1000 Words

It’s a new year, a new decade, and yet things are the same… kind of down, sad, not motivating. Work is okay, I guess, it’s difficult getting past having a good friend and c0-worker gone. Every day there’s a constant reminder that she’s not here, because we shared an office. Have projects to do, but they all require prep work, I wish there was a way to get things lined up for January, so that it wasn’t like this.

In other news, I’m taking a Photoshop course this quarter. First week was photo correcting. It went okay. I got the points, but I’m not really satisfied with my work, and am hoping that I will do better at the work. We had to change the color of a hat and it was very difficult. I had pixels that were red even after I made them green. Don’t know what’s up with that. I spent close to 9 hours on it, by the time I was done, and did the exercise probably 12 times. Ah well.

Supposed to be starting to pack and prepare for the scrapbooking retreat at the end of the month with the girls. I haven’t got anything ready. Nice. Guess this weekend I better get focused on that little task!

I was sick for the entire 2 weeks we were off work. I had all kinds of plans of going to the gym daily, and doing lots and lots of things to get ready for the retreat and for 2010. All got postponed. Back at the gym as of last week, however, and am back on track with going regularly.

I guess that’s enough whining for now. Sorry it’s not a nice perky positive post, but it’s getting more and more difficult to keep my chin up and look all happy as April and the possibility of Steven’s getting laid off gets closer. I don’t know what happens if that happens. I know it’s nice to just not think about it, but it would be better to come up with a real, concrete plan. Sigh. As if there was such a thing possible.

We did have an extremely nice visit this past weekend with Steven’s parents, who came up to celebrate a late Christmas with us. Enjoyed our time together, although it seemed very short… Dad made me a fabulous lazy susan that I need to decorate in some way. Still noodling on what I want to do.

I also made my 50 book challenge for 2009! In 2008 I didn’t make it, but I did this year. Go me. (even with classes all year!) Signed up for another 50 this year, we’ll see how I do. Last night I fell asleep at 8:45, so no reading was done. LOL

Make it a good day!

Typography was a lot more difficult than I expected it to be. I think I’m getting into the more difficult classes, as I near the end of my journey for this certificate. I’m going to take a couple more classes before I take the last class needed for the certificate, but that’s okay. I’m enjoying the journey.

My second project was to create a poster that featured a fontographer. It had to showcase one of his fonts. I chose a guy named Harold Lohner who is one of my favorite designers. He created a font called Pharmacy that I use quite often in my scrapbooking…. Here’s the poster. I got 24/25 on it, so I was pleased.

I had a project a few weeks ago, to create a CD cover. It was really not easy. You could not use pictures, only type. I had a vision and I worked it and worked it but I couldn’t get any further than what I submitted. Work was also really busy at the time, (whcn is it not) with a lot of “change” going on, and I don’t think I was quite up to my usual focus. I turned this in, and I got 21/25. My first B. I was really disappointed, but stuck it out and dug in and worked harder.

For our final project, we had to create a poster that used only type, and it had to showcase a Bay Area attraction for children. I knew right away that I wanted to do the exploratorium in San Francisco, as it is one of my very favorite places to visit. I played around with a bunch of different ideas, and phrases and came up with my final poster. Last time I was there, you could create an earthquake, so I focused on that. Here’s the poster. I don’t have a grade yet but the instructor seemed to like my design, so fingers crossed.The background of the poster is white, so it doesn’t show as well as it could, here…. I guess you get the general idea.

Next quarter, I plan to take Photoshop. I use it, but I have no training in it, so I think it’s time to learn how to use it right. I think it will be fun!

Not much else going on. I did start my Christmas Journal yesterday. Maybe tomorrow I can post yesterday and today’s entries. We’ll see how the day goes.

On a side note, I did not finish National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) again this year. I only wrote 968 words. Having said that, Steven wrote something like 53,000 or more, so I’m really proud of him! Way to go!

