1000 Words

About 4 years ago, we switched to front-loading washer and dryer. We went to Sears, as we always do for appliances, and we asked for the best. Our dryer had not been drying clothes properly for about 2 years, so we were pretty emphatic about wanting something that was really going to dry our clothes. We ended up with a great set.

As I told a friend about our purchase, I learned something that every owner of a front loader needs to know. They get mold inside them. Ew! She told me that even though she has a very large family (like 5 kids, if I remember correctly!), when she isn’t using her washer, or when they go on vacation, she has to make sure the door is left open or the washer will develop mold inside the workings. You can’t see it, but when you open the door, you can sure smell it. Armed with this knowledge, I designated a thick old towel to act as the mold deterrent.
We were judicious about using the towel. I can’t think of a time when the towel wasn’t there if the machine wasn’t used. However, about 6 months ago, our towels started to not smell great after they had been washed. We tried just about everything, but nothing helped.
Why am I telling you this? I’m sharing because I received a sample, a few weeks ago, of a product called Smelly Washer (www.smellywasher.com) that has really improved things. While it didn’t miraculously make our towels smell fresh and new again, it did improve them to the point where I can actually use them now, without being grossed out. I’m happy to say that, after using this product 3 times, our washer smells much better, and so do our towels, after being treated with it.
The product is very simple to use and cost effective as well. Each container will do 24 treatments. You simply put a capful into the washer and run it according to the instructions. You can also do a treatment on your towels. I guess we aren’t the only ones with icky towels.
While it has not completely and absolutely destroyed the problem, which I had hoped it would (always have to have the highest expectations!), Smelly Washer really has made a vast improvement in our towels and washer, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has a front loading washer. I think that if you used it from the start, you could avoid the problem completely. I think this product should be sold with every front loading washer, in fact!
If you want to try Smelly Washer yourself, go to www.smellywasher.com and use this promocode to save 10%: 1000words
Enjoy!

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.

California, a beautiful state, with tons of promise, tons of people, and no money. What’s wrong with this picture? We personally pay $4,000 a year in property taxes. I have a friend who just bought her home a year or so ago and they pay $12,000 in property taxes. We pay a ton in income tax, and 9.25% in sales tax.

Why am I bringing this up? I’m angry. Really angry. Seething might even be a good word for it.

Last night, our school district made a brilliant (please note my sarcasm) decision to keep team sports and ELIMINATE 80 teachers. HELLO? What is the purpose of high school? It is NOT to raise athletes. It is to prepare our youth for the future. Explain to me how that will happen with larger class sizes, fewer teachers, and keeping team sports. Rah rah. Go sports. Don’t get me wrong, I was a varsity swimmer for 3 years in high school. I know and well understand sports. But, give me a break. Josh is in a summer school class that has FIFTY students. Can you please explain to me how a teacher can *teach* English to 50 students? I didn’t think you could.

I’m so frustrated. We live in a decent area and our high school is decent. Not great, but not bad either. (Supposedly.) Having said that, I recently learned that of 550 seniors, more than 100 did NOT graduate this year. What’s wrong with this picture?

You know what’s wrong with this picture? We’re not teaching the way kids learn. Steven keeps telling me that our educational system is archaic. At first, I just rolled my eyes at him, but now, really opening my eyes and looking at everything, and watching how my own son “lives”, I think Steven is right. When I was in high school, there were lots of electives, lots of options, small classes, and the teachers taught. Not only did they teach, but, if you were like me, and you were completely bored out of your skull, they found ways to engage you and help you grow to your potential. Now, teachers teach to the lowest level of the class. Last year, Josh went to summer school and they discussed verbs. Verbs. That’s ALL they did for THREE weeks. Can you even imagine? I can’t!

Students of today literally have the world at their fingertips. The internet has brought globalization not only to businesses but also to education. Yet it is almost completely untapped. Maybe it’s time to look at how we teach our kids and WHAT we teach them, and explore a whole new world of learning. Maybe it’s time to re-examine the subjects and re-examine the delivery methods. Is it perhaps time to admit that shoving kids into big schools and having them stagnate, sitting in rooms with underpaid, intelligent teachers who are not motivated because they are worried about losing their jobs is not working? In May, there was a special election. The initiatives, which would have cost taxpayers even more, lost. Josh came home from school a couple of days after the election and announced that all they were doing in all of his classes was watching movies. Huh? Wait. You mean, instead of doing school work you are watching movies? “Yes, Mom. The teachers are tired of trying to get everyone to behave and we’re watching movies. I hate school.”

