One thing crossed off. I was able to get the Utata photo project shot. Now I need to spend the time to process the images. To be fair, I did do other things on the list like Walk, Read and some Lynda.com tutorials after I wrote last night.
Did I mention the extra $100 the cell phone was this month? Well now the electric bill came in and it is a $100 more then I was expecting. Don’t forget I need $100 for plates for my car this month and the vet bill for $100 is also due. Anyone keeping count? Does anyone have a spare $400 on them?
My nails are short again so now I can type again 
I have to do something about the time sucks and my addiction to writing overwhelming to do lists (thought I was going to say Facebook didn’t you?). I have been on social media type web site for almost 12 years when I first signed up with ParentsPlace when I was pregnant with Hollace. And for 12 years I have been at odds with the time I waste and not do all the cool projects I want to do.
Calling it wasted time isn’t fair really though. Being connected with these people is very important to me, I like feeling like I belong and that I have all these cyber sisters. It is critical to my well being since I generally don’t feel like I connect or fit in with people. What I need to do is to do it in moderation. Right now every spare moment I have this urge to check in and see what is going on. If I can set aside a specific time to check in instead of a gazzillion interruptions throughtout the day I might be able to focus on the projects.
My other problem is the actual to do lists for these projects. Here is my actual list of to dos for this weekend. It is enough to choke a cow. I set myself to fail with these lists because I can’t possibly get a fraction of them done but I guess I like to put everything on there so I can pick and choose.
Weekend Projects
- Shoot Utata money photo project (project)
- Fix up Hollace’s closet
- Construct the kaleidoscope from the kit I bought 5 years ago (how and why this one is making it on my list now, I don’t know)
- Play with/learn Google Sketch Up (project)
- Start my After Effects animation project, Ode to Toast (project)
- Maybe do a mini After Effects animation as a warm up first (project)
- Write
- Read
- Walk
- Stop at Kohls to look at their selection of Calphalon pans
- Comp up Hollace’s Creature web site (project)
- Look at good design and get inspired (project)
- Go thru all those old Real Simples and then recycle
- Do some tutorials at Lynda.com, see what they have on Sketch Up (project)
- Plan/shop for Hollace’s birthday
- Make design for my new photo watch (project)
- Design meditation cards (project)
- Start the online piano lessons (project)
- start taxes?
Is that enough?
sabotage, that is what it is plain and simple. Why do I do this to myself? Every day, maybe when I get home from work or maybe on the ride home, I should meditate (yeah driving and mediating mix) or visualize my goal. It really is just a mind game.
Oddly enough, I think I get more satisfaction writing this down on paper then typing this in my blog. I think I think better with a pen in my hand as opposed to in front of a keyboard. I just go blank when I sit down here in front of the computer. I can be more fluid with paper and pen.
I think I associate sitting in front of the computer with wasting time. Wasting time with Facebook, reading the news, surfing mindlessly. I need to stop that association because being a digital artist means sitting in front of the computer creating.
I don’t know if I was ever a focused person but now that I know I am not (and I blame the internet and the rush of media coming at you) I desperately try to be.
Do do do ok.
- January 18, 2010 -
The month of January is over half over and I am just now getting around to writing my first post in 2010. I really plan on writing more here, I just don’t know where the time went. Right now my fingernails are verging on too long so as soon as I cut them, I will get extra chatty.
I was wondering about that the other day, now that texting, typing and such is so prevalent, do people really keep their nails long? I remember when I worked in the photolab in the 80s, a coworker named Sybil had those ultra long nails and I would watch her push all the buttons on the printing machine and cash register with a pencil. A few weeks ago as I was leaving Cindy’s house I busted my thumbnail pretty brutally on the wall. The break was so bizarre that it kept me entertained on the 3 hour drive home but when I got home I had to cut it all the way down. The nail is still pretty short and I noticed just how easier it is to text and type on my iPod touch and I contemplated whether I should cut all my nails that short. Nah,I will just enjoy my short thumbnail while it is short.
Ok, not sure how or why I am on a nail tangent, that is not why I came here tonight. I can’t recall what tangent I wanted to cover actually.
Last night I actually sat down with paper and pen and wrote this kind of nonsense out, manually. I have this urge to spill the trivial content of my head here and there and I don’t know why.
I was suppose to turn a photo into the gallery last week for their member’s show but I did not. I wussed out. Or really it was a bit of laziness. They said all paper based photos need to be under glass but this one was laminated and I did not want to buy a 2′x2′ piece of glass for it. I was going to try and send it in anyway when I noticed the picture was kind of marred up (yeah, I know, maybe glass would of saved it) so I decided to say the hell with it. Besides I was a bit overwhelmed at work. At least that was the excuse at the time.
