You guys...I am having a mad passionate affair with . Its so easy to just toss images I fall in love with thought out the day on there. So much more efficiant then when I used to just drag them to a desktop folder and forget about them. Some weeks my findings are of course better than others but this week was amazing and it was pretty tough to choose what my favs for. I figured I could get away with one for each day of the week. So here goes...the images I have found this week that I cannot live without:
I've gone back and forth about these posts. I stopped them for awhile because I was trying to post only original content and therefore only photos that I took, but recently I had to go through the back log of posts and realized how much I liked seeing them. So they are returning...enjoy.
Getting ready for a show tonight...we don't set up until 5 so I course had put off getting everything together until this afternoon. I also have put off taking a shower and getting ready until now...which of course meant that the maintenance men came by at 5 minutes before shower time to fix my tub faucet. I had a silent,m internal panic attack and decided to blog while waiting and guess what...they're already done, yay! I'm only 10 minutes behind schedule...so off I go!
p.s. if you're in the Austin area I will be at with the tonight from 7-10!
edited to add: Photo by Marcel Bednarz taken in Bonn, Germany where this awesomeness occurs for 3 weeks every spring.
If you ever read here that I don't have much to do or anything going on, tell me to shut up and enjoy because wow do I love to pile on the busy. No time to breathe these days...thankful that Adam travels so much right now as I don't stop working until about 2am most nights recently. 2012 is however, going to be a fantastic year!!
ps...this weeks post from where Adam and write about the difference between the male and female perspectives is up!
Ah Cyber Monday. The kickoff for the holiday shopping season and the mark of when the real works starts for online stores. It is also the day that technology decided to try and test my ability to keep calm under extreme stress. This morning only about 5 minutes after the excitement of finding out that I am the featured Artist of the week at caused me to bop around in my chair, my hard drive crashed.
It was a rather surreal moment when I stared at the grey screen with a blinking folder containing a question mark where the 8 or so applications that I was working in at once were only moments ago. I very calmly took a deep breath, grabbed my iphone and started trouble shooting. Step 1, fail. Step 2, fail. Step 3...this is when I realized that my snow lepoard disk was at my friends house in NY. I (becoming less calm now) texted him to verify this unfortunate piece of info. He replied that I needed to call him asap as he knew what happened. Within 2 minutes my worst computer fear was confirmed. My hard drive crashed and I had to get a new one...and as this was day one of holiday, madness. My calm wavered, but I was soothed by his reassurance that it should all be ok by night fall.
I somehow held it together, made a Genius Bar appointment on my phone and headed over to the mall. As the issue was assessed, I cursed having a custom built macbook pro as the hard drive had to be ordered, and patted myself on the back for having bought the extended warranty (fyi it has paid for itself by now) as the new hard drive was covered. I left my computer in safe hands and tried to wrap my head around not having my computer for a minimum of 36 hours and up to 4 days...at the busiest time of year. I also breathed a HUGE sigh of relief that I back up weekly and therefore will lose nothing.
I came home and just stood there staring at my empty desk. Adam took me out to lnch to basically distract me. But lunch ended and I had to go home to an inability to work. I wrnt to target to pick up a few things, came home and worked out, showered and crumpled.
I thought to myslef, that even though this is 2011...there had to be some way of doing something productive without my computer. Ha! Yeah right. After I obsessively accessed as much as I could on my iphone, I decided to just take over Adams laptop and can kind of function with it. However, the new line which is launching tomorrow won't happen, as I had not uploaded the photographs yet and cannot get to them. *sigh* I did feel immensely better though when I realized what I could access between my iphone and Adams computer. I also found this lovely image in his iphoto that he must have taken via instagram when he came to visit me in NY. I think I'm driving on the Taconic, and its a Road to Nowhere! Oh those silver linings...
I'm not really a breakfast person. I would prefer to just have a cup of coffee, which I do usually have first...but I need to eat something within the first hour I'm awake or I get all shaky. The dilemma is what can I eat that's small, gives me energy and is quick to make? For years I would make the same breakfast everyday for a few months and then get bored and move on the the next. I however read recently that it's better for you to mix it up and not repeat the same food multiple days in a row. So recently I have been alternating a Wasa cracker with natural chunky peanut butter and local honey with a small bowl of cereal of almond milk. Then this week I was craving egg salad so I hard boiled a bunch off eggs and kept a few in the fridge. Now my new favorite thing is 2 hard boiled eggs with a sprinkle of Jane's Crazy Mixed Up Salt (the BEST stuff on earth!) So yummy! But I 'm feeling like I want a new mini meal to throw in the mix...any suggestions?
That's the positive spin I am putting on my brake light that kept turning itself back on the last few days until it drained my battery and I had to get a very pricey new one delivered to my house. At the same time that I noticed my dead car, I realized that when you park under certain trees in Texas when it rains, they cover your car in sap. Yuck. After a 3 hour venture to find a car wash open in the rain and grocery shopping during the busiest time of day I came home in need of calm repetitive motions. So I reduced all prices on and jewelry. We're talking 60% - 75% off the original prices here! Take a few minutes to browse through the sales and take advantage of my stressful day...stock your gift closet for the upcoming season of needing last minute gifts or just buy yourself something pretty...because you're awesome and have most likely had a bad day recently as well.
I have had to resist the urge to curl up in a ball and go to sleep for about every second of the past few days. Before I moved to Austin I kept telling people that I would have a day job again because when I don't I tend to spiral into pits of depression when I hole up in my studio alone for too many days on end and I need to force myself to get out and do things. But then I got here and had a chance to really focus on Manic Trout and taking it to the next level. Which is awesome...until I start to spiral. Ugh. I have a ton to do though to get ready for the holiday season...do you realize how close Christmas is??? Yeah, we won't go there right now.
Right now I am focusing on getting inventory to at least a normal level and making sure all my ducks are in a row. And Advertising. I hate creating Ads. In the past, I have had others do a few for me...but I have a bit of an advertising background and the skills to do it...and all the stuff is right in front of me...so I'm doing it. But I don't like it. This may be some of the spiral inducing matter in my life right now. Must. Resist. Curling. Into. Ball.
On a random side note...I have the heat on, in TEXAS! It feels so indulgent! It also was about 55 in my apartment when I got up this morning and that is no bueno! Its kind of amusing how heat works here in the south...it comes out of the ceiling vents...which are put there to make cooling the place down a quick task, but let me tell you, I am so happy that I ignored the scoffs and brought my ll bean sheep skin "wicked good slippers" with me, because the bare floors are FREEZING here when its cold (ahem, under 65 out)! Brrrrrrr.
I freak out before shows. I freaked out before events I planned in my other profession as well. But not nearly as much as I freak out before shows. Especially before shows I've never been to and that will be different than what I have done before (I will be outside...at night!). Most especially when I have had waaaay to much coffee and got attacked by fire ants while packing the car (how do you stop the burning of the bites???). The freaking out stops the minute the show starts usually...so at least I have only a few more hours of spazzing to go.
If you're in the Austin area, tonight is First Thursday! Manic Trout and I will be at the Gibson Street Artists Market of off South Congress (by the dogs) from 5pm - 9pm. I'd love to see familiar faces!
