graphic design

And in my 37th Year…

I interrupt this not-so-regularly updated adoption blog to say that in my 37th year (which, BTdubs, starts today) I plan on doing the following things (in no particular order):

  • Becoming a mommy to a sweet little child from foster care
  • Getting a job worthy of my degree, my experiences, and myself
  • Being the best darn wife and mommy I can be
  • Learning as many new web and design technologies as I can
  • Kicking butt on the technologies I already know
  • Being a better person
  • Learning to speak up for myself appropriately
  • Not letting certain people rule my mind simply bc I am related to them
  •              See also, growing a bigger pair (sorry for that graphic!)
  • Sheep2Skein, push it
  • RS Creative Solutions, push it
  • Bake more
  • Actually make the projects I pin on Pinterest

birthday-owl

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Holiday Cards… It’s only June!

I just got choked up thinking about our Christmas card this year. We haven’t sent one in a while, but this year we’ll definitely be sending them out. I was driving home from work when I started thinking about a Christmas card with me, Steve, and our kids. And all the sudden I got choked up and tears sprang into my eyes.

I was also thinking about how I would have the kids posing with their backs to the camera or in the shadows so I can actually post pictures of them on Facebook and other social media sites. And actually, on here! Thinking of posing them with their hands and arms so that they made like big shadow heart on the ground and I can post that. From what I understand, we aren’t allowed to post pictures of their faces until they are legally our children.

I told one of the parents from school today whom I absolutely adore and she has been so amazing to me this past year and a half. She was so excited that I think she almost started crying when I told her we were adopting.

Kids. Family. I’m going to be a mommy.

Classes countdown: 25 days!

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A Perfect Life

Having just spent the last 2 days at Wordcamp Miami, my passion is running super high for working for myself. Not to mention kicking butt. In my perfect life, RS Creative Solutions will run smoothly and earn us enough money for Steve to do law school and me to not have to work in corporate America.

In reality, I don’t have any consistent clients and don’t get paid for the bulk of the work I do… mostly bc I don’t ever bill for it. From now on, I need to set boundaries, create job scope/ specs, get down payments, have contracts signed all before I ever do a drop of design work.

I’ve been doing this long enough (15 years) that I can’t keep calling myself an amateur. I mean really, that doesn’t help with my design-esteem. Yeah, that’s like self-esteem but for my design work.

I found two somewhat mentors willing to help me with my business and was told that I really need to get to more events in the industry. I was also told our URL was too long. So I bought a shorter one: RS Creates

Now to implement my perfect life.

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Accountability.

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Last night, I made a one-year plan. I sorta wrote it in the dark so the mega huge Sharpie helped me be able to read it.

Why am I posting it here on this blog that I’ve virtually ignored for months? Accountability. I’m putting it out there into the universe. I want to accomplish all these things.

Some are obvious (lose weight, join a gym, pay off cards) but some aren’t so much.

– Publish 3 more patterns – 2 days ago, i published a pattern on Ravelry for a Cabled Owls Hat I made. The hat was super easy, everyone raved about it, requests have been made for different colors, so I write up the pattern and published it. Within 12 hours, I had 4 sales. Needless to say, I was stoked!

– Push RSCS! – did you know that I’m a web and graphic designer? Of course you do! No really, do you? Steve and I own RS Creative Solutions and it is my goal to push it as hard as I can so that we turn a profit. I even have business cards and car magnets. Woo!

– Dump crappy friends – OK, this one is kinda obvious too. We all have those friends (or family members) that are more dead weight then beneficial. When someone drags you down, cut the rope and let the anchor sink.

– Cultivate awesome friends – you know, those ones you meet and have tons in common with and can laugh and giggle for hours? Or those that have been with you through thick and thin for practically your whole life but you have no time for. Yeah those. They need to be cherished and brought more front and center.

– Teach a knitting class – I was in Joann’s Fabric yesterday and picked up their class schedule. I have wanted to learn to quilt for some time and figured this would be a good starting point. Apparently unless I wanted to take several hours off in the middle of the work day, I’m never learning through them. All their classes save a few are before 5pm. I am going to take some of my more awesome pieces and convince them to let me teach kids, teens and adults.

– Get a better paying job with a non-assistant title – I won’t tell you how much I make (it would probably depress you), but I need to make more. A lot more. After all, I have been working since I was 12, in the “real” work arena for 15 years (holy smokes!) and have an MBA. A freakin MBA. And it’s sitting dormant and not working for me at all. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my boss. I really have lucked out having a boss that appreciates me and tries to help as much as she can. And not just bc she got Steve and I tickets to see Bon Jovi!!! But being someone’s assistant is getting me no where. Sure, the experience is phenomenal as I do want to work in development and fundraising, but…. I need a change.

– Research FL and OH adoption classes – there’s a lot more to this one than meets the eye. We want kids. We likely will never have biological kids, but that is OK as there are thousands of children out there without families in foster care. Since we have no idea where we will be living when the stars align, I’m researching both states and downloading both states home study applications. We aren’t getting any younger. We want a family. If I don’t get off my butt and do the work, this will be something else that passes me by in life.

– Have a dinner party at least 6 times – I hate cleaning. Do I need to elaborate? OK fine. Having dinner parties and friends over requires a clean house and an organized kitchen for my crazy recipe hoarding. This will push me to not only clean regularly, but keep things clean.

– Organize, clean and make office into guest room or craft space – in our “next apartment” I have all these dreams for our clean and new space. Um, we live here now. We just signed through August. Why keep dreaming of a pretty craft space with a day bed/ couch when I can do it now?

What are your plans for the next year?

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Plug: Adoption Bloggers Interview Project

Hello readers!

As y’all know, my husband and I are planning on adoption 2 children from foster care (a sibling pair to be exact) and I have been researching everything I can find on the subject. During this research, I discovered (and became a part of) the Open Adoption Bloggers (see the orange link in the sidebar?)

If I’m not mistaken, some of my readers have found me from OAB. Welcome!

I just found out about the Adoption Bloggers Interview Project from OAB this afternoon. And it’s brilliant! Basically, it pairs up 2 bloggers to learn about each other and post an interview on their blog. You can bet that I signed up!

Adoption Bloggers Interview Project | BeccaBlogs.com
The Interview Project is open to any blogger…

  1. who writes at least occasionally about adoption,
  2. is interested in meeting a fellow writer with different views and experiences, and
  3. wants to welcome someone into their own online space.

Pop on over there and read all about the Project and sign up. Just be sure to sign up by October 28, 2011 so that you can participate!

** Also, I offered up my services and created the above logo!
** If you know anyone that needs any design work for a blog, website, or a logo, please send them my way!

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