Boy and Girl Clothes

Happy Ostara! Happy Spring!

I’m hoping 2017 will be good for me to do some spring cleaning. I have already begun my Great DeCluttering of 2017 and 2018, where I’m making goals for myself – read all the books and empty one bookshelf by end of 2017 and sell the books. Unfortunately I tend to accumulate more books. I don’t know how that happens…

I did clean out one shelf so that’s good. If anyone is my friend on Goodreads you’ll see a mass addition of “read” books in the coming year. Next I want to clean out closets again, especially the baby’s as she grows out of clothes, and then start on the kitchen with dishes that we don’t really use. My friend and I intend to have a garage sale soon, so I’m gathering up stuff in boxes in a place in the garage for when that happens. I just hope the weather gets nicer so I can go out and start pricing things.

Speaking of kid’s clothes, I have another friend who’s expecting a boy soon and she’s always lamenting how boys clothes are not at cute as girls clothes, and it’s funny because I’ve kind of felt that both clothes are cute, and I’ve wanted to buy my daughter boys clothes before, and we have, but clothes with dinosaurs, super heroes, and power rangers on it were cute too, and made me miss having a boy as well. I love my daughter, but maybe some day I’ll be able to have a boy? I know it’s not really up to “me” if that happens, but I would love a little boy to buy clothes with dinosaurs and lizards on them, as well as play outside in the mud with him, find toads and earth worms — I guess I can do that with a girl too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not limiting what my daughter can do either…

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We definitely bought this boy’s onesie for our daughter. Because this is totally her. You can find this at Target.

But maybe I feel cliche as a mom that wants to have one of each. I’d love to see my husband bond with a son like I do with my daughter, and hope that he has a relationship with a son that he had with his father.

Oh, and yeah, I’m sure he wants to buy our future son dinosaur shirts too.

No matter what, if we have girls, a girl and a boy, or just one girl, I hope we can take them to Gatorland like we did for our Honeymoon in Florida. No matter what gender you are, they have to enjoy seeing big crocodiles, pythons, turtles and all the other kinds of animals they have there. That’s my hope anyway.

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In other news, I’m still working on the short stories. I was looking for stock art for covers the other day and enjoyed it very much.

There is this stock photographer that I follow at DeviantArt that has a lot of book cover contests with her art. Sometimes I vote on them, but I also think in the back of my mind that I can do a better job. I know that’s rather pretentious of me, so I kind of thought if I think that, why don’t I do it? I can’t be all talk. I have to show that I can do it. So I looked at her current contests and downloaded the images and plan on entering. Fingers crossed!

If anything it’ll be good for my portfolio.

Cheers,

H.K. Rowe

Hobby Doesn’t Mean Free

Sometimes I am just baffled by people who still don’t think being an artist, photographer, videographer or designer deserves compensation, that the jobs that we get should be for “exposure” because it’s just a “hobby”.

Today our Program Director came up to me (the resident Lead Designer) and asked me if I knew any students/interns in art or photography that would come to our Meetups downtown Chicago and take photos and videos for us.

Me: “Like for internship credit?”

Him: “No, not interns. Students that like to take photos and video. It would be like a hobby. [Our Company] would not pay them.”

Me: “But you’d have to pay them. Even interns get paid these days. And if you want them to come downtown to Chicago, there’s parking expenses, train ride expenses. Plus no one would do it for free.”

He gives me this blank look. “These students wouldn’t even do it because they like it? Because it’s a hobby?”

Me: “Nobody, not a student or anybody, is going to do photography or videography for free. At least an intern should get minimum wage.”

He looked completely baffled that we would pay someone to come to our events in Chicago, whether by train, bus, or car of their own expense, let them take photos and video of our speakers, and not pay them a single thing.

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I’m kind of livid, as an artist, you know? Like it’s unreal.

No, artists do not do things for free. We do not do things for trade. We have these skills, hone them, and use them for money so we can eat, put a roof over our heads, and clothe ourselves and our family.

Don’t let anyone try to persuade you to do things for exposure either. Work = $$$. Bottom line.

Cheers,

HK Rowe