Motivation

Okay so over the weekend I read a book called 'Secrets of the Millionaire Mind'. It was really inspiring. I love all the business motivation books. They always seem to give me a needed kick in the pants. I think I need to be constantly reading Tony Robbins or Robert G. Allen in order to accomplish my goals. I get so easily sidetracked. I even typed up the major points of this last book to remind me to stay focused. I'm going to try and read it every morning and see if it keeps me on task. I'm also reading a book called 'The Female Brain'. Wow is that book fascinating. I've learned so much about my brain and my 1 year old baby girl's brain. I think it will really change the way I use my head and interpret my children's thinking. I'm such a sucker for anything I read in a book. My mind is constantly expanding.
The interesting things about the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind book is that I was actually convinced to sign up for the free 3 day intensive seminar. I'm even going to drag along my husband and hopefully it will change the way we view money.
We are pretty well off, but most large purchases have to be made on credit. We pay them off and then use them again. It's not any kind of debilitating debt, but it's debt none the less. We'd of course like to be richer, and we are always looking for ways to move us towards that goal, but sometimes we get a little stalled and caught up in our current business ventures and have a hard time seeing the next opportunity.
The more I read the more I am convinced that everything that happens in my life is a direct result of my wants and needs. We've never done without and there is always enough. It will continue to be so.......enough........until I can change my brain patterns to create excess. That is my new focus and everyone knows I always get what I want, so here's to a life of excess.

Inspiration

Friday's are so inspiring, too bad they can't happen on Monday's though because then I might just have enough umph to get thru the week and actually accomplish something. After a wonderful hour at Barnes and Noble I"m ready to be inspired for next week and get this ball rolling for my new empire.
I was watching Made with my husband the other night (with Vince Vaughn, John Favreau, and Sean Combs) and I was really inspired to start my own mafia. We are already involved in the seedy underbelly of society and make a lot of money, so why not just take it to the next level? Not that we wouldn't pay our taxes, I just want that kind of control and wads of cash laying around to be used however I wish. I need some henchmen, a driver, and good restaurant, and some more real estate holdings. That would probably be enough to get something started and get me some respect in this town.
That's all besides the point anyway. My empire that I'm really going to build needs to get started with or without money. I have a goal in this life and it is definitely not going to be satisfied with me sitting in this office looking thru Amazon and Restoration Hardware. I need to start this journey with one step and it needs to be an irrevocable step. I am destined for greatness, but it's not going to come knocking on my door.

The Book Proposal

Okay, so I really need to get everything together and just write the book proposal and stop researching. I have every book imaginable on family homes and women architects, so I know exactly what's been done before and what hasn't. I know my competition and my audience. I know my subject inside and out (I think) and now I just need to jump in feet first and write the damn thing. I have an ace in my pocket with my famous author aunt, I have my youth, and I have all of my crazy ideas that just might work. Now I need to translate that enthusiasm into the book and slowly take over the world from Martha Stewart. It can be done. Someone has to be the next great thing and it might as well be me. It really is the fear that keeps you from taking that first step.

Friday Afternoon

So this is the fabulous mustard/peanut butter color we painted the front entryway and stair wall. Notice how we have yet to finish up the stairs. It's a cool color and is working to satisfy my creative urges.

I finally got paid today, not a lot, but enough for a week or 2. So I'm a little less frustrated today. A friend of mine stopped by today who does house plans in town and chit chatted for a while. He told me he did 65 houses last year? WTF? If I did that many I would make $650,000, but sadly he only charged 85 cents a sq ft. That's still good money though. That just points out how people want custom designed houses, but don't want to pay an architect to do the work. We are just too expensive. Of course if you ask me $10,000 for a set of custom designed plans is a bargain, but not as big a bargain as $3000. It kind of ticks me off, but hey, he does good work for production builders. Still researching my plans to change the world. I found a fabulous PR company that I would work with if I had an extra $100,000 to blow. They are http://www.ogilvypr.com. They look like they could take any endeavor and launch it into millions of dollars of sales. Someday. check them out.

