updatedness
i am: taking a break
listening to: telemann - viola concerto in g
drinking: honey lemon ginseng tea
We've been having a few days of early spring this week, and it's been nice. I find the smallest of birds fascinating to watch - the wrens, chickadees, and the house finches (which look large next to the others.) They flit around in pairs scoping out possible places to build nests, then flit off, only to return five minutes later. I've enjoyed having windows open during the day, except for the havoc it's already wreaking on yog's poor eyes.
I've been continuing to madly work on manuscripts. I know I keep saying "the last one," or "one more after this one." I feel like I've been saying that for a few years. Now I'm working on what would be the last one if I didn't realize I'm missing representation from a particular time frame. When I finish it, I'll seek one out and will have completed the research/transcribing phase.
In the meantime, I'm re-rendering all of the fractal designs I have uploaded and made into products at my Zazzle shop. Near the end of the year I sold quite a few products: Quite a few to me is more than one; I have not been very successful in my online marketing attempts. In reviewing my end of the year report from Zazzle I was surprised to see that from the middle of November until the end of December I'd sold eight calendars, a mouse pad, five cards and a keychain. This was with minimal promotion and marketing; I hadn't even bothered to list with Google Shopping. So, giving my aching hands a break from the manuscripts I've been educating myself about these things and now have a new plan - which involves re-rendering all of the fractal designs I have uploaded and made into products at my Zazzle shop (full circle) in larger sizes for prints and other products that are available on sites other than Zazzle, i.e., CafePress. My grand scheme is to create a shop of my own, similar to the Merkat Cross section of my medieval site, on my newish Abandon Reason site, which I'll then take the time to properly promote. This will all take quite a while, but the renders run quietly in the background while I'm doing other things.
The only drawback to this is that while the system is rendering the old designs, I can't create new ones. I really miss that creative outlet and am definitely experiencing Apo-withdrawals.
Since I have my grand scheme mapped out and processing in the background, now when I take a break from the manuscripts, I've been loading Facebook. A couple of days ago I finally added my educational information and was instantly rewarded with a link to check out other people who attended the same schools I did. I surfed through over 500 photos/user names and was brought into a strange state of living in the past and wondering who the hell those bald, graying grandparents were. And it's not only that I didn't recognize 99% of them; I couldn't relate to them at all. Real estate agents, police officers, preachers, architects, gray-haired women surrounded by toddling grandchildren. (How did they get so old? I'm not that old.) I recognized a few names, but only one face. The handful of people I was looking for and would have been comfortable adding as a friend aren't there. Friends from post-high school days are, well ... non-existent. I worked and was friendly with people I worked with, but there were only two people that I had any contact with outside of work and they're not there either. I've often jokingly referred to my hermit-like life, but have now been struck by the fact that it's not a joke at all.
Enough navel gazing; back to work.
today's reading: i'm about halfway through jasper fforde's the eyre affair, which i'm rereading in preparation for the next in the series, lost in a good book.
listening to: telemann - viola concerto in g
drinking: honey lemon ginseng tea
We've been having a few days of early spring this week, and it's been nice. I find the smallest of birds fascinating to watch - the wrens, chickadees, and the house finches (which look large next to the others.) They flit around in pairs scoping out possible places to build nests, then flit off, only to return five minutes later. I've enjoyed having windows open during the day, except for the havoc it's already wreaking on yog's poor eyes.
I've been continuing to madly work on manuscripts. I know I keep saying "the last one," or "one more after this one." I feel like I've been saying that for a few years. Now I'm working on what would be the last one if I didn't realize I'm missing representation from a particular time frame. When I finish it, I'll seek one out and will have completed the research/transcribing phase.
In the meantime, I'm re-rendering all of the fractal designs I have uploaded and made into products at my Zazzle shop. Near the end of the year I sold quite a few products: Quite a few to me is more than one; I have not been very successful in my online marketing attempts. In reviewing my end of the year report from Zazzle I was surprised to see that from the middle of November until the end of December I'd sold eight calendars, a mouse pad, five cards and a keychain. This was with minimal promotion and marketing; I hadn't even bothered to list with Google Shopping. So, giving my aching hands a break from the manuscripts I've been educating myself about these things and now have a new plan - which involves re-rendering all of the fractal designs I have uploaded and made into products at my Zazzle shop (full circle) in larger sizes for prints and other products that are available on sites other than Zazzle, i.e., CafePress. My grand scheme is to create a shop of my own, similar to the Merkat Cross section of my medieval site, on my newish Abandon Reason site, which I'll then take the time to properly promote. This will all take quite a while, but the renders run quietly in the background while I'm doing other things.
The only drawback to this is that while the system is rendering the old designs, I can't create new ones. I really miss that creative outlet and am definitely experiencing Apo-withdrawals.
Since I have my grand scheme mapped out and processing in the background, now when I take a break from the manuscripts, I've been loading Facebook. A couple of days ago I finally added my educational information and was instantly rewarded with a link to check out other people who attended the same schools I did. I surfed through over 500 photos/user names and was brought into a strange state of living in the past and wondering who the hell those bald, graying grandparents were. And it's not only that I didn't recognize 99% of them; I couldn't relate to them at all. Real estate agents, police officers, preachers, architects, gray-haired women surrounded by toddling grandchildren. (How did they get so old? I'm not that old.) I recognized a few names, but only one face. The handful of people I was looking for and would have been comfortable adding as a friend aren't there. Friends from post-high school days are, well ... non-existent. I worked and was friendly with people I worked with, but there were only two people that I had any contact with outside of work and they're not there either. I've often jokingly referred to my hermit-like life, but have now been struck by the fact that it's not a joke at all.
Enough navel gazing; back to work.
today's reading: i'm about halfway through jasper fforde's the eyre affair, which i'm rereading in preparation for the next in the series, lost in a good book.