‘life’ archive

I believe the old adage is “change takes time.” Boy, does that seem to sum me up right now. It feels like everything is in flux, and every piece of the puzzle is taking far too long to resolve.

I’m looking for a new job, a new church, a new city for me or Courtney or both, and yet each one of these is proving to take far more time and effort than I thought necessary. Heck, it’s taken me five months to get this website up!

But then again, this website is a big part of it. I started to see last fall that this was the direction I need to point myself. It’s not about blogging, it’s about what I want to do with my life. For the first time, I’ve felt what it’s like to get obsessed with a project; to throw myself so completely at something I can’t stop until it’s finished and is something I’m proud of. I certainly never felt that in school. I was one of those obnoxious students who could get a 3.5 GPA without much effort. And yet I could have gotten a 4.0 if I tried. It just never seemed worth the extra effort for that small bit of extra payoff.

I love web design. I love it. To start with a few ideas scribbled on a piece of paper and turn them into a beautiful layout in Photoshop or Illustrator. To take that image and turn it into a dynamic, functioning piece of css, php, and javascript. It feels so good to make something from nothing and to look at it and see how beautiful it has become!

So that’s what this website is. Yeah, I’ll talk about my life here — that’s why I have this blog set aside, invisible from the home page — but this is also my place to grow. I really want to make a life of this. I thrive on it.

I’ve really been thinking these past few days. I’ve been looking for a position in software engineering, but I’m realizing my passions aren’t all there. I think that’s a large part of why I haven’t been able to completely throw myself at the job search in Seattle.

But I love working on web design. I realize more and more that these are the type of blogs I find myself pulled to—places like Subtraction and Hyaline Skies and a whole slew of other sites I haven’t even bookmarked, but I somehow keep finding myself reading often. I told Courtney last night, if I could ever have any danger of becoming a workaholic, it would have to be in that field. I love the creative art of it. I love how it combines that with some of the problem-solving elements of coding.

As you can see, I redesigned this blog over the weekend (you haven’t seen it all: refresh the page—go ahead. Hit F5). I was inspired by an article on designing with color, and liked the black and white so much I kept it, with just a touch of color to highlight things.

But I’m also thinking of redoing the whole structure of this place. Maybe move to keithjgrant.com and give myself a real website, not just a blog. I’ll keep blogging, I’m sure, but I’ll also be able to separate my techie, design commentary in it’s own place, blogged seperately from my personal ventures into life and love and why. Though right now, those just happen to be the same thing.

Fall has hit hard. And with it the overwhelming urge to curl up on a soft sofa with a warm drink and a good book, and watch the rain fall outside. Without a clock in sight.

That’s probably not the best thing to be craving on a Monday morning, but I can’t help it.

So here I am, trying to get some semblance of work done, daydreaming about the weekend I just had with Courtney. And I just couldn’t help but grab a cup of hot cocoa from the deli.

Mars Hill has up the beta of their new website, including a little video of several church members sharing their testimonies.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a friend of mine show up about three-fifths of the way through the video.

I was even more surprised when the video blatanty implied she is married to another man in the film, when I know with much certainty that she is definitely not married to anybody.

I wonder if this guy’s real wife has seen the clip yet.

So apparently next week is Unmarried and Single Americans Week (which is funny to me… I never knew about such a thing when I was actually on the market)

Apparently 44% of Americans over age 15 are single. I can’t help but wonder what correlation, if any, this has to the rising cost of housing in the country.

Just a thought.