by this weekend!  Or at least post something funny or entertaining or something (I hope).

Night night.

Number 17!

What a great experience to take part in the SewMamaSew.com 2012 giveaway.  I loved checking the comments and seeing really yummy and fabulously easy things to make and eat.   You all outdid yourselves with every kind of yummy choices for me. Thank you so much! Without further ado:

Drum roll Please!  

Using the True Random Number Generator the winner is #17!  SewLindaAnn!  So, Linda Ann I've sent you email and when you reply with your address I'll send out the apron kit to you asap!

Scooters and Sidecars

I've created a whole slew of coordinates to go with my watercolor scooter fabric here at Spoonflower .  It's currently entered in the Motorcycle contest there (if you choose to vote in the contest the link is here

I wanted to make a kid design, specifically boys.  Those poor boys they rarely have a big choice when it comes to fabric design.  I like this because it's geared towards toddlers both boys and girls.  If you look at my coordinates you'll see designs geared for both styles of kidlets. .

 

 When my son was teeny I could basically find cammo or truck fabric.  Both are fine but I wanted MORE.  He loved vroomy things so that's what I kept in mind as I drew the scooters.

Oh and I might end up using this as a coordinate too.  :-)

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway! Woot!

Yahoooo!  It's time! I'm participating in the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway!  See this logo proves it!  Isn't it exciting? You could have a free cut and sew kit in your hands in just a week or two if you just continue reading.

You cook right?  And cooking can be messy right? Especially if you have a 3 year old who wants to get his or her fingers right into the bowl and then after licking their fingers must wipe the rest of it up on your clothes.

Well, I have just the kit for you (even if you don't have a 3 year old and even if you don't actually cook...you could use it while cleaning the house, but it really is cute in the kitchen especially if you have FiestaWare dishes).  You can win (ding, ding, ding!) this apron kit by simply posting your favorite easy recipe (or a link to a recipe) and in a few days (on May 25th to be exact) I'll randomly choose one of you to receive a A Tribute to Fiestaware apron kit!  It's that easy.

It'd be great if you followed me (that would be swell), you don't have to make 500 of your twitter followers follow me with a link back (but if you have 500 twitter followers I'm suitably impressed), all you have to do is the recipe thing AND include a way for me to contact you.  If I can't contact you I have to choose another! I will ship internationally so don't be shy, comment away!

Ohhhh, you wanna see the apron?  It's free you know!  But here it is modeled by my best friend.  And here it is with some fab Fiesta dishes.

If  you want to see the pattern kit go here to Spoonflower (btw, I have tons of designs there: cruise them if you're in the mood to check out a slew of fabric designs) the directions are printed right on the kit, all you need to do it cut it out and sew it up!  What could be easier? I know, having your significant other go out and get a fabulous dinner for you would be easier and if your partner does that then you can still WEAR the apron so you'll match the dishes you'll surely eat from right?

Ok, commence with the recipes...I'm hungry and I really want to try some out!

Oh and p.s. All my commenters so far have blogs! Go read them, give them some bloggy love!

2012 Solar Eclipse

I live in southern California and we had a solar eclipse today.  In 15 mins I created a viewing box out of a soda cracker box, some tape, paper and a nail.  Oh and tape to tape it shut.  The eclipse was cool, the light shifted and everything had a golden quality to it.

I didn't stare at the sun. I like having eyes that can see but that pin-hole box was just not cutting it.  I mean, I could see the shadow, the box worked perfectly but thing all around me was far more dynamic.

I noticed on the side of our barn this:

 

Isn't it fantastic? It's the shadows of leaves and branches from our giant sycamore tree.  I thought it was gorgeous.  I thought I'd take a photo of what it normally looks like tomorrow night.  

I'm sure there are better photos of the actual sun, but this make me feel all wonderous.  

Of retro bananas and anteaters

Bwhahaha, the result for the Retro contest came out today and yep, it was as I expected; my erect candle salad placed dismally. S'ok as I added the erect banana at the last minute because I couldn't come up with a good solid design so I went for the laugh factor. I loved my design once I added the banana...wanna see it? It's here: click here and then zoom on the design to see the detail. It got a decent number of views (which only means people were curious about it) and a number of comments from designers and regular Spoonflower members. But I guess there aren't enough Amy Sedaris fans or Charles Phoenix fans that came out to vote! Dang it!

Onto the Spoonflower hand drawn contest. The criteria is it must be hand drawn. Basically anything goes. You can color it any way you want. To me the better ones are those that are not colored digitally and not converted from hand drawn to vector. I like that somewhat rough look if it's going to be hand drawn. I mean, because I hand draw ALL of my designs...I just draw them with a wacom tablet and pen and in Illustrator. Totally hand drawn. Eh, doing that makes me feel like I'm cheating so nope, it's going to be totally hand done with real materials.

Tough not having a specific theme so I tried watercolor flowers...looked great but too boring as there will be lots of florals. Ditched it. Did a different floral with pencil and used odorless mineral spirits to melt the wax. Nice but still too boring so I ditched that too. Anteaters have been sort of on my mind since the Not Owl contest so last Monday at lunch I drew out my anteaters in ink no less and then started coloring them with colored pencil. I didn't have time to do 3 or 4 of them in diff poses since I had to enter the next day. Drew one, copied it and colored them with different color combos.

That's one of the combos. I love it, it cracks me up. I've watermarked it so if it looks a little uneven it's because the watermark is there. Wanna see the seamless repeat? Go here and check it out. Wanna vote for it so it doesn't have the same dismal showing as my candle salad? Go here and page thru the millions of entries (I do so apologize for the time you'll take going thru them all but really there are some good designs in there!)