How can you hate school? School is an opportunity to learn all about the world of math, literature, history…. oh wait, when and how will you use this in the rest of your life. Um, yea. Um, let me think. Geometry…. er, I use it when I quilt. But, I don’t actually DO the geometry, that’s why I have a computer.  Hmmmm.

The more I think about it, the more I really believe that home schooling and even unschooling are a far more viable alternative for our children than traditional education. The system is broken. It is time to develop a new, brighter, better way to teach our youth. Think about this for a minute. In 40 years, we will be senior citizens (ok, sooner than that, I know, I’m just throwing out a number!). Our kids of today will be in charge of the world. How’s that image working for you? Liking what you see? I don’t know that I so much do!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for education. Everyone has the right and deserves a good education. But, maybe our system needs to be completely trashed and we should start over. California has something called “Virtual Academy”. It looks like a great program. It’s all online, and offers tons of classes. Proponents say that the children learn more and learn better. Opponents say that there is a lack of socialization. Hmmm. Perhaps we need to take off our blinders and involve our kids in other activities that provide socialization. Did you know that you’re sending your child to school for socialization? I always got in trouble for socializing in school! I didn’t know that was the PURPOSE! How come no one ever told me that! I’d have gotten an A in that too!

With all the money we are paying in taxes, one would think we could figure out a way to educate our children. Instead, we’re doing things that, to be honest, don’t matter to me. I want someone to wake up and smell the coffee. Get a grip and help build our future. Stop hiding your head in the sand and saying “oh no, we need to save sports” and instead say “oh no, we need to save OUR FUTURE!” Won’t it be a proud day when the state and country are run by athletes? Hmmmm, unless it is Phil Jackson, no! Oh wait, he’s a coach. Never mind.

Okay, well, I’m sort of done with my tirade, for now, but I haven’t found a solution. We’re looking into a charter high school for this Fall, for Josh, to get him some semblance of a real education and smaller classes, but for now, Virtual Acadeny is not for us. We both work so we aren’t sure how you supervise a kid while you’re working. Hmmm. I don’t know what the answer is, to be honest, but what we’re doing now isn’t working. The kids are failing and falling through the educational cracks. We need to come up with a solution and we need to do it fast. Here in Califorinia at least, our government is NOT working to raise children who will be able to run this state (and our country). We’re raising kids who have street skills, learned in school, and know how to survive. What the heck is that all about?

-Take care and have a great weekend.

I’m pleased to announce that I got my grade in Web Design and received an A. Yea! I’ve got a 4.0 on this great path I’ve chosen for a Graphic Design Certificate. It’s kind of funny. I still don’t feel like I’m a real graphic designer, but after a year, there are things I look at where I think “hmmm, I would have done this differently to bring the eye over there….” so I guess I’m learning more and more. I’ve also noticed that I approach my scrapbooking a bit differently as well, and am even more aware of page layout than I was previously.

So, the last project in the web design class was a flash site. I’ll have to see if I can get Steven to help me get it up here on my blog, but for now, here’s a screen capture to tease you with. I decided that I wanted a fun site instead of a serious one. I chose the Pharmacy font, because I could, and I decided on an all blue site. (I didn’t go pink because that was just TOO fun. LOL) If it was “active” you would be able to click on the buttons and hear a sound, as well as go to another page! It was pretty cool!

I also did a web banner ad in Flash. Although you saw the ad in another post, it did not include sound like it does now. It was also cool.

In Adobe Illustrator class, we had a real Final! Worth 165 points, you were supposed to create an image using at least 6 layers, plus scads of other techniques, shapes, and tools. It was really challenging! I think I spent more than 60 hours working on and reworking my design before I came up with this. Although it isn’t perfect, I knew what I wanted, and this is really very close to my plan, so I’m happy!

It is supposed to be a glimpse at the wall of the Grandma’s room. See all the old fashioned stuff? The drawing has 13 base layers and too many sub layers to count. I really worked hard on it. I drew all those little flowers on the wall paper, and I hand drew the roses in the vase, etc. Nothing is “out of the box” I drew all of it! I really love the curtains and how they almost look like texture. I really did have a lot more fun in this class than I ever expected to. I knew I needed to learn more about AI so I took it, but I never expected to learn quite so much. I know there is a lot more I could learn, but I’m pleased for now.

