P r e t t y S k e t c h y

I have found that

summer is not the time for sitting inside blogging. It is the time for multiple wedding attendances in new dresses, walks on the beach collecting sea glass, countless road trips, visits to the zoo with little ones in tow, drives out to the coast beaches to walk and let Pencil run free, afternoons reading on a blanket in a park, visits to and from friends and sisters and developing the best tan I've had since South Africa. I've been busy, and while I have taken a lot of photos I think that this one sums up summer pretty well. Sitting outside with a latte in my hand while Pencil sleeps in my lap (while wearing Bethany's skirt and belt).

I have a bit of news for the few of you that still read this blog and don't know me in person (if there's anybody left). Last December I applied for a job as a designer at Anthropologie. The interview process was long and difficult. I had to construct a portfolio, design and complete three buildng projects, as well as make an inspiration book. It was a tremendous amount of work. But I ended up finding in spring that I did not get the position. So I took a job nannying the cutest kids in the world. I spent a lovely spring and summer with them and then I got an e-mail last month when i'd all but forgotten my months of interviews and toroturous waiting. It contained a request for me to interview for the same position I had applied for last December but at a different store. Despite my love of my nannying job I interviewed and in a week-and-a-half, I had a new career.

(image source)

On Monday I will begin my new job as a display coordinator for Anthropologie in Bellevue. I will be designing, constructing and installing displays at the store full time for what I imagine to be a long time. I feel like I've paid my dues since graduating with my degree in 2007. I've had a lot of crummy jobs, a few good ones and definitely experienced life as a starving artist and an out of work teacher in a crummy economic slump. I feel super lucky to have gotten this job and I'll try to share from time to time what I'm working on (as long as it doesn't violate any privacy disclosure issues, I need to ask a few questions first). I'll also try and show a few pictures of the projects and things that helped land me this sweet job.

Love:

This Greek God's Honey Yogurt, it's better than iced cream, seriously.

Jill

Alex Maclean's aerial photographs...

Modern Family

Walks around Greenlake

Diet Coke, always.

Chalkboard markers

This baby room from Lavender and Lilies

Homemade granola

A warm little dog in my lap

This shelf idea (source unknown, sarry).

Cherry blossom trees blooming here while most people I know are stuck in snowstorms

Bed

Well How About That

It seems that as soon as I gave up on blogging I suddenly had extra time to blog and lots of things to blog about, go figure. I think I just needed to indulge in a bit of wallowing in the name of self-preservation. Things are looking up and the wallowing is over for the moment. So I'll update you a bit on what I've been up to over the last month in the form of a few lists.

 

Discoveries I've made this month:

1. Colin Firth is still hot.

2. Organic cantaloupe is WAAAAY better than non-organic.

3. Justin Bieber is awesome. Yeah that's right, you heard me. To be fair I actually just like a Glee version of a Bieber song but it's still pretty terrible. Bethany and I feel in love with it together so I made her this...

4. This site. Hours of distraction at your fingertips.

5. One of my special skills seems to be redrafting texts so they are still grammatically correct but fit within the character limit.

6. I'm not fooling anyone. Americans ALWAYS notice my Canadian accent.

7. I totally found a big pile of old gas station numbers on a garbage pile in a sign lot by my house and promptly took half of them home. I now have plexiglass letters in every possible place I can fit them including a number three in my shower. They're super awesome!

8. This music video. Holy crap, how could I never have seen this before? I love the wigs in the Jesus scene and the fact that Michael's hair is not a wig. Also it gets surprisingly graphic towards the end, eesh.

9. This blog, via Jill Bartel. The girl is from Edmonton but I've never heard of her, anyone know her? If I still lived there I would try and force a friendship between us.

10. Parks & Rec is FINALLY back on! I was beyond excited when I found out.

 

Future projects:

1. Compiling a list of every book I've ever read. I think it would be interesting to have them all in a big list and see how many there are. Right now I couldn't venture a guess. I know that inevitbly I will leave a bunch out due to my poor memory and the fact that when I was working at the bookstores I burned through a lot of random books I barely remember.

2. Working on new/more pieces to hang in the Anthropologie in downtown Seattle, hollah! I had an interview with the display coordinator today and I'm in. Not sure which month yet though.

