A Scribbler & A Shutterbug

Better?

Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing some of the “self-portrait assignment” contenders with you.  I would love to hear your thoughts!  Here’s the first, taken earlier this afternoon when I took my girl to the public library.  I used some of the books on one shelf as a makeshift tripod, looking through to the next aisle in the stacks.  I’m embarrassed to say I can’t remember all the settings I had, as I was kind of “flying by the seat of my pants,” so to speak.  I do know I set the ISO to 1600 because I think someone told me that would keep the auto flash from popping up …

Happened to notice a book about one of my favorite authors (Agatha Christie) and thought that would make a lovely prop to both tell something about myself, and to hide behind!  LOL  So I set the timer, ran around the corner and CLICK!  So what do you think?  Don’t be shy … and there will be more coming.  I actually have another idea, but it will take a bit more staging than this impromptu portrait session.

I’m not going to go into details here, but I think I’ve come up with an idea for my self-portrait for class.  I’ve got to figure out the finer points, but I think it will say a lot about my personality, why I’m taking the photography class and exhibit some creativity.  Hopefully the execution of the idea won’t be any more difficult than possible. 

When I went up to Houston, my intention was to get a refund for the shutter deposits that I’d put down.  However, I discovered that two of my blind orders were ready for pick up, and the remaining two will be ready Friday.  I ended up picking up the two orders, applying the $1300 credit I had to those two, plus four others that were delivered to me a few days ago.  I will pay for the remaining two orders on Friday when I pick them up.

It seems that the company is not closing their doors, but discontinuing their shutter program immediately.  I am still leery of ordering much of anything (in the way of blinds) until I see if they are really sticking around.  I have another resource for the brand of shutters that I’d collected deposits on, and so when I get the final payment on these blinds that I just picked up, I can apply that money to deposits on the shutters with the new resource, since the blinds have been paid for.  Confused?  I know I am.  Not really … I think it will all work out, and I know in large part because of your prayers.  Thanks.

My first photography class was this evening.  I think it is going to be a lot of fun.  Our first assignment is due in two weeks.  A self-portrait.  Ugh.  Not sure how excited I am about that!  LOL  I will have to come up with something creative that shows “me” and still lets me “hide.”  Ha!  Whatever I come up with, I promise I will post it here for all of you to critique.  Just be gentle, okay? 

A friend who knows how much I love my Mac and the hysterical Mac commercials sent me the link to this video.  There are three others that I will post below.  Enjoy them — they have a great message, in my humble opinion. 

Also, if you think of it, I would appreciate your prayers today.  I am having difficulties with one of my blind vendors (Rumor on the street is they are closing their doors at the end of the week … I’m about to go try to retrieve about $1,000 in deposits they have for product I have not yet received, so I can order it from another company … I also have to find a company that uses the same stock material to fill the orders.  If you remember, this happened to me about two years ago, when a shutter company closed with no warning.  I lost about $2,000 when that happened, and I simply cannot afford to do that again.)  Also, I am really struggling with great anger against my mom and my father-in-law … to the point that I am going to seek out a counselor to help me develop some coping tools — else I am going to have a stroke.  LOL (not really laughing, though) …

Anyway, with all that said, these videos came at a good time, because they did put a little smile on my face.  🙂

http://godtube.com/flvplayer.swf

http://godtube.com/flvplayer.swf

http://godtube.com/flvplayer.swf

http://godtube.com/flvplayer.swf

Well, it still looks a bit of a mess in here, but I have filled one trash bag with junk, have all of Jami’s art and scrapbooking supplies in her own cabinet … managed to persuade her to get rid of a bunch of old crayons she’d been hoarding … threw out a bunch of receipts that were not needed any longer …

It won’t be done tonight, because I am exhausted … but I am well on my way.   Did take a few minutes for a little fun.  What do you think about the new theme?  I’m not computer savvy enough to design my own — this is one of the ready-mades.  I like it, though.  Has my favorite color (blue), a little cuteness going on, but still simple enough to not hinder reading ease or the photos I like to add from time to time.  Love to hear what you think.

I have an appointment with a new client in the morning.  I know she’s ordering, but I’m not sure what. 

I also got a call from a chemical plant in our area.  They need blinds for their training room and were looking for a second quote … the first quote they got was an astronomical $2,500.  For EIGHT windows.  I don’t know who gave them that quote, but when I worked it up using my product selection, I came up with $1,800.  (Some of the windows are very large [one is over 100 inches wide, and 84 inches tall], but not large enough to merit the first quote they received.  And let me clarify — they want a blackout shade (cellular) for a glass door … that one treatment is $500, so the other seven windows are $1,300 combined.)  I think there are individuals who base their prices on the buyer’s “ability to pay.”  I don’t know what your thoughts are on this, but I think it’s wrong.  I have products A, B, and C and these are their prices … regardless of who you are or how much money is in your wallet.  Mr. (or Ms.) $2,500 must have worked for the government at some point … that whole thing just reeked of $600 toilet seats, if you know what I mean.

