Living the Creative Life

Can you believe it's May already? Time sure does fly! April was busy for me. I started (and failed) NaNoWriMo. I also got a job! Full-time at a webdesign agency. I'm in my second week now and it's been going well. Still learning the ropes and adjusting to being awake in the a.m., but so far so good. :) How was your April? Do anything exciting? Do you have any fun plans for May? ------------------ And as promised, here is your free May calendar! Enjoy!! 1280x800 | 1366x768 | 1920x1080

Hello! Sorry for my few and far between posts lately. I'll try to be better about that. To catch you up... My previous job situation got downsized after about 2 weeks, so since then, I've been either looking for work (which is surprisingly exhausting, if you've ever done it), building up my Etsy design shop , flushing out my business website , and also helping my dad with his job (a night-time route delivering the LA Times). On the paper route My neice turned one years old a couple weeks ago. Time sure flies! She's crawling now and starting to learn to stand while holding on to things. Rachel's First Birthday The weirdest thing about living in Southern California to me is that it never really got to be winter here! We had one week where it got into the 30's at night, but for the most part, it's been fluctuating between the 40's and the 70's (night & day, respectively). Last week we even got into the 80's! That definitely make...

I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the weather here. I know what you're thinking... but 80 degrees in November is awesome! I guess... if you like summer... which I don't particularly. I'm not saying it's horrendous torture to still be 80 degrees in November, just that it's weird. Summer is fine, in moderation, when it's part of the yearlong cycle of seasons, but November should not be part of summer. Summer should be over by now. November is supposed to be sweaters and pumpkin lattes and curling up by the fireplace with a good book. I'm literally still in shorts and t-shirts, whipping out my sunglasses everytime I go outside. It's very odd. via I was reading an article from a local magazine the other day... talking about how it was flannel sheets weather. Um, really? Really?? Flannel sheets!?? I'm still throwing off blankets in the middle of the night because I'm so warm. It definitely is NOT flannel sheet weather. Flanne...

I've been knitting up a storm this week for my Etsy shop . I haven't felt like knitting since I've been down here since it's so HOT! But... it is just about to "hat-selling season", as I like to call it, so I figured I better break out my yarn and needles again. ;) My brother-in-law's old college roommate was giving away this gigantic tv and asked if we wanted it. It's not super new, but considering that we literally only brought what we could fit into our cars from Oregon, we were having to make due with a little, itty, bitty, 13" one. Lol. This one is so much bigger than we even had in Oregon, so it's almost like having a theater right in our living room. ;P My mom and I visited the local mall the other day. I hadn't been to this one yet, and I was pretty impressed! It reminds me of the ones up in Salem or Portland that actually have a double-layer of stores and lots of people in them. There was one mall in the town next to where ...

It's a little crazy being in such a warm climate during Fall. It still feels like summer to my Oregon brain (it's 88° today!) and yet the stores are filling up with boots and scarves and Halloween candy. Very strange. Being from Oregon, I'm used to rain at Christmastime instead of snow, but I'm definitely not used to not having a Fall season! I'm guessing Winter here will actually feel more like an Oregon Fall, minus all the buckets of rain. Speaking of Oregon... it has come to my attention that only people from the Pacific NW know the difference between evergreen and deciduous trees. It blows my mind that someone may not know the difference to something that seems so obvious to me, but then again I've been an Oregonian for my entire 34 years, so it's very possible I just haven't spent enough time around people from other parts of the country. ;) With that in mind... I'm really curious if you know the difference? (And if you don't, leave a co...

I really do miss the cool Oregon rain sometimes, but... California is pretty great too! I even found some clouds the other day. And the Starbucks are pretty here, as well! Hehe. ;)

Well, I haven't worn long pants or real shoes in about two weeks now. Lol. It's hot the second I wake up, but when the sun goes down, the evenings are very pleasant (that's when I try to do my shopping and errands). The errands we have had to run during the day result in lots and lots of sweat, but on the bright side, this pasty, white Oregonian is actually starting to tan! Never thought I'd be able to say that! I'm notoriously un-tannable. Lol. I don't know if you care to see my feet, but my sister found nearly free nail polish on her weekly grocery run, so I got three shades for $2 total! Wow! I am not nearly as savvy with couponing as she is, but maybe now that we're living nearby, some of that will rub off. ;) We had a broken air conditioner the first few days and we all thought we were going to die, but it's fixed now so we're all able to relax in a fairly cool apartment during the day. We had to dunk Carlita in the sink three times a ...

