back here

someone hacked into my bluehost account multiple times, and just didn't have the time or energy to keep up with security, so I killed it and all the content on it was lost.

I'm not blogging here much anymore, but you can visit my OTHER blog- Breast Cancer is my BITCH, to find out what is going on with me right now.

Hope to see you over there!

~simone

on the move

hey! I've moved!

Come visit at www.kentstreetdesigns.com/simonesays

or check out my REAL website at www.kentstreetdesigns.com.

see ya!

Easy come, easy go

Maybe I have a genetic disposition to having a guilty conscience, but when I got an IM from my Executive-in-Charge late yesterday morning, I have to admit my heart skipped a few beats.

Relax......I told myself. I haven't done anything to warrant any sort of bad meeting, even if I did walk in on his meeting by mistake this am.

Maybe he just wants to talk about how the new Eloqua project is working out now that we are getting ready to get it going (2 months behind schedule and still not working as promised, but not my fault).

Maybe he just wants to chat? last time one of my managers called me down to a conference room, he just wanted an evaluation on my other manager

....breathe....


Unfortunately, my gut instinct was right this time.


Events that followed were sort of in slow motion and still not fully comprehended or digested...

".......company not meeting budget goals.....60 people are being cut.......no reflection on the work you've done.......you can leave right after this meeting....your stuff will be packed up and sent to your home.... please sign and return the severance agreement......"



Less than an hour later, I was at home, and unemployed, nine days before Christmas.

I'm not dead...yet

well, just as I promised in my last post awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in September, it's been a crazy few months, and here I am, halloween a distant memory, Turkey day over with and staring Christmas in it's cold frosty face!

I just wanted to check in for my faithful readers who despaired of ever hearing from me again on this blog to let y'all know, nope.....not dead yet!

But...OH! it's been a wild ride! I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing at my job, and trying not to have daily panic attacks. Things are calming down, but I think the days of frequent blogging are gone, but hopefully not forgotten. At some point, I hope to get things back in balance and have enough brain power at the end of the day to add a few quick words, start a website, make jewelry, all that jazz.


However, today is not THAT day.

Tomorrow isn't looking so good either.

a quick update and some new (old) photos

This week has been a little crazy, actually these past two weeks have just been a blur, from the Monday morning conversation with my boss..."umm...I quit" to my last day- yesterday, as a civil servant.



In between, we got the kitten snipped and clipped (no more claw marks in my leg!), rescheduled a bazillion doctor's appointments (new insurance!) started soccer (for my little buddy) booked a hotel room and filled out all the new hire paperwork, got the car ready for the drive to Chicago and got sucked into a cool new computer game ("Spore").

So I've kinda neglected my online friends and family completely and I thought before I get whisked away into the craziness that accompanies a new job, I'd pop in to give a quick update and post some old photos that I 'finessed' in photoshop recently. I'm working on some for my new office, since I ended up giving away all the pictures in my old one office to the people that helped keep me sane over the last few years. It was kind of cool that so many people were excited to get one of my photos (matted and framed no less) and funny that so many others asked..."have those been hanging in your office this whole time? " I ended up giving away a lot of my resources that I have collected from my numerous previous 'engagements' to people who I have hope will one day get to stretch their wings and fly away from there, too.



I don't really know for sure what my new job will entail. It's a newly created position, for a new cutting edge marketing software application that I will be responsible for developing and managing. I DO know that the position I was hired for was titled "Interactive Producer/Project Manager" on the Position Description, but not sure if that will be the title on my new business cards or what. I DO know that I'm hiring in at the manager level (which means coaching/leadership responsibilities-cool! ... scary!)

AND I get a corporate credit card, a laptop and a trip to Chicago this Monday and Tuesday for new hire orientation. The company is a mid-sized auditing and consulting company right in downtown GR, and they believe in 'quality' of work, not just time spent in the office. They (we, now!) refer to employees as 'Talent" and promote an environment that supports work/life balance, offers extensive training and development opportunities and measures employee 'passion' as part of a formal talent development program.

so, Yes...I'm totally stoked!
(to use an old so.cal term, in honor of my new boss, who works remotely from L.A.!)

I also got a signing bonus (hee hee), which I'm planning to use some of to get a macro lens for my DSLR so I can start taking photos of my jewelry (Original Wearable Art) and hopefully get my online jewelry business up and running. (oh and DEFINITELY buying a couple pair of NEW shoes!)

SOOOOOOOOOO.....

I plan on being pretty busy this next few weeks, if not months, and I will probably not get to devote time this fall to getting the petition for CLUCK up and running (City of L.....Urban Chicken Keepers), so I'll wrap up this post with a photo in honor of the Kent Street FOUR....

Why knitting and alcohol don't mix-a parable

My passion this past few months has been for knitting socks.

Normally, summertime means letting all my indoor hobbies go (as well as indoor chores) and spending as much time as I can torturing all my plants by ripping them from one spot where they are peacefully and happily growing and moving them to another spot in my yard where I think they will look better.

Unfortunately, this January a pesky ole' disk in my lower back decided to take a trip to other parts and effectively put the kabosh on heavy lifting and bending for the duration of the growing season. This of course made all my plants deliriously happy and they celebrated by taking over my yard and turning it into a nature reserve for screech monkeys and errant woodchucks.

