4 posts tagged “art”

Things are a little hectic in my world.  I just spent the last couple of hours cleaning my house - not because I want to, which is usually the case, but rather because I won't have time in the next two weeks to do it and if I let it go another two weeks, I would feel so gross and dirty that I might as well just give up and start composting inside of my fridge.

So I cleaned.  A lot.  I even stripped the couches and vacuumed inside the couch.  For real.  That is the kind of cleaning I just did.

Because do you know what the rest of my life looks like?  This is my office:

"But, Nicole, where is your desk?"  Oh, it's in there.  That's 245 gift bags (lovingly assembled by my intern) of the 400 total that have to be prepared by May 3rd, one thousand custom squishy cows, a couple of cases of wine, a box of supplies from Staples,one of the awards benches for the event, a pile of family passes I have to send out to sponsors, the canvases I have to paint this weekend for the lounges at our event and, somewhere in there, my desk and the intern's work station.  So when I'm not there, I'm cleaning my house to "relax."  Now you know.

More later.  Must sleep now so I can gift bag and paint tomorrow.  It's going to be a really long 12 days and I apologize ahead of time if I get all crazy on you.  Because, you know, it's going to happen.

Peace out, yo.

It's Sunday morning (or, I guess, technically, afternoon - thanks daylight savings time!) and I'm sitting in my very clean apartment, drinking hot apple cider and wrapped in a fleece blanket.  Joe is asleep and probably will be for a couple more hours.  The dryer just stopped and I only have, oh, say, four more loads to wash and dry today.  But everything else in the apartment is spotless.  Because, you see, my mother is coming over today and if the apartment is messy, it will be one more sign that I am a delinquent.

For, you see, I am almost 25 and not married (can you say, "Old maid?").  I'm not on my way to popping out Jewish grandbabies.  I am not skinny.  God forbid that on top of all of this my house is dirty.  That would send her over the edge.

When she comes into my house, she does three things:

1.) She looks in the kitchen sink.  If there are dishes or crumbs or spots of any kind in the kitchen sink, I will be subjected to a lecture about how filthy my kitchen is.  The sink, people!  The place where you put the dirt!

2.) She will take all of the cushions and pillows off of my couch, flip and fluff them and reassemble my couch.  If I say anything during this process, she will lecture me about how the couch is being worn unevenly and I am going to ruin it.

3.) She will then "go to the bathroom."  This means, she goes into the bathroom and 5 minutes later, I can hear her scrubbing the toilet.  If I know she's coming over, I always scrub the toilet beforehand.  She always scrubs it anyway.

I don't know why she does these things.  I think it's her way of taking care of me and making sure that, since I don't live with her and she can't watch me all the time, I don't live like a heathen.  Why she thinks I live like a heathen, I don't know.  But she does and this is a ritual we always do when she comes over. 

If my dad comes with her, he will sit in one of the director's chairs - probably the most uncomfortable chairs in the house - and never on the couch or in the nice, padded kitchen table chairs.  He will sit in the director's chair, the farther piece of furniture from the TV, and watch the history channel.  He'll roll his eyes at my mother's crazy, but he won't say anything about it because he knows as well as I do that it's just something she has to do.

My mother hasn't been to my apartment in a while and it'll be interesting to hear her reaction when she comes over.  Since the last time she's been here, I've redone all the art in the house and put up about nine new pieces that I made.  I've always liked to do art and I don't think she knew how to encourage it, but when I showed her a picture of a painting I did recently, her reaction was, "Wow, that's actually really nice!"  She means well and I always try to remember that.

For, you see, we are all freakishly critical.  Someone tried to tell me that we're negative and I think a lot of times, people have difficulty seeing the difference between critical thinking and being negative.  The way I look at it, being critical is realizing the pros and cons, flaws and successes of anything, whether it's an idea or a project or a painting.  Being negative is only seeing the bad.  But a lot of times, especially in the nonprofit world (I think), people don't want to hear critical thinking because they only hear the negative part of it - they don't understand that being critical is part of a process for some people, a way to try to figure out what could go right and what could go wrong and weighing the possibility of both.  I am constantly working on rephrasing how I would normally say something to make it less negative.  There's never a "problem" but rather a "challenge."  Not a "failure" but a "learning opportunity."   And while, yes, problems are challenging and failures can be learning opportunities, sometimes I wonder if we're not lying to ourselves - just a little bit - by always adding that bit of padding to a statement, trying to cushion the fall.

