The highspot of today is that my ebay win arrived. I started up a discourse with Jen of Schmaltzy Craftsy, the one makes the amazing pumpkin pincushions (my order went in today) and asked how she makes all those little leaves and things. I know my hands would be screaming before I was half way done.
Well, she used something called a paddle punch by Sizzix. Continue reading
It isn’t sunny it isn’t hot but I have the dog days syndrome. Not doing much of anything really. Stuff I need to do is getting done but that’s aboout it.
I did get one of the photographs that my brother took in Utah last week. And it’s gorgeous. A teaser for what is coming when the full album is complete.
Called in sick yesterday. Continue reading
I’ve been musing over the benefits of working as a freelancer out of my home. There appear to many and some of them just weren’t that obvious to me. But I’m getting happier and happier about the potential here. Just heard from my new “agent” and she has even more work coming my way. woohoo!
This list will grow, yes I’m sure it will.
I’m already planning my new laptop cover/bag. *laugh* I have the perfect fabric, teal blue ultrasuede with teal sequins and embroidered flowers. It occurred to me as I was stocking up on the pattern sale at Joann’s this weekend that those conservative pants and jackets and stuff? I just have no need for them any more. I didn’t need them much anyway but I like to get patterns that are timeless. And it suddenly occurred to me that because I am a webmaster and people expect a bit of the odd duck about our type, that I could have sparkly tote bags and the like. And suddenly I feel very extra happy.
My new hairstyle gets the compliments but it feels a bit conservative to me. Folks say it makes me look younger which is always a bonus but I look in the mirror and I’m reminded of Sally Fields in Steel Magnolias. “Shelby was right! It IS a big brown football helmet!” Except mine is silver. So might have to go to our more radical Rudy’s and get a bit more shaggy. I can always trust them to take a little risk. I did buy a blow dryer (the first in at least 10 years) and curling iron (the only one I’ve ever owned) but I have a lot to learn about how to use them. *laugh*
Baby crows are cawing and whining and screaming. A lot. And then you can hear them get a throatful. Caw, caw, caw, stranglegluggargle, caw caw! A squirrel drinking from the leaking sprinkler in the grove by my office (I would miss campus, it would be nice to be here some of the time), didn’t care about me standing there watching, she was just stretching and licking. Pretty cute. I love watching animals in action.
The sun was out all weekend, we had shishkabob last night (and today for lunch), and it still is today. Gorgeous day. They say clouds (but not rain) are moving in tonight and tomorrow for the rest of the week. I must remember to water even though it is cloudy. Hopefully the Litha celebrations this weekend will be dry and at least warm.
It’s really hard to sit here knowing I have to have that meeting with The Village Idiot and all the while knowing I’m quitting. I said I would do it and so I shall but I must say, I really don’t want to. I’m not ready financially to go yet but I am ready in every other way. Must sit on my hands. Must sit on my hands. And guard my tongue.
I’ve also decided that I am SO not counting on anything working out here. Not a wise move. It would be great if he were gone and I could work part time here. It really would be frikking awesome. But I simply don’t know enough to count on it. Must update my resume.
Not much to say right now because I’m simply in this weird limbo place. Too soon to plan TOO much, can’t order the laptop yet, that kind of thing. Trying not to worry about how I would make the rent and car payments, that kind of thing.
As anyone involved in web design, publishing, that kind of thing knows, you never want to use actual English text as a placeholder in a design. You don’t want the client to read the text and assume that you are saying what they didn’t want to say. So most of us use what is called “Lorem Ipsum,” and have done so since the 1500’s. This way the client sees text and sees how it works with the layout but they don’t get all mixed up in trying to read it and think that is what you are really going to use.
Lorem Ipsum is a chunk of text, in Latin, and has been traced to Cicero. It looks like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
But what does it mean? Until today I never bothered to check. But I’m building a new site (finally!) and also have short timer’s disease on the job and, well, I decided to look. I’m just so impressed. And I will use Lorem Ipsum until I die knowing that not only does it do a good job at placeholding but in many ways it speaks to me, to my heart.
1914 translation by H. Rackham
But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?
Wow. 2000 years old…
Stitch Witch Cottage 