Work – End of Month Summary

I’m going to go ahead and give work month a passing grade.  If nothing else, finding a new job within the month is grounds for successful resolution completion.  I’ve been doing alright on my tutorials.  My two week goal will be completed in three, not too shabby.

I still need to come up with some of my own projects to create with Illustrator.  I thought maybe I’d make some of my own greeting cards, or have a party so that I can make invitations.  I also thought maybe I’d do a designer resume.  I think colorful design-y resumes are frowned upon in the majority of the working world but whatever world, you don’t own me!  I also thought I should just make some random stuff in a ‘look what I can do’ type way and make a portfolio of non-school related stuff.  These ideas are all fine and good but I need to work them through a bit more.  It’ll be easier to apply what I’ve learned to my projects if I’m keeping an eye out for applicable tricks before hand.  It’s better to watch a video and see that I could use that to do this, instead of later on being like oh hey I saw something… which one of the 300 videos I watched was it in…?

I’m not sure I’m any closer to figure out my life’s passion or what type of work I should be doing, but hopefully the new job will set me up to be more successful in money month with saving, etc.  Not sure if this new job will be a step forward, it feels more like a step sideways right now.  Trying to be positive anyway,  if I hate my job at least it pays better and I’ll feel less apprehensive about change now that I know I can do it.

This month has shown me how quickly things can change.  I’ve been humming and hawing over making a job change for a while and with Melissa’s shoving the papers in my face and making me do it persistent encouragement I made a huge change in only a few weeks.

The Almighty Dollar

Work month has been quite the experience.  I’ve been doing my tutorials, but I haven’t always gotten in my two hours a day.  I had originally planned on catching up on what any hours I didn’t get in during the week on the weekend.  Well, I found that I much prefer to do them on my work computer AND my laptop.  I watch the tutorials on my work computer and follow along with the exercises on my laptop.  At home, I have to keep flipping back and forth on my 15” screen.  It’s annoying, and it makes the tutorials take way longer because instead of doing it at the same time as I watch I have to watch and then flip over to my program and do what I just saw.  So next week I’m buckling down and committing to getting this set of tutorials done at work.

The prospect of change can be a scary thing, dedicating this month made me opening my mind up to the possibility of working somewhere else.  It’s a nerve racking thing, the idea of quitting my job.  I have never actually quit a job before.  I left my high school job to attend university and throughout school I worked during the summers so my employer and I both knew I would be leaving when classes started in the fall.  I have always left jobs for school, I have never left a job for another job, until now.

I found a new job, or should I say Melissa found it for me.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.  On the one had there are a lot of positives about my current job, and only two negatives, but the two negatives are pretty huge.  One being that I’m not busy, not being utilized, the other that my job leaves a lot to be desired in the salary department.  The longer I work here the more I feel frustrated by not being busy because I don’t see how the salary will improve if the workload doesn’t pick up.  So I have accepted at a job at a different type of firm.  My job won’t be design it will be administrative but the pay is better.  It’s a trade off.  I feel like I’m at a point in my life where I can’t turn down a better paying job.

My current boss was very nice about the whole thing but, in the form of advice, more or less told me he thought this was a step in the wrong direction for me.  I found this to be very disheartening.  I’ve been thinking about making a change for a long time, and have always been scared to take any steps forward because I didn’t want to make a mistake.  I didn’t want to leave the design world for fear of never being able to get back into it.  It was hard to have some of my fears confirmed. 

On a less depressing note I will be starting a new job around mid February.  It’s a bigger office and it sounds like I will be a million times busier.  I also know that my supervisor/co-worker is very excited to have me working there.  It’s only a couple blocks from where I work now so my commute is pretty much the same.  My office now is pretty relaxed and flexible with a 9am start.  At my new office I’ll start at 8 and it’s much more structured.  I realize the entire world starts work at 8 or earlier, but mornings are my nemesis and it will be an adjustment for me.  I’m trying to be excited about it… but in the back of my mind I’m a bit wary.  Guess I’ll have to do something fun like buy new work clothes closer to my start date.

Reaching Out...touching me....touching you!

