More Business of Art Business

Here are some examples of business card designs, or just backgrounds, that I've considered and discarded.







Thanks to my good friends Dona Iona Drozda and Kathleen Krucoff, along with important info from R. Garriott, I have once again changed my mind about the business card thing. And no, I'm not being sarcastic; this is a good thing.

Dona and Kathleen gave me wonderful advice, including that I should check out R. Garriott's post about having business cards printed (link above), and the VERY convincing reasons not to do them yourself. Two reasons in particular stood out in my mind: 1)frustration due to poor print quality, images not lining up with the cards, and PAPER JAMS, and 2)it actually costs more to print them yourself. The cost thing is self-explanatory, but frustration due to technological problems drives me CRAZY! Here is the expression on my face when I have computer problems of any kind:

Obviously, this is not my face; it's a picture of my son Colin's girlfriend from a really funny "emotions-of-the-day" refrigerator magnet they made (sorry, Lindsey!).

So, I'm off to do a different design, and have it printed.

Quite Peculiar

Well, I don't know if the computer gods just hate me or what. The virus my computer had before was apparently hiding somewhere and moving around and it came back with a vengence. I had to take it to professionals, who told me that 80% of their business was a result of this particular virus. They had to wipe the hard drive down to factory specs, then all the programs had to be reinstalled, etc., etc., etc. All this took about 2 weeks.

Then, what's even more bizarre, to add insult to injury, I could not get into my blogger account! When I tried to sign in, I got the message that my username is invalid. I got a gmail account recently, and this account is under my other email address. If I sign in using my gmail account, it says I have no blogs; if I try to sign in using my other one, it's invalid. Somehow I was able to get in using a different search engine, but have no idea if this will work in the future. This very well may be my last post! If anyone has ever had this problem, PLEASE let me know what to do.

The photo included in this post was taken by my son, Colin Reusch (it's his own eyeball), and digitally manipulated by me.
Anyway, as John Lennon would say, "Quite peculiar, mama!"

The Suspenseful Tale of a Bipolar Week, or, Snow and Ice and Viruses- Oh My!

Well, the past week has been sort of bipolar, from good to bad, frustration to joy.
First, joy: the beautiful snow, plus a whole week off from school! I took my first real photos with my new camera, and had lots of fun watching the birds. It was great.
Then, frustration: my computer stopped working. It started with a notice from my anti-virus program, so I ran a complete scan. The next morning (last Monday, our first snow day), no internet. Then my battery backup surge protector stopped working, making a horrible screeching noise. Without going into boring details, I spent lots of time on the phone with the manufacturer, who finally decided to send me a new one.
Joy! The problem would be fixed! So I unplugged it from the battery backup and into the wall.
More frustration: I still could not get on the internet. After trying all the fixes my son knew, I called the internet provider. More large chunks of time on the phone later, they decide I need a new modem.
Joy: Another snow day, but we have a 4WD truck, so went and got the new modem.
Frustration: After installing the new modem, I still couldn't get on the internet. The anti-virus program detected 41 viruses. WHAT??!!! That's when I noticed the anti-virus system that kept popping up wasn't the one I had installed. Apparently, it was a virus/spyware thing that was taking over my computer like those creepy alien things in that movie.
I called my son (who had lost electricity due to the ice storm), for about the 10th time. We spent much time trying to get rid of THE THING, but to no avail. ARRRGH!!
Joy: More snow days, so I had time to do some artwork, seeing as how my computer was not working.
Frustration: By about Thursday, The cabin fever set in, yet the roads were still icy. My son thought he could download a program that would get rid of THE THING, and email it to my daughter, who lives down the street from me. She could then put it on a flashdrive and bring it over. The email didn't come through. My daughter had to work. She also had to do homework. She was cranky, and my kids decided that I was addicted to the internet. Ha! They couldn't live without it for ten minutes on a bet.
The cabin fever grew.
Joy: She finally brought it over on Sunday night.
Frustration: It would not install. We kept trying, and it just kept disappearing.
Joy: Just when we were about to give up, it installed. I started the scan, and went to bed.
More joy: Monday morning, it had run for over 5 hours, and seemed to have conquered THE THING. YAAAAAY!!!!
And even more joy: We have another snow day today!


Does anyone know what kind of bird this is? I think he's very cute.





Deep and profound lessons I learned from this experience:
1. Too much of a good thing (i.e. snow days) is not a good thing.
2. Neither is too much of a bad thing.
3. I really, really, really HATE computer viruses!
4. My kids are way smarter than me, as well as kind and patient.
5. Many things look very weird when covered in ice.