Blended Paths

I've been working on this post for almost three days now. Trying to blog from a phone is a stupid plan. I suddenly realized that my phone syncs documents for a reason - so that I can write what I want to and sync the document to my phone, then copy and paste that text to the entry box and post! I guess we'll see how that works for pictures in the future (post to Flickr or some other such linkable site from my phone, then copy and paste the link to a document on my phone and sync and vice versa...).

Things have been getting really tight around here. I decided that the best temporary course of action was to turn of my cable all together (finally removing the Internet) and use my phone for access to the web. It's been working out great (now that I have figured out this document syncing thing and started utilizing it) for text. Uploading photos to the website is basically impossible, but as I said, it's only temporary. My cable company has agreed to reinstate my Internet service at no cost to me because I have my own equipment (modem and router) and all they'll have to do is flip a switch (so to speak) from their offices. That's pretty cool, I think.

Jesse has been doing a lot of new (and strange) things lately. He's taken to trying to put on his own shoes. He doesn't wear shoes very often, but when he needs to have them on he'd prefer to put them on himself. He's always been that way about things once he's figured them out. He hasn't quite gotten the hang of putting on shoes but at least he's showing signs that he knows what they are and where they go, even if he can't get his foot into them on his own. He's also become much easier to communicate with in recent weeks. He's really great about pointing things out. If he wants something in particular, he's discovered that pointing and grunting gets it to him much faster than random whining or crying (since neither of those two things tells me much about what he actually wants). He RUNS to the bathroom if we ask him if he's ready for his bath, and he is climbing like a monkey. He's such a smart little creature, even though he can't yet speak our language. He makes up for it with funny and quirky and very obvious Jesse-isms.

I hope to put together a video today since I haven't done one in a while, but, again, getting from the computer to the phone to the Internet could prove difficult. I won't know until I give it a shot, though! If it proves to be beyond my range of patience, I will just go to a friend's house, or to my parents', and borrow Internet long enough to upload it directly from my computer!

Project 365 uploads have been falling behind along with blogs and other posts. I hate trying to type all the info in from my phone! But, that's an unavoidable situation - it's more work to create a descriptive document with tags and the like and then copy and paste the different sections to the different boxes, so I'll just have to deal with that a few at a time, I guess. The good news about Project 365 is that I always have my picture for any given day (well, 99% of the time) so at least I'm not just missing 20 or so photos!

Hope to get things squared away soon and be able to post loads of new photos!!

Hey y'all... If you've been to BlendedPaths in the past week, you've seen the changes (the MAJOR changes). If you haven't, you should take a peek! Here's an update about what I've done with the site and what's soon to come, as well as an update on me!

BlendedPaths has undergone a serious transformation! I spent the majority of the day last Sunday redesigning the site and I have added quite a few photos. The most exciting news for BlendedPaths, though, has GOT to be the new mobile site launching! That's right - there is now a mobile version of the site that works wonderfully on smart phone and other Internet capable mobile devices. I've had a number of people tell me that the mobile version of BlendedPaths loads images much faster than many sites they frequent, so that was quite a compliment to me and to the developers of the tools I used to create this new mobile version. You can visit the developers by going to the link provided at the bottom of the page when viewing the mobile version of the site if you are intersted in something similar for your own website or if you're just curious about the tools available.

Sadly, I had to take the forum offline for an undetermined amount of time. I wanted to rework the forum, from removing categories that aren't used to adding new and more interesting ones, as well as changing permissions for uploading media in forum posts along with comments/text, and as I began to work on these changes I realized that there was NO quick way to accomplish my goal and that the best thing to do was to take the forum offline for the duration of this rebuilding process and hope you guys would still be around (the few of you who are active, LOL) when I put it back online. I hope to have this task accomplished within the next week, but, as things stand at the moment, I'm not sure if that is possible so I've extended my own goal to the end of the month.

