taking pictures...
still in the process of moving. things still in chaos, and i'm surprised that isn't effecting me as much as i'd assume. trying to flow with the situation as much as possible.
one of the top thing on my list for my new space...is somehow making the whole picture taking process easier. pics for products...for listing on etsy...and here! i'm making stuff. i'm just slacking on the photo end of it all! eventually the house will come together (as i mentioned before), and there will be unlimited areas to set up a shot, but right now it's a construction zone. not too nice as a background. maybe i'm being too ideal?!?
also, not sure how to set things up so it'll be any easier? just something i 'have' to DO. like brushing my teeth, doing laundry, taking out the trash. a "chore". how to make it less of a chore???
- have a nice supply of rechargeable batteries on hand. charged!
- have the camera attached to the tripod. leave it on there.
- buy discs...move my pics to discs & store in an organized, safe fashion (get them off my computer, once they've been uploaded to etsy, photoshop express, flickr, websites, blogs, etc.)
- find better software for tweaking photos. right now i have several that work for different things, but none that work for everything. that's a pain!
- have a folder of "pics that need to be posted", and a folder for "posted (save to disc) to help me remember what i've uploaded & what i haven't.
- keep things simple & take pics on either dark or light (plain) background with correct lighting.
- once in the HABIT of taking photos...then start getting 'creative'.
photos are just so important when it comes to selling stuff online (at etsy). if the shot is shitty, then the item looks shitty...and if the item looks shitty...no one is going to buy it. if no one is buying anything............................................ :/ well...then what's the point?
point: photos = very important
frazzled....
balance is a funny thing. balanced state of mind.
one minute i think i'm doing okay. somewhat have my eye on the ball (forget about being on top of it!) but..............i do have it in my sights. then there's that one little thing that tips the scales, and everything is shifted. that doesn't make much sense....logically. the whole thing should shift bcuz i've run out of coffee, or bcuz i forgot to cash a check, or pay a bill, or thank someone for being kind to me...but it does. it's cartoon shit. it's a big rubber mallet that comes down out of nowhere and whacks me upside the head. maybe it's suppose to funny? but what happens is it triggers another thing i didn't think of, and another, and things spiral into another function. instead of, "okay...i've got that happening, i've got this going on. that's on track, and that's covered, and everything is pretty alright, and baby-step, baby-steps..." instead it becomes, "ho...shit. what? how did...? where? when was? shit! oh...crap....how could i forget that, when did that happen? how did that happen? how am i going to do that? when am i going to have time to do that? how the hell did i get into this mess? my life is a mess! i'm a mess! omg...shit. shit".
and it's not a back-paddling. it's just a real subtle panic....like somehow the world is going to spin out of control....which is ridiculous. nothing is spinning out control but me. if i allow it. well, a lot of times it happens without any say on my part, but....always-always...it's up to me whether things are kept in check, and how to get them back on track once derailed. no one else is going to do that. and maybe that's the scary-strange part?!? that part that just wants mom or dad to come in and pick me up above it all, and tell me that it's all a-okay. that they're gonna take of it. that someone will take care of it. but...that's the emotional feeling. it's not the truth. truth is...someone can come in and take care of, but not the way i want. not the way that's best suited for me.
so we can't. we just can't let someone else take care of our shit. we can accept help from other people, but...we assemble the situation that's our life, and only we can change it, tweak it, improve it...or let it go to pot. an old man once told me...you've got one plot of land that's yours and nobody else's. all you need to do is take care of that one plot. nothing else. and if that plot isn't completely taken care of...there's no way you're gonna get more. you can't go around taking care of everyone else's plot, and neglecting your own. and...you can't be worried all the time about how much everyone else has, and what they're doing with it. you just focus on your own bit of land.
i am my own bit of land.
i've always had a hard time with appreciating the PROCESS of things. of life. the movie CLICK had a great impact on me, bcuz there's always been that feeling for EDITING out all the small bits in between that don't seem to be significant. like...walking to the mailbox, or cleaning the house, or all the time between now & when i'm successful. i think the process...the PROCESSION, might be the most important part of it all. it's just so slow, and takes so long. but that's a good thing!!! it's probably the only thing keeping a nice pace, somewhat manageable pace to it all. i really have to learn to APPRECIATE the PROCESS!!! i think that's a big part of it. and one of the last immaturities i have to give up. that........"are we there yet" mode!
