The current look is colors I seriously debated changing my chocolate brown and teal biz color scheme to … but had too much packaging materials stockpiled to make it worthwhile for now.

So … if you’re reading this in Google Reader or another feed reader … click here to see what I’m rambling on about …

I’m not entirely done … few more tweaks to go!

The Original Felt ipad Case — shoot, I’d go out and buy an ipad now instead of sometime next year just so I could own the case!

Mod Rosette Necklace — oh so seriously cute! This would go great with a cute dress or a simple tee and jeans!

… powernaps. are. awesome. Have become an almost daily routine of late.

… which now means I use the alarm function on my cell phone more than I use the phone to talk.

… medicine the doc put me on has horrible side effects. Stopped taking it after a week (which was last week) because I couldn’t take the combo of nauseating headaches and the queesiness hitting at random or not knowing what would trigger one or both. It got so bad I fought the temptation to go home on two different days and caved on the third. At least I know now that the nauseating headaches the past couple of days are allergy related by the pollen forecast. Still need to call the doc back to find out if there’s a lower dosage or alternative to that Rx.

… same Rx also has led to a slight change in diet. Must lower sodium intake. Do you know how tough that is? Go look at every. single. “healthy.” frozen. meal. box. Or lunchmeat. Best alternative I’ve found have been the Steamfresh microwavable veggies — the plain white rice w/ veggies only has 15mg per serving. By cutting back at lunch, watching intake w/ beverages and breakfast, I can eat a ‘normal’ meal in the evenings.

… oh, and I’ve *lost* 3.5 lbs in the past two weeks. Have to assume its the salt because its the only actual change I’ve made to date.

… speaking of salt and lowering my consumption, I’ve had to cut back on one of my favorite beverages: orange gatorade. I. ♥. that. stuff.

… dad: if you’re cutting back on salt, you’re gonna have to give up the gatorade
me: but I love orange gatorade.
dad: it has too much salt.
me: so?
dad: switch to orange flavored water or koolaid
me: not. the. same. trust me.
dad: trust me, you don’t need the salt. find an alternative

… I haven’t found an alternative to the orange gatorade dilemma yet. Orange Sunkist and Sunny D just aren’t the same as much as I love them.

… speaking of loves, I have a new photography gadget in route that I snagged from a fellow photographer late last week. Had planned to wait until next January to snag one, but since its not being produced anymore, bargains are hard to find.

… while now on the photography tangent, I’m rotating sneak peeks on the biz blog from three sessions earlier this month through the end of next week. A fourth session is currently in the queue to have its own entry after I wrap up the editing on the first three.

… I’ll no more wrap all four of them up than I have at least three more next month (plus second shooting a wedding) to shoot and edit.

… Which means I have a dozen or so partially completed biz projects that are taking forever to finish.

… I also have to find a new webhost (for numerous reasons). Anyone absolutely love their’s — need unlimited add-on domains, unlimited mysql databases, linux server (no Windows servers!), little to no downtime, quick support response, and a whole lotta server space. Leaning towards Dreamhost or GoDaddy at the moment.

And with that, I probably stop now that you’re completely lost and don’t remember how I started off this entry …

The web has allowed me to do a great many things … and provided a number of opportunities over the past twelve years its been in my life.

I’ve had numerous penpals from around the world because of it … in turned, it helped me plan a trip to meet one of them, and then allowed me to find out a second pal would be passing through the airport at the same time as me …

Taken several college classes …

Research … my, how its so much easier than referencing print encyclopedias like I did pre-www … not that I still don’t go back to my parents’ set periodically, because there isn’t anything like reading a book nor knowing that you don’t have to go to several different sites to verify the info is correct!

Discovered new musicians, movies, television shows from around the world …

It has allowed me to fall in love with destinations near and far … my ‘must travel to’ list has grown exponentially since I first signed online during the fall of 1994! (Granted, it was nearly two years later before I actually ‘surfed’ the graphical interface web … ah, memories of telnet and newton!)

And let us not forget about shopping … I can do more damage to my credit card online than in a brick and mortar store!

It has been a gateway to my passion of photography — though sharing of photos, encouragement to consider portraiture photography, and as a storefront for my business …

Discovered forums where I’ve learned a great deal of what to do and not do in business and photography!

Following the blogs of fellow photographers who not only provide inspiration, but information. Bloggers are the reason I found out about the two photography workshops I’ve attended this year and a third I hope to attend in February. Fellow photo-bloggers keep causing my reader list to grow; I think I started with 15-20 and now have well over 100!

And lastly, its allowed me to share myself with others, through the blogs I’ve had over the past seven + years.

Recently I decided to put this blog to good use and start giving stuff away that I love. While I hope to improve upon the prizes as time passes and more people participate, I get excited when new visitors comment on the giveaway questions. Not only do I discover new blogs (if they leave a link), but if they win, I get to make their day a bit brighter.

Yesterday morning, I got an email, well a comment notification, from Sam …she’d posted an entry about the power of the web and the prize she won from my August Third Monday Giveaway. As cruddy a day as it is outside, my day was made through her happiness of receiving the prize as well as her post about it.