That's pretty much all there is to say about the site at the moment (from my end, your comments are welcomed!!), so now on to a few updates about the life and times of...me (and how you can look forward to these changes bringing goodies to you via BlendedPaths, of course!). What's this exciting news, you ask? Well...drum roll..........

I finally managed to get my hands on an iPhone 4! It was purely luck...or something closely related to luck...that this happened. Good for me, good for Jeremy, perhaps not so great for our friend JR, who forked over more than half the money for the phone as a sort of loan. Jeremy's phone basially died - it was probably more the battery than anything else but even if that was ALL that was wrong with the thing, it would have cost around $100 to ship it to Apple, have the battery replaced, and ship it back - yeah, you have to actually send the thing in. Or, you can get an appointment at the Apple store nearest you and pay $70 plus the gas it takes you to drive there (for us, a good one hour drive) and they'll do it for you there while you wait. Alas, we were almost certain that the battery wasn't the only issue since the phone was refurbished and had started having issues like freezing up and running slowly within a couple of months after receiving it, so we decided that I would get an iPhone 4 (because I'm so into the photography and the abilities of that phone would serve my iPhone photography fetish well) and my husband would just upgrade to my 32GB 3Gs. It worked out great - now JR and I both have an iPhone 4 and Jeremy is tremendously happy with the 3Gs he was promoted to (he had a 3G originally).

The iPhone 4 is Ah-MAZing. It's super fast, it's super fun, and all my apps work properly again. It has a flash/video lamp and it does some pretty cool and useful things. I haven't been able to really sit down with it and play with the new features (which really are few and far between except for some of the camera related things - it's all down to the iOS, really, which is the same for all models - but I have managed to get myself a couple of new apps (like iMovie for iPhone) and I am truly loving what I am able to do with this thing. I'm really getting into some of the video stuff as well as some new photography things and I'll be sharing some of these tools (as well as tips and tutorial-type posts) about them as soon as I get a chance to play with the apps/phone, make some notes, create some examples and write up a post! Who knows when that will be with my 19 month old who is going on 6 years old (thinks he's grown and can get into whatever he wants!), but it will be as soon as possible for me in my world.

With the new capabilities I've got on this phone (including access to some new apps I've wanted for ages), I've been able to do some really interesting things with video and I've created a site a Vimeo to link with BlendedPaths. You'll find it at BlendedPaths on Vimeo, and for now you'll see a few videos I did after being inspired by the 60 Second Landscapes Challenge over at Chase Jarvis' blog. Look for random updates - never know what I'm going to "film" next! I'm loving it!!

Upates to the iPhoneography page/album and the Project 365 album coming soon!!

I hope everyone out there is doing great and staying well and I hope you're all enjoying the summer (at least, here in the States - for the rest of you, I hope you're enjoying whatever season you're experiencing at this time of the year!)!! Take care!!

Blessings,

Christy

I'm slowly getting things done:

• Jesse's first birthday party invitations
• The contest winner features here at the website (in the works, just not published yet)
• Getting prints out to the winners (having trouble finding the original of one of them but working on it!)
• Getting Jesse's party plan more solidified (a lot of decorating already done LOL)
• Then there's the household stuff - laundry, clean the floors and bathrooms...
• I took a hot bath this morning (thanks to Jeremy watching Jesse) and even shaved my legs for the first time in about 5 days (OMG)

So yeah, things are coming along. I have updated a few things online that I haven't used in a while, and I've uploaded some new pictures of Jesse to his album here. I need to update his page with the latest info, and I need to get those features finished but I'm still debating whether to do temporary pages for them (each one or all of them together) or individual linkable blogs for each one with a link on the front page... I'll get that figured out in the next day or so and get them posted.

In other news, my iPhone is having those same battery drainage issues and it's really beginning to piss me off. But, I don't really have time to worry about it. I don't use it much (lately) so I just check every now and then and plug it up randomly to make sure it has some charge in case someone calls (and I feel like answering, or can - based on what Jesse is doing).

