Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.
what are some of the things you like doing to make you FEEL productive?
do you have any favourite chores/things you like to do in your home?
I totally should be working on etsy today but I just REALLY don't feel like it.
Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.
Probably should preface this with I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A NEW JOB.
For the past two weeks or so, I've been having completely outrageous dreams. Last night it had to do with being drug addicted, having a man who was 33 want to date me, and needing to learn Ruby on Rails. A while ago I dreamed that Richie left me, took Cary, and I had to live in an apartment with my mom who insisted that the reason Richie left was all my fault. And then Shylo and Porsche ran away from home - everyone was leaving me!
I remember, when I was thinking I had to learn Ruby on Rails in my dream, how hard it was going to be. When I was about nineteen I thought I'd be brilliant and teach myself ColdFusion because hardly anyone knew it, and I thought it'd be an asset. Well that went down in a brilliant cloud of smoke, lemme tell ya. I couldn't get anything to work in CF.
I've had lots of work to do lately, which is why I think this Ruby on Rails nonsense came up. Lots of work, and I've been thinking in/about code and wondering the validity of jQuery (it's good, just want to put that out there) and that under "programming" on my resume, that PHP and ASP seem kind of lonely by themselves. Not a whole lot of people know Ruby and I guess my brain immediately went to Ruby because it'd already failed with ColdFusion.
See, the thing is, I already get a lot of syntax messed up when I go from PHP to ASP. I add semi-colons all over the place, use curly brackets in my if statements and in general make a mess of ASP. Once I'm in ASP, though, it's fine. Once I've wrapped my head around Microsoft's easy, but limited, programming language that requires 37 times more code than PHP to accomplish the same task, I'm all right.
Do I REALLY want to add Ruby into the mix? do I actually NEED Ruby? Would I ever, in my wildest dreams, ever get a client ask me, "So, can you program me this entire site using Ruby on Rails?" The answer is probably no. I've never had anyone, at any job or project, ever ask me if I could program them something in a specific language.
Maybe my brain is trying to trick me into learning something else so I can forget a bad thing that happened a long time ago.
With all this said, I should have probably saved this post for my portfolio. My super-secret-not-yet-available portfolio. It'd make much more sense over there anyway.
Also, has anyone upgraded their WP lately? Are they HATING it? Tons of my plugins are all wonkified now!
Finished my dress last night! Just in time to see Wicked today. People really don't dress around here. I don't know why you wouldn't, it is so much fun to dress up when you are going to something like that. Anyway. Wicked was fabulous, and I was very happy with my dress. I wore it with some fantastic shoes that didn't show up in the picture, some cream coloured oxford-style booties, they were different, not your typical heels, but I liked them :) My hair looked better earlier. These pics were at the end of the night after I had a hat on and everything.
The pattern and design were all my own. Took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with that gorgeous red velvet fabric and I think it worked really well in this dress. Plus, I have a BUNCH left over, so I can make something else as well. I don't know if you can see it in the pictures, but the velvet has a gorgeous pattern/texture. I've never seen anything like it. The top is made of a creamy silk and has some fantastic buttons on the sleeves (purely for decorations). The skirt is floor length and has a godet in the back which makes a mini-train. The skirt is also lined and makes a wonderful sound when I walk :) The sash thing around the middle/top is a red and sort of sparkly sheer, randomly ruched and stitched up.
It looked more Edwardian than I was expected, but I love the way it turned out. One of the first that I completely made the pattern and concept for, so I'm proud of it. The thing fits like a glove, one of the perks of making your own patterns, and I love the way the skirt hangs.
Anyway, lots of fun!
~Nikki
Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.
I ordered us a couple of Zombies and while standing in line I had an Electric Popsicle. This was back in the day before I drank beer or wine. the point of this story is to say that we were both kind of drunk, and me moreso.
Before the concert gets started we're sitting around, drinking, and laughing at stuff and I see this really, REALLY hot guy. He had a shaved head, red t-shirt, nice jeans, and this cool Japanese lettering tattoo down the side of his neck. He looked awesome. With my recently bruised ego still afoot, I didn't bother to go up and say hi to him because I thought he'd just shut me down and I didn't feel like being shut down that night.
Time goes on, the band starts playing and I have another drink of some kind. I'm rather wasted at this point. My friend and I were dancing and cheering and singing along when who comes up to me, but red t-shirt hotness. I can barely hear him because the level of the music is so loud and the fact that I was looking at him through Zombie goggles didn't help.