3. Painting my bathroom (this weekend maybe).

4. Reading Great Expectations again as well as Cannery Row for the first time (I've been loving Steinbeck).

5. Changing jobs (more on this later).

6. An illustration for Edmonton's Avenue magazine.

7. Letter writing, I am waaaay behind.

 

Completed Projects:

1. Reading 'The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, which is considered to be one of the first mystery novels ever. Admittedly I bought it because it was a classic and I liked the cover, but I really enjoyed it.

2. Drawings and typography for Bethany and Joel's wedding invitations including possibly the best ampersand ever drawn. I am exceedingly proud of this cause ampersands are super hard to draw.

3. Painting my round, kind of ugly, wood veneered table with black chalkboard paint. It's super cute (and fun) now.

4. Rearranging my entire studio at 2am. I need to take pictures....

5. Spray painting my horribly ugly dark wood thrift-store rocking chair white. I'm still waiting for my Mom to make new cushion covers so I can actually use it; I'll photograph it then.

6. Making some amazing granola with my friend Melissa.

 

Things I've been hating:

1. The new Starbucks logo.

Explanation: the logo is it's too big in relation to the size of the cup. It's also kind of a yucky green color when there's no black to temper it and they've removed all the typography, agh! I think I'd be a little more on board if they'd done the logo in sort of a cardboard brown colour or more like the original cup color, and don't even get me started on the new sleeves. I am currently plotting to get a hold of one of the old signs before they start being switched up. Additionally how much money did they waste on this change? If it's not broken, don't fix it.

2. Being broke.

3. The necessity of waiting in between coats of paint, agh.

4. My increasingly lethargic camera and my inability to buy a new one at this point in time.

 

More later, I want to give you all ample time to tell me how much you missed me.

Don't say goodbye...

Well I've got to be honest and say that I haven't really been feeling the blog thing for the past few months. I'm busy and stressed and honestly, I don't feel like a whole lot of what I'm up to is blog worthy. Sooo I think I'm going to take a bit of a hiatus. Not permanently, I just need to free myself from the 'I-should really-blog-at-some-point' guilt/pressure. I don't need anything else weighing on me at this point.

So bye for now, I'm sure I'll return at some point, possibly when I begin work for my fall show or maybe when my life gets a little less stressful and more newsworthy. So in the words of my pals Sharon, Lois & Bram: don't say goodbye, say so long.

Let us not be like the characters of the notebook...

so yeah, I've been gone a lot. I haven't written about Christmas in Edmonton, or working at Anthro over the break, or New Years, or my week off in Seattle or the snow, or teaching, or the Picasso exhibit or anything else. It's because ever since I've been back I've been busy with a project I can't blog about (not yet anyway). So you can feel free to stop reading this blog for good or hold on until sometime around February 12 and you may hear from me again. In the mean time stop harassing me, ha.

I'll leave you with one tidbit: I was typing in a search on my Google sidebar tonight and was struck by the hilarity of my past searches.

Did you notice the entirely appropriate advertising targeting me on the sidebar? Stay well friends.

Here I am

Still in Edmonton. I managed to swing some seasonal shifts at Anthropologie that turned out to be a whole lotta shifts. I've been there almost every day but I am grateful for the work. Three weeks off from school means very little money for me.

Anthropologie has been great, they're having some killer sales that I capitalized on for Christmas gift giving and Christmas money getting, YES! I loooove employee discounts. I've been having to step up the cuteness quotient in my dressing so all the gorgeous girls there don't put me to shame. I've also decided that I am kind of loving the brown hair thing and it may have to be a semi-permanent fixture. I took some cute brown hair pictures of myself the other day (for documentary purposes only, of course).

Shamelessly flaunting my hipster glasses and dark hair.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about life lately. I turned 27 last month and it sort of breezed by unnoticed without my usual birthday oldness funk. It did seem to catch up with me in December in the midst of what feels like a lot of bad luck all at once. I am questioning what I've done with my life, what I should be doing and how the heck to do it. I am in love with Seattle and so glad I moved to the west coast but I feel a bit lost. Stuck in the spot between schooling and real life but when I really think about it, this is my real life. Eesh. What am I doing with it? I love love love the kids I teach but I do that 11 hours a week and what am I supposed to do with the rest of my time? I'm nannying a little boy whom I love but I feel like I'm in between something, at least I hope I am. I've been looking into possibly going back to school to get a degree in graphic design and illustration and I've been trying to figure out what I would want to do as a 'real' job. One I could actually get... stay tuned.