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Here’s to hope

2009 was definitely “The Year of the Suck” (personally speaking). I’ve found myself looking forward to the new year in hope of a lot of positive changes coming our way. And I’d have to say that 2010 has had a promising start already. New Year’s Day we visited with friends and family that we haven’t seen in ages. On the 2nd we honored a friend who’s home on leave from Iraq with a LAN party. Yesterday we pretty much vegged and today I’m back at work, but I guess I can’t complain too much about that. I have a job, and know many who are still looking (including my husband).

I’ve spent the last couple months realizing and appreciating the things for which I am truly grateful. I have a husband and daughter who love me. We have a roof over our heads and food on the table. I have wonderful and supportive friends and loved ones. I have a job. I have hope … I hold on to faith that things will work out in the end — even if I can’t see how they will or am desperately afraid that they won’t.

This is the time of year most people make their resolutions, right? I see many things I don’t like about myself or my life that I’d like to change.

The “musts”

The “might actually get done soon”

The “would like’s”

So here’s to a new year, and to hope. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.

Here I go, strutting my stuff

I’ve decided to enter a WordPress theme contest and have been working on this design for a while. I would love love LOVE some constructive criticisms/feedback from any folks willing to spend a few minutes and take a gander:

It’s called Christmas Is Near and it’s a Christmas-inspired theme for WordPress 2.1+ (recommended: 2.3+). It includes a light snowy script by Kurt Grigg. Icons are courtesy of John Marstall (via Icon Buffet).

I’ve tested it in Firefox 2.0.0.11 and IE 6.0. For best results, a screen resolution of 1024×768 is suggested. Let me know if anything looks “off.”

Be honest — What do you think? What should I add? What should I change? How does it look in your browser?

What do you give away?

I was approached by a friend of mine about going in with her for a booth at this upcoming fall’s local art fair. While I’m awaiting more details and the cost, I figured it would be a good opportunity to get some exposure for some of my newer pieces — I have several inked and painted works that I’ve done over the past year (many of them while Jim was in the hospital!). I had even started designing new fliers to hand out with my business cards.

This got me wondering though. Most everyone gives out things like that: a flier or a card of some sort. I’m wondering if I should look into giving something else out? Maybe something useful — a magnet with my info on it, or perhaps some logo pens?

What do you give out when promoting your works?

Website changes

I spent the better part of the weekend working on my sites. I’ve added a lot of “fluff” to this one; a lot of personal stuff … things I’m into, hobbies, charities/causes I support, etc. I’ve added several FanListing buttons — hehe, and have yet to start adding my fave books, movies, anime, or bands!

I’ve started really promoting my site more, so I’ve joined several blog directories. At the exuberant nudgings of a friend, I joined MyBlogLog and have my recent visitors hidden away in the Scales, Visitors & Linkers snipper on the left menu. :mrgreen:

I’ve added my site to a few more WebRings and am looking for other venues (suggestions are most appreciated). I’ve also started promoting my new MySpace profile. I decided to make a new “less personal” profile for the sole purpose of promoting this website, my freelance works, and my artwork. So far, so good.

My next project will be a much-needed bbPress upgrade for Now We’re Cookin’s forums. I’ll have to re-do my template from scratch, which I am NOT looking forward to doing. ;P

Oh well, considering I’ve cleaned nearly everything in the house, I’m finding myself LOOKING for shit to do in between job interviews and reading php manuals.

Question for you ‘Do-it-yourself’ers

Speaking of business card printing — I neglected to mention they’re for website and artwork promotion. It’s nice to have something to hand out.

Has anyone every used one of those DIY kits to print your own cards? Or magnets for that matter? (those look neat!) I was looking on Staples’ website and they have a lot of neat kits for that sort of thing. I’ve always bought from VistaPrint because I get a discount, but I wouldn’t mind trying to do it myself to see if that’d be cheaper … or just a headache not worth bothering with?

Any thoughts? Feedback?

New Wordpress Theme: New Year’s Day

I was thumbing through some of my older stock CDs and ran across an image that I’ve always loved. Whenever I’d see it, for some reason U2’s song “New Year’s Day” would come to mind. This theme is inspired by and named after that song.

I was commissioned to do this piece for someone, but they never got back with me, so I’m offering it as one of my free templates.

The header image has been slightly edited; I gave it a bit more color to better coordinate with the colors used in the rest of the theme. It is widget-ready, but I would not advise using the calendar. (I may come back and fix that in a later version)

(Click the thumbnail for a fullscreen shot)

This is a free theme, and you can download it here.

Enjoy!

New artwork

I’ve added a new piece of artwork to my Deviant Art and gallery sites:

Rebirth

The concept for this piece was inspired by a very dear friend of mine: Mara Alexander. Everyone has a power inside of them, so few have the courage to find and harness it.

Model stock: by bloody-kisses-stock (DeviantArt).

Backgrounds: sillylittleidiot (DeviantArt), peacockmaskstock (DeviantArt) and BloodlessR (stock.xchng).

New theme: I am American

I was feeling a little patriotic this morning and decided to create another look for my site.

The background image courtesy of slonecker at stock.xchng. Coding was the easy part, the rest was all airbrushing the fsck out of that flag! ;P

Email meme

Got this in an email from my friend Teresa, but felt like sharing here because I don’t have access to my personal address book from work, and because I’m a lazybug.

A. Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Billing clerk
2. Waitress
3. Programmer
4. Web Developer

B. Four movies you could watch over and over:
1. Fifth Element
2. F.F. Copola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula
3. Real Genius
4. The Princess Bride

C. Four places you have lived:
1. Mobile, AL
2. Hueytown, AL
3. Warrior, AL
4. Birmingham, AL

D. Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. Animal Cops
2. Myth Busters
3. CSI (the original)
4. Law & Order — original, SVU, and CI

(actually 5, I love Star Trek: OS, NG, and DS9)

E. Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Sacramento, CA
2. Miami, FL
3. Captiva Island, FL (by way of Tampa and Ybor City)
4. Minneapolis, MN

F. Four web sites you visit daily:
1. Mozilla.org
2. Google.com
3. Lunarpages.com
4. Microsloth.org

G. Four of your favorite foods:
1. Tom Kha (Thai coconut soup)
2. Roast beef stew with potatoes
3. Teriyake chicken
4. Anything with potatoes

H. Four places you’d rather be right now:
1. Anywhere but work
2. New Orleans, LA (pre-Katrina)
3. Captiva Island, FL
4. Ireland

I. Four of your favorite things to do:
1. Sing
2. Draw / Design
3. Cook
4. Football

J. Four of your favorite drinks (alcoholic or non….ANYTHING)
1. Sweet Iced Tea (no lemon)
2. Hot Jasmine Tea w/honey
3. Vodka and Coke w/lime
4. Sour Apple Martini

K. Four people who will respond
1. Ben
2. Mara
3. Jeff
4. You?

Upgrade complete

Ok, making this quick because typing one-handed sucks. LOL

Upgrade went well, though I temporarily freaked myself out because our internet dropped in the middle of it.

*Kicks ISP*

I also unveiled the new theme … whadda y’all think?

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