He leaned over and said (what I thought), "You ... good".
I couldn't hear, so I motioned to my hear and leaned over again, and he repeated the same thing to me.
Still not sure of what he said, I gave him the thumbs up with one hand and said "good?"
He nodded excitedly and I replied, "Yeah, good!" and went back to dancing.
My friend told me, about six seconds after the guy and his friend walked away that what he had actually said was "You look good."
There's no way to recover from that. Just wanted to put that out there.
Well, the last order dates for the holidays have passed, and Santa's final sacks of festive MOOs are filling up fast. We're still taking new orders though, and we'll be shipping them out as fast as we can - so don't hesitate to order thank you cards for all your lovely pressies!
Just so you know, here's our warehouse and customer service closure dates over the holiday season.
Thursday 24th December - LIMITED HOURS: we'll be shipping orders in the morning, but going home in the afternoon to wrap presents.
Friday 25th December - CLOSED : we'll be at home feasting on mince pies and turkey.
Monday 28th December - UK CLOSED: we'll be buying new trousers to fit our expanded waistlines!! (please note this is a UK Holiday only).
Tuesday 29th December - OPEN: business as usual.
Wednesday 30th December - OPEN: business as usual.
Thursday 31st December - OPEN: business as usual.
Friday 1st January - CLOSED : we'll be trying out our New Year resolutions and nursing hangovers.
Monday 4th January - OPEN: that's it, holidays over, back to work!
It's also important to note that our StickerBook turnaround in the UK is severely delayed over the holidays. Any orders placed after the 20th December will not be dispatched until the week of the 4th January.
That's all for now - Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the MOO Warehouse Crew!
Wow, haven't posted in a long time! Everything was so busy with the holidays and everything. I took some pictures of a couple of gifts that I made this year! And I had at least one present for everyone that I wasn't able to finish. Oh well. Since we had an early Christmas this year when my sister came to visit, I can post these without worry.
Yea, I'm so not ashamed that my sister and I 'get' Shakespeare jokes :P I thought it was so clever. "Exit pursued by bear" from A Winter's Tale. :D Pretty funny right??! I came up with the exit sign idea all on my own :) Just rounded the edges of a scrap piece of wood I had in the basement and started painting!
Anywho, those are all I have pictures of right now! At the moment I'm working on a dress that I'm going to wear to see Wicked this weekend. I know, cutting it close. I'm going to be SO overdressed, but I'm still so excited about it. I love making fancy dresses, I just never have anywhere to wear them. My own design and everything. I'll post it when I'm done!
~Nikki
Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.
Dear Cary:This month feels like it's gone by in a flash. It seems like hardly any time ago that you were just my little four month old who didn't know how to sit on his own. Here we are, twice that age, and you can sit by yourself, and are very much enjoying standing. While sitting on my knee, if you are holding onto my hands you can pull yourself into standing position.
Crawling, on the other hand, seems to confound you and you just won't do it. True to new-mom form, I'm feeling a little anxious about this. Why won't you crawl? You're content to lay there in what we affectionately refer to as "baby skin rug" pose. You'll lay there for hours, crying if necessary, but you just won't make any effort to get up and crawl. You can hold yourself in crawl position: we try it daily. But to get you to actually go is a completely different matter.
Eating is going very well. You've graduated to two-or-three ingredient meals including ones with turkey or beef. I was the same way when I was little. When I was done with single ingredient meals I was DONE and I was ready for meat. You're a good eater and love your vegetables. Happily you accept three meals per day as well as nursing in between any of those, though, love, I will admit that it's a little hard on Mamas boobs. As in they are always bursting at the seams. This doesn't seem to bother you at all, and you take it in stride.
About two weeks ago we got family portraits done and you needed your first hair cut. I thought I'd cry about it, but you looked like such a little hobo that I was utterly desperate for you to get a hair cut. It was long and stringy, and with your penchant for screaming nonsensically accompanied by your lack of teeth, you truly resembled a hobo. To see you with prunes smeared from eyebrow-to-chin completed your vagrant look, and while you were adorable, it was a touch unsettling.
We have seen your first two teeth. You are one of those kids I said you were going to be. The kind that sit there and drool and pretend to get teeth for months and then end up with two in one sitting. Your two bottom teeth have appeared happily, and you mow your way through Cheerios, pickles and the tender flesh of my body. Not only bitten in the boob, but you've bitten my nose and chin on two separate occasions.
