Still designing

So here we go again. I find it funny that when I come here for my next free write, I end up writing about the same thing. I am playing around with designs right now and am swiftly increasing my bag of tricks to pull out of the paint/design programs I have. I've just started working with some textures and more layering and shadowing in a program that's not originally designed to have them at all. It's kinda nice, but at the same time a little limiting. I'm finding once again that I have designs I have and want to use, but no space for them and I'm trying to find the right background for my blog but am not really finding the thing that I want for it. I've just found a really great texture website. I'll post the link somewhere in the gadget boxes. They're pretty fantastic. I'm really hoping to get to utilize some of this stuff someday. I may never really need these skills, but I like them and I'd like to do something with them. It's kinda like my writing. I want to be able to do something with my writing, but I am aware that there is a huge difference between talent and genius. I'm not even really sure I have the talent right now, but talent can be developed and grown. I'm pretty settled with the fact that I don't have the genius part. I know several people that do. It's strange watching them do the things that one can only really think of doing without the genius that they possess. The worst part is that they often do not know they have it. Some of them do. They're the ones that make me feel the best about it. It's good to see it not being squandered. Time's up.

Initial thought: more designs
Time: 5 minutes

Down time

Down time is something that we don't want when, say, our email gets hacked and our blogs go down, but shouldn't we all want a little downtime? A little time to disconnect and get away for a while? I was preaching this last night as I walked from the place I had the beer to the place I had the margarita - not having a phone is wonderful and I feel great not having one here. I mean, at home it would be a major inconvenience, because there are a lot more people to talk to and things to plan over a shorter period of time. But right now I only live with my husband and all of our social outings usually get planned a day or two in advance, so there's no waiting on tenderhooks for an email to come in... Still - it was pretty stressful to find that google had closed down my email AND all of the blogs associated with it. Pain in the ass. I had a friend asking if I'd shut them down, I had my husband (who co-authors one) asking if my promoting our blogs on facebook was me spamming too much and a violation of TOS and I'm just worried about someone hacking my email (which does seem to be what happened - sorry for anyone who got any weird emails). Arg! But with all of this stress and the stress of daily life, I wonder if I don't need some down time from some of the things. I know that I have the need to push forward and get things done, be productive, but the question I'm asking myself is "Am I doing my best here?" What is it that I can cut out to make life a little less full of the stuff I don't need and a little more full of the stuff I'd like to do but doesn't seem vital? I think that enrichment is important and I want to be able to do these things - that's why I really started blogging in the first place. To write, to track my reading, to get some feedback (hopefully) on some of that writing. Trying to improve some of the things that I'll never make money at but that also make life a little better. I've been surrounding myself with "fall things" - things that put me into my mindset at my favorite time of year - in hopes that it will help stave off the spring blues that I always seem to get. This is always the worst time of year for me and I would love for that to change, but I'm really just an autumn girl. Maybe it's the weather and how the world is around me that makes this time of year so miserable for me, but it's followed me half way across the world, so my immediate environment just doesn't seem to be the only factor. It's been a little different this year, but not getting less with the blues. For all that though, I'm fairly happy, which is a nice change.


Intial thought: Down time
Time: 9 minutes