Frustrated

I am getting sooooo frustrated. It's a creative frustration and a money frustration. I think that's why I've started painting the entire house again. It's a creative outlet and it's cheap. I've selected 4 fabulous colors. We painted the hallway and now we've stalled. I'll bring photos tomorrow. It's a great mustard/peanut butter color and I've ordered an awesome Art Deco mirrored console table to go in the hall too, we've just got to find a new place for all of the CDs.

Anyway to get back to my frustration......I want a line of home furnishings in Target....How do I do that? Can I just contact Liz Lange, Frank Ghery, Isaac Mizrahi and ask them? I guess they were already famous for something to start with and then they were approached by Target, but I want to use Target to launch my career, not supplement it. Maybe I just don't have those fabulous ideas in me or I haven't had to opportunity to manufacture them I don't know, but I'm very frustrated. I want to design, and no one is asking me for anything. I know I know I need to design for myself, but I need to see something concrete to be inspired to create. Can I reinvent a Kleenex box, a pen holder, a pillow, a book? There are so many options and yet the only creative output I seem to have is for my own personal house where I know only I can criticize the design. It's my own thing and I'm not afraid to mess it up. Maybe that's the key...... I can't be afraid to mess up, but when it comes to product design, there is this little thing called money that seems to be getting in my way.

Martha Stewart Watch Out

Okay,
So I'm starting this research that hopefully will change the way houses are designed. I'm not talking about architect houses, but builder and multi-family homes. Architects will usually get it right, but I've seen very few builders do it. Houses are not designed with the end user in mind. They are designed with the bottom line in mind, and the glitz and glamour to wow perspective buyers. They are not thinking of function at all. Maybe it's just that people uneducated in design are buying their houses, or they just don't care about how far they have to walk from the garage to the kitchen, or where the dirty laundry goes. I've been so frustrated by these houses for years and I've finally decided to do something about it. I'm going to design my own Usonian houses that are fully functional from a woman's point of view. I'll slowly convert builders to my way of thinking and slowly convert every woman in this country to want my house deisgns over the horrible male builder designed houses. I'm just researching now, but then I've got to get some builders on board. I've got to get national magazine coverage, and not just design magazines, but women's magazines and parenting magazines too. And then I'm going to take over Target with my houseware designs and products for clutter and children. I'm basically going to create my own Martha Stewart Empire.
I just noticed today that she has some house designs for KB Homes. I wonder if Martha even looked at these plans. I see nothing that differentiates them from KB's typical plans. The toilets are still in the wrong place. There is too much housework derived directly from the plan itself, and it does not lend itself for a working family. Who do I need to talk to to make them realize that they are doing it all wrong? Why do they continue to build this way? I've become so frustrated that I've been moved to action. So watch me now!

Photos

I know I said I was going to start posting pictures. I actually bought the camera, but I have yet to install the software on my computer, and I still have to get the memory card. Why do they sell cameras without the memory card? Do I really want to just take 10 pictures at a time? Come on! So there's my dilemma. I've still got to make it down to Target and buy the card, and then we'll be rolling in the pictures.
This whole not getting paid thing is really starting to affect my shopping. Currently the total owed to me is somewhere near $23,000.00 and still not one payment. Maybe that's why I'm writing more and more. I'm desperately hoping that it will lead to a 5 book $2,000,000.00 book deal. If only.
I'm going to start to have to make cold calls to people out of the phone book and ask "Hey do you need an architect". I'm really expensive and picky about my projects... are you interested? All I need is a $5000.00 retainer and we're good to go."
Still no signage out front. I e-mailed the landlord and the reply was," I've really let that fall behind on my to-do list." There was no definite date, or promises of work getting done, just an acknowledgment of his lack of initiative. Yea! That's going to get me clients.

I'll keep thinking positive thoughts...... I will get a check in the mail today.......Someone will call today with a multi-million dollar project with a $50,000.00 deposit check in hand....... The bank will magically deposit extra money into our account....... Random House has been reading my blog.........

