Domestic Geek

I need to get on my soap box for a moment.

I really feel bad for people trying to make a living doing any type of designing these days, but I feel especially bad for cross-stitch designers. Just like in my graphic design field, anybody that can buy software all of a sudden thinks they are a designer. I don't know how many sites I have turned into Disney because I see someone selling charts for images they scanned and ran through their software.

An even worse problem is that the computer age has made it so easy to share or sell copyrighted patterns freely. People are so self-absorbed that they never think how this affects the people that originally made those patterns. This problem is made worse by foreign counties (China, Russia) that won't crack down on offenders if the work originated in another country. Pinterest has been horrible for these folks, as once again, a good idea and a useful tool is being abused by many. Instead of using it to post links to projects to do something or the like (as I do on my Stitchery board), they're putting the whole freaking chart there for anybody to use.

What most of these losers don't realize or care to admit is that they are STEALING! Many designers are tired of the fight of trying to protect their property. Instead of the freedom to create, they're having to deal with insolent people that hate being called out and hiring lawyers. Many of them have decided it's not worth it and quit. I also hate the ones that say it is OK to use Disney stuff, they're a big company and someone else making a little money off their characters isn't a big deal. Stealing is stealing.

A couple of recent posts on a Facebook group to which I belong really got my blood boiling. The group description has this: "We do not share or sell patterns in this group." Well, a woman was showing pictures of the piece she was working and anytime anyone asked her to name/designer, she simply offered to send them a copy. When I counted up how many people had publicly asked for it (never mind that many probably sent private messages), I got pissed. As I recognized the style of the designer and the chart is on my to-do list, I tracked down a legitimate place to purchased it and posted the link on both offending posts. I took a screen shot of one of the posts and then made inquiries as to how I could pass that on to the designer to give her a head's up. What slays me is people continued to ask for it after I called her out on it, so they suck just as much as she does. I PMd the group's Admin and then had to go to work. All day long, I kept seeing my notification counter increase, but as work makes me angry enough, I dared not look to see how many others were asking for it.



(Man, it took forever to blur out/cover the offending names. See how nice I was? I even covered up their avatars since many of those are pics of family members. I can show some respect.)

Right before I got off work, the admin had messaged me back to inform me that she had taken care of it and to thank me for alerting her to the offending posts. I then noticed that my notification number was very low. Whew, one down. I got a PM from a woman letting me know that the offender was now acting like the victim in all this:



All sorts of people commented on her post. Too bad she didn't let them know why her posts were deleted. It had nothing to do with what she was stitching, it was the problem of giving everyone that asked the danged pattern for free. I clicked through to her page to see what kind of woman she is on her page. She's a "Christian" and sells Avon. I wanted to send her a PM asking her how she'd like it if people intercepted her Avon deliveries and just gave them to others, since that was basically what she was doing to the designer whose pattern she was forwarding. I didn't though. Then I saw this - The IRONY! (ETA: Well, now I know why she had no problem passing it on, the pattern is pinned on her board - yes I'm stalking her. She got it from one of those crappy Russian sites I was mentioning earlier. Grrrr!)



I felt so bad for this designer that I decided to buy 2 of her charts that I've been wanting since I got paid yesterday. I bought the one in question here, Lets Love Winter, plus Let's Sew.

Marcus has said a couple of things to me recently in conversations we have had (I'm not going to say what exactly), that really has me taking a hard look at why I live the way I do. My whole life I have tried to be the good girl and do what I'm supposed to do. Meanwhile, people all around me get away with pulling all kinds of crap with no real repercussions. I also believed for so long that what I really wanted didn't matter, so why bother? I've been living so long trying to be what I thought I was supposed to be, that I never really figured out what I want. There was a conversation on the radio the other day about what would you do with your life if money was not a concern. Sadly, I really don't know what I want. I have a lot of interests, but I don't have a true passion for anything. I think one of the reasons I get so angry all the time is that I'm frustrated with my life and I don't know what to do about it. It may also be part of why I procrastinate so much, as well. I put everything off because nothing feels genuine.

