I swear I am going to get one of those flat book-like computers. I heard they will do everything a lap-top will do.
So far, I have been shopping on line and trying to get familiar with what I can expect the contraption to do. I have been to sites for refurbished netbooks and am leaning in that direction. It seems like a big bang for my buck. I can’t wait to read novels on my snazzy new toy!
I am still looking for an outlet for my crafts, the Pagan Pride was a bust, only three things sold all day. Thank goodness I didn’t have to sit at the table all day and be bored. Lara did, poor thing, but she’s willing to do it again. She is thinking of getting one of those credit card readers that you use on your cell phone. Shopping for it the other day, she said she ran into a site that offered a merchant cash advance, and was interested. I guess she wants to expand.
Hope sales pick up for both of us.
I have a friend who is currently living ‘outdoors’ and the outdoors he is living in is partly my back yard while we are not home. I gave permission, so it’s my own problem, but my favorite two neighbors are uneasy with this arrangement.
Soon, like in a few weeks the problem will go away, as we will vacate the Phoenix house and turn it over to an agency that will help us create one of those homes for rent by owner. The problem will go away, and it really is a small problem. But I like these two neighbors so much and hate making them nervous, even temporarily.
Two items are listed so far, well, no, more like I have 2 items to list in my etsy store, one is listed and one is on its way.
berry bowl
for sale
on etsy.com
buy one today
Don’t you just love cloudy days?
Today reminds me of houses on the beach, or being in Seattle. Nothing like a day like today to drive you to the couch. My TV hasn’t been on for days, I might look at a couple of sony tv reviews or even cartoons, I really like funny cartoons. You can just keep the drama, the blood and gore and hate spewing out of those tensed-up cop shows, I can get real-life drama any day, but it’s a rare and special thing that makes us laugh out loud. I like to do it every day.
WOW, great interview! I just realized that I don’t own a single thing of hers, good thing I have Pandora Radio.
Xtina and I shopped all morning at the post-Christmas discounts, we had a ball. I spent about $6.00, but the shopping was really the main goal.
She has a job in the medical industry and gets really great health insurance lead
My own is changing all the rules with this new plan going in across the country. We’ll see how that shakes up, but imagine my surprise to hear that the basic plan I have is considered one of the ‘Cadillac’ plans. Guess we’re some of those fat cats you hear about. Huh. Go figure.
HappyHoundBiscuits.com
has a product now! Here’s a pic without the label.
HappyHoundBiscuits.com
Planet Cornucopia
School work on spring break, no less. Shouldn’t I be drinking my a55 off in Rocky Point? But no, I will need to work a little bit every day to be on top when classes resume. So Paris is coming over today to help me polish up the web sites. He is also going to teach me how to ‘fish’ for myself, you know, ‘give a man a fish and he’ll eat today, but teach him to fish and he’ll eat for life’. Which is kind of what I hope to accomplish in Hondurus. I believe the internet is the biggest thing I can bring to them. I will of course need a laptop computer of my own on site, but I am looking in to the rules and regs for importing computers to them. If nothing else, I can bring chips and boards with me and build what they need.
The ecommerce part of my project is really the whole point, that and the gardens. Whatever trinket or goods the community can produce isn’t as important as the act of connecting to the world at large to market the goods. This, I believe, will set them free. And the gardens.
I don’t believe that a local government can take your freedom if you can communicate with the global population, and you know what they all have been going through down there in Central and South America from governments, theirs and mine. For several generations these people have been constantly uprooted, undermined, threatened and disrespected by the powers-that-be. No wonder family units have disappeared and they have lost the will to take care of themselves.
I would like to see a world with free internet signal in the very air around this whole globe, like Tesla intended.
I have been researching shopping carts and merchant services for my ecommerce class. Pretty interesting range of options out there.
I think I will just go with the PayPal account that I already use, but here is another great source of information that’s been a help to me in figuring out what I need and what I might want versus what I want to pay.
conversion rate optimization
I decided to go with two websites, they are PlanetCornucopia.com and YesterdayTodayPhoto.com
They have widely different goals and target audiences. I started with Planet Cornucopia, of course, since that’s the whole reason I am back in school at my age, but it didn’t seem to present the opportunities for merchant services and shopping carts that I want to learn in this class, so I wracked my brain for another business idea. It litereally came to me in the middle of the night. I will shoot geezers for care centers! You know how I like to shoot the geezers, I had a blast on Valentine’s day, and got a lot of great pics that will make the families very happy.
So I’m working on that, too. I might as well do something tricky while I’ve got the teacher’s brain to pick, that’s what I’m paying tuition for, right? So I’ll just carry on with both. I already got the cards and letterhead for Yesterday Today Photo and developed the logo, in that graphic arts class that I’m taking with Paris.
Anyway, go to the sites and look. They are not near done, but you get the idea.
I got to meet with a cousin I haven’t seen in over thirty years !
Amazing to see her, she is so sweet and pretty. Here’s a pic of us girls.
cousins and one aunt
Computer Graphics Art class today. The one my son is taking with me. We get to make posters. I’ve been focusing on my non-profit business this term, so the cards, logo, stationery, all have the non-profit business on. So will the poster.
Thing is, I hit a snag. I had been planning my first official project to be in Honduras, but in the last couple of weeks everything to do with money has contracted. The stipulation that the grant or donation be spent in the US is increasing.
My MacroEconomics class is teaching me that closing your borders is the wrong thing to do in a recession or depression. Oh well, not my decision, I just roll with it.