Doncha just love the power of the web? I know I do

Returned home, sick to boot, and discovered a flat tire with a nail in it. Lovely.

Was at the trusty tire repair shop first thing Monday morning, then went to work where we were ‘slammed’…which has been the case for the rest of this week.

Went out and toured the home/met the fuzzy critters I’ll be housesitting later this month and possibly at the end of July as well.

Received a deadline to make an important decision. One that, based on the time I have to fully research the information provided, isn’t going to be what several people want at this point.

Wrapped up with spilling a third of my one-a-day Dr Pepper’s on the floor, my lunch, keys, and the sleeve of my new white cardigan this morning, and I’m ready to take another vacation far far away.

With that, here are a few linkages I came across this week (or earlier) in my limited free time that are worth sharing…

Found via google search: Cost of Living Wizard @ salary.com

Found via several top photographers: Totally Rad Actions. Try out their free sample set w/ three actions. I got these last month while I was starting the editing of a maternity session and used two of the three sample actions a lot. Whenever funds are more sufficient, I plan to invest in the entire set…granted, they’re about to come out with a second set, so I’m hoping they’ll put out a sample set to try before I plunk down money on one set and wish I’d gotten the second set!

Found via a personal finance blog (forgot which one!): Poorer Than You. Stephanie’s a college student who’s learned the hard way about credit cards and personal finance. She’s got some great information for anyone, regardless if you’re a college student or not. Having gotten a finance degree myself, I wish much of what today’s PF bloggers discuss was taught in the personal finance class I took.

Meet Thin Lizzie…

[image deleted]

No, I didn’t buy it to make up for sleeping last Saturday Its actually a business expense for the business I clearly need to start doing for money so I can write it off on my income taxes this year…

Last night was the bro’s prom, so I’ve got those photos along with some others taken in the past month or so to edit and get online on the new portfolio site sooner than later. Mainly sooner, since poor Buster (the laptop) is down to only 4 GB of hard drive space left–once they’re edited, burned to cd, and the selected few make it online, the rest will be moved to the external hard drive so I can fill this one back up again.

In other geek news, I’ve splurged as of late on computer related stuff, mainly photoshop actions, templates, and Adobe’s Creative Suite (student version I could get mucho cheapo through the university). Granted, I won’t be installing the Creative Suite software on Buster anytime soon since that’ll slow him down to a crawl, but the bro’s laptop will be running it in the meantime so we can try it out.

Next purchase on the agenda is a new desktop system. I was wanting to get another laptop for photo editing stuff (and using Buster for everything else), but in terms of hard drive space, it may work out cheaper to get a desktop system instead. I’d prefer to find one with Windows XP rather than Vista (and a flat panel monitor), but the only ones I can find that aren’t refurbished are a bit more than I want to pay.

I’ve only got a few things listed (valentine’s, st pat’s and a couple photo items) right now, although I hope to come up with a few other designs over the weekend.

Until the 31st of this month, you can save $5 off any purchase of $20 or more. Be sure to use the coupon code: BEAUSCALMS.

Update: here’s one more coupon code good through February 4th: Save $10 on a $25 purchase!  Use the code: DES143

So, now that grad school is done, I have a bit more free time to do stuff with.  And one of those things is working on my photography, web design, and graphic design skills.  And that’s where you all come in…

Short of trial and error and spending tons on books that I would spend too much time analyzing, I’d be eternally grateful to anyone who would share links to helpful sites, tips, tricks, and anything you don’t mind sharing.  Especially anything related to vector graphics, that’s where I really need to do some improving.  Leave me a comment or drop me an email with whatever you don’t mind sharing

I currently have Photoshop CS, an older version of Macromedia Fireworks and Dreamweaver (educational versions), MS Front Page 2003, and an older version of Photoshop Elements.  Eventually, if I can get a decent price on the educational version of Adobe’s Creative Suite, I may try to splurge on it. 

For now, I just want to improve my skills enough that maybe I’ll feel confident enough to start doing some web design on the side to fund something else I enjoy, traveling!

 ps…yes, a new, created by moi, layout will be coming soon…just not in the next twenty four hours.  Tonight gets to be spent learning about politics south of the border

Tips for using social networking websites
Abridged: Knight Ridder News

ST. PAUL, MN — A recent survey found most employers search online to check on job candidates. As more people turn to social networking websites such as MySpace, Friendster and Facebook to connect with friends and write about their personal lives, employers and recruiters are following right behind.

There’s an explosion in the amount of personal material being launched into cyberspace by people who seemingly have no qualms about revealing details of their sexual escapades or not-so-hidden desires. They’ll carry digital cameras to bars and parties and post photos of drunken friends on their web pages and to those of their friends. On one MySpace posting, a 19-year-old girl writes about her pastimes: “I def. like to party … I don’t smoke, but I drink a lot … like a lot.”

Job seekers have reason to worry: In some cases, employers and recruiters are using the information to weed out candidates. Three quarters of 102 executive recruiters surveyed last fall by ExecuNet, of Norwalk, Conn., said they use search engines as part of the process to uncover information about job candidates. More than a quarter said they have eliminated candidates due to what they found about the person on the Internet.