But I digress....

sooo...my need to play with brightly colored things was satisfied this summer by knitting socks. I knit 6 pairs for myself in probably as many weeks in a variety of obnoxious color combinations. I have no problem making stuff just for myself. I say, what's the point of making something cool like handmade socks and never getting to enjoy them yourself?

I was finishing up my latest pair of socks in a yummy stripey color combo of grey, vanilla and cocoa (mmm..toasty) when my dear KiSA came over to admire them. His feet are not that much bigger than mine, and since these were cozy, chunky wool socks, and a little roomy, he pulled on a pair and said...ooooooo, I like these.

WHOA! (sound of record scratching to a halt) Back away from the socks, buddy!

I realized in a split second that my beloved KiSA would have NO problem adopting these lovely socks as his own - the hot pink and blue heather footies were a little less to his liking - unless I bit the bullet and made him a pair of his own.

So I did.

And they turned out pretty cool, I think.


Except for small thing...which I noticed right after I finished the first sock.


What the heck is that bulge right there on the bottom of the heel?!?

I finished up the first sock while visiting my favorite Sarnarian (what do you call a person from Sarnia?) and being good friends and good Canadians, they always provide great conversation and ample supplies of wine.

Having just made SIX pairs of socks (for myself) I didn't feel the need to consult the pattern while I knitted, and chatted, and enjoyed a nice glass of wine together....or four.

And it wasn't until I was all done and showing off my latest masterpiece to some fellow knitters that I had my answer.

I had knit the ankle gussets on the wrong side of the needle...putting that nice big bump at the bottom of the sock instead of a nice little row of decreases along the ankle, where it's supposed to be, as shown here:


My fellow knitters, members of the next Olympic competitive knitting team, asked me how the heck I managed NOT to notice this horrific, horrendous, bulbous protrusion at the time I was knitting it.

Which leads back to the title of this post.

In the manner of ALL good parables, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Wandering through the old hard drive

I don't know what it is about me, blogs and Tuesdays, but that just seems to be the day I get to thinking about the fact that I need to update the world on what's clanking around inside my brain.

When I started the blog, I had so much stuff rolling around up there, I had to take notes on stuff so I wouldn't forget that I wanted to blog about it.

I still have a bunch of stuff up there, but since I have so little time right now to write, when I DO actually find some time to write, I have a hard time figuring out what to write about. The old Mark Twain problem of "I wanted to write you a short letter, but I didn't have time so I wrote you a long one instead". I feel like if I only get to throw something out into the ether once or twice a week, I'd like to make a stab at having it be worthwhile stuff.

THEN there is the problem of having photos to go along with it. actual, RELEVANT photos, I mean, that complement the theme of the blog.

This is proving to be really difficult for me. I just haven't gotten comfortable with dragging my camera around with me everywhere to capture all my life's moments to share with y'all here.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. I'm still trying to figure out how to work that darn SLR that my KiSA was so generous to gift me a few birthdays ago.

2. I already haul so much junk around I can't see how I can fit one more little thing (plus that other little thing that goes with it, AND the extra lens, AND the charger AND the manual-see reason#1 for why I still need to haul around the manual.)

3. I may have to come to terms that a lot of my life's moments involve me sitting in a little grey cube, in a little grey box inside a bigger gray box in the middle of Michigan, staring at my computer and trying to figure out why the IT people keep sending me stupid duplicate help desk tickets. and

4. Who has time to take pictures (not to mention, EDIT them!) when I barely have time to write a blog?!

NOWWWWWWW......If I owned a knitting shop in Paris, and sipped lattes at the corner cafe on my lunch hour, I'm sure I'd have plenty of reason to tote my cute little hand-knit camera bag around to photograph all the latest designs and projects I was working on. Like these fabulous beauties!

(Ack! uhm..see REASON #1 to explain THIS picture)

but.... I don't.

If I owned my sheep, alpaca and chicken farm in a quaint remote region of Ireland, I could sling my camera over my shoulder as I rode my horse around taking photos of all the breathtaking panoramic views and the quaint old buildings on the farm ...

but again..no.

And while I work on a bunch of projects (though definitely NOT in Paris) I'm finding it's really hard to photograph them well (plus I'll need more equipment to haul around and another manual)

AND though I see lots of cool old quaint buildings and panoramic vistas on my way to work, you really shouldn't stop the car on the side of the interstate and wade through the weeds to take pictures of those quaint old buildings and panoramic views, nor attempt to photograph them with your camera phone while you are driving (for reference pics when you decide to finally learn how to paint in watercolor) Just trust me on how I know this, ok?

Soooo, what I decided to do today (for my ADD self and all the rest of my faithful fan base who can't manage to get through a whole boring ole' blog without at least a FEW pictures) is go through a few of my OLD photos and use today's blog as an excuse to post them! Photos that, while cute, just didn't make the cut of "fabulous" and "breathtaking" etc. when I took them oh so many moons ago.

This one is my buddy in the thick of one of his favorite things...heavy weapons re-creation fighting. Note the historically accurate use of duct tape on his garage-sale-swat-team-cum knight helmet.


This is a friend's son and gi-normous mastiff puppy having a snooze together on a Saturday afternoon.

My buddy at 'fair' a couple of years ago, with all the really important fair paraphenalia: a cowboy hat and a giant coke.

Hope you aren't too disappointed with this little trip down my old harddrive.

I could just post more of this...

And none of us wants that, now...right?