Women Designing Homes

As an architect and as a mother there are things that I notice about homes that others don't, like the way a floor plan flows, the way that the plan makes for more housework, the way children use their spaces, the feelings that a space can convey.

The majority of housing in this country is designed and built by men. The majority of houses in this country are kept by women. Even women that work full time still are the primary caregivers for our homes. Rarely is the opportunity given to women to design their own spaces and make them as productive, timesaving and comfortable as they want and need them to be.

There are subtle differences in a house plan designed by a woman. She creates quiet places for herself, nooks and playspaces for her children where they can play with wild abandon but still be under the careful watchful eye of their mother. She creates household work stations that are fully functioning and spacious enough to accomodate a myriad of tasks, considering everything from craft projects, household repairs, cleaning tasks, and pet care. She also createse bathrooms whose primary functions are to clean and to stay clean. Her primary concern is not the shear size and luxury of the bathroom , but the ease of maintenance of the fixtures and finishes and her ability to give multiple children baths quickly, efficiently and safely. She pays attention to sharp corners, traffic jams, durability and cleanabilty. She worries about bumps to the head, surfaces that will stain, fingers that will get pinched and splintered.

It is a completely different way to design a house. We need to look at the family as a whole and how they function inside of their home. What can be done to lighten the load of mom? What can be done to make the whole household run more efficiently? What rooms need to be rearanged? What spaces need to be added? What surfaces need to be changed? It is a matter of re-looking at the way that a family uses a house.

Writing Motherhood

There is a new columnist in our local paper who is writing the weekly parenting article. You know the one where she tells all the crazy cute little things that her kids do that drive her crazy. It is so belittling to women.
The last chick that wrote it wasn't half bad. I would read her stuff and usually relate. She had that same snide commentary about life with kids that I seem to have. She had the same problems with living in this town that I did, trying to deal with the traffic and the beaurocracy and the tourists.
But this new one....she is a little lack lustre. Of course I don't know her personally so I will judge her relentlessly. We don't want to hear a story about how your kid pooped in the back yard and you didn't yell at him. That's not real parenting. We don't want to hear how you are so much better that the rest of us, we want to hear how you're just like us. You yell and you feed them peanut butter crackers for dinner, you make them wear dirty socks to school often becuase you hate to do laundry and you hate even more trying to pair the various sizes and colors of socks for 5 different people in your household. That's what we want to hear. She seems like the perfect little minivan driving, ballet and soccer mom. She reads recipe books and she is a SAHM (the acronym that makes stay at home moms feel special). She reads parenting magazines AND books. She attends every field trip and she hates the idea of preschool since she just cannot stand to be seperated from her precious children for even 3 hours a day. She's the woman who is utterly stunned when her husband dies and leaves no insurance and she has no marketable job skills and has to send a video into Extreme Home Makeover to try and save her family from herself. Ughhh
We all have our dirty little secrets about motherhood and we want to hear those from other mothers who are trying desperatly to keep everything together and have given up the struggle to put on a happy face everyday to look like we are perfect mothers. There is no such thing. We are just being women who just so happen to have kids. It doesn't define us and our world doesn't reolve around them. We are trying to make a difference in this world and we are doing it ourselves right now. We are not cultivating our children to do the work for us when they are older. Our children are not ours for the molding or for the taking. They have their own distinct set of hopes and desires.
I would love to hear from a mother who can do more than just be a mother. Of course I would be perfect. I am a 32 year old mother of 3 who runs 3 businesses. I am an architect and I run my own architectural firm. I have so much to say and no where to say it. There are so many more interesting thing to be said about being a mother than telling the cute cocktail party stories. Maybe I'll start to post them here along with my architectural rantings. It will be an interesting pairing.

Oh and I just bought myself my own little digital camera so that I don't have to lug around the Canon Rebel to get photos on my blog. So soon eveything will be illustrated.