-Have a great day!

Ok, this is not what I signed up for. No, it’s not. Really. I’m sure I didn’t sign up for this! What am I babbling about? My teeth. Oh. my. gosh. They stinkin’ HURT! LOL My whole lower face hurts, actually!

Here’s the scoop…

Overall, the whole experience is good. In about 14 months, my teeth will all be straight, my smile will look nice, and I’ll be a happy girl. Having said that, the first two aligners are baby steps. Seriously, they don’t do much. Then, you go in and they put on “attachment buttons”. Aha. This translates to “they bring in the big guns.” I think it’s akin to rubber bands on regular braces. The only difference is, with these, you can’t get away from the pressure and pain except to eat. Nice, but who wants to eat when it feels like every tooth in your head is loose? LOL

I’m sorry, I won’t whine anymore. As Josh continually reminds me, I volunteered for this. I didn’t have to do it, I chose to. But wow, I have a WHOLE lot of respect for my son now, since I know what he went through with his braces. Every parent should have to do this so that they have more patience and understanding.

Lots more going on, but no time to post now. Soon.

-Make it a great day!

I saw this earlier this morning and thought it was delightful! While I love children, I think there is a time and a place, and I think parents should always supervise. When Josh was little, people always commented that I sure kept a close eye on him. I’m glad I did, so that no one ever game him espresso or a(nother) puppy! LOL

Click here

- Have a great day!

“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.” – Unknown (English Proverb)

A friend of mine has this saying on a poster in her office. I always read it and think about what wonderful words they are. I love sayings like this that make you think. When times are difficult, or when things aren’t going the way I think they should, or want them to, these are the kinds of sayings that I try to steer toward.

It’s pretty easy to navigate smooth water, you just point and go, but when the water is rough, you need to calculate and adjust and “go with the flow.” So often, when things look bleak, I think it is easy to try to control situations rather than letting life take its course.

Have a great day!

If you are anything like me, and love scrapbooking, you’re finding “current economic times” challenging. I have really cut back on my scrapbook buying this year. Seriously. Like, I may have bought 4 or 5 things, total, all year. I’m using what I have, and trying to use it up.

The other day, I came across a cool site, however, that has had some great stuff, so I thought I’d share it! It is called Peachy Cheap. Everyday they have a different scrapbooking item, deeply discounted. Love it!

Here’s a link: Peachy Cheap

Enjoy!

Well, okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration, I more than survived, I am fairly certain I got another A! Yes. YES!!!! Flash class is finally over. It was the shortest class I’ve ever taken, at only 7 weeks, but it had 12 weeks of information crammed into it. I thought I was going to choke for all of the last 3 weeks of class! In a moment of luck, 3 days before the final was due, while I was designing like crazy, I had the AHA! moment we all pray for, and figured out what I wasn’t understanding. I quickly finished the final and I redid another exercise as well. Whew! If you want to see what I worked so hard on, you can look here:

September’s Final

Not much else to report. Summer has sure flown by, and it’s been a decidedly strange summer too. We never swam. Not once. It was hot enough a couple of times, but we just were too busy doing other things. None of us are tan, none of us show any signs that it was summer. Truly weird.

School starts on Monday. Josh will be a junior. How did that happen? I don’t start back until September 21st. I get a break. Go me! Lots of work at work so I’m glad I get a break.(I’ve had my face buried in casual reading since class ended and I think I’ve read 4 so far! LOL)

Looking forward to Steven’s birthday on August 25th and then mine on the 4th…. I’m taking the day off and going to San Francisco for the day with my friend Karen. Yea! Mischief time!

Have a great day! I promise to try to post more often. It’s just kind of weird, because I certainly don’t want to post “Same thing as last time.” LOL

I just got my final grades for the Web Design class, Adobe Illustrator class, and Adobe InDesign classes. I earned A’s in all three! Go me! On the Illustrator final, I got all but 15 points out of 165 points. I received 98% on the overall course. Yea!

