I try not to blog about work very often since it’s all-too-often going to be a complaint or a story that ought not be made public. So I didn’t say anything about my glorious last seminar EVER last Wednesday and how I managed not to mess up the speaker’s schedule or the A/V equipment. (This was in fact a high point of this semester’s seminar series, as (a) all manner of scheduling problems have arisen with recent speakers, and (b) I have have consistently dealt with projector and laptop problems, which result in 60 people staring at me and pondering my incompetance as I fumble with various cords. Not fun.)

Today, however, I am unable to think about anything besides my job and am going to go ahead and write a bit about it because a lot of you readers are my friends and I would really appreciate a little moral support right now.

Most days of the week I dread coming in to the office and spend the bus ride thinking about all the things I need to accomplish and how many of them can go wrong. Now, I generally manage to avoid most of the unpleasant fruits of the imagination (like that meeting with your boss that you are sure is going to be horrible and then turns out to be pretty good in the end). Lately, however, this hasn’t been the case, and the correlation between “that which I am dreading” and “that which actually happens” has been unusually high, which is causing me to lose faith in the it’s not going to be that bad philosophy.

Take this morning, for instance. Yesterday afternoon, one of my “bosses” (whom I really, really like) asked me to call a last-minute meeting of an important committee. Five minutes after I cheerfully sent the email, I started to think about what he wanted to talk about. And I became convinced that he was going to announce his resignation.

I spent all of yesterday evening and all of this morning pondering this possibility.

And then he did.

To clarify, I am not upset at the decision itself. He is a very overworked and overstressed man, and I had been wondering for a while how he managed to keep going. The particular job in question is purely voluntary and waaaayyyy more than any sane person can fill while managing a productive, fully-funded research program. I am very happy that he doesn’t have to do this any more.

Quite selfishly, however, I am upset that I am losing someone who was kind, personable, and easy to work with, as I doubt that his replacement will share all of these characteristics (this person is TBD, by the way, so I am not referring to anyone in particular). It sounds cheesy, but he was my friend as well as my boss and I will miss seeing him every day. I am also faced with the situation of needing to pass along large quantities of information to this new person and my yet-to-be-hired replacement at the same time as I help plan and manage an international conference, finish all manner of program-related projects, overhaul a large website, and write a fairly complete manual for How To Do My Job before I wave goodbye on July 25. Just thinking about it makes me kind of nauseated.

So I am hoping that, given these circumstances, you will forgive me for not coming up with exciting blogging topics, new photos, or new art for the ol’ Etsy shop. I simply don’t know how to do it all.

(If you would, please pray that we can sucker convince someone else to fill the position that is being vacated as soon as possible. Otherwise, either I or our rather unwieldy committee will need to pick up a lot of slack, and I don’t think that the results will be pretty.)

I finished my photo-sorting project last night. Well, the wedding photos are still left to do, but those are far fewer and can be dealt with later.

As I look at these (very grainy) photos, it doesn’t seem as though I downsized all that much.

It’s hard to communicate just how dense everything is — each of those little tiny books contains, like, 60 photos. And then there are the big ones, the medium ones, and my two half-hearted attempts at scrapbooking.

All of which has been reduced to this.

So let me assure you that I sorted and selected and threw a lot of photos away. The orange box is full of negatives, since they don’t take up all that much space and I can’t bear to part permanently with some things just yet. But even so, my photo collection has gone on a major, major diet.

Ahhh.

Now on to the rest of the apartment.

(The cabinet above is a sneak preview of our moving sale, which will be next Saturday, May 17. It’s, like, 10% of the kitchen/random decor items that we’ll be getting rid of, so if you’re in the market for some stuff be sure to drop by! We’re having a special preview sale at our place on Friday night at 8:30 pm, for those who want first pickings…)

This post on Apartment Therapy is worth reading.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, a coworker kindly informed me that the remaining Ren Fair posters are available at (where else) Tie Dye Everything. So if you’ve emailed or left a comment wondering if you can get one and I told you that you can’t, I was wrong…just toodle down to Main Street and pick one up for free.

In the absence of art/craft productivity, I have spent a little time poking around Etsy to find ways to empty my PayPal account (a difficult task, I know). In doing so, I came across an oil painter named Andrea Coats with a lovely little painting blog and an even lovelier shop. Andrea’s gorgeous little paintings are oh-so-affordable…I am planning to buy a small set (2? 3?) for the new kitchen after we move. Some of my favorites are below. Aren’t they gorgeous?!?

