Pinning on Pinterest

I'm finally getting around to posting about the Pinterest-inspired project I did a couple of months ago. For those of you who don't know, Pinterest is a giant online "inspiration board", a digital clippings file if you will. You can "pin" pictures from anywhere on the web. Pinterest will create a link to the original source, so for instance, if you pin a picture of some delicious-looking recipe posted on someone's blog, you will later be able to click through to go back to the original post to get the recipe.

On my Pinterest account, I currently have 17 different "boards", almost 400 pins, and a lot of ideas of "hey, I should do that some day!" Back this summer, a home DIY blog I read did a Reader Pinterest Challenge where they challenged everyone to pick a project they had pinned and complete it. After all, it's supposed to be inspiration on what we want to do or make, right?

This was my inspiration photo:

Photo from Design Sponge here: http://www.designsponge.com/2011/05/diy-project-clothespin-mirror.html

I knew I had an old circular mirror somewhere. This mirror is about 2 feet in diameter, and came from my Great-Grandparents W's house after my Great Aunt passed away back in the '80s. The mirror itself is in pretty good condition, not too wavy and only 1 or 2 small dark spots. It's etched with a saw-tooth pattern around the edge, but other than that it is very plain. No frame or beveled edge. I liked the look of the clothespins around the circumference of the inspiration picture, and I knew I already had some wooden clothespins from back when I lived in Rochacha and dried my laundry in the basement. I dug out what I had for pins, made sure they would fit on and stay on the edge of my mirror, and then headed to AC Moore to pick up additional clothespin supplies.

I wound up getting 3 different sizes of pins - mini, medium, and large. The large ones were the same size as the ones I already owned. I figured I could alternate sizes around the mirror. Here is everything laid out before I got started:

I tried a couple of different patterns of pin sizes, but eventually decided on a large-mini-medium-mini-medium-mini pattern repeat. It took me 17 repeats to get around the mirror, so that's a total of 18 large, 34 medium, and 68 mini clothespins.

End result:

I love the sunburst pattern that emerged with varying the sizes. I also like that the pins had slightly different wood tones depending on size, so there is some variation in color. The original instructions with the inspiration photo called for gluing the clothespins in place, but I didn't really want them attached permanently. There seems to be plenty of tension in the springs to hold them in place; the mirror has been hanging in the guest room since August and none have fallen off yet.

So - one Pinterest project complete. 399 to go!

3 Months, 1 Week, 5 Days

I survived unemployment. I guess I should be thankful that it wasn't worse. After all, being out of work for only 3 months is pretty good these days; I know several people who were/have been out for much longer. But man, it was rocky.

I was 100% unhappy with the job, the company, and the commute, so you would think that I would have been thrilled when they basically paid me 2 months' worth of salary to look for a new job and not have to drive into the office. Unfortunately, it was winter, it was cold, I was terrified of burning through all my cash and then not being able to pay the mortgage so I never went anywhere or did anything. I wound up hermiting in my house for a few weeks, which was not a good thing. I've been reading back over some emails and Skype conversations that I exchanged with Le copain français, and I can definitely see where I started to come off the rails towards the end of January. I didn't notice it at the time; it took about another 3 weeks (and my relationship completely imploding) for me to actually realize I needed some outside help.

Thankfully the low point was also the turning point. The week after everything with LCF went to hell (and I did start getting help that week, as I thankfully still had health insurance at that point), I got calls from a recruiter and an HR rep about job openings. Both were interested in me, and over the month of March I had phone interviews and in person interviews. The interview schedules for both jobs were pretty much on the same timeline, and at the end of the month, it paid off. I got one solid job offer, and I think I would have gotten an offer from the other company, but they were dragging their feet on making a decision, and I had really wanted the first job anyway.

Last Monday I started, and so far I am still really excited about the job. My title hasn't changed, I'm still an Applications Engineer, and still working in a customer service role. Unlike my last job, though, I'm going to be almost entirely focused on technical support, and the job is 100% post-sale. They already have 2 apps engineers who deal with pre-sales/marketing/prospective customers. So I get to do technical problem solving, advise customers on materials (yay, I'm going to get to use the graduate degree after all!), and eventually do some user training for customers. The company's product is something I knew about from working at my first job in Rochester; it's technology that I've always found really cool, and it has grown leaps and bounds from when I was working with it back in 2004 and 2005.

So now I'm back to 8-5 Monday-Friday, and trying to get used to getting up, going to work, and being productive for 8 hours every day! First week was exhausting, and I'm hoping it gets better damn quickly. I've had just over 3 months off, and for what feels like the first time in my life, I was actually ready to go back to work. I've done just about everything I could around my house without spending any (or much) money; now it's time to go earn some again so I can plan more expensive projects!

What did I do during my unemployment? A little bit of everything:

• Read 60 books. Yes, sixty. 6-0. I know, I can't believe it either. Blame shitty weather and depression that made me not want to get out of bed for the second half of February. I availed myself of the many free ebooks for the Kindle on Amazon. Some were surprisingly good, and a few were hysterically bad. I also reread a bunch of favorite "comfort reading" books.
• Went skiing a handful of times. Not as much as I would have liked, given how much snow we had, but I was trying to be frugal.
• Spring cleaned my house from top to bottom. Thanks to my mom for coming down for a weekend to help!
• Finished 2 cross-stitch projects that I had been working on for a while. One for myself, which I will get framed once I have a little extra cash again, and one as a gift for my Great Auntie, my grandma's twin.
• Lost somewhere around 5 or 6 lbs. Completely unintentionally, and I'm not entirely happy about that since it was kind of a result of the not getting out of bed. Ooops. Eating again, and doing much better now, thanks.
• Re-joined the gym! And actually went a few times! Hoping I can keep it up now that I've started working again.
• Went to Maine a couple of times to visit family; watched a bunch of movies; shoveled a lot of snow off the decks several times over; and was available at a moment's notice for napping with the cats. I'm not sure how they are taking this back to work thing!