#whatilearn

WOII has given me a lot of insights about the world, not just about design in particular. It taught me how to be sensitive to my environment. Everyone’s upbringing and traumas are different. It taught me more about perception and awareness, and how everything in life has a breakdown to its structure, how it is created, how it is presented. As a designer, I believe this module has shaped me to be more thoughtful and intentional about what I consume and produce. EVERYTHING that plays a role in creating plays a huge role to the intentions that are presented. Colours, layouts, texts, all of these might seem minor, or insignificant, but if I introspect deeper, there is always an intention to what is being used in a design process. Though at first I find it really mundane to study and attend WOII lessons, I will have to admit that it is part of the process for design. It pushes me to be a better designer, making use of different topics like postmodernism or post structuralism in my work. I realised a lot of the things I have learned come into play with my other modules for this semester like Studio, Photography, Craft and Digital whereby all the deliverables have a creative process behind it. 

Today has been a good day to end a good weekend.  Yesterday we had the second annual Trent Day.  It is a day we do every winter as cabin fever is setting in and take our son somewhere that he would like and let him spend all the time he can there or until he gets to tired and has mini meltdowns.  Being that he is only three we hope the last part doesn’t last to much longer, a 10-year old having a melt down is not as well received.  We took him to the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum and he spend almost three hours exploring and learning.   Then we went to Penn Brewery for the daddy and papa portion of Trent day and got amazing German food and beer.   All in all a good day.

Then today I was able to go to brunch, work on some homework (multi-tasking at it’s finest), and unwind from work and home for an hour or so.  As I grow older I realize how important unwind time is.  It is amazing how much better you feel when you take a few minutes of unwind time everyday and once a week just go do something for an hour or two by yourself.  You can still do things like homework and studying or whatever it is you need to do but just to step away from everyone who need something from you (spouse, children, employer, employee).   

The most exciting thing I have done today though, at least in regards to the theme of this blog, is I ordered my seeds for the growing season.  I finally got serious with my plans and ordered my seeds from the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed company.  I am so excited to start my seeds.   It will be torture having to wait a month or so to start some of the later season seeds.   If anyone has not checked them out before I recommend taking a couple minutes and looking at some of the rare fruit and vegetables they offer.   If I ever am in Missouri again and near Mansfield I will be sure to check out their farm.   

Next weekend is going to be a stop at the gardening store to get some supplies for seed starting and I haven’t been in to see the guys there in quite a while.   I am sure they don’t miss me.  They offer a seed starting medium that I have had outrageous success with and need to go buy a bag or two of it.   Also need to look into Ebb and Flow table materials.  If I can get my butt into gear my backyard will be unrecognizable from last year.  I also want to look into chickens because I think they would be awesome to have but I hate chickens so that is a tough decision.  I also think my wife will veto me on that one.  

The chickens though bring me to my next theme point.  As I grow older I realize that I have an ever growing need to provide for my family in ways that I didn’t even think about before.  In my early 20′s I was happy to make money and buy someone else’s products now I am 31 and find that I want to be hands on with all products that we use from produce, meat, furniture, and others.   I find a desire to not only have a better quality product then we have had in the past but to have something unique that has had the least amount of impact both financial and environmental.  This seems like an oxymoron at first because everyone knows that quality and environmentally friendly are never financially friendly but if you pay the premium for real quality you will find in the long run when you are not having to replace everything that you are indeed saving money.  

That being said hopefully in a couple months I will have pics of an up-cycled hardwood table that is about to start coming together.  I need to make some phone calls tomorrow to a man with a large planer and hope he is willing to help me out.

To get back to the seeds I got...I ordered Cherokee Purple Tomato (really excited of this one), shishito peppers (hoping for a good crop of these tried them at a restaurant in Cleveland and fell in love with them), crookneck summer squash, blacktail mountain watermelon, Craig's Grande Jalapeno Pepper, Monstrueux De Viroflay Spinach, Jimmy Nardello Italian Pepper, Zucchini Green Bush Squash, Dwarf Siberian Kale, Georgia Rattlesnake Watermelon, Banana Pepper, Tennis Ball Lettuce, Buttercrunch Lettuce, Riesentraube Tomato, Alexandria Alpine Strawberry, Basil - Blue Spice, Rosemary,  Arugula, Basil - Genovese, and finally Little Gem Lettuce.  I also get 3 free variety packs with my order.  It’s like Christmas in spring.