the honeymoon phase

Employment has finally found me, so the time for leisurely blogging has gone by the wayside. After many false starts and disappointments, I have finally found somewhere to go during the day that requires me to use my design skills and creativity that have been seldom used these past couple of months. After an interesting team interview and meeting with my potential boss, I accepted a job as the Lead Designer at a small, woman-owned, marketing and consulting company. I will admit that I was very apprehensive to work for a company so similar to the one that I had just left, but I have been pleasantly surprised with every passing day with how well things are going.

I have found that first and foremost not all women bosses are the same. Some are good but some are even better. So far my relationship with my boss is professional, respectful and enjoyable. She does her job and I do mine. It's nice. She is organized, which is new and exciting, she even gives me a weekly list of priorities to work on. This is welcome change after having to organize and wrestle with Excel in order to get a spreadsheet in order to run the weekly production meetings of which my former boss never had much interest in attending.

The best part is, of course, that I get to design again, what I love to do most. I no longer feel so restricted in how I design or anxious that someone will critique over my shoulder while I design. When I show my boss creative, she has constructive feedback and is actually available to talk if I have any questions. Projects get done in a timely manner and I have enough work to keep me busy, both good things.

The office environment is an amalgam of IKEA and CB2 (but what creative office isn't). My two other co-workers are friendly and come from interesting backgrounds. I enjoy them both and look forward to getting to know them better.

Overall, the team dynamic has been energetic and stimulating, there seem to be good things coming up on the horizon and all of us seem to be optimistic for our collective future together. And just when I thought that things couldn't get better, it got a little sweeter when in my first paycheck there was a note thanking me for my work with a gift certificate to my favorite store. An incredibly thoughtful gesture that made me want this honeymoon to last for a long time to come.

hippity hop

We kept very busy this past weekend. On Friday, Ethan and I ventured out to the suburbs to visit my dad. Ethan's memory never ceases to amaze, as we pulled up in the driveway, Ethan stated that he wanted to throw apples in the creek and look at photos with his Grandpa Bob. The two highlights of his last visit, which was roughly five months ago.

This has been a fairly new trend, where out of the blue Ethan will remember something about a particular person, place or event. It is funny, endearing and a bit surprising that he now has articulated memories of things that he has experienced and clearly enjoyed.

We spent the rest of the Easter holiday weekend with B's family. As always, they were warm and welcoming to Ethan and I, and have even taken on the moniker of Nana and Steve. The weekend was a flurry of activities: egg dyeing, walks with the puppies, mulching and yard work, playing ball, going to the park, easter egg hunts, easter baskets, game playing, book reading, a lot of eating and snacking, topped off with a bottle of Jameson. The latter of which was not B's or I's doing but a divine intervention of sorts.

Overall a wonderful weekend when upon arrival back home, we both agreed that it seemed like we had been gone for days.

favorite superhero

It has finally happen after six months of unemployment, I got a job offer. In the past two weeks, I finally ended my contract job and had two phone interviews, and two face to face interviews with three different companies.

One of which I was passed on because I didn't have enough coding experience, which has been a disturbingly growing trend that employers are looking for designers who can do development. These two disciplines are vastly different, and though I do think that it is important for designers to know basic html, and developers to understand basic principles of design, a designer is a designer and a developer is a developer (apples to oranges and left vs. right brain). There are certainly designers out there who could develop a web page, but I would hedge my bets that they are sub par designers and probably know just enough code to be dangerous. It is an irritating trend that undervalues the skills of both the designer and the developer. It would like asking an architect to not only design a building but build it too.

The second of my interviews was with a recruiter, and so far, my luck with recruiters has been lukewarm at best. They are certainly enthusiastic and full of optimism, but the return on time invested with them has been disappointing. This recruiter in particular seemed rather flakey. The job itself is exactly what I am looking for, but I would be quite surprised if it actually came to fruition.

The third interview was earlier this week. I had received an email regarding a job that I applied for on Craig's List. The email stated that they had received over 150 applicants and I had made the first cut to the top ten. Attached to the this email was a four-page word doc with a multitude of questions, which took me over an hour to fill out, but I finished it and sent it off the next day. I heard back later that week that I had made it through the second cut, I was one of three to be interviewed.

I went to the interview, oddly not nervous and answered their questions, basically elaborations to questions asked in the aforementioned word doc. I had done well up to the last question, which was "Who is your favorite superhero?," which completely caught me off guard. And their was an awkward pause, and I hemmed and hawed and the only thing I could think of was Ethan dressed in his new Superman pajamas. I finally mumbled something about Batman because I had a crush on Christian Bale and then followed that up with an unintelligibly good guys getting the bad guys for the greater good explanation..goodbye confidence. The interview wrapped up and I awaited the call of yay or nay. And I am happy to report that I did get the offer and will meet with her Monday to discuss the finer points.

As I have written before. Job interviews are like dates but without the free drinks. And jobs are like long term relationships, sometimes there is an initial spark and chemistry, and sometimes you take a job because you want to feel a part of something. My last job ended badly and left me upset, numb and slightly bitter. But this is definitely a good turn of events, I caught the proverbial bouquet and am looking forward to what I hope will be a solid relationship.

introducing...

There is a new addition to our family. And luckily, this one did not make me gain 40 pounds and need to gestate for nine months. Instead, we picked her out of a room full of kitties at B's mom's animal shelter. Unfortunately, it was too early in the year for the really little kittens, but she herself is pretty small and about 10 months old. It took a few days to name her, but we ended up going with Ms. Moneypenny, and call her Penny for short.

Some of the other names that were in the running were Tuna, Sushi, Clementine, Wasabi, Penelope, Gravy, and Oatmeal.

We already have one cat, his name is Turkey and he can be a bit grumpy and is not much of a snuggler. Penny on the other hand is exactly the kind of cat I like, she is a lover and a snuggler. I will admit that she does look an awful lot like my first cat Banana, who is now living in a loving home up in Michigan with my brother. But it was not on purpose, I don't think.

Ethan had a great time at the shelter. He got to pet lots of kitties and we saw some dogs as well. His first choice in cats was a severly overweight cat with long hair, who was almost bigger then the basket it was laying in. We vetoed that one, and looked at a few others, and once we started petting Penny, we knew she was a keeper.