Unfortunately, I can’t celebrate for too long, because summer session starts today! Yikes! I’m taking Adobe Flash with my friend Orna. It’s all her fault.

I didn’t learn nearly as much in the second part as I did in the first. In fact, there were quite a few people in the class who had not taken the first part of the class, so that made us have to go extremely slowly and painfully through things that we had learned in the first class. It was very disappointing. We had about 5 projects that we were supposed to get through, and we got through one and a half in 6 hours. That gives you an idea of how slowly it was going!

Anyhow, here is the 2 page layout we did. I really like how it turned out. It isn’t perfect, by any means, but it does show that I understand layers and using InDesign, which is really a lovely program. The second project was supposed to be a tri-fold pamphlet. We did 1 panel for the front and 3 panels for the back. Here is the back. I’ll try to see if I can figure out how to finish the other two panels so I can share the rest. I don’t like it much. I love Paris, but this is just not my idea of a great layout or a great design. I was just following directions for a change, with both of these projects, and I think it shows. Ah well, I’ve taken the class now, and gotten the credit, so it’s all good.Not much else to share. Hope all is well with you and yours.

I know, bad blogger.

Taking two classes in one semester is a LOT more than I bargained for! I’m doing fine in both classes, but whew, the time commitment is a killer, plus there is work, family, and everything else.

Here is a link to my latest web design project. It is a website. We’ve been building on it for a couple of weeks. Be sure to click around and explore, there is a lot to see!

This past Saturday, my friend Orna, a fellow Graphic Design student, and I took a one day InDesign class. We had a blast! The class was full of cool stuff to learn. We’ll be taking part 2 on May 30th, and can’t wait. Here are the projects from that class plus a brief writeup.

The first project we did was simple letterhead, so I’m not sharing that. You all know that mine had pink and that the company title was Runs with Scissors Designs.

The second project that we did was a newsletter. InDesign is a layout program, so what we did was take information provided by the teacher, such as the text of the article, and the photo and create a page layout roughly to what he told us to do. It was an interesting lesson. I guess PageMaker was the predecessor to InDesign. I used PageMaker a tiny bit back in the late 80’s/early 90’s, but not much, so this was a great reintroduction.

The second project was a postcard for an Di Vinci exhibit. I love Di Vinci so this was fun! I decided to be daring and put my text down the left side. I don’t think the instructor noticed. We also learned how to do drop caps on this. I think they are really nice on this post card.

The next project was a poster of Caesar Chavez. It was very complicated, working with many different layers, and images and all kinds of things, but I really like how it came out. Everyone’s was just a bit different because we got to choose our own shades of green. The only part I did not really relate to on this project was the butterflies that float across the screen, but I put them in like a good student! InDesign has a cool feature where you can colorize images on the fly, so that was fun to use.

The last project was a poster for the Leonardo exhibit. This was very intense and complicated, but I thought it was easier than the Chavez poster, myself. I know I broke the fonts rule of Graphic Design a bit on this one, but it was fun, and I’d break them again if I did the poster again! I really like how my poster came out!

That’s it for the InDesign class. Now, let’s talk Adobe Illustrator for a minute. I think that this week’s lesson was more fun than the other weeks all put together. I had a LOT of fun creating the practice projects. This week we are doing transformation. It’s hard to explain what it is, but you essentially take something, and make it into something else. You can combine things and repeat them, and all sorts of strange things happen. Here is my first project. If you can see the writing, you can also see what I did and how I did it. Not that  guess it matters much, these are just fun to look at!

The last thing I’m sharing is my snowflakes. I did these the same way, sort of, as the designs in the last paragraph. These were created using the transform tool and then distorted. Cool, huh?

So that’s what’s going on with me. Work is very busy. We are on a big deadline and having fun working as a team to meet it.

Hope all is well with you and yours!