The selection for boy colors in baby yarn is quite limited. There are a lot of pastels – and even “boy” colors in pastel still look quite girly. So I bought baby yarn in colors I liked, and then a couple I thought I could deal with for boys. (Turns out one is camo – I was hoping the dye would be in longer segments so it’d be more like shades of green…but it’s most definitely camo.)

I don’t know if any of the hats I made for friends’ babies will fit any of the babies, but I’m hoping they’re close. The parents can always re-gift or save it for a future baby if it’s too small, I guess! Albie helped out by modeling the hats – it sort of gives one a sense of size, too. Though I don’t have much sense of scale when it comes to babies who are 3 months old and babies who are almost a year old…

See the whole set here.

Then we decided we were going to buy the crib this weekend too. And assemble it.

While we were at Target, we noted that the Pack n Play we were planning to purchase was in stock. So we bought that, too. And figured out how to set it up.

I had purchased a car seat earlier in the week, so we unboxed that.

All while rewatching season five of LOST.

Then last night we hung up the canvases I painted over my Christmas break.

You can see the whole set on Flickr. The only pictures that show the most accurate color for the wall are the ones with the canvases on the wall. The others look really bright. If I were to change anything on the paintings, it would be the triceratops. He looks goofy and has no neck. But, he looks the same on the bedding of which I was basing it off of, and I didn’t want them to not match. I guess we’ll just be teaching our son that even goofy looking people belong.

Dinos dinos dinos dinos! Preliminary sketches for canvases to be painted over Christmas break and hung in the nursery. A little something blue coming soon.

I’m in grad school right now to receive my M.Ed. in Teaching. I will be certified to teach K-12 Art if all goes as planned. One of my classes this semester is called Teaching and Learning with Technology. In this class we are learning a lot about different technologies we can incorporate into our classrooms. For a final project, we are to work in pairs to explore a particular technology tool and present it to the class, along with a how-to handout for our classmates to keep and refer to when they’re in the classroom. Well, my partner and I chose the Digital Photography category which just happened to have Animoto as one of the topics we could present on. (It has a great option for educators to apply for unlimited videos for them and their students. Awesome!) So I’ve been reading and messing around with it for about a half hour and it’s pretty sweet. It took less time to make the video than it did for it to render. And even then, it took about 5 minutes to render.

I thought I’d share my sample “messing around with Animoto” short. I’ll be making something a little more polished for the presentation. This is of little Anna, who we used to babysit, two years ago. Miss her.

(Also, I know. It’s been over 2 months. Get over it.)

After a few months of pushing out my end-date, the extra room in the budget in my department has run out. It’s not unexpected. In fact, we’ve known it would happen from day one when I was hired in September. This position has always been a temporary one. It’s funny though, because even though I’ve been temporary from the get-go, I’ve been with the City as a designer longer than I have anywhere else. Granted, that’s mostly because every other place I’ve worked (except one) has been as a student in internship-like design positions. So really, my temporary position has been the most stable and long-lasting. Even my coworkers welcomed me like I had been there forever, and would continue to be. I was given projects that had longer deadlines. I was treated like I would be there for a while. They assumed I’d be there. And they were right. I started out at 10 hours, which quickly grew to 20 hours, and then finally 30 in October.

I’m a classified employee in Media Services, which means the things I work on are considered confidential (not everything is, obviously, because they are produced for the public, but many things are for internal use only) and that is why I haven’t posted anything I’ve done on HolliRausch.com.

Most of my days were spent working on small tasks:

• fliers
• posters
• banners
• brochures
• updating previous artwork/content
• data entry
• production work (binding, copying, laminating, grommeting, etc.).

However, there were some larger and more in-depth projects I worked on as well:

• 2009 calendar sent to every Sioux Falls resident
• Police department billboards (2 locations)
• Media Services’ office artwork
• Banners for conventions/trade shows

I was notified of my official end-date last Wednesday. The very next day, I was offered (and accepted) a position as a Graphic Designer with the University of Sioux Falls. I will start in a week. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. The only way I can explain it is that it’s God’s timing. I obviously had no control as to when the budget would dwindle nor if I’d ever again be offered a job in my field. It’s about the same hours as at the City, but since I will be the only graphic designer in-house, and this is a new position, we foresee that I will be very busy and my hours might increase. While I had a very positive experience with the City, and learned a lot, I am anxious to move forward with USF in a permanent setting and with a great group of people trying to make some changes.

There will be no pomp and circumstance. No party. We won’t divulge in treats. There will just be some good lucks and stay in touches as I leave at 4 p.m. and my coworkers return to their desks. I prefer it that way.