I got on an organizing binge today (quite unexpectedly) and I did a number on the garage, the living room and the office/craft room. The office still needs some work, but it's more like the usual clutter than the kinda boxes and rearranging I handled today! Wow!
V is such a great husband, really, he does wonderful little things for me all of the time that I don't deserve. Like tonight, for instance, we were supposed to go grocery shopping but I am having some strange issues with muscle spasms so declined the walk 'round Super Wally-World to stay home and put my feet up...literally. V wants to go check in on some friends of his and is gone for a couple of hours. I took a bit of a nap then when I awoke I felt a little woozy (probably cause I hadn't eaten anything since lunch except a muscle relaxer and some Tylenol) and decide the only semi-appetizing thing in the house is some dry cereal. A bit later I hear V's key in the door.
"Hi honey."
"You eat yet?"
"Just some dry cereal. I woke up feeling a little," make the so-so signal with my hand.
"This is what you need." And he tosses a Rally's sack on the bed with 2 cheddar/bacon double cheeseburgers in it.
Now, would you believe, those burgers were really what my seasick tummy needed??? I was impressed myself!
Of course, the leg thing still is happening so then V suggests I take a nice long bath, to see if that'll help. He's such a sweetheart and I am so very lucky to have him!
I mean it! It's finished, complete, turned in! Whew! So Im taking the next day off and studying for the test in the same class then, sometime this weekend, I will be actually working on my personal site. Somethng other than just the weblog or a psuedo-shell will meet your eyes. :)
Just watched Spirit (the horse movie narrated by Matt Damon). It was pretty intense in parts but a very good movie. Yes, I know I'm behind, but since my little adventure yesterday I've been rather apathetic towards most serious actiity so....cartoons it is.
I did finish the web-site though, filling in the blank faq and links pages. If I get a chance I will reshoot certain jewelry pics so that the larger pictures available actually show more detail that currently.
Now more projects loom: An article for the Design Team due by the end of the month; an Easter outfit and a Birthday outfit for teh coming month; I know a paper will be due to be started for ENC1102 this week or next (only 5 more weeks to the semester???) And then just new stock for the site. Busy busy...but that's how I like to be!
Before it was just a theory, now I have proof:
One of my self-appointed tasks today was to run the vaccum around the house. This is soemthing I truly detest (the noise bothers me) but soemthing I do from time to time because I also like clean floors :) Well, the vacuum bag needed changing (and I actually remembered to get more bags a couple of grocery trips ago) so I set out to do just that.
Now, I usually hand this off to someone else, but since V was out on his own errands I plunged into the task. After a brief tussle with the collar, I got the old bag off (wow it was heavy!) and the new one on. On my way outside to toss the full bag I noticed that there was a butterfly fitting around the front azaleas. I had been meaning to get some pics of that area already and, always willing to be distracted from housework, went back in the house for the camera.
Pictuers taken I head back inside to get to work. WRONG. The front door had locked behind me. But wait! V was out back this a.m. on the phone, maybe he left that door unlocked. Yeah, right. Funny, deadbolts are really strong and just pushing on the door doesn't do anything but frustrate you. I even went out to the arage to see if THAT was open. Nope. At least I shouldn't worry about casual burglers!
I decided I would have to try a window approach, if possible, and first attempted the dining room. Nope. The screen will come off but our windows cannot be opened from the outside. Generally a good thing right? I am very glad this morning that I thought to open the bathroom window for steam control and am generally lax about closing it immediately. Of course the bath window is slightly high, slightly small, and protected by hedges. Nonetheless it was my last option so I dragged a chair over (note to self: it's not a good idea to use a swiveling chair on an uneven surface when trying to break into your own home).
Now, the funny thing is I got to watch my own antics in the mirrors in the bathroom: climbing in the window is a silly-lloking process. And all of this because of a vaccum. My phobia increases by the second.
Literally....I'm clueless here as to what to write. I read more in the Artist's Way, began the morning pages excercise too. Did NOT go to class tonight: feeling a bit ill so came home, napped, then had dinner with V. Beef Stew from the crock-pot: very yummy :)
Looking forward to the crop tomorrow night and Saturday. Going to bring the digicam along to play with some. Get to go to a pre-study appt (where is that letter lol) tmw (found the letter) to do paperwork and set up my sleep-study. Joy! Really need to get this snoring thing under control so....here we go :)
Once more I am more than pleased with my purchase of a $4.49 inflatable bath pilow. Makes reading while having a soak soooo much more comfy. I finally got a bit farther into the Artist's Way...still like what I see :) I was also able to get some of my ideas I talked about before jotted down on notecards today at lunch after prepping for my A&P essay (which I think went pretty well)
I am purposefully not commenting on the current news reports on all channels. There are enough other sites dedicated to the subject, I prefer not to focus on it. I do not have my head in the sand, I merely accept the actions as what was destined to happen and that it is our job to go on with life as planned.
I don't have the main menu page as a bookmark on this computer and it took me FOREVER to remember what the string of mt's and cgi's had to be to be able to manage my entries....sheesh! Some days....
Feedback is fun! (hey....where is my "bold" button......ack!)