Alas, it's been a long couple of weeks - had an enjoyable weekend but didn't really take any photos. I didn't take my big camera to the event I managed to get out to, so I didn't really get any good pictures as far as the street thing I was kind of going for. Plus, I was so busy trying not to freak out that it wouldn't have mattered. But, at least I've gotten out a bit more and I hope that it helps me continue to have an easier time going out. I am doing OK with Jeremy so maybe soon I will be able to go and do as I please. Wishful thinking, maybe - but if I don't keep trying to have positive thoughts it's only worse.

I am going to be starting a conditioning and (perhaps) new running routine with Jeremy as my coach so we'll see how that goes. We were supposed to start that today but it's been so crazy and busy. Jesse is finally down for a nap so I'm going to work a bit more on the features stuff and then try to sit down with Jeremy and eat and talk about what I want to get out of him coaching me. Hmmm.....

Hope everyone is well and having a great time and no hardships and hope that our hardships continue to get better with each passing day. /praying

Take care everyone, and look for new updates soon!

Wow.I am really surprised at the interest that's grown in my website due to thebaby photo contest I'm holding over at my Facebook fan page. I've had a fewpeople sign up here, and I say, "thank you for your interest!" OK,granted some of the new sign-ups are trying to sell something to do withadvertising and such, but still. /smirk and laugh

TodayI am determined to update several things here at Blended Paths. The first is -wait for it! - adding some new photography! The second is adding a new video folderfor my new YouTube channel (which, surprise surprise, is called BlendedPaths)and sharing with you in this blog what that channel is about. The third isobviously the front page and adding info about the baby photo contest, mostimportantly, to the front page.

As for now, I am in a writing mood. I have been having these strange dreamslately. Three nights ago, I dreamed about Sarah Palin. I was campaigning withher (WITH, not for - how odd, on so many levels) and was at a mic proclaimingmy love for my friends and my gratitude for them and their being who they areand supporting me. Then, night before last, I dreamed about Kate Gosselin(again). The first time it was more about her brood of kiddies - somethingabout a sunglasses shop and them surrounding me around a rack of sunglasses,and my telling them not to touch and Kate coming around and saying, "Thankyou." I stood there with my jaw on the floor. The dream night before lastwas more...I wouldn't think "intimate" would be a word that properlyportrays it, but I can't think of another word at this early hour so I'll useit. The two of us spent some time at her home in Pennsylvania and I gave her myopinions about her choices about botoxing her face and how beautiful she usedto be but she was letting this fame thing and strive for physical perfectionruin what was nearly perfect just a few weeks ago. She was unhappy and kickedme out. Whatever. Then LAST night, I dreamed that I got back in the loop withmy ex-fiancé and his family, some very...let's just say "well-off"folks, and was about to marry him again. The difference was that I was alreadymarried to Jeremy. I have no idea. I woke up thinking, "Thank God I didn'tmarry that guy." That's who he is to me at this point - "thatguy." That was one high school sweethearts type situation that didn't workout, being that he dumped me on Valentine's Day of his senior year (I'd alreadygraduated, the year before). But, whatever - my life is good the way it is. Iwould only change that our house isn't built yet.

So,moving on - about the YouTube channel! I created the channel BlendedPaths forone purpose - to share slideshow type videos of photography, and to do screencapture videos with voiceovers to server as tutorials for using Photoshop andother programs for different things. Some of the recent videos are about how touse iMovie and Quicktime in Mac (which are standard software on a Mac) to doscreen captures and voiceovers - basically, how I actually create the tutorialvideos. I will soon be creating a video album here to share these videos viaBlended Paths so that you don't have to go to YouTube to actually view them.

Wow- I just looked up and it's daylight! Guess I better get busy uploading photosand getting those videos on this site, but the first thing I have to do isupdate the front page! Have a great Sunday!

...knocks me off my feet. Seriously! I really do wish I'd waited and gotten the 15 inch model now that I've tried working with photos on this 13 inch, but I'm still incredibly happy with it. That's because I have a plan. I always have a plan, and a good plan helper.

