Archive for the ‘Work’ Category

Finally getting shit done…

Monday, June 4th, 2007

Ever since I started using the desktop I absolutely dreaded logging into WordPress because of how the fonts look with my shitty graphics card (that’ll be updated soon enough) but for the time being I went ahead and edited the entire CSS source of my WordPress administration panel. The only fonts that seem to work well on my computer (when it comes to site based stuff of course) are Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, and Tahoma. I went ahead and altered the admin panel to only read with Times New Roman and Verdana – I couldn’t be happier.

There’s something funky going on with the network, making it difficult for me to check my email instantly. I’m in the process of working on Dick’s site and I’m waiting on a response from him before I can go any further with the work. Half of the list is done, the other half just needs to be clarified for me.

I have a few hosting accounts to setup in the mean time, I guess I’ll work on knocking those out.

Chugging Along…

Sunday, June 3rd, 2007

I’ve gotten through about 100 emails, most of which were support emails that seemed to be backed up in the database, at least they’re taken care of though. I rested my eyes for a few minutes to go outside and take in the weather. It’s pouring right now but it’s got such a calming effect on me that it’s taking me out of my work mode and putting me into a “When is Bedtime?” state of mind. This is why I’m now inside instead of being out there. I know I have a lot to get done there just aren’t enough hours in the day it seems.

Baby and I have been very busy for the last week so I’m behind on everything from email to work. If I didn’t have the ability to type so quick I’d probably get absolutely no blogging done at all and that’s a lack of income so that certainly isn’t going to happen. Guess I should get back to work now.

Slowly getting things done…

Sunday, June 3rd, 2007

I’ve spent most of the morning working, and continuing to go through email. There are only 200 or so messages left to go through and I’m sure I can get them knocked out today. I don’t like taking so long to get things done but there were a few curves thrown at me this weekend that play a roll in everything. I’m getting close to having my enrollment money though, I figure 3 or 4 more days of work will do the trick, it shouldn’t be too hard to get the remaining $400 thrown into the college fund, especially considering I have half of that coming to me over the next few days on just post payments alone.

My day will basically be spent finishing up on emails, working on a few accounts after I’ve gotten back to some people and then maybe I’ll switch from my desktop to my laptop and play around in photoshop while I’m laying in bed watching TV. I really do need to throw some templates together for the other domains I’m working on. I also have to get quite a bit of content up on curvy-chick.net because that lacks everything I wanted to do with it.

Guess I should get my ass in gear.

Winding Down

Saturday, June 2nd, 2007

I’ve been rather productive today. I didn’t actually get around to my laundry but I did manage to get the finishing touches on my desk, so I’m fully unpacked (took long enough…right?). Baby and I did some shopping this afternoon to get things settled for the weekend. A lot of vacationers are down here now, summer has basically started early, so it’s hard to do ANYTHING on the weekends, Route 1 is beyond packed from here to Ocean City. We loaded up on ground beef and chicken so I assume we’ll be barbecuing the entire weekend.

I’m slowly getting through all of my email, I do still have some to go through. A few of them are work related but I’ve been unable to read them yet. So if you’re coming here with the “Oh she can update but can’t read her email” attitude, chill out I’ll get to you soon. I think the only thing I haven’t done today is check myself in for drug treatment, lol.

I think I’m gonna get myself in gear on the rest of my email though. There are a few domain notifications that have to go out that need to be taken care of ASAP.

Been kinda busy…

Friday, June 1st, 2007

My inbox has around 1,000 messages in it and this can only mean that I’ve been absent from the internet for a few days. For the past couple of weeks baby and I have been putting off changing the rooms around until after he got some money in to buy his mother a new computer for her birthday. On Wednesday he came into the living room after I’d woken up and asked me if I wanted to start changing things around. He said he’d ordered the computer and now he’s got enough time to take a break and we can get things in order. We were unaware of just how long this was going to take. You don’t realize how much crap is piled up in one little room until you start transferring everything over to another room.

