Let The Jotting Begin!

I’ve spent some days with my niece last week… It was fun! She was born just when I had left for London so I’d never seen her. They say she takes after me in looks and character: self-willed and stubborn… *hehe* She has all the typical Indonesian features and even my curly hair… Having the opportunity to spend some time with her and her little brother of eight months was a welcome break from all the hard work!

Im still busy with the eCommerce website for the African artefacts company. I’ve decided to start allover again with regard to the product images, they were in a bad condition: wrong sizes, all different sizes, wrong format, wrong quality etc. I’ve been cropping, retouching, colour managing and resizing the originals. About half of them and I’m still not done… but at least it looks a lot better than it was: a lot!

I’ve received a letter about the job in China, there might be a complication with regard to getting a work permit but I’m invited to send a CV in English and a few samples of my work. I need to contact the intermediary because he told me this semester was booked already so it would be for the next starting in January. I so hope this isn’t going to fail because of one small unexpected trivial issue *sigh*.

Tomorrow I’m invited for coffee at my neighbour’s and I’m looking forward to this. It’s always nice to meet new people! In the meantime I’ve been doing research after I had an extremely motivational chat with my sis-in-law last week. She said to follow my heart and dreams and just ‘do it’: what is keeping me? Nothing should be keeping me, so out with the Moleskine to jot down notes and make some sketches!

‘Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.’

~Henry Ford

I rest my case… *hehe* (my niece on the left, me on the right)

Busy little thing already… and yes it’s the same table: odd huh? ;)

Look at them curls! And humour too! ;)

Germination

Life has been hectic over the last 21 days. If I had a moment to myself I decided to go out for a walk and enjoy the weather or nurture my little project below (see slideshow). My head needs a break because I have too much on my mind. And I’ve been lacking the patience to share with anyone: I wouldn’t even know where to start…

I was able to get a few pressing things of my never-ending list of things to do. Last week I have been investigating 20.000 different kinds of insurances. Boy what a drag and how utterly time-consuming. I’ve managed to arrange it online but they probably need some kind of proof of my insurance in the UK so I’m still waiting for their reaction.

I was supposed to be in Amsterdam two weeks ago but I ended up having an official appointment that day. The same day I was rejected eight times in a row on eight different occasions because I’m over-educated, over-qualified and too much of a specialist in my field. Wow… I never thought thát would cause ‘problems‘…

So in the meantime I’m networking, done research online and look after my 80 year old mum who has bad arthritis (which is a day job at times!). I’ve finished the update of my business website and have a new assignment: a UK client dealing in artefacts from Africa wants me to design their ecommerce website which I started Saturday.

They use local artists and help them expand their business in Africa on a non-for-profit basis. I’ve set up the ecommerce system, manually added all the products to the database (this was a lot of work but much easier instead of using the slow software interface) and started the design. Deadline is by the end of this month.

My grandmother’s Noritake bowls from Indonesia

On the sixth of July I received the gift above: two Noritake soup bowls and saucers from 1947 which came all the way from Indonesia: they belonged to my grandmother. They’re in a beautiful pastel soft yellow with *of course* golden rims. I’m extremely happy with these! It’s a cool inheritance and fine addition to my china collection.

About my little project: I’ve planted two year old seeds… They’d been sitting in their pods for at least two to three years, facing storms, rain, hail, thunder, snow and even hard frost. I collected, nurtured and believed in them while others kept telling me they wouldn’t germinate. Well all they needed was love and encouragement.

I feel these seeds reflect my life at the moment I just wonder when it will be my time to germinate and flower. I’ve never been a quiter and I never will be but it would be nice to receive some love and encouragement when one needs it most!

© Zesty Gal, One day soon they’ll bloom! (move mouse over picture for navigation)