I have gotten several guestbook entries (yeah, my "url" button is not there either....something is fishy!) about my site, all with positive comments. A few suggestions, none which have been out of line and many which have already been considered or planned. And that's not a bad thing: this means that I've adequately anticipated the needs of my general demographic....this means I might actually know what I'm doing ?!?!
Enough about the site for now: I have been getting some incredible ideas from nature this week! On Monday I saw an azalea bush in bloom with petals all around it's base: it looked like a giant floral/green bell with a fuschia ruffles along it's base. It screams to be beaded into a pair of earrings....and then I had an idea to recreate the tree with gold wire for the branches, green wire/fuschia beads for the petals and make a pin/pendant sort of deal. The ideas just keep coming from that one... Tuesday on the drive home I noticed for the zillionth time an orange heart hanging from a cord from a branch over OSAR...this time it just occurred to me to recreate that in jewelry for a pin. And this morning: wisteria. Hanging everywhere along OSAR are bunches of periwinkle-hued wisteria; again, perfect beaded earrings, and a dangly necklace to match.
But where is the TIME to put these into graphs much less complete them??? Alas, this week may not see the fruition of the ideas, but at least I have them written down in some form so as not to forget. I did make a scrapbooking date for Friday and Saturday...I'd consider cancelling one of the days but at the last one I got 7 pages completed in 3 hours....amazing for me. If I can manage 14 pages these two days I will have made some SERIOUS headway in Jason's book. Always a good thing.
And, in closing, I'd like to leave you with some links (manually typed ....sigh) of some of my favorite blogs to read:
http://www.goingbridal.com
http://megan.scatterbrain.org/notmartha
http://www.pamie.com
http://www.absolutely-vile.com
http://squibnocket.worstjewever.com
and a recent edition to the weblog world:
http://www.superherodesigns.com/journal/
Yeah yeah yeah...more about the rps site but I'm still tweaking, and will be until I turn it in next Tuesday. Wait...who am I kidding...I'll be tweaking this as long as I can keep the site going! But at least it won't be so consuming after next week....right ;-)
In other news (well...sorta) I went and purchased The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I've only made it through the introduction, but what I've read so far makes me want to read more. I also picked up Little Altars Everywhere...the prequel to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and the new Lucky...which I hear is ad-heavy but I needed to see it lol After all: a magazine about shopping that only cost $2.95 how can I resist. And a copy of Fast Company came in the mail today, so I went from having no extra-curricular reading to bunches! Me like!
Heaven help me I'm almost blind but RPS is up and active. Granted, certain pages have no content yet (that's tomorrow night's project) and the order page does not exist (another project for Monday) other than in name, but I feel like I have gotten sooooo much accomplished!!! Maybe after next week I can actually talk about something other than RPS and update this site so the rest of it will exist!
After my nail appointment (current color: O.P.I. Oh Yeah! (purple)) I went by Beadz for a flocked Bead tray (and some beads and findings) then to Bealls where I found some waffle-weave 3/4 sleeve shirts for $6 each and picked up one each in yellow,red, and white. JoAnn's was having one of their frequent $0.99 pattern sales so I flipped through a few McCall's drawers and came up with 6 patterns to take home (mostly craft-oriented). Then I picked up some 40% off threads (including a Sulky Hologold for detailing future crazy quilt pillows).
But the best buy came from Tar-get in the form of a HP Photosmart 320 digital camera for $18.30 out of pocket!!! Even though I found my Largan mini-digi-cam last night, the flash washes out so much that the upgrade to a much nicer camera was a really good idea. We had previously returned some duplicate gifts from the December wedding shower (thanks ladies!) and had a separate gift card for there, then the $50 Visa for signing up with Sprint DSL...it all added up to an almost-free camera!
I did wait for V to get home for the OOBE (pronounced ew-bee) or Out-Of-Box-Experience and then proceeded to play with the buttons (as addressed in the owner's manual). It takes AWESOME pics!!! And has a 4x digital zoom is phenomenal in detail! I'm looking forward to re-staging my product pictures for the other site later on tonight.
But first, dinner at Garfield's then V and I will be seeing Daredevil.
TTFN
Yup...today I completed the minimum sewn items (although I plan on adding more, I have 3 separate items to start that section with and I'm happy) AND I found my digital camera. Which was a really good thing since the joy-cam wasn't getting good close-ups of the necklances....or anything else for that matter!
So...the next step is to get the good pictures and build the site. Oh this is going to be fun! (I hope.)
Stay tuned...
Well! As of a few minutes ago I have 2 pairs of earrings, 4 necklaces, and most of one loom-beaded bracelet ready for the website! Yeah! Such is my yeild for my first working-vacation-day. Tomorrow I will finish the sunflower bracelet (a few decreasing rows and attaching to the toggle clasp on each side) and then get to work assembling the many gift card sets I have planned on. Oh, and one lampwork charm bracelet with some adorable fishie beads...but that'll be a quick one I think (relative to loom work!).
But for now....sleep! I slept horribly last night and I am now completely exhausted so am hoping to fall into a deep and restful repose.
zzzzz....