I need experience anyhow, so how about I put away the Samsoniteand do projects here at home for a few years while I finish school and the economy gets better? (Is that wishful thinking?)
Course, I have to change the logo on all of the stuff, but that’s the fun part.
StewartCreations.com
So I found some creamy-colored business card stock the other day that I liked real well, I wasn’t cheap, but what the heck. Now I need to design my own logo. I will probably break down and print some off with just my name and email and number if I don’t get off the stick and come up with something soon.
I have labels for my clothing and quilts, but the business cards will have to be different since I will use them for all things, not just the fabric-goods design line.
Once I get the logo, I can order all sorts of promotional products. Here is a good place to start looking. Things like cups, t-shirts, pens. I think a t-shirt would be cool with Stewart Creations on it. I can take the shirt apart and embellish it like I do with lace or ruffles or cut sleeves. Yeah, that would be cool. I have a t-shirt design I am working on that’s SOOO funky! I’m putting regular cloth gores in it from the empire line down to the hem for an all-over flare and leaving the seams all outside for that funky look. Then I cut down the neckband and sleeves for even more funk. We’ll see how it goes, I have one prototype that I’m not 100% happy with, but working on another. i sure like embellishing things!
Finally, it is cool enough to put the top down on the Miata. I sure love winters in Arizona, summers I could do without, but now we have a good six months of wonderful weather here. I took the dogs for a long walk today up the mountain preserve, didn’t even have to get out before dawn. Didn’t even have to carry a gallon of water. We had a really good time.
It’s funny that all the winter clothes in Walmart and Target are now on the shelves. I take advantage of this by buying up the discounted summer threads. You know we wear shorts and flipflops all winter here, so this is the time of year to shop. I stock up for me and Mom every Fall. I love the 70% off racks, but I will even shop the 30% off racks, and sometimes a real bargain will be stuck up in there. I think I’ll go out again today, still need some more clam diggers for school. Shorts to walk the dogs, but longer pants for formal events like school.
The sports equipment is changing, too, try to find a baseball bat in the stores. You’ll have to wait until spring for that. I bet you could find ice skates and mittens aplenty, though. Haven’t looked for that.
my photoshop project
I finally made a small enough copy of the latest project to upload here. I ended up making the ‘Moon Silk’ letters silver before I turned it in. I used a light part of the bottle in the eyedropper for color, added a nice drop shadow on the letters and it looks great. Oh, and at the last minute I put small script ‘eau de parfum’ curved to fit the lable on the right bottom.
I had great fun. I have a lot of fun with all the art classes.
We have decided to go to Mom’s in Rocky Point for Thanksgiving, we won’t be here to do our shopping on that “black friday” I prefer Cyber Monday anyhow. The deals I have found on previous Thanksgiving “black friday” haven’t really been that great. I mostly stick to the internet, and count on chance encounters with great deasl while I’m just out shopping in general. You know, you find something that just screams “Aunt Nete for Christmas!” and it’s really only Halloween? I’m like that.
I get to do some advertisements for my photoshop mid-term project. I was vacillating between watches and perfume. I like the look of the ads for some e-commerce sites , and thought to emulate one of those, but found some great pictures of silk material and decided to use it as background for fictional perfume. poster looks great. I will make several more, so I can turn in a batch of three ads.
School isn’t really getting easier, but it’s getting incredibly fun. I find that I am throwing myself into the assignments so thoroughly that it’s just totally entertaining. What a bonus.
Spanish is the only one I’m not really having fun with, but I started a conversation group, and that looks to be fun, twice a week. Maybe I will learn the stuff. Not getting the best grade in that one. I’m a little worried that I might lose my HONORS status there, but if I can get a ‘B’ I can maintain the 3.75 that I need for the money. 3.5 will keep me in Honors, but not in the extra money. 3.5 will still get me other added scholarships, though.
Norman Pedersen's Nixon
Norm Pedersen, the great photographer is having a show at a new gallery downtown at Roosevelt and 6th Street called Space 55.
I am honored to be a friend of Norm’s. He’s been an Arizona treasure since the 40′s. He worked for the Phoenix Gazette and the Republic, photographed Nixon for the paper and the Supia Indians down in the Grand Canyon for Arizona Highways. He had a commercial studio where he did work for grocery stores (those big pics above the vegetable counter, huge murals of meat, some of those are his to this day), he shot saddles, whiskey, baby clothes, Sun City pieces for Del Web.
I had the honor of doing some posters for him, let’s see if I can get one out here for you to see.
He’s quite a guy, and starting on his third childhood and at least his third career. You go guy!
honey-pie took new pics of the pups this morning. then he took the camera to work. but i know i’ll get hold of the pictures tonight.
these little cattle dogs are so beautiful! i wish they’d stay this size, 15-20 pounds. they are so graceful and long-legged, like little colts. they are real gentle with their paws and mouths. i don’t think i ever had such gentle pups. wish i could keep them all.
soon as school gets over i will really look for spots to advertise. we are set up on craig’s list, hooblie, and seems like some others.
another week for school. i decided to take some summer classes, maricopa county will pay for them if i take 6 credits. WooHoo! so i guess i can’t turn down that offer, it might not be there next time i want it.
it’s because i’m old AND poor. next year i’ll probably still be old, but i might not be poor.
i am going to attach a flash clip to test it out. this is from an old assignment, but i want to incorporate it into a current project.
curious how it will act.
nope, couldn’t do it with a .swf
so i’ll put it on a webpage and put the link here…. soon, my pretties…..