And, yes, now we're back to talking about work.  Things are still crazy busy and I think I've worked at least 60 hours in the last week, if you count the late night meetings, the 7am breakfasts and all the stuff I've been working on at home.  I had a feeling this was going to happen and that's, actually, part of the reason my mother is coming over today.  You see, while I will continue my crazy working schedule, the rest of my family is going down to the Desert for a week and my mother is leaving the dog with me.  I couldn't afford to take the time off right now - though I do have something like 200+ hours of vacation time saved up - but I'm hoping that having the dog around will at least keep me closer to 9-5 in the office, though it probably won't change all the working from home.  I feel like my "to do" list keeps getting longer and every time I get rid of one thing, at least one more replaces it.  Last Monday, I sat down to make my list for the week and it was two pages long.  And, you know, throughout the week, only got longer.  In theory, once the invitation is done and mailed for our event, it should get better, but I know that's a lie - once the invitation is out, it'll be taking RSVPs and putting together a guest list and working on the program.  All things that, one day, I hope to have an assistant to do for me because, frankly, it's a total pain and it doesn't bring in any revenue.  Yes, guests paying for their tickets brings in dollars, but doing the data entry, alphabetizing the lists, making the nametags and all of the other stuff that goes along with it is just the administrative end and if only I could find a version of myself from when I was 20 and willing to work for free to do it all for me, life would be awesome.

Alas.

On a semi-work related note, I spoke on a panel this week at a luncheon for 200 people.  There were four of us and we were all talking about our tactics, strategies, "challenges" and "learning opportunities" that we have for raising general fund dollars (read: raising the money that keeps the lights on, the water running, programs happening, etc.).  I think it went over really well and I got a couple of awesome laughs out of the crowd and, really, we all know that's why I do these kinds of things.  This is the closest to me being stage as I've gotten in a while and I do miss it a lot.  This was almost even more nerve wracking because I didn't have any lines - the questions were fairly impromtu and I was being myself, so anything I said reflected on both me professionally and on the organization I work for.  Thankfully, it all went over really well and, oddly, I really wasn't nervous about it at all.  The only thing I was actually concerned about was showing too much leg - I was the only woman wearing a skirt (and a short one, at that) and we were seated up on a dias, with no table in front of us, about 3 feet above the audience.  Kristen and I worked out a hand signal for "dude, you're flashing a lot of thigh" but, thankfully, she didn't use it once.  So either I was okay or she just let me be slutastic.  Either way, it all worked out well.

Oh, and finally - The Terrible Twos performed at the Museum this week and they were awesome.  They remind me of Guster, back when they were fun and weren't all famous and using real drums and sucky.  And if you have kids, added bonus - all of their songs, though catchy and fun, are super kid friendly.  We had a tiny mosh pit going and watching a crowd full of three year olds "dance" - read: alternately jump, flap their arms and run in circles - for a half an hour was definitely a highlight of my week.

Soon to come: birthday party details.  Even sooner to come: shower.  Huzzah!

I'm a bad Voxer, I think.  January freaking flew by, in part because it has been just a little busy around here.  And when it's not busy, I was spending my time painting (see sidebar).  There will probably be more soon as well.  I have six smaller canvases I'm working on and I'm sure there will be more in the making as well.

Other things that have been going on:
- Heroes!  I love Heroes, especially Milo Ventemigilliailliailla.  He's just so pretty.
- 24!  I haven't watched 24 before this season, but watched the season premier and I'm totally hooked.
- Not enough sleep.
- Shopping for plane tickets to Gwen's wedding.  Yay Gwen's wedding!
- Joe's mom came for a visit.  As terrifying as I thought it would be, she totally rocks and the weekend was fun for all (I hope).
- Work.  So so much work.  But I think it's all going to pay off come summer when we have a new event.  A new, cheap, drinking-and-karaoke -illed event.
- Sarah Vowell books.  People.  I can't put them down!
- I did my taxes...
- ...only to find a clerical error on my W-2s, delaying by really fun refund until I get new copies.  Blech.
- I introduced Joe's house to Clorox wipes.  It's a whole new world.  And that world smells like lemons.
- I need new pillows for my couch to match that big black circles canvas.  Wanna help me find them?

I'll hopefully start posting more regularly again, but I can't make any promises.  In the meantime, Heroes!!

So I've been kind of stressed out for the last couple of months.  First, Detroit broke down and I had to cancel the Vancouver trip.  Then there was my big event and all the hell leading up to it.  And then I decided to sell my car and that, though not the nightmare it could have been, was also very stressful.

This stress has manifested itself in a lot of ways, though the most notable one is physical.  I now have some sort of pinched nerve on the right side of my lower back that acts up whenever I'm stressed.  As in, I could barely walk the day of my event it hurt so bad and, magically, the next day it was gone.  And it stayed gone until I got an offer on my car and realized I now need to find a new car. And then it was back and, again, horrible pain.

To keep myself busy and clear my mind, I've taken up painting.  I just posted some pictures of what I've done in the last week. It's almost like I'm creative or something.

Or just stressed out.