As you may remember, Jeremy and I are going to be building a house soon (I will it!). And, we've discussed the options and since I love the portability of the 13 inch, especially with loving to sit on the porch in the mornings with my coffee and write, we've devised an evil plan to fix the photo editing problem. Right now, I have a 15" Dell monitor, standard, of course - not widescreen, which I've gotten used so I hate the standard one, and instead of spending $40 for an adapter for a VGA monitor that will obviously loose the amazing quality of what I'm seeing on this screen, we're going to wait until our house it built and we move and we save about $500 more bucks (which is totally doable in a year - come on!) and get a Mac monitor, maybe even 17"! Our house plan has a loft upstairs that will be used as office space, and I can plug in up there to work on photography things, and still have the best of both worlds.

I am considering, however, ordering the HDMI adapter for the MacBook for connecting to the TV for now. How can you beat...what? 42" at minimum? I don't even know how big the thing is - it's huge, but looks smaller in that big living room. LOL We do netflix and that would be awesome (it sucks through the Wii, really - not a huge selection compared to the actual website), and you can't beat editing pictures from a huge screen like that. The only downside to that is the necessity of getting a wireless keyboard (possibly with the built in trackball), and I don't know the expense of that. Merry Christmas anyone?

Alas, I will do a blog (maybe even a vlog, wow!) reviewing my experience with this amazing machine in a few days, after I've had more practice with it and learned more awesome things to share. I've been a hardcore PC for going on 12 years, so the move has been strange but not totally impossible or difficult.

I can tell you this - vlogging is back in the mix because the freaking webcam actually keeps up the sync between your mouth and your words. It's not like a Japanese ninja flick - it totally works. Since it's such a load of crap trying to transfer from our mini DVD camera, it's just perfect. Great sound, great graphics, all in sync. If I can get myself back to that comfort level with talking to my computer that I had when I was doing pregnancy vlogs, watch out! I might be posting so many random things I'll make everyone bored. LOL

Have a great Monday. For that matter, have a great week!

I've blogged about Shoemaker's cave before, telling the few stories about why it's named that, but I don't really remember when or where those links are so I'll just leave it to you to make up a story of your own about why it's called that. You know how it is in small towns - things get the (seemingly) most random names, and everybody has their version of why something was named the way it was.

Anyway - we frequent Coosa Wildlife Management Area (or reserve), well, frequently. Bwahaha (I'm tired, leave my lack of words alone!)! I love going there, and this area is one of my favorite places. I lugged along with me today my SLR and took some crazy shots - the lighting was very harsh, as it seems to be a lot lately, but I really liked some of the shots I got and wanted to share them. Here's to hoping you enjoy them! /drinks a little water

Upon our arrival and getting down to the water, this was the view looking upward to the sky.



Me being the detail lover that I am, I took this kind of strange close up shot of tree-ness.



This is the big rock at Shoemaker's cave. It's really beautifully sculpted by nature and the waters...



Speaking of the waters at Shoemaker's cave, here's a view...



There were a ton of beautifully colored leaves randomly floating down the creek today - many more than last weekend. Seems fall has fallen upon us. I really love the richness of colors in the turning leaves.



The creek has it's fair share of moss on the rocks - sometimes it's slippery but it feels really nice on your bare feet, so soft and comforting somehow. I'm not sure how to explain the way it feels.



This little area reminded me of some shots from a movie we watched last night about the Vietnam war. It was kind of eerie. The only thing that's really different is the abundance of rocks because of the low water.



I stumbled across a group of butterflies during my little photowalk along the banks of the creek. I walked out onto a large rock to position myself to take some photos. They were on a moss covered rock in the middle of the creek, just congregating there, flitting about and communicating, and eating here and there.



They were really beautiful to see - I haven't seen very many butterflies this summer. I love butterflies.



This one posed for me for the longest time, never flying away. I took more than 30 shots of him alone!



