We're in for it now...

[merimask]

I'm sitting here, working too late again as usual, and I hear a rumble and the ambient light outside grows brighter, almost like daylight.  Keep in mind, it's three o'clock in the morning.  I look outside and snow is falling at a pretty steady clip.  When it snows late at night, the sky goes a wonderful glowy orange and you can see clear as day.   Naturally I took pictures.  No flash...this is exactly what it looks like out there.

My street...the haze is the snow.

 

Our cars and the neighbor's tree...


My brightly lit shrubs!  So darn cute...


This picture comes the closest to showing the actual quality of light.   It's all glowy and orangey...


So I guess we are in for it again.  Friday's storm dumped about a foot of snow on us, and this new system is supposed to drop another 6 to 8 inches atop that.  The rumble is thunder, because Lake Erie is still pretty warm which means we're going to get lake effect snow too.  The local weather forecasters can't even say how much we can expect due to that factor, but it looks like we are going to have a LOT of snow falling on us until some time on Monday.  Holy monkey.

In other news; Greg and I went to his company Christmas party.  It wasn't much of a Christmas party...to be honest we all basically met at a bar downtown & hung out.  I feel so weird when I hang out with what I consider to be "normal" people...people who work in an office every day.    I feel like a bit of a freak.  My experience & lifestyle is so far removed from all of the daily worries and grievances of your average person.  I can't really explain it, but I feel like a penguin in a room full of rabbits.  I'm good with people; anyone who has ever met me knows that I don't have confidence issues.  And yet, after a while I just stop trying to "fit in" with a crowd of these folks because I really just can't relate to them at all.  They think what I do is "fun" and "relaxing" and they say stuff like "isn't that nice!  You get to stay home!", and I'm sure they don't mean to be condescending, so I try to explain exactly what I do...and it just never really works.  I wish I had more artist/writer friends to hang out with IRL. 
 

It's so cold here...in the single numbers tonight.  I'm living in a frozen world...

Comments

[zannachan.livejournal.com]

Wow, those pictures are great. We were up really late last night and were outside periodically, watching the snow fall. At times it was heavy, with large, fluffy flakes, and sometimes it was fine, nearly invisible snow you could feel but barely see. The sky didn't glow orange, but it was beautiful. I didn't have a camera though.

Brrr, though! Today was brutally cold coming home. What a lousy day to not have any wool socks to wear--they didn't dry in time to pack so I only had cotton socks to wear and my feet are still half-frozen. Wind chills were approaching -20 in the afternoon; I'm not sure I even want to know what they are by now.

There are advantages to doing what you do. I mean, you are doing something that you love and enjoy doing, rather than flipping burgers or telemarketing or something. Working at home has it's advantages (though also disadvantages that so many people forget, like that it requires that much more discipline to get the work done when there are dishes that need to be done, or hungry kids, or in-laws who constantly call you at home during your "work hours" because they don't want to disturb your spouse at work). You have flexible hours.

But I guess what many people who don't do it don't realize is that it has its own challenges and stresses--the pressure to create X number of unique and artistic masks under a deadline, the stress of finding markets for a purely artistic/luxury item in an economy where everyone is economizing, the responsibility to not only make all these beautiful things--and the time it takes to make them--but to market them and manage the overhead costs and taxes and so forth, not to mention the balancing act between the inner vision that makes you an artist (complete with all the doubts and insecurities that go with the territory) and the need to provide what your customers and potential customers want at prices that they will pay.

I would say that you are very lucky to be able to do what you are doing, and to be successful at it, but I wouldn't say that it was easy.

Then again, I'm not exactly your writer/artist type, but I'm not exactly corporate America, either. So I'm neither penguine nor rabbit, I'm more of a ... I don't know, a wombat, maybe.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

First day of winter, officially, & it sure feels like it. I'm freaking freezing here...

Yes, you understand perfectly what it's like to be an artist. You are the owner of a small business, basically, only it has a weird angle to it because your product is very personal. There's a creative aspect to be sure, but the real trick is handling the business side of things while retaining enough enthusiasm to continue making your "product". Tricky, tricky...

[zannachan.livejournal.com]

That's why I haven't made a serious effort to selling my bead work, though I have considered it in the past. Right now, it's something I do for fun and relaxation and because I like making things for people, and I am afraid that I would lose that. That and the fact that even small, seemingly simple things take a surprising amount of time to make by hand--and I'm not sure that people would be willing to pay enough to make it worth selling. Certainly not now, anyway.

I think "I'm a wombat" may be my new slogan for awhile :)