Moving...
I should be moving any day now. It's been something on the back-burner....but last night...a pack of wild coyotes at my window...motivated me to step it up. I mean...right outside my window. Howling! For anyone that's heard there wild pitched howls & yelping...it's blood-curdling. I'm not scare of them...it's just the most eerie sound I've ever heard!!! I'm scared for the pets though. The coyotes have circling the vicinity for over a month, but now they're getting to curious & close for comfort. Luckily my three-legged cat Lil'Man was already inside (he rarely is), and Nunny (my precious) came whipping in through the cat door the minute the howling started...to watch from safety, at her window perch. Little Dog however (....dogs are funny)...........went high-tailing it straight into the darkness....through bramble & thicket we could never get through to retrieve him if need be. I guess he chased them off. Although, I'm sure Beth (his owner), and I....screaming, and clapping, banging sticks helped a little! ;)
Kept them at bay the rest of the night, and once all the animals were in, and the access door blocked...I could sleep (somewhat). But...they'll be back. It's a junkyard after-all, one of the last vestiages of 'wild' left in the area. It's where all the animals come. Deers, possum, raccoons, ferile cats, stray dogs, owls, hawks, and a host of rodents, a good selection of fauna, and a small stream to keep them fed & watered. I'll miss that most about this place!!! It's my quite junkyard retreat! It's been a long time since I've lived in a neighborhood...with neighbors, and stuff. It'll be interesting!
Nice thing is...we've already tilled up the backyard for a garden (that we have to get started on pronto), and the house has been completely restored...so...new kitchen, and appliances. I'm thinking about finding time to do a cookbook, so that will be conducive to working on that, and maybe getting back on track with the Sweet Alchemya shop. I'll also have access to a nice, sunny "conservatory" that I hope to turn a section of...into a new studio; one I'll be able to plan nicely, and set up in a more productive manner. It'll be the area for 'messy' work, and my bedroom will just be for sewing, knitting, illustration, writing, and computer stuff. And...there's a tub! Two, actually. I haven't had a bath in god knows how long. That'll be nice! To just SOAK!!!
So...there's no internet set up yet. That's a priority. Then moving all my stuff. The house is still in need of a lot of finishing (punch-list stuff)...so I won't be able to set up shop right away. So, I might be absent for a handful a days while I'm getting everything square, and hooked up again.
Probably not, but just encase anyone is wondering where I'm off to again.
Then I'll try and post lots of pictures. Another nice thing....is it'll be set up for better photographs of my work. Currently it's hard to find a clean/clear spot to do that, esp. with adequate lighting. The house...that belongs to my roommate's mother...will be coming "fully decorated" to the tits, since her mom is an interior designer/builder. If I know her...every nook and cranny will be magazine perfect. So, I'll be able to sit something down & take a picture anywhere...without having to clear a spot first! Not a big thing, but lots of little time savers I'm looking forward to!
There's a whole other end of stresses, but.............trying not to think about those atm! :)
Signs, glitches, & effects of overloadedness on the human animal
The effects of overloadedness on 'this' human animal, but....I'm guessing we're all pretty much the same. So, it'll be a "good" thing when the single, sign-in security feature is implicated across the board; when we can use a finger-print, or eye-scan, or voice recognition to encompasses various on-line identities, and keep track of all that as one remote overlord. Cuz....this ain't workin! I try to stay on top of it for the most part. I do. Thing about it is...and maybe bcuz it is so remote...it's easy to forget. Out of sight, out of mind. Online stuff doesn't have paperwork, unless you make it. Most everything is stored on-line now, and how easy is it to get cut off from that?