Family month is coming along nicely.
I had another call with my Dad last night. We discussed the Superbowl whilst watching the Steelers/Jets game. I'm a Steelers girl myself so I was really excited about their lead! Of course Steelers made me think of the Penguins and we discussed Sidney's concussion and how worried we both are that he's been out for a month, and has opted out of the All-Star game! We need him to return, as the Pens have now dropped out of their number 1 spot, AND Malkin is injured. UGH. We also talked about work and the big appointments we both have this week, and my trip to Whistler commencing this weekend. Chatted about our weekend, all in all a great little convo! This conversation felt less forced than the last one, which leads me to believe the "dad only" phone calls are an amazing idea and should absolutely keep going not just throughout the Happiness Project but for the rest of life! I told my Dad about next month (the dreaded love month)...I don't think he was AS interested in that topic as he was NFL, NHL and work haha.

I have not received any "reach out" responses back yet, but that's okay. Not everyone is as avid with emails/facebooking as my family is. Chatting more often with my cousin Ashlie has been good. She's fun, and by the sounds of it coudl definitely keep up with the Lemieux/Nadeau way of partying!

No word from my sister this weekend but she was on a bbm chat a little bit so that was fun! I'll try calling her before I go to Whistler on Friday!
My nagging tasks list has not moved.....at all. Kirby did force me to tackle the suitcases/boxes in the storage closet to make room for Flash to move in. He is part of my family now and so far, so good! I really enjoy having Flash around. I find him absolutely hilarious so i'm laughing A LOT these days which is nice because my work days are usually very busy and stressful. We have a lot in common and can watch everything from NFL Sunday, to Pens games, to The Bachelor! haha. Kirby made a comment yesterday that we very much act like brother and sister and I think it's very true. I never had a brother, and I think Flash is definitely in brother territory. I love him so. He is messy haha, but something that I think will start to be corrected as he is emmersed more into Kirby and I's lifestyles. At least he's stopped leaving lights on (my biggest pet peeve ever) and he's been closing cupboards too! I think it will take some slow grooming. I'm letting Kirby mostly take the reins on that, the last thing I want is Flash to feel like he has ANOTHER girl friend he has to please haha.

Feeling good about my family, our connections, my love for them and all things happiness!!!

I sincerely hope I can keep up this optimism in 8 days when I start working on my Male Relationships. Hate hate hate hate hate.

MEL

Be Here Now

Gretchen Rubin recently posted a list of questions she encounters a lot when she talks to people about happiness on her blog.  I found that several of them resonated with me:

• How do I balance what makes me happy now with what will make me happy in the long term?
• Should I make myself do something I don’t want to do? And how do I make myself do something that I want to do (but for some reason, am not doing)?
• Do I expect too much? Too little?
• If I try to be positive and enthusiastic, does that make me insincere?
• When should I accept myself, and when should I expect more from myself?
• What if I not only want you to do something, but I want you to want to do it? And to do it without me asking you to do it?

Notice the striking resemblance to my Should-ing post a few days ago?

Some things are challenging because I’ve never really done them.  For example, I played sports in high school, but I never did formal workouts in a gym.  On a team, you’re accountable to your coach and teammates, you need to do well because it’s fun to win and the better you are the more playing time you’ll get.  I’ve never had the sense of accomplishment from losing a significant amount of weight or the satisfaction of working my ass off in the gym for three months and having an amazing beach body for the summer.  I’ve never stuck with a gym routine long enough to see noticeable results.  The only drive for me to do it is the potential positives like having more energy or being more toned.  These are such elusive goals that I can’t seem to find motivation to work towards them day in and day out.

I feel like I’m moving away from cumulative goals and spending my time focusing almost exclusively on my current month’s goals.  I’m still staying away from things that I have told myself I can’t have such as fast food, I’ve made significant cut backs on sugar and I cook far more often.  I had some ambitious goals in the first three months and haven’t been able to maintain them long term.  I seem to have reset my happiness project with the beginning of the new year.  My ability to multi task my goals… fail.  It’s a bit overwhelming to try and work out five times a week, walk 10,000 steps a day, eat breakfast, eat only healthy home cooked meals, wake up earlier, look cute, stretch daily, do affirmations daily, always be nice, don’t nag, give proofs of love, be a fantastic friend, go out of your way attend social events, read about all of these things, spend countless hours on computer tutorials, draw, read for pleasure and find clever ways keep track of your progress and blog about it.

