My cat had ran out when the door was open.

Lucky for me I was only figuring this out when Ashley came back from her classes, so it wasn’t as though she was going to freak out or anything (riiiiight).

For the next 5 hours or so, a lot of things seemed to happen all at once.

1. I didn’t get any work done for the rest of the day, pretty much. I spent most of the rest of the daylight hours (and a little bit of the night time) searching for Indie.
2. Ashley made the most of her time, mostly by sitting by the window, looking out, and being sad. Way to go.
3. Justin made up a few LOST CAT posters for me to slap up around the neighborhood. He even put a couple of them on white stakes for us to punch into the ground. I guess the front of my apartment just wasn’t white trash enough for Mr. Jones.
4. A couple of Indie’s belongings were placed out on the curb in order to help her find her way back. By the time night fell, it was her monkey (something she drags around all over the place) and a scarf of Ashley’s she likes to lay on, tied around the outside of the doorknob.
5. Finally, a call was placed to the local humane society, just to put a bug in their ear. Alas, the line was busy for over an hour, and we gave up on them. Time to adopt some newer technologies, maybe, humane society?

As the night came to a close, we were both finally able to get to sleep, with the mindset of getting up nice and early to go out looking for her again.

Around 3:30am the next morning (probably only a couple of hours before another search would have begun) a loud meowing sound came from the other side of the front door, and there stood Indie, hungry and tired.

Ashely gave her fresh food and water, and stayed up with her for a little while before collapsing again. Indie proceeded to sleep throughout the rest of the day (a little over 24 hours of napping, in total).

Oh, but there was one part of the day that she wasn’t able to sleep through. Her bath. See, something about being at ground level in an apartment complex gives a small animal the distinct smell of gasoline.

So Indie’s gift for for coming back to us after about 12 hours of being away? A nice bath, complete with humiliating pictures of her as a wet cat.

Turns out wet cat is also pretty hard to photograph well.

Turns out Ashley did a way better job getting a shot than me.

After a few hours of licking herself, she was ready to calm down. So we threw a towel in the dryer and wrapped her up in it. She liked that, and didn’t move for another few hours.

Yeah, I think she was pretty glad to be back.

Thanks to Justin, Dad, Hannah, and everyone else for the moral support!

It’s a bit overwhelming to actually reflect on the last year of my life, since so many large things have changed. I have moved into my own apartment, a great little one room I posted pictures of last week, I’ve found (and left) a great job that I never thought I would have a chance at, and I’m looking at my future in a way that I never really have before. It’s actually hard to compare my 20th year with my 21st year.

After an internship at a think-tank last summer (where I discovered I am not one for regular office work) I went back to working design and communication work at a nearby church, while doing freelancing work on the side. By the end of the year I had landed an opportunity to work with a very cool company called Element Fusion, where I enjoyed working for the first part of this year. Now I’m back to freelancing, although now full time, and I’m very happy about that.

When I say freelancing, I mean that I make websites for awesome people. I try to write when I can, but oftentimes it’s just design and code.

Ah, the girl. I’m lucky enough to be celebrating two years with my girlfriend Ashley in just a few days. The picture above is one of my favorites from the set of photos our friend Trent took for us to celebrate our one year together. Since then I’ve visited her family a couple of more times, she has met more of mine, she has joined the flock on Twitter (for better or worse), and she actually hasn’t gotten tired of me yet. Go figure.

Ashley was wonderful enough to create what you see here (above) for my birthday this week. It was an apple cheesecake, and it was spectacular.

The other lady in my life, my cat Indie, is now about one and a half years old, and as cute as ever. She’s made herself at home in my apartment, especially enjoying her time on the top of the refrigerator, in the dryer, or now, lately, hiding in the entertainment center behind the cable box. She claims that it’s warm, but I just think she likes unplugging cables when Ashley’s trying to play Wii or watch TV.

Shot this with my iPhone at an awesome coffee house in Peoria, Illinois.

I feel like I’ve learned a lot, working full time for myself so far this year. There is still a lot that, while I think I do know it, I need to remind myself of more often. I’m doing much better at managing my time (read: managing distractions) and getting things done (read: one small thing at a time), although there is still a lot that I would really like to do. There is a site or two that I would like to try my hand at, and I love the idea of being a part of some sort of digital publication. Perhaps these things must wait.

When it comes to the distant horizon I find myself, this year, seeing things a bit different than last year. Last year I was happy to be a part of a church, at least in some way, and was fond of the idea of pursuing something church-like in the future. Right now it’s not really something I think about, nor something I find myself very passionate about. Last year I was realizing more and more that the web was going to be a large part of my life and how I would make a living. This year I realize it may hold all of the living that I want to make. And in the most general of terms (since this is, of course, a public blog that anyone could stumble upon and read) I find myself no longer afraid to question things that I once was afraid to, and more than ever willing to push myself beyond the comfort limits I used to have.