On Tuesday I went to the Salvation Army with Kay because she likes floating around stores like that looking for new and interesting things. While I’m a big fan of getting a deal on things, I’m not a fan of ‘used’ items. For a while now I’ve been eying this desk that I saw in Staples, maybe it was Big Lots not sure I remember. I was putting some money aside knowing that I’m going to be buying it when the rooms were moved (I was setup on a folding table in the office because of the lack of space). While we were at the Salvation Army, however, I came across a LAN desk and my jaw dropped. I’d been looking into a desk like this for the last few years but it’s about $200 no matter where I’d gone. It was $55 at the store and it’s literally in excellent condition. There isn’t a dent or a ding on it. It’s fresh out of the box – NEW.

So when Baby said we were moving the rooms around I jumped at the fact that I had a desk in mind and we needed to go pick it up. We moved all of the crap out of the bedroom and transferred all of the office equipment over and after two days of moving things, hanging shelves and lifting heavy boxes and books – we’re finally done. My desktop is setup on a brand new desk, I bought myself a chair from Staples that’s actually pretty comfortable and the cool thing about this desk is the fact that Bella has more than enough room to hang out on it and she’s not even close to being in my way. It’s also large enough for future purchases. I’m going to be purchasing a second monitor because when I’m using Adobe, windows that I need to use regularly kind of get in the way. I’m also going to be buying my iMac in the near future as well.

Baby setup my monitor on his desktop because I noticed that certain fonts weren’t showing up that well for me. Considering I know that every other computer I’ve used with those fonts seems to work well – I wanted to assume it was the graphics card. Quick trial and error proved me right and now I’m going to have to dip into funds for a graphics card as well. I’m going to need about $2,000 for everything – shouldn’t be too hard to get considering I’ve got clients pending and about $500 in posts coming to me as well.

For now I have some work to do. I really should get my ass in gear on some laundry. I’m probably going to have some pictures of the new setup later on. It’s really the office setup I’ve always wanted, we just couldn’t accomplish it in the other room considering how small it is. The new bedroom (old office) works much better now. I finally have my own closet and the only thing in there at this point is the television, bella’s toys and our bed. It flows much nicer too.

Okay, now I’m really going to get my ass in gear. So there’s the update that two people emailed me about. I’m not one to apologize because I haven’t posted – I kind of find that pathetic – but it’s strange that people really do stop by 3+ times a day knowing that I update regularly. If I disappointed you, sorry but there’s a life off line that’s far more important.

Nothing to do … and I hate it!

Monday, May 28th, 2007

I slept rather late today but that’s based on the fact that I’m not feeling very well. I don’t know if it was the food or the booze from last night but my head and my stomach are both screaming at me right now. I’m having trouble concentrating because Bella insists on being right on top of me so that’s just another thing adding to my list of annoyances.

I don’t have any design work to do today, that’ll give me enough time to get some work done on the June template, do some posting on curvy-chick and maybe get my ass in gear on blog-ideas.com, I should really get some templates together for it but I think the actual site content would be more important than the give-aways anyway.

I find it hard to get myself in gear on free templates, with all of the templates I create and don’t bother to use you’d think it would be easier to change the PDF and .zip it up with a small screen shot on the site but I guess I’ll get that all taken care of sooner or later.

I have some email and shit to go through, guess I should get that done.

Losing creativity

Saturday, May 26th, 2007

I don’t like feeling stumped. I’m working on setting up a template for a client and there’s only so much I can do to avoid having the template look so – generic – I hate that feeling. I like to try to make things look different or unique but when you’re lacking creativity – it’s pretty hard to do that.

I’ve been surfing around the internet for template ideas, I’m also going through a few books to maybe come up with something different as well. I own a few ‘how-to scrapbook’ – ‘how-to design’ kind of books. It’s not all internet based, it’s more hobby kind of books but they house some very bold colors and interesting page layouts. I’m trying to think ‘out of the box’ and considering a majority of the templates online are squared, I just want to come up with something kind of different. Even with bold round layouts that’s kind of generic these days.

Maybe if I keep looking I’ll finally come up with something, who knows.

Getting very close…

Friday, May 25th, 2007

At the rate that business is coming in for me right now, I’m confident that by July I’ll finally be able to enroll into Penn Foster because I’ll have everything I need for the first semester. Part of me wonders if I should hold off until September so I can treat it like a regular school year or if I should work diligently through the summer so I can get things cranked out faster, at the rate of my impatience I’m confident that I’m going to do the latter.