I do feel some guilt over how many of my resolutions have fallen off, but not guilty enough to force myself to do them.  I need to re-evaluate.  Some things, like attitude and relationship month have made me more aware of myself and my behaviors.  The ability to snap myself out of, or at least acknowledge my mood and not allow myself to wallow has been helpful.  Perhaps that awareness is enough.  I think some goals, like fitness, I should try again in the summer.  The cold, dark, short days of winter give me too many excuses to avoid walking, getting up earlier and leaving the house period.  Maybe I’m just not ready to commit to working out as much as I would need to in order to see changes.

I’m more excited about my current and future months goals.  I plan on spending more of my energy on them and not wasting energy feeling guilty about failed resolutions.

It’s About Doing The Work When No One’s Watching

I haven’t made the progress I wanted to with work month.  I keep finding distractions for myself.  Melissa won an ipad and I went to set it up for her and it wasn’t working.  Turns out my operating system was out of date.  This spawned an obsessive need to get my computer up to snuff.  I upgraded my operating system from Mac OSX 10.4.11 to Mac OXS 10.6 which involved 3 trips to Future Shop.  1. To buy the disc to upgrade my system.  2. To go back and buy an external CD/DVD player because mine has apparently decided it doesn’t want to work anymore and I need one to load the disc to do the upgrade.  3. To return the external CD/DVD player because I ‘changed my mind’ about it.

I then upgraded my itunes, got the ipad in working form, updated any programs I could to newer versions.  Discovered that I could get an Adobe Creative Suite upgrade from a friend of mine.  Spent a day going from CS2 to CS5 and another cleaning out all of CS2.  Had to restart some of my tutorials because they were for the CS2 versions and there are newer tutorials for CS5.

I planned to play catch up on tutorials this weekend because I have been receiving work to do sporadically throughout the day at my job lately and have been having trouble finding a stretch of time to do it.  I did about 1 hour of tutorials on Saturday and found plenty of errands, reading and napping to distract me from doing any more.  These are lame excuses because I know perfectly well that I could find the time.  A couple options I’m debating are mornings (which probably won’t work) and staying at work after 5 and doing them there.  I also thought about taking my laptop to work on a Saturday and doing it.  That way I can’t take a break and go watch 4 hours of Keeping up with the Kardashians.  I need to get myself into doing them regularly, get into a groove.

I want to do these tutorials, it’s just that sometimes they can be a little…boring.  I find it hard to engage in some of them for hours on end.  The tutorial for Illustrator CS5: The Fundamentals is 23 hours long.  I figured if I did about 2 hours a day during the week and a couple on the weekend I could do it in 2 weeks.  Fundamentals is only part one of learning Illustrator CS5.  There are two more parts that are about 8+ hours each.  I have a lot of programs like this on my list.  I’m never going to get through them without a set time to work.  Yes I can do some tutorials on a slow afternoon at work, but I can’t guarantee I’ll always have that time and the inconsistency is preventing me from making progress.  Must get organized.

You’d think being organized with stuff would lend itself naturally to being organized with time.  For me, not so much.  Organizing my free time into things like, working out or doing these tutorials has never been easy for me.  In school, I didn’t leave my work to the last minute, I’d always leave myself enough time to do it, but I rarely started things before I had to.  I am someone who needs a deadline to get things like that done.  There’s no real consequence for missing deadlines I set for myself.  If it takes me two weeks or two months to do this set of tutorials, then whatever.  The only person I’m letting down is myself.

Making Space

Flash has decided that he will officially move in with me and Melissa. Since he practically lives there anyway the most significant change will be the permanent addition of his stuff to our small two bedroom apartment. I have been trying to get rid of everything humanly possible to make room for him. Luckily for me I have very little sentimental attachment to stuff; I have no problem making cut throat decisions about clothes and as for organization well, it’s kind of my thing.

I have added a dresser to my room and have cut the number of hanging clothes in half. HALF! I dragged Melissa boxes and suitcases out of our little in-suite storage room, pointed to them and said ‘Do it, do it’. It turns out Melissa keeps a colorful assortment of the most random shit stored inside all of her suitcases. Three garbage bags later and voila more room.