Wow! How cool! I finally got the logo/title for rock-paper-scissors done :) Whoopee! Such a nice feeling :)
I ended up forgoing Corel or Illustrator for Paint Shop Pro 7 and didn't bother with the tutorials on this one: just jumped right in. After all, the Corel tutorial had given me some basic clues added to my supposed logic, and my logo was pretty simple...not that it stopped me from spending several HOURS on it!
I also made (yet another) list of what I need to create for the actual product pages. I rock at lists. I live by lists. Being without a list (or two or three) is beyond comprehension. I feel aimless and uncentered without a list.
Which leads me to wonder: Is that where the word "listless" comes from??? Think about it: person without a simple to-do list wanders around all day wondering what to do, or even just sits there, staring out into space, no motivation....sounds listless to me!!!
In other news, V and I went to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays Saturday night. Yummt sirloin tips....mmmm...... I had planned to make pizza from scratch and break in the new oven elemnt which V was so wonderful as to relace earlier that day but we happened to see a fern-bar commercial (Chili's to be exact) and that was it! Also went out into the Mall a bit and I got a yummy Caramel Latte from Barnie's while V ended up getting a Papau New Guinea straight which was horrible....ick! He didn't even finish it (and I wished I'd gotten a larger Latte lol)
For a store in this capital city, the college town, this seat of magnetic research, that stores would carry small (10/12 per inch) graph paper with the rest of the school supplies???? Is it? Wow this is so frustrationg!
For the past week I have been trying to find a small pack (or, at this point) any quantity of 10 or 12 per inch graph paper. I know it exists, I have some from long ago cross-stitching which I feel almost certain I procured at one of the local discount mega-stores. Now...I'm lucky to find quad-grid, and 5-square is a real treat! But something about trying to graph out a bead pattern on quad paper just doesn't appeal to me.
So, as always, the web becomes my salvation! A quick google search yeilds a couple of cross-stitch shops that sell, for $3, a package of 2 dozen sheets of graph paper. Not bad, but my craft-a-thon is next week...what to do while I'm waititng for the order? Not the best solution.
But lo, what do my wandering eyes spy? It is a site, with a shareware download, for printing your own graph paper! Too cool. It even allows for custom sizing of said graph papers. Granted, I had sorta not wanted to use up my ink cartridge printing out graph paper, but I figure one good print and I take it down to a copy shop and viola! graph paper for cheep!
And no, I haven't printed my first set yet. I had a paper to final draft (being turned in tomorrow...I am done with it!) and CorelDRAW to learn (and learn I have....just enough to be dangerous). But tomorrow night I plan on figuring out the different fields and having a go at it! Stay tuned...
Well, the freezer might just be on the back burner (ooooh...bad foreshadowing pun...bad blogger!!!) as we might need to replace the stove instead. Tonight I came home from class and did not smell the enchilada casserole that should have been baking, althought V had put it into the oven about 10 minutes before. We both trooped intot eh kitchen to check on it and I opened the door to take a peek.
"Strange," I thought to myself," I thought the bulb in the oven was blown.' Close the door. Remark to V "It's not feeling very hot."
"Yeah, I was just about to say..."
I reopen oven door. "Uh oh."
"What?"
"Um, honey, I think the elements toast." (ew, another bad pun lol)
Add it is. It was this interestingly white-glowing inch of the right side of the element producing a lot of light but not much heat to speak of. The oven's a 20-year old Kenmore so chances of just walking into a repair store and getting anew element to plug in??? slim....very slim.
SO off to the Sears site (which is permanently in V's cache) and nope, no element replacements. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, I'm tending the casserole's reheating (I'd prepared it last night) in the microwave when I hear a gleeful sound from the office. V had searched on new stoves and was quite enthralled with the radiant heat kind with the flat top (incandescent or something such?). Chances are a call to Sears will be more fruitful than the website (alas and alack) which would be good as I was really looking forward to that freezer for the pantry!!!
Or not....Wow, what a bland (okay...not since the update later that day....now it's awesome!!!--3/5/03) site....and the "homepage" isn't much better. Some things I've learned so far:
1) in order to have fancy fonts in fields one must create them as images, not text....sigh
2) in order to create wondrous title art one must have a program to do such in...knowing how to use it helps too! double sigh...
3) Tutorials do not show you everything ;-)
After doing all of the Dreamweaver MX Tutorials I set out to build my site only to figure out quickly that my dreamed-up site title was going to have to take a back-seat to functionality and settle for just a font for now. Then there is the issue of figuring out WHERE I need to code so that these messages show up in the field I want them too in my home page. It's a long, hard road ahead (that must be my theme-song) and It's going to stay long for a while. I need to work on rockpaperscissors first since I have a grade that depends on it!!!
Speaking of rps: I got my time off approved this a.m.....whoopee! I now have time to create inventory (thank goodness!)
Later!
It's later and, as you can see, I got style now! Thanks to Reb on the MT Support Forums. It's amazing how important that /mt is to certain paths!!!
doing the happy chair dance :) :) :)
But I made it!!! Yay....my new site and now with MT working (I hope....I suppose I'll find out in a bit). It has taken us (V and me) several days and a couple of spats to get the cfg correct and then let me log in. More later provided this works!