a day in the life

UMD Community Learning Garden Banner

| randie.hov

Check out our crew in front of the fancy new UMD Community Learning Garden banner! We are but a few of many burgeoning gardeners who meet at 4 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays to learn about sustainable food production and help tend the raised beds and terraced plots.

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At the official hoisting of the garden banner last Monday. I ended up in the middle of the photo. This is awesome.

Sustainable Ag advisor Meredith Epstein (middle, in teal) manages the garden and leads the work hours. When I started working with Meredith at the Institute of Applied Agriculture, the garden quickly became one of my favorite spots on campus. This summer I grew soybeans, pole beans, green peppers, tomatoes, kale, thyme, sage, and basil in my garden plot.

I was excited when Meredith asked me to design a 12×4′ banner for the garden. I had previously made a sticker design for the garden club, so I took this as an opportunity to build consistent branding by pairing the same colors and fonts with the provided terp/carrot logo.

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At 12′ wide by 4′ tall, if you can’t see the banner to find the garden I feel bad for you.

The UMD Community Learning Garden is one of four campus gardens at the University of Maryland, College Park. Formerly called the Public Health Garden, it is nestled between the School of Public Health and the Eppley Recreation Center. You should definitely follow on Instagram.

I Went Viral

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| randie.hov

Last fall, my co-worker Larisa Cioaca presented me with some statistics about Maryland agriculture and a request to create an infographic. Larisa is the Agricultural Business Management lecturer and advisor at the Institute of Applied Agriculture (IAA), where I am the Student Services Coordinator and Graphic Designer.

The project was shelved for a little while, but I eventually put it together and posted it on the IAA Facebook page last Friday at 10:00 a.m.

As of right now (11:00 a.m. on Sunday) it has 40 likes and 84 shares. Whaaat? Why wasn’t there this much hype about my Open House post?

I credit Meredith Epstein, lecturer and advisor of the Sustainable Agriculture course of study at the IAA, with the idea of drawing male AND female farmers in the “350,000 Marylanders” block. Because: equality.

I feel so affirmed by my newfound ag peers. I look forward to creating the next infographic for the IAA, Alternative Agriculture in Maryland.

Please feel free to download the infographic from the IAA website for printing and posting in classrooms.

**Update: We are now up to 121 shares! Whaaat?

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Is There Life After Grad School?

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| randie.hov

i-cant-adult-todayI don’t have the literary aptitude that it would take to describe life as a full-time worker and part-time grad student. All I can do is sit and marvel at the basket cases who do both of those things while running a household and being a parent. I do, however, have the ability to make a lot of lists, since that is how I keep track of things now that the capacity for short-term memory retention has been burned out of my brain. Presently I am in Week 10 of “Finance for Decision Makers,” and on the cusp of losing any semblance of sanity I might have had, so here are the three most important lists in my life right now:

Things I miss about not being in school:
-shaving my legs on a regular basis
-doing laundry before all I have left are hole-y sweatpants and granny bloomers
-cooking healthy food
-eating healthy food
-exercising to relieve stress
-thinking that I knew was stress was, but not really
-reading for enjoyment
-sleeping
-not feeling compelled to binge-watch Doomsday Preppers while longing for life “off the grid”

Things I want to do when I finish school forever:
-sleep for two weeks
-eat food that wasn’t sourced from a drive-thru
-go to Costa Rica and look at lizards, birds and monkeys
-finally figure out what is wrong with my car stereo (a.k.a., replace the car stereo)
-take more dance classes
-stay up after 10pm
-not have night terrors about cost allocation analyses

Things I need to do today but don’t have time for:
-dishes
-laundry

No matter what happens in the last two weeks of this semester, I am going to see The Book of Mormon on August 5th. I just need to hang on!

What are the things about life that you miss when you are buried in school-work and work-work? Dig deep, you may surprise yourself.

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My Mom Will Be So Proud

| randie.hov

I came from a very gloomy workplace to a far more upbeat job where I get to interact with many different people and hear a lot of inspiring stories, so I take things to heart very easily. I had to share this nice email that I received today from a student, since I was so touched by the gesture! It is here on my blog forever for me to look at and be reminded of how much my last job sucked how great it is to work on a university campus with such a diverse community of unique students that are willing to take a moment of their day to express gratitude to others.

If you’re reading this, you should send someone a nice email today. If they are like me it will make them totally nerd out in a heartfelt way and share it on all of their social media accounts. Sorry (not sorry), Antoine!

Another little brick for my house in heaven. 😛

“Art Work” is not an Oxymoron

| randie.hov

Because I like having money but not too much of it, I went to college and majored in Graphic Design.  On a scale of One to Miracle this puts me at “Unicorn,” because not only am I one of fewer than 6% of college grads under the age of 25 to have full-time work, but I am actually employed as a graphic designer.  If you’re in the process of considering art as a career path, remember that I didn’t fall into my awesome job right off the bat.  I had a full-time job as a designer prior to this, but I quit because my paychecks didn’t always clear and certain people in my close proximity were surfing the personality disorder wave. Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of shit to get to the golden rope, as my brother likes to say.

If art is what you really crave and you think you can achieve full time employment, you must first ask yourself: Could I tolerate 18 months of mental abuse from a short man who shaves his arms before I can level up to a job that includes dignity and retirement options? If you answered “Yes” then congratulations, you are tough enough to be an artist.

—

“I know it looks like I am drawing a snowman, but this is work.”

– said while designing this year’s company holiday card.

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Career results not typical.