The really exciting thing about this is … the purchasing supervisor’s wife has an interior decorating/fabric store in town.  She got my contact information from him and sent me an email asking if she could meet with me.  Apparently, the blind/shutter folks that she has recommended to her drapery and design clients have not been the most reliable and so she is looking for a new person to recommend.  Yay!  So I plan to meet with her on Tuesday to show her what I have to offer and give her some business cards for her shop.  So that’s a good opportunity, for sure.

Well, I’m off to sleep.  After my meeting in the a.m., I have to get back on this organizational can of worms that I’ve opened.  If you could see things right now, you’d know there’s no turning back!  🙂

You can’t tell from simply looking around here, but I am making some serious organization progress in the office/study/craft/computer room of my house. 

Pray for me … LOL

As I was sharing with a friend the other day, my mom, bless her heart, is in bondage to her “stuff.”  She won’t get rid of anything to save her life (or her relationship with her kids, despite our begging and pleading …)  When she does make an “effort,” it is simply by shoveling stuff into boxes, which she then stacks up in yet another spot in her house.  Her house is full of boxes, boxes, boxes (I don’t know why, but I hear the Grinch saying, “Noise! Noise! Noise!” when I read that sentence back to myself…)

I look in the mirror and “see” that same tendency in myself.  And so I am fighting the good fight … tossing and purging and trying to adjust my thinking regarding what is really truly worth keeping and what is just taking up space in my home.  Making it more difficult to work efficiently, play efficiently, to even think efficiently.  I struggle with the paper that is necessary to my window blind business.  I save little bits of “memorabilia” for my scrapbooks, but because I’m so far behind on the scrapbooks, the memorabilia becomes meaningless paper sitting in a stack on a shelf.  And the thinking part … well, when overwhelmed by the working and playing inefficiencies, my brain tends to shut down.  I think this is a large part of why I’ve been struggling with feeling low (ack, could it be depression???) these last few months.  Just feeling incompetent in general … and this feeling is exacerbated by the knowledge that when I was out in the “real world,” working for lawyers and such, I was an EXTREMELY well-organized person …

But I am determined to change this, with God’s help.  I have two IKEA cabinets (one on each side of the window in my office/study/craft/computer room … I’ve designated one of them to hold my cookbook collection on two shelves, with scrapbooking materials on the next shelf and the two shelves inside the bottom cabinet.

Then I have the other cabinet designated for my business materials.  Vendor notebooks, computer supplies, computer backups and software. 

I think part of my problem is that stuff has been scattered EVERYWHERE.  Mixed up.  Not consolidated in one location.  So when I’ve been looking for this particular piece of business information, I might have to look in two or three different places.

I think purging and consolidation will go a long way towards remedying my problem.

Well … back to work!

skimming through the columnists I read every day or two, I happened upon this column by Michael Reagan.  What do you think?

And another by Chuck Colson regarding human embryos and a little boy named Noah.

Larry Elder talks about how conservatives and liberals each view their “enemies.”

And finally, an interesting afterthough from W. Burt Prelutsky’s column: 

Something else I’ve been musing about
lately is Bill and Hillary Clinton repeatedly telling us that Hillary
served as co-president from 1992-2000 and is therefore far more
experienced when it comes to running the country than either Obama or
Edwards. Until now, I thought the 22nd Amendment precluded anyone
serving more than two terms as president!

Well, this is a hoot.  I guess it’s kind of accurate, because my accent comes and goes … sometimes it’s much stronger than others.  It could be that I got a “squirrelly” result, too, because in my most humble opinion a Texas accent is all its own.  I’m amused by the TV/radio comment.  When I was a freshman and sophomore in college, I delivered the news on our college radio station.  My air name was “Nicki Rush.”  LOL  I thought it was much more intriguing than the gal who came on before me … her name was Kelly Green.  Yawn …

Well, got to get back to work.  I’ve been trying to clean out the mess that is my study/office/craft place.  It’s more office than anything.  I tacked on “craft” simply because it’s where I store my scrapbooking stuff for the time being.  When I want to work on stuff, I have to drag everything out to the dining table, or set up a table in the living room.  Someday I will figure out how to get 2500 square feet worth of use out of this 1800 square foot house. 

I haven’t highlighted anything political in a long time, and I’m not really in the mood to wax eloquently on the issues today, but this morning I did read an article by Michael Reagan that made the very accurate point (IMHO) that our energy issues are not necessarily the fault of the Middle East terrorists, but our own environmental terrorists here at home.  Read it for an eloquent and concise commentary that will have you saying, “Amen, brother Mike!”

Even though her hand is blurred in this shot, I like the way her hair is blowing in the breeze and kind of follows the downward slant of the bannister … she does not like having her picture taken and so I took a lot of shots when she wasn’t expecting it.  Utilizing the speedy quick shutter recovery on my Rebel XT, I just went “click, click, click, click …” and I think it helped avoid the frozen “deer in the headlights” problem a lot of people experience when having their picture taken.

I like this one a lot.  I’d just asked her what was the most stupid thing her brother had ever done … The smile on her face is adorable.

And here are a few shots that I just took for fun …