You have learned to "dance" in the cutest baby way I have ever seen. Watching the old Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, you sat on the couch with a Baby Mum Mum cracker in one hand, and when the adorable, ancient characters burst into their tiny songs of delight and charm for Christmas day, you wiggled back and forth and bopped your head along with the songs. It's the sweetest thing I have ever seen.
We are in full swing of celebrating your first Christmas. I even wrote to Santa on your behalf, and am waiting for a reply to add into your baby book. You've been such a good boy, though, that I'm sure you will be spoiled rotten.
I love you so much, my sweet Cary Love.
Mama.
As the pipe clamp blisters began to pop and heal on my hands, I knew I was in a race against myself to find my next gig in woodworking. I had just quit my job after I was put on a mandatory 72-hour work week schedule, which was neither safe nor necessary in the warehouse where I was a full time furniture maker. From my first taste of sawdust, I was hooked. I loved everything about it, especially the aches & pains associated with putting in a hard day of manual labor.
I had moved thousands of miles from my industrial Michigan factory roots, only to go to college and decide the blue collar life is what I wanted. I quit my job, only when it was obvious that it would either kill or permanently injure me...but it was still one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. Besides the fact that I love it, I realize now how wrapped up I was in the identity of being just one thing...In my working life, I have always had to have at least three side hustles going on and I've done everything from nude modeling, to being a maid, a well-paid executive assistant, an extra in movies, a make-up artist, to an apprentice sander in a woodshop.
When I call home to update my family, typically, whatever it is I describe is met with unconditional love & acceptance, even if there is a tinge of it not necessarily being understood. As a woodworker, I was finally able to align myself with an identity - one thing that I loved being and doing...and it was so much easier to explain that!
Predictably, when the job fell apart, I scrambled for any paying gig I could find on craigslist. As it turns out, it was a good time to be involved with film making and I even signed up for acting classes. Being involved in the process is as exciting as it seems like it would be - even the long hours of waiting, while being completely dressed to the nines for a 6:00 a.m. call time, shouldn't be exciting, but it still is.
Around this time I also found work as a fit model, working for a local design house. It's a job that pays very well but the work is inconsistent. Still, I am extremely thankful to have it, even if it is a bit weird for me to use it as an identifier at the dentist's office and have the receptionist squeal and ask me a bunch of questions about the job. That's a rock star moment, I'm not going to lie, but it's completely foreign to me to identify myself as "model" in any capacity...especially when "factory rat" was a closer signifier just weeks ago.
I'm not sure if all the discomfort in lacking a fixed occupation or identity squarely rests on my shoulders, or if I am reacting to other people's confusion when I try to explain, "Well, I'm actually a furniture maker, but I'm out of work, so I'm doing the acting and modeling thing, while looking for another woodworking gig." Who does that? I'm not sure if I even understand myself anymore.
In the long run, it's probably a good thing that I am so versatile & adaptable - I always have something relevent for any type of resume I'm creating for myself (and I have at least 3); but I long for the day when I have a short answer to the question, "So what do you do?"
Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.
I moved the booklet away from my bed because it was keeping me awake with night. I have become rather skilled at writing in the dark and my handwriting, though a tad childlike, is still extremely legible despite the 1AM scrawls. I was getting upset, though. It was causing me to think, and re-think, and think some more about things. Not bad things, just things that I needn't be considering that much. It's been hard. I also am too lazy to actually get up, now, to get a piece of paper and write down these things, thus, I have been left with this lovely little conundrum.
I don't really have a point to this today. See, this is what happens when I don't have anything to say. I ramble on and on and on about nothingness and I'm sure it annoys the ever loving living daylights out of everyone.
I guess I can point out some of the new things I've got on the blog now...
I've changed the navigation because it was getting too long. And I had wanted to add more stuff, so I found this sweet CSS menu.
Under the "This Girl" section, formerly "About", you can still find information about yours truly, but now have access to a plethora of more information, such as Frequently Asked Questions. Who doesn't love FAQ's? This one is neat because you, yes YOU, get to drive that machine and send me your questions that I will answer/post some kind of response to. Unless it's about bags of toenails or pictures of me without any clothes on. Something I was piddling around with before I took my "vacation" was the Library. See what drivel I have been reading :) Also added a bit of a gallery because I am just far too cheap when it comes to buying a pro account on Flickr. I have the space here, why not use it?
The rest of the stuff you have access to was accessible previously, just re-categorized.