#1 - I now know how to pump gas I've pumped my own gas for the first... and second... time this week. Believe it or not, I made it to the ripe old age of 34 without ever having done that before. Oregon is one of the only states where pumping your own gas is illegal, so I've been privileged to have the station attendants do it for me up until now! Thankfully most pumps seem to have directions, so I'm sure I'll be an old pro soon. ;) #2 - My hair dries really fast in this hot, dry weather It's very odd to me to literally be out of the shower and in about 5 minutes my hair's nearly dry. In Oregon, I'd have to spend like 10-15 minutes with a hair dryer to get it dry. Most days I wouldn't bother and would just let it stay wet for hours. I never really thought about the fact that our very humid Oregon weather was probably partially to blame for my hair taking so long to dry! Lol. Now living in the middle of a desert, it's very interesting to be able to d...

Well we made it to California in one piece! I 'bout nearly died of heat-stroke in the meanwhile, but now my freckles are already starting to grow together as sun protection, so I think I'll survive. We started our big trip off with a garage sale last weekend. I think we probably sold about a quarter of our belongings and then gave another quarter of it away to a charity. After packing up the vans and realizing we STILL had too much stuff to fit in, we gave another bunch of stuff away. You start realizing which of your belongings are really important to you and which are disposable when you literally can't fit all of it in your moving van and have to choose your favorites! It made me remember stories of the pioneers leaving their beloved pianos and paintings behind when they traveled West because they couldn't fit everything in their covered wagons. Our first stop on moving day was to the DMV. My mom's car tags expired about a week ago! Oops! So we stopped and ...

We're moving in less than a month to Southern California, so I thought it'd be fun to do a little pro/con list. I've lived in NW Oregon my entire life, so the culture difference is probably going to take some getting used to! Oregon : Love the rain and all the green it makes. SoCal : Won't have to worry about things molding all the time. Oregon : Love the seasons and the definite shift to colder weather for half the year. SoCal : I think I can get used to flip flops and shorts year round (or at least mostly year round). Oregon : Beautiful scenery which inspires beautiful photography. SoCal : Ditto. I can't wait to explore all the nooks and crannies of the state with my camera. Oregon : Cheaper places to live. SoCal : Better salaries available. Oregon : Nothing much to kill you in the way of bad weather or venomous creatures. SoCal : Wildfires, earthquakes, black widow spiders... Oregon : Fairly relaxed and laid-back. SoCal : Crazy drivers, more cr...

Today's prompt kind of cracks me up. I'm sure some people have a "lot in life" that is no joking matter, but for me, myself, I don't feel like there's any great experience/situation hanging over my head that I'm constantly trying to overcome. I am who I am and what I've been through has made me who I am today, so... Maybe it's just me, but I don't really think about life's circumstances like they're something to overcome. I work towards goals and move on from things that didn't work. I don't dwell a lot on the past, other than to try to learn from my mistakes. Sometimes I think our "lot in life" can really be a mental thing. You either have it in your head that you do do/be anything, or you don't. Not that everyone has the ability to do anything they want, but just that a lot of people needlessly censor their ideas and dreams because they think they're not worthy of them or that somehow they're unable to...

In no particular order... Walking around downtown Portland Watching iPod commericals My cat, Carlita Rain Going to the movies alone Figuring out a new trick in CSS via: puglypixel Watching a new episode of Grimm w/ my family Eating Cheetos Going to the Oregon coast Starbucks Christmas coffees

I'm an introvert who loves designing, reading, & learning! ***** On a sidenote... if you've been paying attention, you'll know that I haven't posted in about a week! School's been majorly busy so I put blogging on the back burner for awhile - this post will be dated for the date is was supposed to be posted, for example, since I'm trying to do the Blog Every Day in May challenge. ;) We put up a gallery exhibit this weekend, showcasing our graduating class' design projects from the last 2-3 years. It's crazy how much work goes into a show like that! I probably put in 50-60 hours of time over the last week and a half getting ready for the show. Needless to say I've been playing hooky part of this week so I can rest up. ;)

I can't for the life of me remember a recent embarrassing moment. Either I've blocked them out or I'm just too old to get embarrassed anymore. Lol. Today's post topic reminds me of the go-to answer I've always used for this question in the past though, so that's what I'll share with you. So I think it was 8th grade or so... I was on an overnight retreat with my classmates. We stayed in some barn in the middle of nowhere that had bunk-beds and a tv in it - that's pretty much all I remember about the setting. Oh, and we watched The Cutting Edge (remember that movie ?). So I had been sick that week but still really wanted to go on the retreat anyway. I had been feeling better, but apparently not fully better, because at one of our group inspirational talks, I ended up throwing up all over myself... and the girl sitting next to me... in front of probably 30-40 of my classmates. Awesome... Everyone was really nice about it, of course, but being an eig...