Up until recently I was unsure of which program I wanted to take first. I’m going for two degrees, the first being Multimedia & Design, the other being Web Programming. As of right now I have more of a career with the visual aspect of things than I do with the programming side. I’m not even programming the new site I’m working on, I talked Baby into that one. He’s quicker with things than I am so I figured it would be the best thing to do, he’s also in school for it so he’s got the resources on hand if something comes up.

I’m sure that it would make more sense to just continue with what I’ve been doing but companies won’t look at you unless you have a degree to back up your portfolio (at least the ones I’ve applied to seem to work that way) so getting my degree in the more prominent field is obviously important to me. I guess I’m going to choose the Multimedia option after all – go figure, a random (and probably useless) blog entry can figure everything out.

There are some serious upsides to taking the multimedia course first – I’ve spent years wanting to learn flash and never sat down and did it. The cool thing to this course is I now have no choice but to learn it so hopefully I can start taking on more jobs considering I have to turn down or outsource any job that requires flash work for me at the moment – I hate that feeling. But with more money coming in it means more resources for me and I’ll also be able to get my hands on the Mac that I’ve been anticipating for a few years now as well.

: sigh : maybe if I got my ass in gear instead of sitting back and dreaming, this shit would happen faster…heh.

Having a bit of trouble…

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

I’ve been looking at the screen for so long that now I’m to the point of having trouble seeing. I’m no where near where I need to be, so going to sleep seems like a downright bad idea. I just know that if I can get a few hours of rest maybe I can be more productive. I don’t know, it’s probably just me complaining for no reason.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have better luck with getting everything done. I did get a template out of the way for a client. I very quickly put the finishing touches on the June theme because I know for sure that I won’t have the time to do it when other projects start. There’s a little bit to do but it’s only about 15 minutes of work in total so I’m sure I can get that taken care of tomorrow morning after I wake up.

My stomach is still bothering me, only this time it’s not that something didn’t agree with me it’s the fact that I’m close to toppling over in pain from the cramps. Midol isn’t working, I’m tempted to take a vicodin but then I know for sure I’ll have to get some sleep and I’d rather not knock out for 12 hours. Hopefully 4-5 hours will be the ticket, it’s what I’ve basically been doing anyway.

Baby’s in the office playing Halo3, he’s been working his ass off for the last few days because his mother’s birthday is coming up and he wants to get her a somewhat pricey gift so he’s knocking projects out as quickly as possible just to get all of that taken care of. He’s also sick as a dog so that isn’t helping much either, poor thing can barely breath but he’s getting shit done and I guess that’s all that matters.

In any event, I think I’m going to write-up tomorrow’s To-Do list and sign off for the night so I can get some sleep. My eyes kind of just crossed on each other and I really, REALLY hate when that happens!

A little overwhelming…

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with work at the moment. I brought it all on myself, in the end, but that doesn’t make it any less stressful. A few days ago I went on a bidding spree with a few freelance sites and I’m not quite sure how it happened but I’ve managed to win 12 out of 15 of the bids. Each user wants me to start immediately. : deep breath :

A lot of it is blog templates, some of which I already have created I just need to change some things around graphically, this should take no time at all but when you’re dealing with people who are set on a schedule and you’re factoring in that all of these accounts need to be done before the end of next week it can really put a damper on my weekend plans.

I have a blog template to knock out tonight before I go to bed. I’m going to have another four to work on sometime over the course of the next two days. I have to email back someone who needs a quote on a PHP script and someone emailed me asking about advertising space so I need to come up with a quote for that too. While I fully admit that my blog is for more monetary than personal reasons, I’m not sure if I’m willing to place large 100-200 word ads on the sidebar. I’ll have to really think about it, then come up with a quote and go from there.

In the end, however, even if I don’t do that advertising my monthly income will be double what it’s been in the past and this can only mean something bad is going to pop up sometime in the very near future because I’ll obviously need the money to take care of it. It’s typically how the universe balances itself out.