(All images by Andrea Coats, used with permission)

I should also mention, in the spirit of sharing, that I found another new-to-me shop selling Marimekko’s Unikko Lac print in blue for only $15/yard. It normally retails for something around $40/yard, so this is a really good deal. And seeing as this is the exact print, color, and size that I’ve been looking for, I bought two yards and can tell you that it is quite lovely in person. I plan to put it in the yet-unseen dining room of our yet-unrented apartment, so I hope that nothing in it clashes with blue. :)

Finally (and this did deplete the PayPal account), I am happy to announce that I am the proud owner of my very own piece of Amy Ruppel’s encaustic art. I have loved her work ever since I first saw it online and decided during her recent online art sale that now is the time. I mean, there will never be a “good” time to spend money on art — which is so easily viewed as non-essential — unless you make it. So I made it. And now these little birdies will be flying to me soon.

(Image by Amy Ruppel)

I turned out that someone purchased the piece I wanted, but Amy very kindly made me a new one. So perfect, isn’t it?

Husband doesn’t know about this yet, so I guess this is my way of seeing if he checks the old blog. ;)

Probably not so much posting this week (or next), as I am busy packing and working on this. After all the very helpful comments you left me on my what-to-do post, a 2nd shop seemed like the very best option. Paulabirdy will remain open and have all the birdy-themed items, while PaulaGibbs will carry the Day at the Beach prints, some new gocco prints, and a few other things.

Already done:

• create new email address
• create new shop
• create new banner and temporary avatar
• order new prints (they came!)
• take photos of prints
• design rough draft of business cards

Still to do:

• order new business cards
• come up with a new promotional postcard or freebie
• edit and resize photos for Etsy listings
• create new listings
• finish writing shop announcement, email to buyers, etc.
• make a few changes to the Paulabirdy shop
• fiddle with PayPal settings
• come up with a new packaging scheme (i.e. not ribbon)

Sound like fun? If you’re thinking about opening a shop, it’s a good idea to make a pretty complete to-do list first…I’m sure I’m still missing some things, but my current list is already long enough to banish thoughts of finishing everything in a week. :)

Given the current state of my apartment (=chaos) and schedule (=hectic), I’m putting the Monday moving sales on hold for a few weeks. I want to start adding old drawings and paintings next, and at the moment I’m not even sure where they are. I am hoping to unearth a little pile of sale-able art in the near future so I can resume the sales!

I made the hundredth sale in my Etsy shop yesterday and I noticed that Lauren did the same. I wasn’t sure that this would ever happen, so I’m pretty happy/relieved. Congrats to Lauren and my hundredth buyer, who will – of course – receive an extra gift. :)

This has been a rather scattered Friday so I don’t have enough time for the post I had planned. Instead, I think I will scheme (and sort photos) over the weekend and see if I can have something nice to show you on Monday. A new set of prints arrived today, which means that I also need to find time to snap a batch of photos. Oh, and I can’t forget to visit the Sing and Shout Crafts booth at the Moscow Farmer’s Market: I opted out this year, but it sounds as though the selection will be better than ever. Make sure to stop by and say hello to the Sing ’n’ Shout girls if you’re downtown on Saturday!

I realized that I’ve neglected to post photos of the Spring Gala last weekend. It was really fun! To sum it up, a friend of ours decided to turn his house into an art gallery for two days and invite a bunch of local authors and bands to perform. Husband gave a really excellent short story reading, and I was very impressed by my friends’ musical prowess.

Have a good weekend, all!

(Oil paintings by Nate Stevenson)

(My gouache paintings and gocco)

Hello, my name is Paula and I am a photoholic.

This would (perhaps) not be such a bad problem if it didn’t involve heaps and heaps of photos. I mean, it’s not like it’s particularly bad for me — or you — or that it’s an addiction that can’t be broken: I have smoothly made the transition from film to digital, although I do mourn for my old Nikon sometimes. Nope, the main problem is that my years of photo-taking have generated this. And this simply cannot be shipped in its entirety to Pensacola.

I apologize that the photo is lousy and that it doesn’t do justice to the mismatched towers of books, albums, boxes, photos and negatives piled on my dining room table. The stacks are quite high, and this is compounded by the problem that they are also quite dense — each album is chock full of memories, and I am now trying to decide which of those memories I don’t need to hang onto anymore.