This week we've been getting ready for a gallery opening to show off some of our graduating portfolios. We've all been working late every night in the lab: designing, printing, proof-reading, re-designing, re-printing... well you get the idea. ;) So, since today's post was supposed to be a glimpse of my day and I've been too busy to remember to take a photo... you get to see a photo of my pillow instead! ;) Because that is where I'm headed now. I've been designing all day and now it's time to rest my weary eyes!

"If you couldn't answer with your job, how would you answer the question, 'what do you do'?" This is today's blogging prompt and it's a pretty interesting one! When people ask that question, normally the first thing that pops into my head is my job/career. So let's see... what do I do... not in relation to my job (or in my case... school)? I ... daydream... think a lot... read about new ideas and theories... knit hats... pet my cat, Carlita... browse YouTube to learn new Photoshop techniques... get lost on http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/ watching movie trailers... "walk" around new cities on Google Maps Street View... start new families on The Sims 3... organize my iTunes library... again... redesign my blog template... again... think about taking a walk... sit in public places and people-watch... take myself to the movies alone... browse want-ads online and feel instantly disqualified for every job... contribute to...

In no particular order... 1. Wet socks. I'd rather go barefoot than have wet socks on! 2. Drivers that drive directly parallel to my car. Unless we're in stop-and-go traffic, why must you drive directly next to me? Move forwards or backwards, please! 3. Having someone hovering behind me while I'm trying to work. For some reason this makes me extremely self-conscious and I suddenly forget how to do basic things like move the mouse around or spell things correctly. 4. When I tell someone my weekend was quiet and they respond with, "Oh I'm sorry." Um... thank you? I actually loved that my weekend was quiet, so I'm not sure why you're apologizing. #MomentOfAwkwardSilence 5. Watching my favorite movie with someone new. I always end up so distracted, hoping that they'll love it as much as I do, that I have a hard time actually enjoying the movie myself! Lol. ***** What about you? What makes you uncomfortable?

Due to my being a total slacker on blogging lately (on not really feeling guilty about it... sorry), I thought it might be fun to go completely in the other direction this month and participate in the Blog Every Day In May trend started by Jenni over at the Story Of My Life blog. I don't actually follow this blog, but my blog-friend Angie post about it on her blog , and I thought it was an interesting idea. Jenni has a topic lined up for every day, so I will attempt to follow and we'll see how that goes! ----- Story of My Life (in 250 words or less) (That's me on the right. Approximately age 2.) I was born at home in 1979 in a small rural area of Oregon. In fact being born at home was so rare in those days that I actually made the local papers (no joke). Since then we've moved around a LOT (but always in Oregon). I used to joke that I had lived in more houses than the number of years old I was, but I'm not sure that's still true (it's well over 20 d...

Today I was inspired to finally wade through all the tags on my blog (some leftover from when I brought this blog over here from Squarespace three years ago!). I cleaned them up considerably, narrowing things down to 20 tags (which you can now find both in the sidebar and in the footer). Should make browsing my blog easier for both me and you! ;) It was pretty interesting going back through my blog though. I skimmed through every... single... post. (Yes, it took forever). Even way back before I applied for school, I was dreaming about being creative, traveling, and doing something more with my life than answering phones all day. If my self from three years ago could only see me now!! ;) Also in conjunction with the tag revamp, I completely redesigning my blog. (Yes, again). I suppose I should be designing my school projects instead, but we all need a day of procrastination now and then, right?

Due to my MacBook cord deciding it didn't want to charge my MacBook anymore and also due to my school schedule, I thought it might be fun to do a series of quick posts from my iPhone for awhile. I'll try to post a photo a day and give a brief synopsis of what I've been up to. What do you think? So my first day of my last term of school was yesterday. So far so good! I'm only taking 3 classes instead of the 5 that I should be taking, but I know I made the right decision. Having too busy of a schedule totally stressed me out and these three classes that I am taking are going to be insanely tough as it is. We're working on our graduating portfolio, personal identity and branding, and personal website (to be used for our online portfolio). Needless to say all these are all very important projects and very time consuming as well! Which brings me to another topic I'd like to discuss. Well two really... (did I say this was going to be a quick post? oops). So since ...