Waiting for the ball to drop...

The corporate world is foreign to me... familiar, but foreign. I have worked in it for over 2 years now, but I still feel like a square peg being forced into a round hole. All the little unwritten rules and subcultures and weird watercooler talk. For a long time I resisted entering the corporate world, but the paycheck was too sweet to resist. The ultimate question is... are the sacrifices of personal expression worth the monetary rewards?

Case in point: Exercise Ball Fiasco of 2009

I brought in this exercise ball to take the place of my bottom-numbing office chair. It was FABULOUS! I could bounce quietly to work off stress, and my legs and back have never felt better.

But alas... my 10 dollar TJ Maxx find only lasted a week. I came to work one morning and had a voicemail from our safety officer saying I had to get rid of the ball for safety purposes. This incident came as a close second to the greatest outcry of my corporate experience... when someone said to me, quote, "sometimes we have to hide aspects of ourselves in order to succeed."

*sigh*

Well, now I am quite literally waiting for the ball to drop. In about an hour I will find out if I am among the 20,000 employees that will be laid off by our Fortune 100 company. I have been waiting to hear this news for a week, and I can hardly focus on anything else.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to part with this butt-numbing, personality-suppressing corporate world after all.

How do you keep up the balance between love and money?

When the 80s go digital

Last Christmas I wanted to surprise my family by converting all of our old home video cassettes into dvds. My fiance has done this kind of thing before, so I snuck into my parents house while they were away and grabbed our home movies. About 20 hours of playing, converting, editing, rendering, and burning later... we had one hour's worth of movie on dvd.

I had no idea it would take so much time. But my beloved K was patient with me through the whole process. He even created a custom dvd cover out of stills from the video. One look at the cover and my mom was in tears.

We used a formac to convert the VHS into a digital file, then created a dvd in iMovie. But it was the first and last video we converted...

Does anyone have a good system for converting old VHS tapes into dvds?

Isn't it lovely...

... to have feline assistance at the sewing machine?

Gift tags

Last year I worked part time and seemed to spend endless hours being creative. The blessing of a full-time job meant having much less time to hone my crafts and try new things. *sigh* Some days I secretly think about all the wonderful sewing and picture taking and knitting I would do if I get layed off. 

Anyhow, in my craftier days, I made custom felt gift tags for all my family members for Christmas. I read about felt and floss basics on futuregirl's site, and went to town. Despite some trouble with my flash... I think they turned out pretty cute :)