Initially, I found this problem to be quite upsetting. Without my photos, how will I ever remember all these things? It will be as if they never happened! Once I got over the big lump in my throat and sat down to business, however, I realized that it’s not quite as bad as that. Sure, I will toss some images of mystery cities and cathedrals, but they aren’t really necessary to preserve forever, anyway — I think that I kept those photos out of a clutching, I-don’t-want-to-forget-any-part-of-that-time-in-my-life sentiment. This is not a particularly good sentiment to encourage, since there are plenty of times in my life that I don’t need or want to wallow in again. I mean, if you get wade through a swamp and find a lovely meadow on the other side, why bring complete documentation of the swamp with you?

Instead of keeping a photo of everything, then, I am trying to keep just the good ones. And by good I don’t just mean artistic, since I have come to the humbling realization that I am rather a worse photographer than I had thought (there are some really ugly pics in those stacks!). No, I mean the photos that show smiling faces and happy family birthday parties and cousins splashing in the lake. Some of these are pretty, and some are kind of grainy and off-kilter. But when I look at them, I remember that my life has been good and the God has blessed me very much.

I have provided myself with the incentive of four (okay, maybe five) shiny new albums to fill. But no more than that, since photos are really quite heavy.

Now I just need to condense this mess into four (or five) albums.

Wish me luck.

Today is my birthday. I am now 28 years old.

As I have been sorting through piles and piles of photos in the evening, I have been trying to remember what I projected my 28th year would be like when I was younger.

When I was 12, I wanted to be veterinarian. Or an author, looking at a pile of books with my name on them.

At 18, “artist” came into the picture — in the future I would surely have a studio filled with big canvasses.

At 22, a Ph.D. in history seemed moderately likely.

Last year, I wanted 28 to involve a new job for Josh, some illustration projects, and some things that haven’t happened yet.

You know the really fabulous thing, though? Nothing I’d imagined was as good as what I got. I’d trade an art studio for our little apartment any day, and I’m so glad that I’m not wading through a thesis on medieval history right now. My younger self couldn’t even imagine a husband who stayed up late to pack a special birthday lunch (and even stuck in a dollar bill for a soda).

At the rate things are going, I think 28 is going to be great.

(Family: the photo at the top is the incredibly dorky one I mentioned at dinner on Sunday. Wow.)

After a full day of housecleaning and stuff-sorting on Saturday, I’ve come to the realization that — as always — this moving/packing thing is going to take me longer than I’d thought.

Sorted so far: parts of craft room, knick-knacks, some tableware, linens, books.

Still in disarray: other parts of craft room, kitchen stuff, my clothes, very full file cabinet, photos, portfolios, random personal belongings.

Waiting till husband is done with school: huge quantities of CDs and VHS tapes, his clothes, desk area.

And then there are any number of categories that I haven’t even thought of yet, like stuff that lives in the bathroom cabinet that you really don’t want to throw away because that eye cream container has a little more left and you want to use it sometime, just not now. I try to psych myself into thinking that I’m not the kind of person who likes clutter, but the evidence points strongly to the contrary. I mean, I rounded up my vases on Saturday and found that I own at least 15. Yikes.

The approach to packing/de-cluttering that I’m currently employing is Slow + Steady. Start now, tackle small areas at a time, and try not to get really bogged down in memories. Stuff is really a treasure-trove of memories, isn’t it? I hold on to so many things not because I love the object itself but because I’m afraid that I’ll forget the person who gave it to me if I pass it on. But as I sit on the verge of a major move and the prospect of paying to ship all my whatsits to Florida (or storing them in my long-suffering parents’ basement), I think I need to part with some of my treasures. So I am picking things up, looking them over, smiling at my memories, and setting them resolutely on the yard sale shelf.

Even though the first box won’t be shipped for weeks yet, my move has already begun.

Monday Moving Sale:
In light of all the other things going on, this week’s sale is pretty low key. I’ve marked the Portrait of the Artist gocco prints (Cardinal and Puffin) from $10 to $8, since I’ve decided that $8 will be my new 5×7 gocco print price point. I toyed with the idea of starting a new gocco print set (I have them all planned out!), but I think that it will have to wait until the end of May.

I have begun to sort through piles of belongings in preparation for our mid-May move to Pullman, having learned from experience that it’s best not to leave this for the week before. Along with craft supplies, books, photos, and linens, I’ve begun a little digital de-cluttering as well. Seeing as our digital data storage situation is a bit precarious, I’ve begun uploading some older pics onto my flickr account. Have I mentioned how much I love flickr? I know that I use, like, 5% of its capabilities, but I’ve been really happy with my experience so far. The free version is fine, but since I like to keep high-res files of everything I upgraded to a pro account in January and haven’t looked back.

I found these photos from a few years ago and decided that they are fairly expressive of my thoughts at the moment. Lots of things swirling around.

Have a good weekend, all.