Stepping Stones

Outside the office, a pretty overcast day.

At work, I finally finished creating the methodology for some market research that I conducted over the past year. They've hired two other MIIS students to conduct the same market research in a different region of the US.

Melissa and Frank, yay!

Melissa and Frank have been working on the project for less than a day, and they're already at a point that it took me months to get to in the methodology. I am so pleased and excited to see my methodology in use. While I'm a bit self conscious about the fact that it's taking them much less time that it took me, everyone (M & F and my boss and coworkers) have all assured me that I paved the way for them, and have made it easy for them to get it done quickly. It feels good to have my work appreciated, and to see progress made in my wake.

Sometimes my hair is curly.

Seaglass and Turmoil

I've been posting lots of great things that have been occupying my time recently. I've been having such fun enjoying my weekends, but as you may know if you're very close to me, I've had a lot on my mental/emotional plate for several months. I don't mean to exclude that process entirely from my blog, but I don't think writing explicitly about it is really the right or most helpful thing to do right now. I'm on an emotional rollercoaster, and things are usually 'fine,' but they are rarely wonderful and often downright disappointing. I can't see into the future regarding this particular issue...I've been taking it day by day. A good friend of mine asked recently if I have any hopes or wishes. I think I need to focus on desires as a way to make decisions and move steadily forward. Anyway, sometimes if I only have a short bit of free time, but I want to get outside and clear my head, I go looking for seaglass. I usually go to Asilomar, here:

I'll spend a few minutes or an hour sitting in the sand, mulling my thoughts and looking for tiny bits of color.

At home, I separate them into green, brown, and clear/white/blue in these small bottles on our windowsill. The seaglass feels like a metaphor for my tumbled and jumbled thoughts and feelings. Keeping them distilled and organized feels settled and quiet. Much less anxious and unwieldy. I don't really like drama in my life, and it has taken a while to accept that this part of my life simply IS dramatic, and that that's okay. I look forward to integrating all the pleasantness of my current life with a less dramatic period of my life. That sounds marvelous.

Oscar Party

Any opportunity to play dress-up! The Oscars party our friends had was the perfect chance to wear this crazy dress. I bought it over Christmas break in Kentucky for $5 at an antique mall. I thought I'd cut it up and turn it into a costume; I thought as hideous as it was, the sparkle would look great on stage. I didn't try it on til I got to Mira's house the other weekend, and VaVaVoom, I kind of couldn't help thinking that it looked stupendous afterall. In a sort of terrible over-the-top-Persian sort of way. So I just went with it and did the over-the-top Persian smokey eyes to go with it, and fa-bam! Oscars costume. I made and brought a Persian bulghur/eggplant dish to complete the persona.

3 pairs of false eyelashes do the trick.

Congratulations Ben!!!

I am so so so pleased and proud and grateful to be here with Ben right now, as he is experiencing this significant transition in his life. I have believed in and supported him for years, knowing that he was brilliant, capable, and that his work would be undoubtedly successful at some point in the future. He has been working on his own start-up companies for the past 9 years, and though they had failed, I saw progress in his own learning/competency, with each one. I could clearly see that each company got a little further than the last.

Moving out here so I could go to school and Ben might be able to work in Silicon Valley was pretty much ideal. And though he struggled for the first 8 months here, searching in vain to find work, he finally found a couple promising gigs. One of these, NEO-Loan, is the winner. Ben is partners with the founder of this company (basically offering alternative loans based on criteria other than credit scores). In November, they presented at the Founders Showcase (~3000 applicants), and WON! They were officially, "Silicon Valley's Hottest New Startup."

Beer Bash at the new office

Due to the attention attendant with that title, they have secured--as of last week--investment. It's official! Ben is a successful Silicon Valley startup businessman! They have office space in Palo Alto, and Ben now goes up there to work 3 days/week. I went up last Friday to join in celebration with him. First there was a 'Beer Bash' at the office, then we had a super nice dinner with his partner Navin and his wife Nupur.

Consolidating with shoeboxes and fabric.

Ben was in Palo Alto for 3 days last week, working. On the first day he was gone, I reorganized our back room/office. He had found the shelving unit you see in the back corner for free on the side of the road, so I was able to transfer piles of stuff into organized shelving. The room looked great except for this box sitting on a shelf: a big ugly brown box with a bunch of loose CDs and electronics stuff.

I had 3 shoe boxes laying around that were roughly the same size, and decided to cover them with some fabric and turn them into organization boxes.

Laying the box on the fabric end to end, I measured the piece of fabric, with about an inch of extra fabric on either side.

Beginning at one edge, I hot glued the fabric to the box.

Continuing hot gluing, all the way around the box.

At the end, here's the extra fabric I needed to cut off.

I cut right along the edge of the box, and reinforced that corner with a line of hot glue.

Here's what the extra fabric looked like before I folded it over the box:

I made 2 cuts in each corner like so:

And then hot glued that tab, and folded it over the box edge.

So it looks like this:

I repeated the same cutting/gluing regimen for the bottom of the box, and the fabric met like this:

You can cover the box tops one of 2 ways. If the box top is not too tight with the fabric on it, you can cover the box top the same way you did the box. That will look like this:

However, 2 of my 3 boxes had lids that would have been too tight with the additional fabric. Because the lids were black around the edges, I decided that it wouldn't look too bad if I just covered the shoebox image with fabric.

I traced the lid, then cut a piece of fabric smaller than the traced image.

Like so.

And here they are finished. Electronics fit inside and the ugly box is gone.

Important: Quality control inspectors like Cappy really help.