For the summer, I had planned to not take anything, but my friend Orna, who has been in at least one class with me every quarter since I started this journey, convinced me to take Flash, so that’s what we’re taking. I think it’s going to be a wild ride, but I’m sure we’ll learn a great deal and that it will be fun! I don’t know what I want to take for Fall, but I guess I’m supposed to decide that fairly soon too! I bet Orna has some evil class picked out already. LOL!

In other news, I’m waiting to receive a product that I’m supposed to review. Once I have it, I’ll be introducing my new product review site! Hang in there and wait for it, because there will be a GIVEAWAY!!!! as part of the review! See you soon!

-Here’s hoping all is well with you and yours and that you are enjoying a peacful and fun summer!

This morning, Josh and I headed to the Santa Clara American Legion hall, where we spent 3 hours helping to pack up 200 boxes of socks, personal hygiene items, and more for our troops overseas. It was an exhilarating but humbling experience.

At one point, we were seated at a table sorting groups of 20 qtips to be sent in a box. From a huge container, each soldier gets 20. What could you do with 20 qtips? Personally, qtips have always been something that was highly disposable, but now I guess I’ll look at them a bit differently.

Sorting qtips isn’t exactly difficult, so there were two young boys, a 4th grader and a 6th grader, who sat with us. The 6th grader was extremely personable and talkative. He was the cutest blonde kid. He explained to Josh and  I that his brother was 20 and was in Iraq and due to come home in August. He was quiet about it, but admitted he’d be happy when his brother was home. He explained that his brother is a weapons specialist, and rattled off about 5 three letter acronyms that I was completely baffled by. Josh tried to quietly explain what they were, and the little guy said “Gosh, every boy knows what those are.” I think it wasn RPG. Whatever. It was touching to hear his pride when talking about his brother. While he was talking, I quietly heard, from the younger boy, “My brother is 19 and he is in Iraq too.” He didn’t know when his brother was coming home, and had a hard time sorting and bagging up qtips, but he was determined to help and do whatever he could. It was very humbling, again.

As we were leaving, they were loading people’s trucks with the boxes. I noticed that the older blonde boy was right in the thick of it, and actually loaded an entire pickup bed of boxes. Impressive young man.

As for us? Yea, I felt old. I’m so tired right now. Standing and sorting for 2 1/2 hours and then shlepping boxes and putting heavy chairs back at the tables where they belonged was hard work. Josh is taking a nap, he must have personally moved 100 boxes in some manner or another, and he put more of the chairs back in place than any other person in the place. I was proud to be his Mom.

We’re looking forward to Fall, when they will do this whole effort again, for more soldiers. Between now and then, Josh and I plan to go shopping for sample size containers of shaving cream, Off bug spray, and eye glass cleaner, because those were just a few of the things that they were running really low on.

Well, I’m off to work on my final for Adobe Illustrator class, and also my last (I hope) Web Design class assignment, which has me stuck. Hopefully I’ll finish it up soon.

-God bless you and yours, and of course, God bless our troops. May they come home soon and safe.

I am so enjoying Adobe Illustrator class. Truly. I have learned way more about the tools than I thought I would, and I’m continually surprised at my successes. Last week, we had an exercise on blending. When I sat down to do it, I thought, “um, yea, sure, as if I could do that.” But, I did the lesson and by the end, I kind of could do it. Then, when I sat down to do the “extra” projects that are required, I had no problems at all. I flew along. Here’s my results:

The instructor has already been by and looked at it. She left the following comment, which I swear I will treasure forever! LOL

“September,
Your work is wonderful! the cherries are nicely rendered, and the blends are very colorful and dynamic as visual objects.
Your triangle to star blends are clever – they have a beginning and an end, like a pencil. Nice. ”

Go me!

In web design class we are working with Flash animation. Holy cow. While it isn’t the most difficult thing to do, it is intensive in the time it takes to make things happen, which I find a bit annoying. (I know, surprising, right?) I’ve created a couple of flash animations. This is the banner ad. It came out pretty cool.

gidheaderad

Once you view the animation, you need to click your browser’s back button to leave a comment, or else you’ll be gone and on your own!

