chatter

Ramblings

I crack myself up. I just made a second attempt to get control of my eating by design. A couple years ago I originally came up with the idea to use graphic design to gain control of my diet. I designed this 2 sided card that I laminated with quote, inspirational photos of me when I was skinny and all the reasons why I should eat good. I even threw in a delicious vegetable. The idea was to meditate on this card ever day to remind myself that I need to eat right.

As you would imagine, I ignored the card.

I still believe that I could use graphic design to remind myself of my diet since I keep seeming to forget. Anyway I came up with the idea of simplicity. I figure the original card failed because it was overwhelming with information. Who has time to ponder all of that. With the mediation card version 2 I would just put one statement on it…”I am in control” and print it on a business card. On the other side it says “think about it”.  That should be much easier to ponder. I think this approach has possibilities only I still ignore them. Actually I have cards all over. At work and on the coffee table I keep it flipped to the “thing about it side” which isn’t as impactful as the “I am in control” side but people don’t wonder why that is then they would with the control side. Hollace seen the control card tonight and asked what and why. I suppose it is hokey or appears to be and I don’t want to explain it. Now just to meditate on them, I am sure they would work.

My Garmin Nuvi’s squirrel voice wants me to tell my friends that I have a squirrel stuck in my Nuvi. Cracked me up nearly off the road.

This morning I realized my life is like the movie Ground Hog’s Day, at least the first 15 minutes of it. Kind of freaked me out.

ABC, don’t cancel Better Off Ted! Funniest damn show ever. Brilliantly funny cast and writing.

This music video is brilliant

I love this song

and this commercial cracks me up

Ok, that concludes the Youtube portion of this ramble.

Right now (well right now I should be in bed) but tonight I was planning on going on Lynda.com to do some more Google SketchUp tutorials. I have been doing them the last few nights. Finally a 3D program I can get and it is free instead of thousands of dollars. But the work account I log into says it has been canceled. I will have to take it up with Vic tomorrow.

Good night

update on the list

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 to do list

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

  1. Shoot Utata money photo project (project)
  2. Fix up Hollace’s closet
  3. 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)
  4. Play with/learn Google Sketch Up (project)
  5. Start my After Effects animation project, Ode to Toast (project)
  6. Maybe do  a mini After Effects animation as a warm up first (project)
  7. Write
  8. Read
  9. Walk
  10. Stop at Kohls to look at their selection of Calphalon pans
  11. Comp up Hollace’s Creature web site (project)
  12. Look at good design and get inspired (project)
  13. Go thru all those old Real Simples and then recycle
  14. Do some tutorials at Lynda.com, see what they have on Sketch Up (project)
  15. Plan/shop for Hollace’s birthday
  16. Make design for my new photo watch (project)
  17. Design meditation cards (project)
  18. Start the online piano lessons (project)
  19. start taxes?

Is that enough?

fat fat fat thin thin thin think

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.

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.