Something I know I've talked about 49583 times is opening an etsy store. Well, this time I actually have ideas, patterns, products and have been researching branding, fonts, information and such to actually open the shop. So, Diaper Bag Princess is now on etsy. I currently do NOT have any items listed, as I have recently become a bit more busy with life things, and while I don't have the same time to dedicate to this that I had before, I am still going to give it my all to get this little guy up and running by the end of January, 2010. I will definitely keep everyone posted about what's going on with that...I don't even know if anyone cares or not, but this is a huge thing for me. I'm always so afraid of failing at these things that I end up full of ideas and never take it any farther. I'll see how this goes, if there's any success whatsoever, and then I have plans for opening a second store for horse things. That, however, is completely dependent on how DBP goes. If it's really dead I won't bother going ahead with it, and if DBP is really busy (which I doubt, but you never know!) then I won't either, because I won't have time. It's also a secret right now as to what exactly is going on with it ;) But I do promise to keep those interested parties in the loop when there are things to know!
In whatever spare time (read: that time when I have no work to do and I can't sleep) I can find, I've been clacking away at a silly novel called Undying Love: a Zombie Romance It's fromage to the tenth degree, but it's funny too. Not Shaun of the Dead funny but...well, lame-funny I guess. It's still in its infancy and is only, like, three chapters long so far. I'll post some snippets of the cheese-factory when I'm more comfortable and in depth with the story. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you'll think it's the worst thing in the world. Either way, it's something that I've wanted to do since I've been about seventeen years old (write a full-length novel) and it's something that's on my life list to accomplish.
I've been feeling a lot better these past two days as well, after MAKING myself get up and MAKING myself get out of the house. It's so depressing to sit around and do nothing!
Originally published at diaper bag princess. You can comment here or there.
My depression has been incredible this past month. Like, gut wrenching, heart hammering, brain numbingly awful. Many days I spent in bed for a good long time, consuming cup after cup of caffeinated beverage in an attempt to jump start my life. Isn't this the exact opposite reason I had for going on this break? That I didn't want to feel like proverbial crapola, and take my life by the reins?
It got so bad again that I was thinking about what it'd be like to just go to sleep and not wake up. I just couldn't stop thinking how awesome that would be; I would no longer be in a loveless marriage to Zoloft and that I would finally feel like I wasn't falling behind the pack. It's terrible to think like that, and I am aware of this. I so desperately want to be normal again that I had to institute, and recently, a new set of life hacks for myself. I just love that term, life hack, don't you? It's like you can fix yourself a little bit at a time.
Exercise. I need it and I don't get it. This past month, with the horrendous snowfall has left me feeling shut in and emotionally crippled. I feel like I can't carry on a normal conversation about anything with anyone. My growth is stunted in my brain and I've often felt like a failure in life. Three - four weeks feeling that way is no way to live, and I don't encourage people with depression to try to fix it themselves. I'm at a point, though, where I don't have a choice. I can sit around and feel like shit for the rest of my life, or I can accept that my life is going to include a pill once a day, and that I am going to have to do a little more than hope that it works. I'm so over hoping that it makes me sick to taste the word in my mouth. I can't hope and I just need to DO. Even if it means braving the freezing cold with my son strapped to my back.
My baby has teeth. There's really no other way to segway into it than just to come out and say it. Teeth. Two bottom teeth, cute and unsuspecting until he bites on your finger. Coinciding with this blessed event is his inability to sleep more than 40 minutes in a given stretch - even at night. Night has become a series of naps with me getting up five-six-nine times during the night. He can't help it, poor little guy, and I truly feel bad for him. But I feel bad for me too. Last night was the first night he slept more than 40 minutes and I woke up with some seriously rock hard boobs because he hadn't nursed the daylights out of them the night before.
Baby is also loving food. He'll eat nearly anything. He's up to three big-boy meals a day and he nurses in between those times. He's enjoying feeding himself Cheerios, and has recently learned how to feed the dogs his food - except when it comes to toast. He's surprisingly strict when it comes to that.
Another lovely habit he has recently acquired is growling at me. He doesn't do it when he's mad or anything, so the only thing I can come up with is that he's learned it from the dogs, as they tend to growl at one another 9849503 times a day over everything.
I feel like my little "break" was wasted, but on the other hand it wasn't. I was able to actually get some gears in motion to accomplish one of my life list items. For real this time. I was able to sit and play with my son and be able to shut the computer off for a while and not have to think about it. My house didn't get cleaned, and it was apparent from the state of its disarray that it was clearly displaying the turmoil surging through my gut, but it doesn't matter. It got done today and for that I am proud.
Thank you.
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