Weeknotes - Daily art, cat saga, and a redesigned office
Daily Art
Thanks to the recommendation of a friend who knew I was trying to do more art, I’ve been following @andrea.nelson.art on Instagram and trying out some of her art projects for myself. I took two weeks off at the end of 2022, and I spent most of it making art, and it was delightful.
I’ve never really done much art. I’m “not good at it.” But then eight years ago I became a Big Sister to a seven-year-old girl, and since then I have been collecting art supplies. Today, I am still a Big Sister (though my Little Sis is now a teenager), and I’m a mom to a three-year-old. Art is a huge part of my life, but I’d still mentally shunted it to the side as a “kids” activity.
And I’m just… not doing that anymore. Making art is fun! It’s relaxing. I’m giving myself permission to have fun and have no expectations of myself. I’m feeling the same joy my little sister and my daughter do when they create art and not judging myself.
So most days, I start off with 15-30 minutes of watercolor, or collage, or painting on a paper plate (I’ll write more on this another time), or doodling, or just fussy cutting pretty pictures out of magazines. It relaxes my mind and gives me a chance to get into a more focused, “work” mindset. A nice bonus is the gift I am giving myself of permission to use the many art supplies I’ve hoarded over the years!
Cat Saga
(I’m going to jump into the middle of the story without providing background. Sorry about that.)
My 14-year-old cat, Baxter, has been confined to one of the rooms in my house for most of the last year, for his own health and for a lot of reasons that I won’t go into. It’s been wonderful! He’s very happy having his own space, and the rest of us (including the 17-year-old cat) are happy that things are generally calmer.
But we’re not thrilled with losing access to what is, frankly, the best room in the house because the senior cat needs an excessive level of alone time. So the cat is moving in with me, into my home office!
This will be a long transition, measured in months and not weeks, because this is a very tough cat. (This is also where I just skip the backstory and ask you to trust me.) I’ve officially crossed over into cat-lady-dome, but whatever keeps the peace.
New Office
Well, same office, new layout.
I’ve been working from home almost exclusively for nearly nine years, and I’ve never really loved my office. I love working from home — the benefits of this arrangement are so numerous for me and I joke a lot about how I could never go back to an office — and my office has always been fine, but it’s never really worked the way I wanted it to.
Deciding to move my cat into my office with me has prompted a redesign of basically the rest of the house. Long story short, if the cat lives in here, then things that the rest of the family needs to access cannot live in here. So the gift wrapping supplies can no longer be stored in mom’s office, the basket of laundry that no one will fold can’t go in there with this particular cat, etc.
Also, my office needs to be very cat-friendly, so it needs a comfortable place to nap, and a place to look out the window, and space for a litter box, and an eating space, etc. There wasn’t the space for this with my old layout, or with all the extra stuff I’d been storing in my office.
This is an amazing opportunity, so on my two-week vacation, I really went through my office. My focus was on storing things more securely (Baxter can be destructive in some specific ways that I know how to cat-proof for), identifying things that needed a new home, and making zones for his various needs while still providing a place for my desk. An unexpected bonus was that I love how I reoriented my desk! I redesigned my bookshelves to exactly my taste, and my desk now faces them. My webcam no longer faces the door, which means that if my toddler comes running into a meeting covered in syrup, my colleagues won’t immediately know! I hadn’t identified this as a thing that made me anxious, but I actually felt relieved when I realized that someone being able to crack open my office door and know they won’t be on camera is a huge benefit.
Journaling
I’m a chronic journaler, and I go through different journal phases where I write more or less. I am in a very, very strong journaling place right now. It’s overlapping with the art practice in fun ways, too – I watercolored on the pages in my work journal and now I am writing over them. I’m taking notes in my pretty felt pens in forest-y tones, using pastel highlighters, it’s all very soothing and nice.
Reading
- Engineering Management for the Rest of Us. I saw people on Twitter raving about this and picked up a copy for myself, even though I am not an engineering manager and don’t know if I plan to become one. I’m only a few chapters in, but I really like it so far. I’m keeping a list of takeaways as a non-manager in my work journal as I read.
- Writing calls to action from Grammarly
- This helpful issue thread for django-allauth: GitHub The redirect_uri MUST match the registered callback URL for this application
- This article on productivity strategies for people with ADHD. I don’t have ADHD, but I did find it helpful.