Jeremy pointed out to me that there were Catawba worms on a tree where I had been (after I'd gotten back from my stroll, during which he'd stayed with Jesse). Before we left, I walked all the way back up the creek to try to get some pictures of them. This guy was running around all over the place. I don't know what he was doing or what his problem was, but I can assure you that it had nothing to do with me. He was hard at work on something, but it shouldn't have been cocoon building at this point. I'd think that would come a bit later. Maybe not - maybe he was ahead of the others, who, as you'll see below, were busy doing NOTHING except chilling out and eating leaves. They were calm. He must have had anxiety like me.



As I mentioned above, the other worms on were just hanging out. Literally, in some cases. I got a lot of photos of different ones - all of them seemed to have different designs or shapes on them, and even different shades of yellow. But, I won't bore you with more of them - mostly because I got tired of editing and this was the last guy I edited. I'll be posting these and more pictures from today's outing in albums at Blended Paths so be sure to check it out in the next few days if you'd like to see more of the butterflies, Catawba worms, or scenery from Shoemaker's cave. As soon as I've edited more, I'll be uploading them!

I hope you all had a great weekend! Mine was good. I spent hardly any time with my new MacBook pro, and with ease, I must say. I enjoyed my time with my family. But, I was glad to get to it this afternoon and get these pictures up and share them - I love to think others will enjoy them and see the beauty I've seen!

These photos are not actually of the little ceremony we had for Jesse; depending on what Jeremy and I agree on about sharing video from that,  I may be posting some clips. These photos are just random photos from the time we spent at the creek after his little dedication. A couple were taken by JR, and I watermarked them with copyrights to him. We went to a place called "Shoemaker's Cave," which has a story behind it but no one knows why it's really called that, so I won't go into it. Alas, it's just a great little beachy section of Weogufka creek on Coosa Wildlife Management Area, a place we frequent often (and have for years - practically a fourth of our entire marriage has been spent there in the wild LOL).

It was a really wonderful day - when we got home we grilled jalapeno burgers and I made homemade bacon cheese fries, like you'd get at Wings restaurant. I had some wine and we watched some football - had a really great time. I didn't take any photos of anything after we got home (ooops) but wanted to share these from our outing to the woods/creek.

It was cool when we left home but shortly after the dedication part of this outing, it was so warm that we took Jesse out of his jeans. We kept him in the shade the majority of the time because I forgot sunscreen.



He had a really great time just chilling out in his stroller and observing all the nature and activity around him.



At one point, he gave us a surprise and we had to wash him of in the creek. Don't worry - I used wipes to clean him, as well - we just thought this was so funny! He LOVED being in the water and wanted to play there, but as I mentioned, I had forgotten sunscreen for him and so he ended up perfectly content having a bottle and chilling out in the shade and watching all that was going on around him. The child loves to be outdoors, which is awesome.



After the diaper surprise, I got to take some photos. I used my Canon PowerShot SD780 IS this time. The sun was so bright and it was getting so late in the day that most of my pictures (and even JR's) were really kind of poor in quality. Oh well - sometimes the quality isn't the most important thing.



I thought this was pretty - a nice piece of freshwater driftwood. There was a lot of it around, as the creek was really low compared to it's usual status. We haven't had much rain lately, but that turned out to be good this day.



I ventured into the water, mainly to attempt to get to the other side and climb on some rocks that we can very rarely get to because of the usual depth of the water, but I was sidetracked by this leaf hanging out in the water. It was bright and pretty and grabbed my attention. I think I even said to Jeremy, who was in front of me, "wait up - this is a picture." LOL And, I took the picture. I can't believe fall is coming on already! I'm so glad - I love fall.



JR took this picture of Jeremy and I on the other side of the creek, climbing on the rocks. I wanted to take a picture of the moss on the rocks (which you'll see below), but could never get a really good one because of the lighting. I like this picture because it shows Jeremy's true superhero colors. He is, as you can see, SpiderMan at heart. He likes to climb things. I hope Jesse doesn't like it as much - at least not until he's older, but...you know how that sort of thing goes. He'll be climbing on everything in no time and, no doubt, giving me a heart attack.