The picture above is me, taken a few hours ago by Ashley after checking out a local band (the Homeless J) playing at a local benefit. Notice the new specs I mentioned a few weeks ago, finally in, and a stylishly awkward in-between hair length that only the distant promise of beautiful long curly locks can deliver.

There are lots of things that come to mind when I reflect on the past year. I love my new desk, and I’m pretty psyched about the color orange surrounding me all the time. I also made the switch to the Mac this year, and picked up a new iPhone this summer to boot. I find my note taking habits and storage of information transformed by Evernote, and the way I process and get things done greatly helped with tools like Omnifocus. And if I’m sitting here in a year, or someplace half as cool, I’ll be pretty happy knowing that I must have gotten something right.

Happy birthday, me.

Update: for those interested, the burnt orange color in my office is a Sherwin Williams color: SW 6347 Chrysanthemum.

First of all, I have to thank my girlfriend and her parents (+ grandma) for helping me paint my apartment. I really hate painting, and they made the experience so much more enjoyable for me, since I only had to finish up the last few walls. Thanks, guys.

I grew up with nearly all of the walls in my home being white. So I can’t stand white walls. Every quiet wall in the apartment (anything I wasn’t excited about coloring) became a nice neutral tan color. The dining-room-turned-office (since I don’t dine) has a brilliant burnt orange color that really sets my desk off from the rest of the room. My bathroom is a bold green, and my bedroom is a soothing (and slightly feminine) baby blue.

The Painting Experience

Since everything is an experience anymore (note an implied gag reflex) I have to say that painting is one of those things that always turns out to be more anticlimactic than I would expect. I’ve only ever managed the painting of (notice again, I don’t like to paint) one other room of mine, and that was the office I established at my dad’s house a year or so ago. I believe, and Ashley can attest to this, that it took me about 15 seconds in Lowe’s to determine what paint scheme would be donning the walls. I did take a bit longer to decide what to do in my apartment, although I tend to take an only-so-serious approach to it all. I’d like to chalk it up to me being decisive, but I think it just has to do with my being exhausted by running too many different scenarios through my head.

I don’t think it’s visible in any of the pictures, but right above the bathroom door, to the left of my office, is a section of wall where the paint didn’t quite sink in. I’ve told myself “that shouldn’t be hard to touch up, just a matter of getting out the step ladder and a paint brush.” If I had to guess now, it will never happen and will just become one of the character points of my place.

Hanging Books

One of the more exciting parts of this whole painting project was the chance to finally hang up some of the invisible shelves I’ve been sitting on for some time. You can see them in the pictures of my office wall. The books sit sideways on a small metal hook and make it appear that the books are floating on the wall. I love this simple effect as it makes decoration out of something I already love (my paperbacks) and frees up some more room on my bookshelf in my room.

The shelves I’m talking about are on Amazon, and I would suggest considering them if you’re looking for a nice accent piece for an office. It is a bit of a chore finding a book wide enough to serve as the bottom book, and hardbacks are probably best there, but anything is technically workable.

Some Tips for Minor Home Renovation

I save these here for myself as well as anyone else silly enough to read my blog. A couple of these are purely my own taste, and might not work for everyone.

• Save all paint colors. I wish I would have done a better job of documenting all of the paint samples I spent time with from the beginning, but saving the ones I ended up using is the next best option. I use Evernote (a topic worth getting into some other time) so it was quick to snap a photo with my iSight and drag them into Evernote where they were named and saved away for whenever I may need them again. A simple search for “apartment + paint” will bring up the swatches and color code, should I ever need to revisit them again.
• Get it done all at once. I discovered that leaving things in disarray led me to panic pretty quickly. Focusing on finishing all of the paint, all at once, was really the only way for me to return to sanity. I don’t like to see things drag on, so once the paint cans came out they didn’t go away until everything was done. And we were able to finish 4 rooms and five colors in 48 hours. Not too bad.
• Piecemeal furnishings. I’m convinced now more than ever that the way I purchased the stuff for my apartment was the right way. I nabbed all of the essentials the first week: couch, desk, bed, bookshelf (my essentials, not yours). After that I picked up more as needed. Just this week I found the right lamp for my desk, which also happens to accent the orange of my office well. I may not have made the right choice if I had jumped the gun 6 weeks ago. I’m still looking for the right coffee table (far from an essential, for me), end table, and a floor lamp or two to fill out the rest of the space. Moving one piece at a time has made the whole process much more organic and fulfilling.
• When painting, stash the cat. We learned the hard way last year that keeping a cat around while painting can lead to, well, white paw prints on the carpet. This time the kitty was shuttled away to a resort that we affectionately call Grandpa’s house.

Speak of the devil, here she is nesting beautifully on my desk.

It feels good to get an update out here, since I’m sure anyone visiting was tired of looking at my terrible Hulk movie review headline. I hope to return to video blogging soon, as well as another medium or two before the year is out. More on that soon. Right now I’m trying to manage my life on all fronts and slowly take steps toward adding a bit more.

Thanks for reading.