I'm thinking anteaters might look good on my couch. And I might just be the only person in the world with anteater pillows! Woot!

George Clooney's birthday

I'm on Facebook quite a bit.  I read all sorts of stuff my friends post.  In some cases I've "liked" an outside organization such as Associated Press, ABC News, Huffington Post, etc.  Because I like to know what is going on. 

I hate having outside organizations pop up with a subscribe notice so "All your friends can see what you're reading!"  IF I WANT OTHERS TO KNOW SOMETHING I'LL ACTIVELY POST IT ON MY WALL.  I don't need Huffington Post (btw, AP and ABC does not use the popup social plugins and I'm thankful for that) to use me as an advertising tool to my friends by posting what I might have clicked on.  So Huffington Post - I like your articles mostly; at least some of the sections...others not so much. 

This appeared on my wall this morning. 

I do not care that George Clooney turned 51 or that he had a birthday.  George doesn't send me gifts or cards or helps me pay my bills.  He doesn't even know I'm alive.  So, no, I'm not going to click on that story, I'm not going to "Like" the article and if I did read it I certainly don't want to push that kind of stuff to my friends. 

Now if I knew the guy and I liked him as a human and we were actually friends I might go to HIS wall and wish him a happy birthday. But posting a happy birthday wish to him via your article is just inane.  Again, the man doesn't know who I am, nor does he care.  As far as he knows people who post birthday wishes on your site are all nutcases who *think* they know him because he's some kind of entertainment celebrity.

Can you do me a favor Huffington Post? Can you put a No Thank You function on your social networking popup so if I decide to read an article I can go to your site without having to be faced with a danged popup and read it without advertising to my friends?  Come on Arianna...can you do that? 

I'll bet if George asked you would.

In which I recount my work week

Lazy Saturdays! Worked on a design, changed it up from a very boring shape-driven design to something tongue-in-cheek funny. Not a winner type of design but it totally cracked me up. Can't post it here yet; must wait til Tuesday.

The last week was very busy for me. I was asked to project manage a press conference and I had great fun doing it. In my old work world I project managed long-term, somewhat largish projects. At my current work I project manage nothing but myself. I consider myself quite easy to manage. I rarely talk back to myself. My new boss gives me things that are outside of my assigned duties and that makes me happy because at least I'm doing something besides managing myself. This project wasn't really project management, it was really a coordination effort but they call it project management and who am I to quibble with their institutional lexicon?

I digress. I had 5 days to coordinate this thing. Luckily I saw every email so I could coordinate as things changed or made suggestions on how things should go or should not go. There was total cooperation at every turn so it made it easy as pie. My phone was ringing off the hook, my email groaning at the volume of mail. I thrive on things changing every 5 mins so this was right up my alley.

Thursdays press conference went without a hitch which is the mark of a successful event. We had good press coverage, fabulous technology coordination, great attendance in the audience and we didn't really need the plainclothes officers (we had 2). I sort of cracked up that the officers were in plainclothes but each of them had those ear piece things with the clear cord running into their suits - not very incognito if you ask me.

Friday was catching up with all the things I didn't do during the coordination week. Hahaha, to give you an indication of my normal volume of work I finished all of that with time to spare. But if the boss asks, I was sweating bullets trying to catch up (Ha).

Outside of work I saw my son, he drove into town Thursday, he came to my work to visit me with his friends and invited me and his dad to dinner: he was going to cook. We arrived at 9:20 (yes, it was a late dinner); about a dozen 20-something guys, a couple of girls and us. I don't know that some of his friends knew we were coming. We walked in and those that didn't know us looked at us funny. We're 30-35 years older than them and we're PARENTS. hahahaha. I think those that were smoking blunts in the backyard did a (slow) double-take.

The son cooked mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, pan-fried steaks and a green salad for about 15 people. Everything was yummy. We ate around 10:15....rather I ate at that time as I got served first (good son!). It was fun seeing the kids we knew; most of them we've known since they were in grade school and now they are all 23 or so. Most have jobs, most have graduated from college and most are just now embarking on a real life. I don't think any of them live with their parents anymore. Probably for the best, parents don't want to know everything their young adult children decide to do.

Got home around quarter after 11 and straight to bed since I get up at 5:30. <----another mark of a parental-type.

Yep, a full week, a fun week. So I deserve this lazy, somewhat warm Saturday (and yes, I read some of my book, "The Tigers Wife" and even took a nap earlier. Wheeeee. Perfect Saturday.

Satisfaction

Argh, it's morning. Slept like a log, still feel like a log. Must wake up. The last few days at work have been jammed-packed with things to do and I had fun. I'd love to be that busy all the time! Maybe that's why I've slept so good over the past couple of nights.

Busy, satisfied and feel like I'm contributing. Hooray.

Isn't it nice to feel satisfied with something? Yet, not feeling satisfied creates a need for me to do something better or more interesting so there is that aspect of the push/pull of whatever you're doing.

Speaking of doing...I'm way behind on a couple of projects and MUST get it together so I don't add to the pile of not done yet. My plans for this weekend is go not design for hours but to get some of those projects done.

I'm all happy that my chickens took 5th place in the Not Owls contest at Spoonflower. Check out the design here: Click for chickens Not too bad out of 226 designs eh? I'm fairly satisfied with that! And that bit where I'm not - means I'll try harder next time.