This was the best picture I got of the moss on the rocks, and it's mediocre because it doesn't show the true color or level of detail I wanted to share. But, it will do - it was just really cool. It was really fun to feel it - so soft....



And, finally, a really sunned-out shot of the creek from where I was standing on the rocks. Gotta love that stark, mid-day lighting when you're on the side of a mountain and really don't have the ability to mess with the white balance or exposure of your point and shoot (which is more difficult to get to, and less "automatic hand/brain function", than your SLR). Oh well. I think it's a pretty good representation of the beauty that was around us.

As I mentioned, maybe I will put up some clips of why were there in the first place (aside from to enjoy ourselves). It may be only in Jesse's 11 month video montage and may not have sound, but I do eventually want to share with you why we went, what we said, and what it meant to us. I guess it's best to leave it at this, and say that that's a blog for another day. Hope you all had a great Labor Day - safe, enjoyable, and FUN!

Recently, I have had a couple of people bring to my attention that others have brought to THEIR attention that blogging is a good way to promote photography, and even yourself, as a commodity. This is true! The general question is: how do I blog, where do I start, what do I do. Well, as I said, that's pretty general. So I hope with this post to give some options, tips, and suggestions from personal experiences to help at least get those people started with blogging.

First of all, it's important to note that there are MANY blogging tools available, and each one has pros and cons when it comes to abilities and difficulty levels. Some are fairly straightforward; some require some knowledge of HTML in order to make your blog look and feel the way you'd prefer (some of which is very simple, like the alignment tags and such).

If you know nothing about HTML, you can visit W3Schools.com for awesome tutorials on lots of things language related - from HTML (which is what I have linked) to CSS and on.  Being able to read, even only somewhat understand, and copy and paste works wonders - and the more you do this, the more you learn the language and can use it to build a blog (even via a blog service) the way you want. HTML is probably the easiest language ever created and it is totally web-involved. I will try to do a post with basic HMTL information soon.

As far as blog services, as I mentioned, there are many free ones - some of them have options for paid accounts that basically eliminate ads on your blog page and allow you more opportunity to use themes or layouts for your blog that you don't have to create - this relieves the issue of having to have extreme knowledge of HTML for design purposes. Following is a list of blog services that I have used and found to be really good.

The best blog services for beginner bloggers, especially those wanting to share photography, are Blogger and Xanga (again, in my experience). While there are MANY options to choose from in the list of blog services, I have found these two services the most straightforward and the most user friendly.

As with any self-taught endeavor, whether it is photography or blogging or website design or cooking or crafts like crocheting or knitting, reading and practice are the key. You learn as you go, so the first suggestion I have is to be patient with yourself. The second suggestion I have is to know what you want to get out of your blogging experience. If you simply want to share photos with captions or stories, Blogger is great as a starting point. I like Xanga because it is more community based, and as you make friends and your blog gets out there more, my experience has been that Xanga offers more feedback than Blogger; however, this is not a fact written in stone. With any blog, self-promotion is key. Sharing link-backs for your posts and blog in general via Twitter, Facebook, or other social networking tools is a key to promoting yourself. It's really good to have a Facebook Fan Page devoted to your photography where you share your blog post links. The more of a following you build (which takes time), the more feedback you get, the more suggestions and requests you get, etc.

Here is a full list of blogging services I have tried:

WordPress

Xanga

Blogger

Tumblr

LiveJournal

and, of course, the blog application associated with this website...