Well, as far as Yahoo is concerned.............VERY easy!!! They just cut you off. A few days ago...I noticed that my window mails wasn't interfacing with my Yahoo mail. It doesn't play well to begin with, and I had to install Ypops to get it to work...in an attempt to stream-line & organize things...and get all my mail in one place). I thought Yahoo might be done, so I ignored it. 24 hours later it still wasn't working.
HAS ANYONE EVER ATTEMPED TO CONTACT YAHOO??? HOLY SHIT!!! It's impossible! :/
Endless searching through their site for an a phone number.............DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!
But...you have to...if you want answers. I finally managed to submit an issue, and after three days of stock responses that said nothing...I got a response of why I can't access my Yahoo Mail.
My account has been closed. Worse still...they want the original information I signed up with. Um, my zip code, and phone number from 6 years ago. Did I mention I move around a lot?!?
It also said something about me being in TOS violation about my small business account. Huh?
I COMPLETELY forgot that I bought a domain from them! I'm racking my brain to remember what domain it was...or rather..is. And...that's the thing with me.............it's probably something important, I just can't remember! And that's where the glitch is. It seems redundant to me to keep everything filed away in hard-copy, on top of it being online. But...online can vanish without a trace...and what's to remind you?
So, anyway....for the last week every five minutes this little box appears on my screen to remind me that I need to resolve this Yahoo issue...somehow. On top of that...having days to ponder on the ordeal, before knowing what the problem was....I decided that someone must have gotten access to my account & changed the password. That seemed the simplest cause. So, I clicked that little button for a "master" password in firefox tools that I'd always ignored. DON'T DO IT!!! It's too much hassle to reverse! It give you one shot to type in your password (which I did very carefully)...then seconds later...signing in...it was saying it was wrong! I can still access the web, but my passwords to all my site don't work. Luckily, those I did write down!!! But, not all of them of course. So, now I have another little box popping up every 3 minutes...asking me for my Master Password! :? I googled and found a site to reverse it (here), but it deletes my entire password folder as a safety precaution! Thinking wisely...bcuz my friggin' Yahoo mail (which I use as my main mail account) is disabled.....I knew that it would be impossible to retrieve passwords through email from various sites. So.................
....I had to go through my little black book, and visit EVERY, SINGLE SITE I had an account with and change all the @yahoo address to @gmail, which is my other prime mail account. That took me several hours to accomplish....and still I'm reluctant to press the 'reset' button! Just encase, and on top of the fact that I'll have visit all those sites again to instill/save the passwords in the cleared out folder. Add a few more hours! I have to call Yahoo at some point today...and try to resolve that situation. and if successful (cross my fingers)...I can get everything back to a point it was at last week!!!! ARG..........that's the crazy part! All this virtual running around, and hours spent...to get BACK to a place last week. NOT AHEAD. Doesn't make any sense!
I don't support using a hosting mail account, such as comcast, or whatever...since personally we've changed providers a dozen or more times....back and forth from satellite to cable, to dial-up depending on where we are. The most sensible mail solutions are third-party...and big, like Gmail or Yahoo, but.............not glitchless. Who is everyone going to be registered with once we're all hooked into the system? With our little veri-chip identity??? Cuz I don't wake up one morning and realize that I've been cut off! That i've breached one of some mile long terms of service, and been black-listed out of virtual existence. Although.....I see that happening for sure.
Some brilliant person out there has to script a program (online or off) that keeps everything in some kind of hierarchal order...starting at the top with "me", and branching out to cover all areas of online presence...from vital business accounts, domains, and banking, to stupid shit like habbo or sims accounts...and how many sim dollars I have....who my business contacts are, and who my world of warcraft friends are, and so on. How much money my AdSense is generating, what the stats are on my websites, and when I've made a sale! All of it!!! And...it can be called "666.com" and it can come with a little toy I hang around my neck, that I swipe over all the machines. I don't care at this point. I just want the internet to make more sense, and be easier to manage, and take a whole lot less friggin' time!!!
