Friends Forever

first day of trip

last day of trip

We've been gone. Again! But we're back. Much to write about and reflect upon. Much laundry. Much to celebrate now that my kids are in camp for the next two weeks. I'm pretty much done with summer folks. Need me some Autumn.

Last weekend we went camping with a family that once lived close enough that we could get together on weekends for trips and hikes and adventures but then they abandoned us for the east coast so now we hate them. But they came for a visit and we had a great time camping in Bear Valley which is out in the Sierras. Our kids are about the same age. In fact our son and their oldest daughter are only five days apart and even though we never lived close enough to their family for the kids to be best friends in the whole wide world, they are fairly close and they recognize they have a special childhood bond. So they had fun reuniting. And we had fun watching them and planning their wedding.

And incidentally the day before we saw them I did a little video and photo shoot for Shutterfly talking about a photo book I had made for this same family as a going away present almost two years ago. I went to a fancy hotel and a real make up artist did what she could to make me look awake and for two hours I told them all about the book and our friendship and the kids and our upcoming reunion (and a bunch of other books I have made). And they paid me! Suckers. They thought that since they know me from work (I used to work there) that I'd be as charming and intelligible on camera as I am in real life. Little did they know that I am even less photogenic than 95% of the rest of the world by my last count and that in front of a camera I mumble and twitch and sometimes pick my nose unconsciously.

Rite of Passage

Well it has been a crazy stretch these last few days. I decided at the last minute to do another little show at our JCC -  a fundraiser for the preschool -  and it went very well which is exciting but I forgot about how exhausting it is to sit at your booth in the sun and be charming for four hours and also lug your stuff all around two days in a row. And you think huh, this is pretty good money for working 8 hours and then you figure in all the time and energy you spent getting ready and set up and schlepping and recovering and filling orders and you realize, huh, I'm thirty-six years old and I work for minimum wage. But I'm happy doing it. And I'm learning too. I actually met a wonderful watercolor artist who shared some tips for shows and for framing.  So I will pick her brain more.

And on top of that we did some home improvements so my studio has been in several states of disarray since the weekend. But I am already so much happier with how it looks and soon to be happier with the way I can arrange little stations for what I do - create, communicate, print, ship etc. My own little supply chain. More on this later.

But I'm most excited to share this little piece of mail that I got today from a little company called Hallmark, who sent me an email back in October wanting to license my Tree of Life image for one of their cards (!). And here it is. A bar mitzvah card of all things which is so serendipitous since I just wrote a silly blog about bar mitzvah invitations here. Isn't the world funny like that? It's only one little card so I'm not exactly writing any press releases. But licensing has always been part of my general plan to take over the world so I'm celebrating my own mini rite of passage over here bat mitzvah style, minus the braces and Laura Ashley dress. Oy.

Bye Bye Shutterfly

Today is my last day of work at Shutterfly. It's bittersweet. Well maybe semi-sweet. I've really enjoyed being in the creative services group and as I told them all at the waffle breakfast they prepared in honor of my departure (!) working here was an important step toward venturing out on my own in the creative world. They even gave me a paper cutter as a going away present. Talk about knowing how to make a girl feel loved. And it's a big industrial one too. I'm getting tingly just thinking about it.

But the timing is amazing. Just yesterday my iron-transfers were feature on Design Mom and orders started coming in. And the Stanford Children's Hospital has accepted my donation of Inner Toddler prints (the little guys in my header) and then they ordered my entire collection of animals for the hospital. I just have to keep building on this momentum. Feels good.

The good news for you all is that I will be spending twice as much time with my kids going forward which means way more time for them to make me crazy and ultimately way more content for this blog. You see, win win.

Wish me luck.

Tell them your mommy's an artist

This morning we were getting ready for school and I remembered that today my son was supposed to share with his class about what kind of work his parents do. He came home with a paper bag and we were supposed to put things in it that we use at work and explain how we use those things. My husband was planning to bring home a model ear (he's designing a hearing aid) and some mechanical stuff but he forgot. So I grabbed a little Shutterfly photo book and put it in the bag and explained, Mommy is a copywriter. I write all the stuff on Shutterfly's website. And he's looking at me like I just told him I'm an appraiser or a lobbyist or an accountant - all professions he has neither heard of nor can relate to on any level. Tell them I try to inspire people to share their stories through their own pictures and words...still nothing.

Then I thought, you know what? Screw that. I dumped the Shutterfly book and went to get a few of my paintbrushes, a few tubes of paint and an assortment of my 5x7 animal prints, put them in the bag, looked my kid in the eyes and said, tell them your mommy's an artist.

And then today, at 2pm, I called my wonderful manager into a conference room and said, Dianna, I'm an artist. It's time for me to go. And she said that she knew I was doing the right thing though she was sad to see me leave. And we hugged. And I thanked her for being part of my creative awakening. It was a very good exchange. And now we can just be friends again.

So that's it. While the rest of the world is being laid off, I'm leaving my full-time, well-paid, easy-to-manage job, on my own accord. She's lost her mind! It's been said, the thing that keeps you from doing something great is doing something good. My life coach taught me that. So my very good year at Shutterfly is coming to an end and soon I'll begin the shift toward morning artist and afternoon mommy. And greatness. There's a nice symmetry there. I haven't written much on this subject namely because people I work with occasionally read this blog. I will say though that I didn't just snap because it was "put your profession in a paper bag day" at school. This decision and transition is nine months in the making. Thirty-five years and nine months.