Another place that allows you to post "journals" (basically, blogs) is deviantART. deviantART is an art community that allows you to upload your content into a sort of gallery, and also gives you blogging/journaling capabilities. Again, this is a nice option because a) there is a free version, and b) it's a community based system - although, I must be honest and say that recently deviantART has become rather dramatic and filled with less serious artists/photographers and seems to be turning into more of a "Photobucket" type site. The quality there is lacking lately, it seems - BUT, this could be a definite plus for serious andaspiring photographers with more than "snapshots" to share. My issue, and what drove me away from deviantART, is the overhead involved in keeping up with the site. It's almost like a full time job to keep yourself in the loop and keep yourself promoted there. This service also allows print services, but they are rather expensive and the artist makes very little commission from sales of their art. Things have changed a lot with this service, and I am not currently aware of what the free accounts offer...

Alas, regardless of what service or community you choose, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when making this choice: how much time do you have or are you willing to put into the process? Do you want to be a part of acommunity that requires a lot of time (with a pro of connecting to other aspiring photographers and a con of a serious time issue), or do you simply want a private blog (like the ones in the list above) to share your work and have little overhead as far as time? The learning curve is much less steep with some of the community sites because of the tools they offer for sharing your work/blogging your work, but the overhead in maintaining those type of sites is MUCH steeper.

Here is a list of such community sites:

deviantART

PictureSocial

RedBubble

Artician

Again, I have only listed communities/sites I have used or tried personally. Of these, I would have to say the PictureSocial is the most professional true "community" site, but RedBubble is an excellent source and seems to have the least overhead involved. Also, selling your art through RedBubble is much more efficient and leaves you more room for profit than deviantART. I'm not certain that Artician or PictureSocial even have (at this point) print services.

Going back to blogging alone, my suggestion for a beginning blogger is Blogger. This service offers you the most leeway for personal design and setup of the blog. Its generally a one page/site blog with each entry linked. Uploading and sharing images in posts is fairly easy. There is little or no overhead with Blogger. THIS LINK is a review of the current Blogger setup/tools and may give you an idea of what others think about the site. Blogger is simply more basic and straightforward, in my opinion.

My best advice about this topic is to visit these links, read about these blog services and what they offer, how they work, the cost (again, as far as I know, all of them offer free basic services), and evaluate what you're able to put into learning and using them.

If you have a request for a more detailed tutorial about any of these services, please let me know and I will be happy to try to do a post to help you. In fact, I can also start a forum section for blogging and different sites, based on your input!

Coming soon: A general HTML tutorial (HTML knowledge is not always NECESSARY but good to have in order to make your blog what you want it to be - and it's fairly simple to get the hang of!).

Busy.

Married.

Tired.

Lonely.

In need of nicotine.

Anxiously awaiting packages.

Worried about debt settlement.

Hungry.

Intrigued.

Any of these (or numerous other) things could describe my current status. I'm not sure which one to choose as a current status for Facebook or Twitter...not that it matters, really - who really cares what the status of another person is at any given moment? Do I really think anyone reads my random current life status and goes, "Oh wow - poor thing, wish I could help her get some of that stuff done so she wouldn't be so busy." "Aww, darn. She's already taken," or better yet, "She caught a man?" "I hope she gets to have a nap since she's tired." "I hope she finds someone to talk to so she won't be lonely anymore." "Hope she gets a chance to have a cigarette, although she really should quit for her health..." "Wonder what she's ordered and when it's supposed to arrive?" "I hope she wins the lottery so she can stop worrying about her debts." "Awww, I'd fix her a sandwich if I was there." "Wonder what has her intrigued?"

Really? No - people do not think these things. When people read these sort of status updates, they simply think something totally random that relates to themselves, like, "SHE needs a cigarette, phssshshhh, I'm the one with the mountain of debt. Why is she ordering things if she's worried about debt, anyway? And if the moron is hungry, why doesn't she just eat?"

I mean, be honest - don't you ever read someone's status update and get kind of pissed off because it's so trivial? I do - and usually they're my own status updates.

Alas, I have uploaded a few new shots to the Miscellaneous album and the General Nature album. Check them out - hope you enjoy them. And, hope you're status is more pleasant than most I've read today, including my own. LOL  Have a great day!