I used to watch Steve Jobs do his Apple keynotes and be so envious of the excitement he had for what he did. I've been trying to meditate to get through the mental clutter to see if I can find that thing that is my reason for being. I'm just so tired of going through the motions of living with nothing to show for it.

A couple of my co-workers recently have had health scares (one had to have a hysterectomy, another waiting for test results to see if she has cancer), which has also got me wanting to get more out of the time I have left. I'm less than 5 years away from the age Mom was when she passed. While it is true that I eat better and don't smoke like she did, that nagging fear that I'll die early like she did is always in the back of my mind. I was looking at my 101 in 1001 page yesterday to see all the things I want to do, yet I never make time for. I also was blown away looking at some of my past blog posts and seeing that I have the same issues year after year after year. I've got to stop making excuses and rationales for why my life isn't the way I want and start finding ways to make things happen. This stagnation thing really sucks.

Anyway, here's one of my favorite Job's quotes -

When Marcus and I go to the homestead in Keystone, we refer to it as "going home." I put my Facebook status something like, "It is so good to be home." It amazes me how many people want to tramp on that.

Your home is where you can be you, where you feel comfortable, where you can just be. To us, that's the house in South Dakota. We've lived in that structure for over 12 years. Many things have happened within those walls, both good and bad. It's where we feel we belong. The old saying "Home is where your heart is" rings true, our hearts are up there.

The place we're staying now (the Suckpartment, as Marcus has dubbed it), is just that - the place we're staying now. We can't relax here with the noise and the neighbors. We don't feel at ease here. We have just the bare minimum of our things here. Simple things like preparing a meal or doing laundry totally suck. The Denver area itself is too freaking crowded. More and more people flood this stupid area every day. The traffic is unbearable - I used to love to drive around, now it is a hated chore. I can't even walk the dog around here without him finding food people have thrown on the ground or being chased by untrained children (my mother taught me never to approach a strange dog without permission from the owner).

I can't wait for the day that Marcus and I pack up that final moving truck and leave Denver behind. I really hope that day is soon.

OK, here I go with my rant about how I hate the whole Daylight Savings concept.

I often wondered if there have ever been any studies done on how mucking around with time affects those with depression, especially with the fall change. While I didn't delve deep enough to find any actual studies, there are plenty of articles written about it. I found this article that suggests sitting in front of a light box. Maybe I should do that, because today was really bad for me.

It's bad enough that I was dealing with a pinched neck nerve or something that hadn't let me sleep on top of the usual stupidity that happens at work, but I was so freaking depressed that I couldn't concentrate on my work. I even contemplated quitting and walking out.

I wish we would just stop this DST nonsense. An hour isn't enough to be of benefit in this technological age, but it sure is enough to screw things up.

I hate how depression messes with you. You don't realize how bad things have been until you are in are in one of your better moments and look back at the events of the last 6 months and realize you've only done just enough to cope and get by. The insomnia, the inability to do anything creative, the despair, the anger, the procrastination, the isolation - all depression's fault. I always suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder in the winter, but I think this year was particularly bad for me. I'm sure part of that had to do with moving to this apartment complex plus having that new chick in my office at work.

It's probably a good thing we got a dog and I had someone that I had to take care of or I probably would have sunken further.

I'm sitting here surveying the damage. I think I've only cleaned the apartment once since we moved in. My few possessions I have here are totally disorganized. That dinky kitchen is a disaster area. I have only completed 2 small craft projects - one for a swap that I had to force myself to do as I was on a deadline and one was a crocheted snowflake for a family that lost their mother/wife to a brain aneurism. I sit down to cross stitch and manage about 10 stitches at a time. I just haven't been able to focus. I've tried on many occasion to get back to this old blog, but couldn't think of anything I really wanted to share. It's still broken from an update to the CMS I did awhile back and haven't had the motivation to fix it.

