My goodness, but it has been a while, hasn't it? Time flies when you're having fun - and also when you're very, very busy!
We've had so much stuff happening lately that I can barely keep up. Suffice to say, I haven't felt much like writing on here because my brain has been just a bit fried! Orion has started pre-teething, which has translated into him sleeping very little. He's not overly fussy, he just doesn't sleep more than an hour, maybe two, at a time, and often with long gaps in between snooze sessions. This of course means that I was averaging 4-6 non-consecutive hours of sleep in a night, and after over a week of that, I was feeling very sleep deprived and out of it. Other than being more cranky than I've ever been in my life, sleep deprivation tends to make it hard for me to communicate clearly. My brain might formulate a cohesive thought, but by the time it travels to my mouth, the language gets all screwed up and nonsensical garble tends to come out. I even laugh at the weird stuff that I say, or just have to shake my head and wonder what it was I actually meant to convey. Oh well!
These lack-of-sleep nights have been tough on all of us, including my poor MacBook. Russell got up late (early) with Orion one night (morning) around 4am, and finally got him to go to sleep in his swing. Russell decided to snooze on the couch till he had to get up for work, and set his phone's alarm. The phone was placed precariously between my laptop and a glass of milk that I left out around 2am when I was up with the baby. You can probably imagine what happened next... I woke up later that day to discover a computer that wouldn't turn on and a very bummed out note from my honey. Fortunately, I paid for the insurance on the machine when I got it, and only had to pay for the upgraded machine (MacBook Pro, holla!) and a new insurance plan. Of course, I also lost two years+ of accumulated data from my old machine, including all that product photography, stuff I did for the wedding, baby photos, and countless other items. I'm still grieving the loss of some of that stuff, but as I keep reminding Russell (and myself) it was just stuff. Stupid me for not having it backed up; lately I'd been thinking I needed to get an external hard drive, and just hadn't done it yet. Now I have... Since I've been going back and forth to Best Buy in the past week while I get the exchanges worked out, I figured I'd go ahead and add the price of a Time Capsule to the computer replacement fees. That sucker is cool; it's a Wi Fi external hard drive, so it backs up both of our Macs automatically, and it's an airport so it works as our wireless internet router and networks in the printer... Pretty cool, actually. I can't imagine why I waited so long to get one, other than the price tag!
In other, happier news, my creative business Sachi Ivy Designs has been doing pretty well! I created a Facebook business page with portfolio shots of plays that I've done costumes for, as well as photo albums of various projects and jewelry that I've made. It's linked to my Etsy shop as well, so folks have an easier time finding me and checking out my work. I also spent a lot of time re-shooting the goods for sale, and the better product photography has lead to more frequent sales! On top of that, I've had one commission order after another this past month, starting with the Autumn Gown, a non-traditional wedding gown for Katie, who is getting hitched this weekend in the botanical gardens! The gown is green jacquard with tons of hand-dyed leaf appliques, an empire waist, double skirt, and a corseted lace-up back. Very pretty! I'm also currently working on a corset and skirt set for Liz, who commissioned the project for Hulaween and the NY New Year's Eve Phish shows.
The biggest news lately in relation to my sewing penchant is that I landed a job doing costumes for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, to be performed at the Carrboro Arts Center in December! The design style is going Steampunk, and I couldn't be more excited to be on this project! I need to clear the decks and get ready for a big push over the next month; I'm planning on 'pulling' most of the costumes, but for a couple of the big characters (Wonka, Veruca) we may need to build from the ground up. Either way, it's going to be great portfolio fodder and gives me yet another (very needed) reference!
On the work front, things are going well at Trader Joe's. I'm only working about 3 days a week, so it's not too stressful. I've recently been put in charge of the Demo counter, so I'm making up menus and writing orders for supplies and food items. It's been a bit bumpy to start, but I'm sure I'll get into the swing of things soon!
And finally, this week is off to a good start, partially because we're all looking forward to the big ending: HULAWEEN! For those of you who don't know, our favorite band The String Cheese Incident is performing two shows at the Hampton Coliseum in VA on the 29th and 30th. We're going and we're so excited! I just need to decide which costumes to wear! The real pincher on this one is whether or not we'll rally our energies to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity/March to Keep Fear Alive in DC on that Saturday; we really want to go, but it might be too much to slide that in between the two Cheese shows. We'll see; we just found out that Abraxas the Dragamuffin, the big gold dragon art bus from Burning Man, is going to roll with the March - I want to be there for that, for sure! It'll just depend on how much energy we have and how cooperative Orion is with our wild plans. Usually he's game, so we'll just have to see!
