Spreading the Etsy love.

I’ve occasionally mentioned my mysterious companion, Blurrylens, from time to time. He’s a creative and unique photographer whose work is in the California Pictorialist tradition. He sells his work on Etsy and it will be featured in an Etsy showcase on Saturday, May 10 in the Art sub-category. His Etsy shop can be viewed here.

 

Blog ennui.

Thank you all for your comments and emails regarding yesterday’s post! This is exactly why I *don’t* want to call it quits or move to super-secure but extremely-lame LJ - I really, really appreciate the support and community I’ve found through blogging, and I don’t want to change that.

So I’m going to just toss a couple ideas out there. I’m wrestling with two problems right now: (a) complete and total blog ennui, and (b) the need for more security. Were it not for (a), I’d solve (b) by hosting my own blog. Or moving back to Typepad. But the cheapskate shoe lover in me does the math and says “Hey! That’s a hundred bucks a year! I could buy these Keens with that!” and that’s the end of that idea. Then the web geek in me says “Consider it an investment toward your education. Think of all the stuff you could learn by hosting your own!” and the idea starts sounding pretty good.

I’m going to let my inner cheapskate and inner web geek battle it out for a while. I’m also going to toy with the idea of solely using Flickr as my blog. Or I may just try to get over the whole scraped-by-a-pr0n-splog thing, stay right here, and not worry that my posts are infrequent and, to me anyway, pretty boring.

In the meantime, I’d welcome your thoughts on the whole hosting-your-own thing, if you have experience with that.

 

80 hours.

That’s how many I worked last week, plus a bunch more this week that I refuse to count because it will make me cry. Deadline was met, beta release was released, and last night I enjoyed 9 straight hours of sweet blissful sleep.

This morning, though, I woke up to find that my blog had been scraped by a pr0n site. Grrr. This, plus my new lack of time, plus my lack of crafting, plus my increased frustration at the recent changes to the WordPress interface, is all adding up to make me lose interest in this blog.

I’m not saying I’m going to stop blogging entirely - I haven’t made that decision yet. What I think I may be doing is posting on my rarely-used Livejournal page, which will be friends-only. There might be shoes, there might be little rants and cheers about life, there will not likely be anything in the way of crafting - and if that interests you, and you’re on LJ, then friend me - I am, of course, chezshoes there too.

If the blog scraping issue continues to be a problem here, this space will likely go away. In the meantime, though, I have at least one more post planned, so - it ain’t over ’til it’s over.

 

What I wish I could do.

No sleep. I haven’t slept in a week.

Originally uploaded by sprizee.

I’ve been on a crazy project with crazy deadlines for the past week, which translates to 12-hour-plus days in the office, plus working from home. Add to that an hour to two a day in the car, and - well, do the math. Not a lot of hours left for that lovely thing called sleep.

Of course, me being the rather OCD person that I am, the hours that I do have left for sleeping are filled with things like mulling over ways to improve the process of what we’re working on. When I finally *do* nod off, I dream of Excel spreadsheets and concatenating data and, of course, ways to make it more efficient.

So, I wake up exhausted. If I woke up exhausted *and* with a good formula or two, that would be fine, but sadly, efficiency remains just a dream on this project.

This phase of said project will be done by EOD Monday. After that, you know what I’ll be doing.

 

Workspace perfection.

With all the talk of our Economic Stimulus Package checks going out this week, it’s fun to dream of how I might use mine. While the reality is it will, of course, be used to pay bills, I’m quite tempted to put a chunk of it toward this Expedit bookcase/desk combo from Ikea.

I do, of course, have a perfectly fine corner desk, also from Ikea. I also have a perfectly fine bookcase. But now that I live in one room, I think the idea of combining them and reducing their footprint is pretty brilliant.

 

Poppies.

I can’t believe I’ve lived in Southern California most of my life and, until yesterday, had never been to the Poppy Reserve. I suppose it’s like so many other things with me - generally if it’s a crowd-generating tourist-oriented activity, my tendency is to run, screaming, in the opposite direction. I have to admit that when we arrived, the crowd of cars waiting to get past the tollbooth gave me doubts. But it was clear to see the crowds were headed one way (the easy way!), and uphill, in the opposite direction, were several nearly-empty hiking trails. So off we went.

