Life is Good

I wish I was motivated to blog more, looking back on posts is a fun little reminder of where I've been. It seems like life has just gotten a little crazy busy and the blog has fallen into the permanent "to do" pile. Along with that pile is my sadly forgotten kitchen, my diet & exercise program and the eCards website. Slowly I'm trying to get back on top of things.

Classes started up again this week and it's going to be a long semester - my accounting instructor is about as lively as someone that has a masters in finance from Cal could be, and my eCommerce instructor spent four hours talking about the engineering structure of the internet, illustrated with a lot of evil little WAN clouds. Should be interesting.

Last night was the boys birthday party, which was supposed to a bowling bash but due to some very shady business practices, we ended up at the Alibi for karaoke and cocktails. Today I spent most of the day relaxing on the sofa watching TV, downloading spreadsheets for accounting and now we are heading to X's for a dinner party. Since I had an eight hour class yesterday I don't feel like I had much of a weekend - how do people keep their houses clean?

I'm rambling, but the goal of the week is to start back on the exercise regime and to do some work on the eCards. Maybe I'll even manage to wash some dishes!

Shhhh

So, for the last few months I've been working on an idea for an e-cards website. X and I dreamed it up over a bottle of wine and we just started playing around with it. Since then I've recruited my genius web friend to build the bones of the site and I've been planning to get it up and running. The only thing we need is some inventory, which is really just a matter of me sitting down to design the cards. The layout is simple but I decided to add these cute little illustrations and it's sucking up way more time than expected. Unfortunately, it's also been pushed to the back burned after work, school, and freelance (paying) work.

On Monday night I had a few minutes before class so I started throwing a card together. My classmate came in and sat beside me and couldn't help but comment on what I was doing how funny he thought it was. Last night it was brought up again by R, and he believes in it so much that he volunteered to promote the site when it goes live. I guess I need to get off my butt and prioritize this project because it seems to be a pretty hot commodity. Who knows, it could be the new someecards. Maybe I should just scrap the illustrations and go for simple? But I think that might not be as funny.

Other than that little dilemma, things are going well. My team got a perfect score on our presentation on Thursday and we went out to celebrate at Manzana. All of us are seriously considering going on a study trip to China next summer. It's a big cost but actually very affordable for what is included and would be an AMAZING opportunity. 14 days in China visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an and Hong Kong. Included in the proce is visiting 3 major places of business as well as trips to the Great Wall, a cruise on the Li river and viewing the Terra cotta Army. How cool would that be?

Indian Summer

It's getting warm and I couldn't be happier. It's amazing how productive I am on a nice sunny day... imagine what a rockstar I would be if I lived in California. Anyway, after a weekend full of fun events I'm in a great mood. I attended a pub crawl, a dinner party and took two trips to the movie theatre. Go see Burn After Reading if you haven't done so, it was great. Vicky Christina Barcelona did not impress near as much.

So far this week I've applied for six jobs and had a skills test with a local temp agency. Turns out my typing is great but my spelling not so much. Yesterday I had a weigh-in and lost another 1.5 lbs so I should hit the 20lb mark in the next week if I play my cards right. Afterwards I had a nice lunch at New Seasons with V and got some of the hot office gossip. I've managed to avoid turning on the TV at all during the days, which is good considering the insane addict-ability of HGTV. Thankfully I have free internet (yeah neighbors!) and a full iTunes library. I really don't need much else to live on.

Since I'm home all the time I've realized that I need to start setting weekly goals to keep on track. So, here is my plan for the week:

• Apply for a minimum of one job per day
• Download & print class syllabi, order books
• Attend lap swim or upgrade to jogging. I'm not built for speed so I'm leaning towards the pool although it requires putting a swimsuit. Tough call.
• P/U library books on writing business plans and .commerce
• Complete 20 e-cards & upload for my awesome web guy to play with
• Catch up on my design blogs
• Research uterus removal procedures - I'm tired of the damn cramps... there has to be something that can be done about this nonsense.
• Take Sabine to the dog park, it makes her so happy
• Turn 30!! I guess I'm officially an adult now. Yeah!

Keepin Busy

Week two of unemployment and I think I've worked harder this last week than I have in months. I've been working on the kitchen remodel mostly. So far I've installed under cabinet lights, track lighting and a GFCI outlet, painted 2 more cabinets, replaced the doors and finished patching the plaster where I ripped off the tile. I still have a lot of painting to do... seems like I have more trim in that kitchen than I do spoons. And I have a lot of spoons.

I've cleaned the entire house, twice, applied for half a dozen jobs and read most of The Starbucks Experience, which has proved to be a pretty entertaining and quick read. I'm also exploring the possibility of starting an e-card website. It's been mentioned that I have a pretty odd sense of humor and that maybe I should try and profit from that. It's a fun little time waster if nothing else.

Today I'm trying to motivate myself to work on the yard. The front lawn has been invaded by hoards of dandelions and I have an oak tree trying to sprout under my porch. I'm guessing that's not good for the foundation so I need to nip that in the bud. Maybe after lunch I'll gather the energy for that. Right now it's nice to sit in the shade of the backyard and catch up on my blogs. It's a rough life, this unemployment thing.