Hollace became a woman Saturday much to both of our horrors. I was really hoping she would be a late bloomer like I was but I guess no such luck. She had one day of period and it wasn’t light either. I hope we don’t see it again for a couple more years. The funny thing was that she was just telling me about the 2 baby teeth that are about to fall out when she made her discovery. She was upset.
I guess that is enough rambling from me this go around.
this is another test. This one is probably too big at 500 wide on my narrow blog but I will check it anyway.
xmas day013
Originally uploaded by swardraws
I am testing the blogging feature from Flickr. It wasn’t working before but it should now.
Here is this years holiday greeting. I put the ‘draw’ back in swardraws this year.
Christmas this year was lovely. As I finished up my wrapping late last night I felt guilty that the tree was too full for only us 3. After the wrapping paper blood bath this morning, it didn’t seem as bad.
Last night after we got back from Xmas eve service, we got big mugs of hot chocolate and watched Its a Wonderful Life while the rain washed away any chances of a white Christmas.
I grew up playing with her daughter and at one point her and mom were friends until her son and Paula or someone got in fight.
Lately weird little things are going on around the folk’s house. First it was a trail of dog food on the front porch. Then the shrub was trimmed (I was peeking out the front door looking at the shrub when she came out and seen me, I am sure that helped things!). Then there was one single black tennis shoe. There were a couple other things that escape me right now but the one disturbing one was when all four of us girls were home. There on the porch was an envelope with red paint on it under a rock that at first looked like a pile of shit. Once we determined that the rock was a rock and the red paint wasn’t blood we picked it up and opened it. Inside was two newspaper clippings of the word “DEVIL” and “ED”. It looked like a headline “deviled” cut appart. Bonnie’s ex husband’s name is Ed. A couple years ago Ed came over to use his new snow blower on her sidewalks and since he had a new toy, he did my parent’s sidewalk too. That sent Bonnie over the edge, she went ballistic. Another coincidence is that most of these oddities are tied around my visits home. I was home 3 times in November (Steely Dan concert, Thanksgiving and sister’s reunion). The year before while I was visiting, she left a message on my parent’s phone telling them the next time they mess with her car, she was calling the police. Dad says he never sees any of her kids ever over to visit. Of course he isn’t seeing her walk across his window to place her presents so who knows.
My parents went to the police to report the oddities after the envelope. Obviously they don’t have evidence it is her doing these things (and who know, maybe it isn’t her) but they did say they are aware of her and then did hint that it isn’t going to be getting better. So it looks like crazy lives next door. My parents better start locking their doors before she takes it to the next level and come in.
by the printer. I managed to get the Xmas cards out but only one calendar before I waved my white flag. I set up the other 6 calendars I needed to print and sent them to MPix. That cost me $60 so now I know it cost about $10 a calendar. Doing them myself I have no idea. It cost about $85 for a full set of inks. Normally I don’t go thru that much even tho the printer is thristy. Where I am really saving however is in my sanity. I can’t get a decent print printed so that means even more ink (and card stock) wasted. Tonight I had to go make a run for cyan ink. I shouldn’t of run out. That is the last ink I ever buy for that printer. In the meantime I will use whatever ink I have left on general printing but then will buy a new cheap printer after the ink is gone.
Next year I have to rethink how I print Xmas cards and calendars. I will go out and get it printed and save the headache. The only disadvantage is that I have to get my act together early so I can get my order out and printed before it is too late.
Today I finished the card and got it in the mail. I then moved to cookie making. I now have to wrap stuff up and hopefully we will be ready to go to Indiana on Monday.
I am off all of next week. This last week was a challenge because I was already stretched thin getting the year end bookings done when H falls ill. Apparently she may have an aneurysm. Eek, just what she needs. She had one hot project that she was in the middle of that I had to pick up and pretty much start from scratch because she used Swift 3D and I didn’t have time to figure out what she did and how to match it with what still needed to be done so I felt the only way to get it done before Friday was to do it my way from scratch. I did faux 3d and the client was very satisfied. Now I am behind on my regularly scheduled jobs. Putting it out of my mind until the next week.
The interesting thing about H’s aneurysm. The night before, I had a rare headache. I took some Advil and it seemed to get worse. Since I never get headaches, my hypochondria kicked in and I even tweeted “the bad thing about never having a headache is that when you get one you think you are dying or something”. The next morning I find about H’s aneurysm when her partner shows up at my desk. Me and H always talk about having a second sense about things like that, I think I just had one of those with her.
Wonder how long H will be out. I have a feeling it might be awhile before we see her. Thoughts and prayers going out to her.
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