This hot rod was parked out front of our building today.

Custom.

Nice.

I hesitate to confess.
In fact, I hesistated 4 hours to confess.
But Kristin sent me an email that said just this:
Bacon Mac n' Cheese.

And so it happened.

This summer, I will be visiting The Corson Building. 

Just read through their entire website.  AMAZING.

So amazing, I considered not sharing... but decided to not be silly.

Have any of you ever been?

Tell me about it. 

please.

Describe your dream job: 

I'm slightly challenged at the moment that the actual job part of my dream job is the hardest for me to describe.  I can fill in the borders around it more easily - you know, what it doesn't keep me from.  I know how my mornings start for my dream job - I get up, throw on shorts, tennis shoes and a sweatshirt - I fix my messy ponytail and head out the door.  When I return from my run, my house smells like coffee.  I jump in the shower and return in my work clothes - a cozy and cute sweater, leggings, and socks to keep my feet warm against the cold wood floors (of course, this is my dream, and my studio loft, or one bedroom suite is complete with rustic metal, high beam ceilings, some gorgeous fan, and beautiful wood floors).  I pour myself a steaming cup of coffee, open the front door and grab the paper, and return to my kitchen table or beautiful desk in the living room to catch up on the world.  As soon as that's done, I leave it.  I forget the world and write something beautiful.  Or, I write about my travels around that world.  I scroll through my thousands of photos that I have taken, and I draft the most moving and sometimes witty articles and stories known to the area. 

Sounds like a Meg Ryan movie... I know.  : / 

Really, I just want to be given opportunities to write about things that are interesting, creative and beautiful.  I know I do well with people, I can befriend most anyone (not that I always want to).  My dream job provides for me to be creative in my problem solving, and in my writing style.  And my dreamiest dream job also gives me lots of room about my content of writing.  Also, I have a quiet space to do it - and flexibility about where I do... I want to be able to work wherever I want, and with some flexibility about when I start and finish.  I love to get getting early!  But especially when that means I can wrap up my work before the best tanning hours are over.  ;) 

Dreams ay?  I know.  But it's worth asking yourself to actually outline it: what would be my ideal job?  That would be mine.   That has always been mine.  That is part of why I decided I wanted to be a writer.  And come 10 years, I'd love to add more sock-clothes little feet scampering around that hard wood floor while I sip my coffee and try to write something brilliant and meaningful.

All that said - I'm aware that my idea of that dream, may not in the end be what would most make me come alive. So here I am, not in my dream job, but soaking in every little detail and lesson and skill I possibly can, because I'm certain that today is exactly what I need.

Because I've spent time whining a bit about all the spreadsheets - or if not whining outright, hinting at it.  I'd like to take a moment so sit right there (I'll tell ya how I became the prince of a place called Weav-EHR)..  Sorry.  I just wanted to say, today I worked on spreadsheets, I hounded people to get me their missing details and descriptions and I got everything ready for invoicing... and I still liked my job.  A, I'm finally starting to understand and be able to keep straight 2012 Monthly Billing from Billing 2012 (which we do monthly).  I swear all the spreadsheets have basically the same name - and they all have to do with billing.  It doesn't lend itself well to this creative girl's tendencies.  Neither does the fact that every time I email a question to my boss, he insists on leaning over to me to answer it.  It kind of defeats the purpose I have - I need written answers.  I need to SEE words.  It's just how I am.  I don't learn nearly as well when I just hear.  :(

But, to the positive... I enjoyed today.  I was busy.  Really busy.  I'm finally at the place that I can start running with things and just figuring out what I can be working on.  I did invoicing and compiled a list of designers for a client, I emailed with engineers we may use, confirmed proposal deadlines, began ordering new business cards, created a new system for backing up the server, made a new spreadsheet for it, labeled and reorganized the tapes, coordinated with our IT guy to fix the plotter. And most excitingly, I was able to answer my bosses questions and actually be helpful without first giving him a very long blank stare as I try to wrap my mind around which spreadsheet he is asking me about!  (gah!!)  And best yet, he finally brought up getting me even more involved with the part of my job I'm most excited about - more proposals.  He asked me, "Katrina, how do you feel about contracts?"  "What do you mean?"  "Oh, I just thought you might be excited about them because they are connected with law."  "Well, I'm excited about them because they are connected to full sentences."  :)   ..."and Jarrod wants to start getting you more connected with the proposals, not just the big ones you've been doing but all of them.  I do too."  He then used words like "boilerplate"  which nearly made my heart race!  Yes, I can work on that!  We have a proposal due for another historic building next Thursday, another two weeks after that, invoicing for this month is well underway, there are all sorts of reorganization projects I'm starting to get ideas how to tackle, and new opportunities opening up for actual writing! PRAISE THE LORD.  

And on top of all of that, there's this small glistening hope in the horizon that appears from time to time - talk of what our next office space might be like when (if!) we finally move.  :)

It probably helped quite a lot too that today I packed a lunch, went and sat in our design library, and wrote through my break.  :)  I need to be creating!   And I need to write something worth publishing!!  I refuse to be the girl who never did what she dreamt about - never was what she said she was all about.  If nothing else, I refuse to make the people who believe in me regret it, and the people who overlook or dismiss me count themselves right.

still a favorite.