Keeping on top of Etsy's Alchemy
Seems there's still some bugs in the system, and although overall I have nothing bad to say about Alchemy...it could stand for a good handful of (more) features. It's very bare-boned.
I wish it was more integrated into my shop. I wish there was a better way to communicate with the people making requests...it's making crazy mess of my convo's. Most of all I hope whatever glitch there's been with transactions not being completed...is solved now. I know that a few people couldn't 'accept' my bids, a lot of people can't 'close' their requests, and there's still some trouble with syncing up final purchases so they appear as 'sold' in people shops. I think bcuz it's handled externally once the bid is accepted...and doesn't go thru paypal the way regular orders do.
I think that's confusing some people.
Anyway...Two things that I'm finding helpful. 1) I got the brilliant idea (FINALLY) to make a new folder for my web browser entitled "alchemy"...and when i'm going thru the requests...I drag and drop the ones I'm interested in...in it. Then...they're all very handy to glance at later!
I was convo-ing folks about their requests, prior to making a bid (some of the request are very vague!) then when I wanted to bid later...I had to do a lot of searching to find them again! The folder makes it much easier. If you don't do a folder...make sure when convo-ing people...to use their exact "item request" wordage in the subject header!!! Then at least it's easier to search later in Alchemy! You have a log of it on hand.
2) I've done a simple spreadsheet...for me it's for "graphic design orders", bcuz I'm mostly doing banners, and such. This is proving a great help...bcuz I don't have any "tangable" goods on hand to remind me that I need to get paid before shipping. or...shipping after getting paid, etc. I set it up with persons name, (paypal) email, shop name, description of order/item, check area for "completed", check area for "paid", check area for "sent"...and also (for my needs) a section for a "log #, since I keep the graphics filed encase they're needed again later...I need to know what disc they're on weeks or months from now. I can't figure out why Etsy isn't processing payments through their site?!? It's not like they aren't set up for it. If nothing else...the little PAID box beside the order would be checked....making things a lot easier!
3) Not sure how much other people are taking advantage of Alchemy?!? But...it's also a good idea to use a calendar to plot out some kind of 'custom order' dates. I don't usually use calendars, but I know the importance of them when prioritizing & planning future events. Most everyone has the same time frame in mind when making a request. Most give somewhere between 2 weeks and a month (from the date that they're posting)...and accepting 5 orders (yet to be made), on top of the regular workload, domestic responsibilities, and UNFORESEEN things...days can go by quickly, and suddenly everything is DUE at once! Figure out how long each order will take (realistically)...and shade them in on your calendar. Then when considering more work...check to make sure you have "days left" to do it in!!! If not...just post that in your bid........."can start this week, and have it done by (whenever)". Otherwise....it's counter-productive, and things can spin quickly into unprofessional.
Just suggestions. :)
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP EXPRESS
i'm always looking for new ways to promote myself online, but i'm also cautious not to go over-board. what's over-board? well........i've got myspace, which i said i'd NEVER do. and facebook, and flickr, and a half a dozen (active) blogs, a forum, my etsy shop, and a domain for my own website-in-progress. it's all in progress actually. i stop myself from signing up for indiepublic. i looked it over and it seems good, but it's packed, and i don't need to remember another username name/password set. i did sign up a few days ago on deviant art...i was wanting to a place to showcase all the graphic designs i've been doing for banners, and logos, and such. seems they've been under a lot of maintenance the last few days...been very slow.
anyway. i'm canceling my deviant account. not sure about flickr (yet)...and i'm going with ADOBE EXPRESS...their new (all flash) beta website. Not only is it a nice, clean, attractive layout, that's easy to use...but it's got some keen editing tools, like POP (have to check it out in their "test drive" section)!!! organizing & editing albums is simple, and albums can be made public. i've just started uploading pics...but so far i'm very pleased. it's part of my down-sizing & tightening up mode i'm in. consolidation is very important in regards to efficiency!
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