I can’t share the other animation, as it is still in progress, more another day.

The other day, I was surfing the web looking for some lessons on gradients and stumbled on the most amazing tutorial for drawing a diamond. I did it, with not too much trouble. Here is my result. I think it’s gorgeous!!-take care and have a good week.

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.

There is so much going on in all parts of my life right now that I can barely breathe. Having said that, I know that I need to keep my blog going and keep sharing all my exciting projects from class!

I just finished a blog banner ad. You can see it, for a limited time, here. I’ll have to find a home for it after the end of the semester. This was really fun! It was for the web design class, and it took 2 classes to accomplish, but oh my gosh, I think it’s pretty sweet! This is a screen capture of it, but the link actually MOVES!

So in Illustrator class, we’ve been doing some cool stuff too. Our latest lesson was on layers. I’ve been using Photoshop and other Adobe products for a while, so layers aren’t really new for me, but this was fun to do, because I used several different tools in Illustrator and had to add a “mask” to part of what I created as well. Got a nice compliment from the instructor, so that’s good.

Not much else to share. The garden is crazy big. I don’t know what I was thinking. It is literally bulging at the seams. LOL I planted 6 tomatoes, 4 squashes, a cucumber, and 4 pepper plants in an 8 foot by 4 foot area. It is going to be fun! I have my first tomato growing, and several squash. I am not so sure what the pepper plants are up to, I can’t see them! Oh and there’s a cantaloupe vine in there somewhere too!

Anyhow, that’s all for now. Have a great day.

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!

I’m doing great with classes, and loving them, but they are keeping me SO busy!

The AI class has been really interesting and exciting. I’m happy to say that the instructor is not moving at a breakneck speed, so there is usually time to catch up and do things over a few times so I know what I’m doing. The first drawing, the apple, is really a tracing. It was from the Classroom in a book, and we had to follow specific steps. This one, unlike the previous lesson, I managed in one try! Go me. Actually, it was mostly tracking, but there were some things that we changed, and some that we added, so I should really give myself full credit for the whole thing! It was a lot of fun, and I think I learned a lot.

So, for our “personal project” for this lesson, we had to draw a simple household object. After my week last week, which I am not posting about here, but email me off list and I’d be happy to share (it all started with the cat, and then went on… not fun)… I decided to draw a margarita glass that we have. I love how it came out. Seriously. I think it looks almost exactly just about like our glasses! I guess I should have taken a photo of the actual glass to share with you, so you could see.

Since I had so much fun with that one, I decided to do a second one. This time I selected a champagne flute to celebrate my success with the first drawings. In reality, I think it came out looking more like a wine glass than a champagne flute, but that’s okay, it is still my original illustration and I’m thrilled with it!

In my web design class, we are building an actual website! I hope to be able to share it very soon. Mine is coming out SO cool! I’ve learned to create web page designs in Fireworks and then move over to Dreamweaver to do the actual website. It is not a difficult process, and simplifies many of the things that I have always found so scary. I’m happy to have finally “broken the code” to the whole thing, and really looking forward to creating my own site for this blog, instead of using ones created by other people. Yea!

Not much else going on. Work is just crazy busy, with so many projects, so little time. I’m thankful that I’m so busy, but my head is reeling most of the time, making it hard to write at times.

Two Saturdays this month, I’ll be in all day classes taking Adobe InDesign. I’m looking forward to those as I think they will help with the last class that I need to take for my design certificate. I’m still trying to talk myself into taking a summer class. I’d really like to have a break and not be constantly studying, but I’ve built up so much great momentum that I don’t want to break that.

I’ve gone back to the gym a few times a week, as well, and that’s helping to keep me centered a bit.

So yea, life is boring. LOL Nothing going on. Just the same stuff day in and day out. Not much time for anything besides school and work. With the way things are in the world right now, it seems best to focus on the things that need focused on, such as strengthening my skillset, even if it means taking up my spare time, and keeping Steven and Josh at the top of my priority list.

I have been doing a bit of scrapbooking, but not for a couple of weeks, with all of our excitement last week. I’ll probably not do any this weekend either, but I hope to spend some time scrapping next weekend to make up for it!

-Take care and have a great day. Keep your priorities straight.