One day, I wouldn't mind a spiral staircase in my house.  :) 

P.S.  Kim, this is what I picture where your TV is.  I tell you, it's genius.  (Or, it could go in the corner of your dining room behind - or in place of - the bit of wall by the front door, assuming that doesn't compromise the support.)

Favorite things I was told today:

1.  "Dream on Little Sister and Live alive."

2. "Jarrod wants to get you more involved with all the proposals."

3. "That is the cutest lunch I've ever seen!"   (it was pretty cute)

Today, Tomorrow, most of the next.... and then it happens.

Better yet, it's getting good reviews! Trying not to get my hopes up. :)

Here's a wild thought.  I'm actually highly integrated in an artistic community - already.  We don't have weekly dinners nor are we all best friends and collaberating on projects (yet), but I know a lot of highly talented, artistic people.  Wild.  And somehow suddenly, I'm getting opportunities to call on those people and connect them with clients who need their services.  "Katrina, can you send me those photographers you mentioned?"  "Do you know any graphic designers?"  "We have a client who wants to re-brand, know anyone who could help?"  I LOVE THIS.  I really do.  :)  And while there are big dreams in my heart that have yet to be realized, just getting to connect talented, passionate people with those who can utilize their work.... I love.  :) 

If you expect people to watch your life - you better start living something worth watching.

In a world where we find it common to post the details of our day down to favorite yogurt brand, exercise routines and the words coming out of our headphones we just assume that anything is worth a "like" from a friend.  One of my goals for this blog has always been to point out beauty and value in details and people that might be missed or overlooked.  I want people to live where they are.  But that said, I especially want people to live.  Really live.  The past few weekends I have gone to Cali, hiked a mountain to a winter wonderland and crawled into a cave on a cliff, run my first 5k, and spoken honestly with people I love.  This weekend will be a show premier with friends, some creativity time about how to make dreams happen, and a wedding of some dear friends.  I've been thinking more and more that I want to live a life that's actually worth sharing.  Not because the goal of my life is to be a show, but because I'm sick of dullness permeating everything.  And then when people get sick of dullness - them just filling their lives up with pointless "adventure" and excitement and song lyrics that really lead them no closer to those things on fire in their hearts.  I know nearly every one of you have heard, Catch on fire and people will come to watch you burn.  But I believe it.

I want to catch fire.  So, I'm feeding this little flame... and I'm hoping that others go alight too, if for no other reason than Facebook is boring and dull these days.  I already know that song, and yes I sing that line at the top of my lungs too.  I know that those fires get fed in seemingly ordinary ways - and what looks like a "check-in" to us, could in fact be the spark for a culinary start, but I'm sick of the dullness, of all the check-ins that aren't people coming alive, but just people filling their Facebook Timelines.  I'm sick of the lemmings. And I want to see some really big bon fires that perhaps even scare me a little, because even the revolution of artists have historically been a bit dangerous.  

I'm not saying we shouldn't post the things that we do, or share, or "like"  or check-in - I'm just saying they should be feeding something bigger.  If Facebook really is a place for us to all share our lives - it should be a whole lot more exciting than it is... not a place to recycle lyrics and crunches. 

After much debate, research and further debate it has hereby been determined by the employees of W.A. that today is the first day of Spring.  Though most calendars and sources will list tomorrow as the first day, it will actually begin for us West-Coasters tonight at 10pm.  I plan to celebrate, with something, springish.

This past weekend was quite fantastic.  Full of so many wonderful things.  I intended to upload photos and share them all... but took a nap instead (a couple times). And this week promises to be just as wonderful - and as busy - so we will see just how soon I am able to share.

On another note, I am craving mac 'n cheese.  Bad.  Not the fancy stuff, I want the good ol' fashioned blue box!  I guess, I'll head down to Pike Place (I sure do love working downtown) and settle for Beecher's.

I WANT ONE.  

artistic credit: Erin Oostra

This really is the year for making things happen.  I think you've all heard the growing (and growing) frustration in me in regards to watching life happen.  Well, I'm pretty certain that frustration is there to drive us to actually change.  So this past weekend, I did something I've been wanting to do for years.  And Tuesday I had lunch at Melrose Market, where a month or two ago I said, "I should have lunch there someday."  And yesterday, I went into that little shop in the Olympic Hotel.  The one I've walked by countless times and always figured I'd stop in, one day.  I know this is all poorly put, but my point is simple:  do the thing you've been meaning to do, hoping to do, dreaming to do... because while you feel you might combust if you never do it, you'll more likely die.  Slowly, quietly, you'll just sink into it. 

So, while it was good to wait, to pray, to prepare.... don't wait too long... and my bet is, you already have.

Caution always sounds like wisdom.  But sometimes it's the wisdom of the slowly dead and dying.

CARPE DIEM.



We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well. ~George MacDonald

I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung. ~Tagore

We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves. ~George M. Adams

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. ~Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see. ~John Burroughs

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. ~Fr. Alfred D'Souza

This year, I am going to ride on a train.  I'd prefer it be across a country I've never been.  But I wouldn't mind if it carried me along the coast my heart has come to resemble.