I tried to put my best face forward on Facebook and only post mundane things. I spent many years complaining about everything little thing on this blog and Marcus nicknamed it the "blog of woe." When I catch myself doing that on Facebook, I erase it. I know in this post I'm continuing the "blog of woe," but I need to vent and remind myself of all that is going on so that I may work on changing it while I'm not in depression's grip.

I don't know if it is because it is Spring, or because this last week got so bad that I finally had enough, but I actually feel motivated to change things. I'm tired of being the only capable data processor at work and having too much on my plate the last week of every month. I'm tired of being underpaid for what I really do there. I'm tired of having nobody I can talk to there about these frustrations (supervisors, HR, etc) that can or will do anything about it. I'm tired of being in a soul-sucking, non-creative desk job with no future. I'm tired of being stuck in an office with no music since they made us get rid of our radios. I'm tired of having allergy attacks all day at work because my co-worker in my office is either totally insensitive or dumb and won't stop coming to work laden in some offensive fragrance despite me repeatedly telling her it sets off my allergies. She also hasn't grasped how to do this job after 6 months, yet they still employ her. She was touted as being an Excel expert when they hired her. A couple of days ago, she was struggling with a client list because she doesn't know how to make new columns, copy & paste from cell to cell or do a "text to columns" - all pretty basic Excel stuff. Plus, I showed her how to do that on this same list the month before and watched her take notes. I'm tired of one of the other data processors that, despite being in the country for over 20 years, doesn't understand English and refuses to do things according to department standards and yet he keeps his job. I'm tired of my other co-worker who is the brother-in-law of the owner, is over 70 and is having issues remembering how to do his job and yet they keep him employed instead of having him retire simply because he claims he wouldn't know what to do with his life if he didn't have a job to go to every day. I'm tired of living in this overcrowded rat cage called Denver. I'm tired of driving all over hell to take care of my animals that are scattered in foster homes because I can't have them here. I'm tired of the lack of quality time Marcus and I have together due to our stupid jobs (ever since our company "upgraded" the plant manager software, he spends almost every waking moment fixing that stupid crap). I'm tired of not having the funds to get my car fixed. I'm tired of not having room to cook or bake. I'm tired of not being able to prepare meals, because I usually end up eating alone anyway because something at work is broken. I'm tired of the creepy, legally-blind lady that is always sitting outside on her balcony because she has to smoke and always wants to chat. There's more, but man...that is enough for now.

We're going to start moving some of our stuff up to the house in South Dakota next week. I've got to figure out how to follow soon thereafter. Marcus keeps reminding me that I have a "Large Toolbox" and that I need to use it. I know he's right, I just need to quit being afraid and do something. I feel so peaceful and at ease up there. I do feel like I've come home when I'm there. I also ordered a juicer (should be here Monday) and I'm getting serious about getting this extra weight off. Mom died early because she didn't take care of herself. I had a sobering thought last week as my supervisor was telling me about how the women in her family live long. If I lived as long as my mother, I'd only have a little over 5 years left on this planet. I'm not going to let that happen.

I think my highest weight was around 315 pounds. I'm not quite sure as I was in one of the big depression bouts similar to what I just experienced, but I do remember a 315 on the scale at one point. If that's the case, between the change in my diet to as many unprocessed and organic foods as possible and having a dog to walk, I'm down 55 pounds. I keep thinking that i was basically carrying around a 50 lb flour sack like I used to sling at the pizza place every day on my poor body every day. What sucks is I'm still dragging around a little over 2 more of those. I'm amazed at how much better I feel now than I did a couple of years ago. I can't wait to see how much better I feel when I've dropped a couple of more flour sacks. That's another reason I want to get up to South Dakota. That Mickelson Trail that Marcus rides is 109 miles - lots for me and T to explore.

Anyway, that's where I'm at now. Hopefully the next few weeks will bring about major changes. I'm so ready to move onto a new chapter in my life.