I guess I should get my ass in gear. I think I’m going to have to steal my dry erase board from baby so I can keep track of everything. Heh.

Productivity at it’s finest.

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

I’ve gotten quite a bit done today. I’m ahead as far as my time frame for getting some work done is concerned. I’ve got the gardening done, Bella’s taken care of as well. She needed some trimming around her face because she was just over heated so I trimmed some hair out and got rid of a little bit of matting on her legs before I schedule another appointment for her for the groomer. Considering it’s going to be in the mid 80’s for a few days, I figured every little bit helps so hopefully the trim makes her a bit more comfortable.

I’ve gotten some work done, setup some accounts and I know I have a few more things to get done but I also know that I’m about two hours ahead instead of the 3 hours behind I was previously. That’s always a good thing, right?

Dieting today is fairly simple. I’ve only taken in about 300 calories so far so that’s good as far as sticking to my guns. My hip is bothering the hell out of me, so much so that it hurts to stand at this point let alone sit down. My stomach is killing me due to Aunt Flo and on top of that my ankle keeps popping when I walk, more so now than it ever has before considering how much damage I’ve done to it over the years. Maybe I’m just getting old and my body is telling me there’s a storm coming this way – I don’t know. It is all joint pain when it comes down to it so who knows what’s going on.

Guess I should get dinner started, I just finished cleaning up the kitchen and have a few little things to do here and there to prepare for the weekend. We’re working on getting Kay’s sister down here for a Memorial Day BBQ but who knows if that’s actually going to happen. Her sister is hard to get a hold of sometimes. Hopefully we’ll be able to get in touch with her before it’s too late.

Very late start

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

I had a late start today but this is because I couldn’t fall asleep until after 5am. Typically I sleep from about 2-10 which is a reasonable 8 hours. Today, unfortunately, it was 5-1pm which is kind of messing me up. I’m hours behind on many things and there’s a lot of work to be done that I’m only now scratching the surface on.

I watered the plants today, I’ve also taken a nice well needed shower considering how horribly I feel right now. I started my period this morning and I’m not sure if it’s an allergic reaction to new body wash or something but I have a nasty rash on the back of my leg that’s driving me crazy. The whole lower half of me is basically falling apart, my hip is bothering me as well. I keep getting random jolts of sharp pain, I really need to find better seating.

Accomplished

Monday, May 21st, 2007

I don’t know if it’s based on the fact that I’m living in a new house, or if it’s just my mood these days but I’ve found myself being more productive down here than I ever was in New York. Sure, I’d cook and clean all day long on top of getting my work done but I take a little more pride in my work down here for some reason and I’m not quite sure why. I feel more accomplished when I’m done.

I got the kitchen taken care of tonight. The vacuuming was done and the coffee table is sparkling right now. It’s easier to relax in a clean room anyone knows this. It’s hard to keep a clean house with three dogs and a few pack rats. Since Kay and I were sick this past week there was an over abundance of tissues laying around on the coffee table mixed with her nicorette packets, those are easy to clean though. I moved some things out of the living room that I’ve been meaning to get rid of for the last couple of weeks. I’d brought a keyboard and stand down here for baby to hook up when we get the rooms rearranged, now that it’s out of the living room the entire room just looks much larger.

I hope we’re able to get the rooms rearranged sometime soon. This way I can start unpacking everything off my desk. I’m going to need to pick up a shelving unit for the closet so I can get my clothes transferred over to the new closet. He’s going to keep his where they are because in the long run it’ll be easier. This way he gets his closet back and I get to have my own again. That’ll be sweet, real sweet. He can keep his as dirty as men usually do and I get to have a neat and tidy one just for me. :w00t:

I have some more work to get done, guess I should get started on that.

Not happening soon enough

Monday, May 21st, 2007

For some reason, my business email has been submitted to a few school databases. I’ve got colleges emailing me up the wazoo with information that I never requested. Most of these emails don’t even contain a link that says “Remove me from this mailing list” and that’s the worst kind of email to get. I’ve had one school email me about three times in the last two hours because they’re “Unable to get in touch with me” the phone number they have on file is the one in New York so this can only mean that they’ve been calling my fathers house and I have no doubt in my mind that he’s annoyed about it at this point. I guess I’ll call him in a little while and let him know what’s going on.