It turned out to be one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. It was like so many of my favorites all wrapped up into one: flowers, California, the desert, solitude, and the color orange.

Other things I’ve been doing lately:

• Looking forward to another visit to Yosemite in June.
• Working working working, putting my mad taxonomy skillz to use.
• Dreaming of vacations, now that I actually have a decent vacation benefit. Three at the top of my list are Portland (August, I hope), Austin, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
• Watching Heroes on Netflix. I consider it educational - it’s helping me brush up on my Japanese. Oh, and I might just have a little bit of a crush on Masi Oka. Maybe.

And things I *haven’t* been doing:

• Making anything. No knitting, no sewing, no crocheting. Bupkis.
• Reading very many blogs. At least not nearly as much as I used to. Having a real job seriously cuts into my web surfing time.
• Buying shoes. Something about living in a teeny tiny space has really made me want to go as minimal as possible. I think the not-making-anything problem also is influenced by this - I don’t want stuff to have to deal with. Although I must admit that plans are in the works for another pair of Keen Calistogas, ideally in Rum Raisin or Flamingo. I’m being *selectively* minimalist!

 

Kittehs!

21DSC09268
Originally uploaded by RobynAnderson.

I’m having a stupid stressful week (let’s just say that if my office was Mac based, it wouldn’t be happening) and the only things saving me from falling completely apart are this Momma Kitty photoset on Flickr, and TOMATO1969’s kitten vids on YouTube.

Come on now, everybody say it together: Awwwwwwwwwww.

 

Red in the face.

For the last couple months I’ve been trying to remedy a bit of an annoying problem - little red dots that appeared out of nowhere on my face that get way worse when I go out in the sun. I think it’s rosacea*, my GP isn’t sure, and while I wait for my HMO to make up its mind about a dermatologist referral, I’ve been doing a bit of research and have found a remedy that is so good that I have to share it here: the Eucerin Redness Relief product line.

Regardless of the cause, this stuff works - particularly the Night Creme. Did I just say that? Did I just admit to being a person who uses night cream? Uh, did I just type the word creme? Why yes, yes I did. Until I found this stuff, I thought I was doomed to a future of having to use green powder to cover up my spots - and remember, I don’t *do* makeup, and really was not looking forward to this prospect. Thanks to this Eucerin stuff, I can continue my merry makeup-free existence - hooray!

But I still think I’d better see the derma doc, and find out what it is.

*Darned part-Irish ancestry. Instead of getting something lovely, like red hair or freckles, I get rosacea, keratosis pilaris, and gluten sensitivity. Oh, and maybe the ability to claim dual citizenship, should the desire ever strike.

 

Pants!

I’ve whined lamented before, several times, in this very space about how hard it is to find pants that fit. Seems I’m not the only one - a good pants rant can be found over here at Ugly Green Chair. Doesn’t solve the pants problem, but it’s nice to know that I’m in such good company!

However, I may have discovered the secret to finding pants that fit: set out to buy tops instead. When you do this, you will find, of course, not a single top, but as you’re leaving the store your eye will be drawn to a pants display. You will be skeptical, of course, and you will be telling yourself that you aren’t shopping for pants, you’re shopping for tops, and besides, pants never fit anyway. But the $15 price tag will encourage you to try them on. And they will fit. Really, really well.

That was the story behind these capri jeans from Target, which are now my absolute favorite thing in my closet. At $15, of course the store only had one in my size, but I am now anxiously awaiting snail-mail delivery of more, not just in denim but in black and stone too.

Of all places, Target really seems to be getting it right these days. True, it’s hit or miss, but lately the hits are in the lead. Waistbands aren’t too low, inseams are the right length, fabrics are just right. I mean - dark denim! With no muffin top! And no plumber’s butt!

And the capri length is actually capri length. Even on shorty me.

 

Argila shoes.

Shoes from Spain just keep getting better and better. You know about Camper and El Naturalista, of course, but I recently discovered another brand, Argila - obscure enough that I can’t seem to find their website. There are a few sources for these gorgeous shoes stateside - curiously, they all seem to be in the Northwest. As are most good things, but I digress.

The ones I love most are available at Olive in Portland. I will be waiting impatiently for these to go on sale!

You lucky Ballard peeps can see a few other styles at the always-fantastic Re-Soul. And if you’re in Victoria BC, head to Footloose.