hobbies — Hey There Michelle Blog

It’s been a while since I posted here, which wasn’t the intent. I actually wanted to at least post once a month.

Things have been busy. I’m waist-deep in planning the wedding with my fiancé and working on stuff for that. Save the dates will be the first designed thing, but I’ve been working on plenty of other creative stuff for the wedding in between like the bouquets for my bridesmaids and me.

The bridesmaids will have light bouquets with some dark accents.

I’ve also taken up nail art. I’m not a licensed technician, but I’ve been doing own nails again and creating sets to sell on Etsy.

Color changing pearl set, short coffin — Medium coffin, color changing pearl and caviar deisgn

Neon marble nail set — Neon marble set, medium, square

Long blue coffin — Medium blue coffin nails, elegant wedding style

Jawbreaker medium stiletto — Warm neon jawbreaker style, stiletto, medium

Winter penguin set sold to a regular client.

Royal Blue queen set, short almond — Royal blue queen set, short almond

Java swirl medium coffin — Java swirl, medium coffin

I also started dabbling in other crafts, like creating phone grips.

Sailor Moon-inspired phone grip — Moon crescent bow phone grip

Moon Sceptre Phone Grip — Moon sceptre phone grip

So I’m still around, just…not around.

Work is exhausting—mentally, emotionally, and even physically. While it doesn’t seem like it would be, sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day, talking on the phone for the better part of those eight hours, reviewing insurance claims, benefits, calling doctors’ offices and hospitals, explaining to billers why they need to correct the claim or write off the bill for patients is really taxing.

I’m very much in the market for a new role. My job isn’t a bad one, it’s just not what I want to do and it’s staring to wear me down. It’s time to move on and I’m ready for my next challenge.

Quarantine. It’s something we associate with lepers or someone who is insanely contagious….aka lepers.

But, alas, the good lot of us in the States and around the world are in quarantine to help flatten the curve, as they say.

Things are different. I’ve more or less slowed down my job hunt, as no one is really hiring. Their postings are on auto-renew for the most part, while other are looking for cheap labor or are scraping together work to create a job. Both are good for those who are just starting, but for me? I need to pick up where I left off.

Anyway, while enjoying this newfound time at home, I was able to finish up my spring semester at Temple, thus knocking out a whole year of graduate school with only one and a half left. I was able to maintain my 4.0, so I’m looking forward to doing it again in the fall. I also picked up a new hobby, which I’m going to turn into sales in my Etsy shop: creating wax seals.

The idea is to illustrate greeting cards and sell a card, a similarly decorated envelope and a self-adhesive wax seal as a bundle to those who enjoy buying those things. An example is the card set I made for Mother’s Day for my own mom, as shown in the photo on the left.

Tied in with the wax seals and card illustrations is embossing. I watch a lot of creative stuff on Instagram and see a lot of people who hand-letter using embossing powders and heat-transfer foils. They looked neat, so I decided to try. I’m only as far as embossing, though, I haven’t made it to foils yet, but it’s coming!

Alongside those things, I’ve been trying to read more, but being sucked into the Animal Crossing hole has sort of commandeered that extra free time I had. The good news is, I’m coming upon a duration of boredom with the game, so reading may reclaim that spot for a few days. The book I’m currently engaged in is called Eyes of the Grave, written by a high school friend of mine, Chelsea Callahan, with whom I still keep in touch. It’s an interesting fantasy about a woman, Rebekah Devereaux, who is partnered with her estranged husband on a murder case where she sees herself as the murderer in these visions she gets when she touches the skin of the other person. I’m not giving this story any justice, and I’m sure I butchered the story a bit, but it’s worth a read and is only $10 on Amazon. I’m a little over half way finished and am pretty pumped to read the rest to find out what happens.

There’s been some freelance work sprinkled in here and there. I currently have a media kit I’m working on for a friend, a new logo design for a mobile cigar business, and the usual EGD stuff.

Finally, I’ve been super interested in racking up as many certifications as I can until things “go back to normal”, or at least, as normal as they can be. I finished up my HubSpot Academy social media cert today, so that’s exciting! I totally added this onto my LinkedIn page. I also found that Harvard University is offering free courses, so I’m going to be working on one course at a time with them. I won’t get a verified certificate (though you can for a fee), so I’m just “auditing” the class. Wonder if it made more sense to pay the $90 for a certificate… Anyway, my first course will be in computer science! It was between advertising/marketing and computer science for me when I was deciding what graduate program to pursue, and in this case, ADV/MKTG won the fight. But this way, I’ll be able to learn about CS and maybe have enough background to achieve something bigger in the future!

I’ve opened up comments on this post because I want to hear what all of you have been doing this quarantine season!