For me making space is not the biggest challenge, it’s the maintaining a level of cleanliness once Flash and all of his stuff are added. Flash is a bit messy. The concept of not throwing his clothes on the floor, putting dishes in the dishwasher right away and throwing trash in the garbage immediately are challenges. Since his clothes will be all over my floor I’ll either have to live with it or pick them up myself. I do not plan on doing either.

I love a clean surface. Whether that is a made bed, a clear kitchen counter, a bare table, coffee table or bedroom floor. It suggests possibility, so much space for activities!  Clutter is an uncomfortable itch that I must scratch.

I have accepted that living with someone can be a tricky thing. I’ve had pretty good luck with roommates, but invariably you hit a few snags. In instances where the apartment was messier than I was comfortable with I accepted that if I wanted a clean apartment I would have to do it myself. Luckily, Melissa is a very clean roommate. She respects and appreciates my neurotic need keep things clean and tidy by doing her best to help keep the apartment neat.

Flash, however, is a work in progress. He can not relate to my love of clean surfaces. If you leave your dishes lying on the counters, stove and sink for a week and then spend an hour on Sunday doing them, the result is living in a dirty house for 6.5 days of the week. Tidying as you go, cleaning the kitchen up after dinner, putting clothes away or in the hamper. These all make such a big difference, especially in a small living space.

I’m not sure if this is unreasonable to most people but I think it is pretty standard, especially when living with roommates. I’m not asking anyone to wash floors or scrub toilets, periodically go through the fridge and throw out expired food. I’m not even expecting anyone to vacuum. I am happy to do all of that myself. What I’m not happy to do is pick up after Flash. I think anything that makes me feel like his mother is to be avoided.

So I have been trying to problem solve. I’m making as much space as possible so that things are not lying around because there’s no where to put them. A place for everything, that’s been my goal. I’ve also been pointing out some of these messy behaviors to Flash. He would say I’ve been huge nag. Flash has made big improvements as far as clothes go. He tries to hang things on the hooks in my room; he no longer throws towels on the floor. I can see him becoming more aware of where things go.

I know that Flash is not the only one that needs to change. I’m going to have to relax, be less of a control freak, and get used to the apartment not always being the way I want it to be.

Should-ing All Over Yourself

I’m always thinking about things I should be doing for my happiness project.  SHOULD being the key word.  Even though one of my guidelines for the project is Be Kirby I’m not sure how well I’m sticking to that.

I have a hard time figuring out the difference between I should in a keeping up with the Joneses type of way and I should because I actually should.  For example, I still feel guilt about things that I think I should be doing like the gym.  In all honestly, I absolutely hate the gym.  It is not my happy place, it sucks balls.  So can I accept that I, Kirby, do not find happiness at the gym and therefore should not go, or do I have to accept that the gym is one of those things that I actually should do even if I hate it because the benefits outweigh the fact that I don’t like it.

I argue with myself that I hate the gym but what I actually should be doing is exercise, it does not have to take place in the crappy little hole in the wall gym my building has.  I spend a lot of time walking, in the summer.  Oh yeah I live in a frozen wasteland where it’s so cold that my dog cries when I take her outside and going for walks is NOT happening.  How do you distinguish what’s right in a battle of shoulds and wants.  I want to spend my time watching movies, sleeping, eating, reading, playing video games, or on my laptop.  All of these things are lazy sedentary activities.  I know that if I only ever spent my time doing these things that eventually I would fall into a low mood.  I know I need to get out and do things to stimulate my brain.  Staying in low energy mode too long makes me feel perpetually tired.  

The truth is that I should has gotten a bad rap.  Anyone who has gone through emotional low periods in their life knows that shoulds are necessary.  I’m not talking about the I should weigh 100 pounds, I should run a marathon or I should have a boyfriend.  I mean the, I should get out of bed today, I should spend time around other people, I should get outside and go for a walk.  The shoulds that contribute to mental health.  Eventually the I shoulds get more ambitious, I should spend time around other people becomes I should be a better friend, and I should go for a walk becomes I should hit the gym 5 times a week.  So when should I do something for my own good, and when should I admit that something isn’t right for me and let it go?  When can I don’t want to replace the feeling of I should?