Sunday, September 18, 2011

It's about damn time, right?

So I've been thinking about posting for a really long time.  Life's been crazy busy and surprising.  I know it's been over 2 months since my last post and that's because of a few things.  I went back and read that I had updated about my 2 new jobs.  Well, I kept all 4 jobs until the end of August.  I even ended up working 22 days in a row without even 1 day off.  I ended up quitting the lowest paying job (Michaels) despite it being one of the more relevant ones to my field of study.  However, I was in a financial pickle after letting the situation at my brother's go on for so long.  So now, I work still at the Washington Pavilion from time to time and then part-time at JJs and part-time in direct sales for a local cable company.

I'm still seeing Mr. Nice, much more seriously now.  For awhile I was attributing my prolonged fatigue to the fact that I was juggling 4 jobs and a boyfriend.  Come to find out (about 6 weeks ago) that I'm pregnant with his oopsy baby.  SURPRISE!  Now obviously that was pretty unexpected and definitely not planned.  However, our relationship is going really well as is the pregnancy.  By my calculations, I'm 12 weeks along which was confirmed by my doctor on Thursday at my first ultrasound.  The difference between this one and the one I had last year was night and day.  I got to see my baby moving around there, active and healthy and normal!  I wish my guy could have been there but he still lives an hour away and the scheduling just didn't work.  He is making plans to save money and move here whenever it works best.  Until then I still get to see him every weekend.  Actually I've been at his place this whole weekend.  He still does the night shift while I do the day so he's still sleeping now while I'm wide awake.  I don't usually have any problem staying asleep late with him but I did take a little nap last night while he was playing his video game.  Plus I was getting really hungry so I made some sticky buns.  He's gonna have to get up soon if he wants some...  :P  Side effects of this bun in my oven is the overwhelming urge to eat far more often than I've ever felt before.  I've had some nausea and dizzy spells.  Morning sickness hasn't affected me as much in the way of barfing all the time as just generally feeling crappy for days on end.  This week's had some crazy temperature and weather changes and I've been sick because of it all week.  I thought it started out as a sinus thing but now my symptoms are more like the bronchitis that Terri was sporting last week.  Or maybe it's just a 'faux sickness' like my friend Jessica said.  Whatever it is, I'm hoping it'll be gone very very soon.  I've gotta catch up on some work this week.  I think I'll at least have some more energy now that I'm almost out of the first trimester.  It's been terribly hard not to always give in to the incredible urge to sleep between jobs.  That's when I don't get nearly as much done in the day.

I've been wanting my artistic release back, wanting to do something for art's sake (to borrow a phrase).  So the title of this post is multipurpose then.  I received some unbelievably sad news last Sunday that my dear friend and neighbor from college Will passed away.  I wept for the world's loss of a beautiful soul and a talented individual who simply didn't understand his true worth in life.  The loss of someone so great makes me feel like time really is short and I have to make the most of what I've got.  I have to be able to find a balance between the busy of life and family and maintaining the art that is my true life-blood.  I decided to start organizing my collection of items and bits from college.  I found a lot of things that reminded me of Will and our group of friends and all the great times we had together.  And not just in the college partying friends way; also the way that we were fellow artists working side by side and together in this world to make a mark.  I don't want to lose what I've worked for so I've made a command decision to make art a part of every single day.  I ended up stopping by my aunt Jen's house on Tuesday this week.  She's always been one of my biggest creative inspirations.  I stopped by because I saw her outside and because I was RSVPing to a jewelry party invite for Thursday.  We talked for almost 2 hours and in that time she managed to inspire me yet again.  She showed me a wonderful little scrapbook she'd made completely by hand.  It, to me, was much more like an artist book than some scrapbook.  It was beautifully crafted with delicate details and features like pockets and inserts.  And the basic structure of the book was paper lunch sacks.  She is planning on helping me get started on a book of my own.  It seemed so perfectly synchronized that I should be organizing the items I want to put into a variety of artist's books the 2 nights prior to my aunt offering to help me get started on them.  I always curse myself for not taking that book-making class in college.  I should have realized that a lot of my art is better in book format.  At any rate, I got some supplies at Michaels the other night when I went in to show some of my old coworkers my ultrasound pictures.  I spent more than I should have but I got a couple of nice frames for Aaron and Terri.  I had promised birthday presents to them months ago when I was much more broke.  I finally got what I'd planned to awhile ago.  Now I just need to sew Z's little baby romper to a nice fitted piece of matboard and put it in the 12" x 16" black shadowbox I got for Terri and give Aaron the black shot glass collector case I got for him.  I've also been crocheting and knitting a little more here and there.   I want to get my baby hat inventory up for this winter.  So in the past week, my artistic spirit has been soooooooaring.  I hope the baby can feel the arty energy.

Speaking of arty energy, I think I may put something on the tv and crochet, but first...another sticky bun, and maybe a quick cleanup.  This man has a serious bachelor pad.  I actually really want to post again soon.  Maybe it'll be good for the arting to keep posting.  And so I shall.