I already have my heart set on a school. I know for a fact that I’m going to Penn Foster to get my multimedia degree. At first I wanted to take the programming one but I think it’ll be easier just to get the design aspect taken care of. I’ve wanted to learn flash for years and the only way to do that will have to be with someone (well, in this case a book) walking me through it. This is why you’ve noticed more paid posting on my site. At first it was just to break even but I’m working on something much bigger. Averaging $25-$30 a day worth of posts is very easy but when you factor in 30 days a month that’s about $750-$900 a month, a part time job. Blogging is my outside job, I do still make enough with the design business to be covered but the extra $800 a month is more of a comfort thing. After the first month I’ll be able to enroll in the first semester and that’s really all I want at this point.

Disappointed. Tired. Confused.

Thursday, May 17th, 2007

The ‘massive storm’ hit around 8pm. I was rather disappointed to find out that everything good went far south of me to Southern Maryland and parts of Virginia, it’s really not fair. I was expecting something good and all it did was water the flowers for me.

Something tells me I’m going to have to give Bella a bath before I go to bed tonight. I really don’t want to but I know after her walk tonight she’s going to be covered in dirt. It only poured for about a half hour but that was long enough to drench everything to the point of mud building up everywhere. Since she seems to enjoy running through the grass more than just being on the street – naturally she’s going to get pretty dirty.

I had to cancel her grooming appointment, for obvious reasons. The vet recommended that if she was really in as much pain as she is that it’s a bad idea to have a groomer hold her down. I was also informed that the groomer chosen for her wasn’t anywhere near the vets personal recommendation list. She said it’s an unclean environment and I should consider another groomer in the area. The problem is, there’s only ONE other groomer and I refuse to drive way out of my way just to get Bella shaved before it gets too hot down here. It almost reached 90?Ǭ?F today so there’s no way in hell that I want her to wait any longer than she has to. The air conditioning in the house is typically turned off every few minutes because someone gets too cold but then you’ve got Bella and the three other dogs laying on the floor panting like all hell. This is why when the rooms get moved around I’m considering a window unit. This way I know it’s going to be cold in here at all times and Bella can get some relief from the heat.

I’m anticipating tomorrow, it’s supposed to be just as warm so it’ll be nice to sit outside and catch some rays while I’m reading. I haven’t relaxed with a book in a while so it’ll be nice to just sit outside and relax for a bit. I have to get some actual work done first though, there’s not much on my list at the moment so it should be an easy day.

Atlantic City = BUST

Wednesday, May 16th, 2007

I’m sure I should have updated yesterday but I was a little big depressed after getting home from Atlantic City on Monday evening.

I wasn’t as lucky as I was the last time I went to A.C., I wound up losing about $700 which is fine because that money was specifically for the casino anyway. It just sucked that I couldn’t at least break even considering there are things to do around the house that the money could have been useful for. No worries, however, at the rate things are going I’ll have that back by the end of the week anyway.

I found myself falling asleep in the car, something I almost never do. I was knocked out for about an hour, then I came home to find out that Bella was hurt and she’d destroyed a few things. She tried to dig herself out of the bedroom, she managed to rip the rug to shreds and do some damage to the bottom of the door. I’m not sure if she got her paw caught or something but she was limping and $150 vet visit later, turns out there’s nothing they can really do for her. She’s on anti-inflammatory medication and that’s just about it. She does seem to be walking a little bit better now that they’ve cut her nails, but who knows if that was just a fluke or not. For all I know they could have gotten whatever may have been stuck in her paw, out, when they cut her nails.

I haven’t been feeling well on top of that. I feel a very nasty cold coming on so my time in front of the computer today was limited to getting clients setup and support emails taken care of. After that I did manage to get The Riches Fanlisting up and running and now I’m working on some paid posting that’s set to expire in a few days so I guess I need to get my butt in gear on that.

Hopefully I can have all of this done within the next hour, it’d be nice to get to bed early tonight. I’ll probably be up until 11 anyway, Lost is on tonight and there are only a few episodes left or something like that… I don’t know.