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Post by michelle on Feb 18, 2024 4:16:37 GMT
Z, Congrats! on getting so much done with the needlepoint software. Hope you enjoyed your dinner. Not much to chat about as usual since my days are taken up with dog items and office work. Today I did manage to get in my first full day working on office items which got me through a pile of rather unpleasant chores. Now I am concentrating on getting the annual records requests ready to go out. Hopefully it won't snow tonight so that my Admin Assistant can come to work tomorrow. Having her work for two days is going to help enormously. Right now I am going to do some housework so that I don't have to do it in the morning.
Sunday - Office Admin was worked on for most of the day. I did do some personal items that seemed to take a substantial amount of time but I am glad I took the time to get them done. Tomorrow I am hoping to finish up with most of the records requests.
Hope you are enjoying your evening!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Feb 19, 2024 15:09:24 GMT
Good Morning,
Glad to hear the assistant was able to show up and help out! Yay!
We have been having light snow, steady, but over several days. We are quite behind on snowfall here this year. The dinner was nice, easy. Chicken Noodle Soup, buttermilk biscuits, salad and no bake cookies for dessert. We had a nice visit. Saturday DH and I drove to Pullman to watch the mens basketball game. THey are on a roll and have a chance to take first place in our division this Thursday if they can beat Arizona. It's exciting.
Needlepoint: I'm in manic mode with this I realize. However I really want to get the submissions done for the copywright application process. I had a few main designs I thought would translate well. So I have the initial bundle of 10 ready now to send and should be working on the form submission today. I realize what I need to do is watch the tutorial video again and make notes as I go so I have that prior to starting. -Designs: When original thinking about this I had a few designs I thought would translate well. As mentioned, I did the first two, variations of and also did an additional character derived from that base design for 10 total. -I've worked through my bears, there's 4 -5 versions of this, male/female designated by clothing options, and polar bear and brown bear, then a couple clothing option patterns. These came out I think adorable. My designs fill the whole ornament round, much as they do IRL on my originals. So they are simplistic, cartoon, but I think destinctive in their way. Bears in this form either go from Victorian with a lot going on, or very raggy, or into the realm of tole painted character faces, some are which aren't bad, it's just a style. So I'm not that adept at translating these things into the format and don't try to get "fancy" with a lot of touches a person could do. But I think my clothing options and the shape of the thing are very cute, roly poly (sp). The Church is done also. So this is 5-6 more designs plus the two, 4 petal, flowers I ended up with. -Tudor Rose-Maybe there is a mathmatical methodical way to get a 5 petal thing going on these grids, but it's beyond me. Because you're dealing with squares, this lends itself more easily for a mandala format, an even numbered petaled thing. Which is how I accidentally ended up with the 4 petal things to start with. The 5 has been a real brain buster. ALso because some of the angles the flowers go on the grids don't work to make a symmetrical shapes, leaves for example, these are all strange and wonky, leaf for So this is ending up to be more of a "free form" approach to parts of it and I'm ending up with some oddball shapes here and there, but I'm just going to have to roll with it and get it to a finishing point. I've been taking many breaks and coming back to it. It's been very challenging. -Big news! Someone purchased 10 sets of a two card pack of a style of card from my shop and an additional 6 card set as well. All having to do with St. Patrick's day I think, or church stuff. Not sure. Also someone bought a set of my hand cut paper, framed crow cards set. SO this was all very exciting for me cause I was feeling like no one was every going to buy cards again! Yay!
Goal for today, finish Tudor Rose....do elctronic submission process for first bundle of 10 files.
Hope your day goes well.
Z. Update: Yesterday Tadas: -emptied DW, reloaded, washed hand wash items, dried and put away -Swept, two types, vacuumed upstairs -cleard the vacuum cleaner brush roller -laundry rebooted x2, all put away -realized if moved a few things, I had room to store the seasonal votives not out, on bottom shelf of den builtins, made patchwork shelf liner from pieces in bag in garage, moved votive boxes from MB to this area. -cleared MB of those and two large boxes -cleared den desk top of of excess paper, bad printout, test print outs, etc, and leaned off a lot of the den builtin area of paper also floor area -lots of little bits, trash, paper, shredded, tossed -landscaper called to set follow up meeting for Thursday, we pay deposit and prepare to move forward with finishing the back bank area with the rock plan this spring. -I've reviewed the Tutorial again and made notes, saved file properly to own folder, will be doing actual application shortly
***Update...Started the form. But a couple of image "Titles" are two long causing to go to second line. The online submission system recognizes the second line a second "Title" therefore counts it as a second file. There can only be 10 files per bundle. So I need to shorten a couple of Titles on my original forms and while doing that tidy up a couple of other things I think are unecessary. Then I need reprint each sheet anew, add a cut and paste thing to the bottom, Scan that and resave as new PDF's and I should be good to go. Also while doing all this, I'm not sure I mentioned I went to town on my bear design. So fun! So I have 3 flowers, snowy church, and 6 bear designs (boy/girl, smock top, vest, sweater) and USA Sweater bear. SO that's ten more designs I will also be able to submit in a second bundle of 10. Who knew I would have 20 designs so FAST? I will try to press through all steps tonight. It's just a lot of monotonous steps now.
I mailed 2 of my orders today, that was fun, and while out did Costco run for my Mom. I'm driving to her house tomorrow to spend one night, deliver her COstco, and do a few chores. I have to return early Thursday morning.
Hope you're doing well.
Z/
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Post by michelle on Feb 21, 2024 4:17:31 GMT
Z, Love the cat!!! You got so much accomplished! The petal thing sounds mystifying. I managed to get a really big annual project for work finally completed. Wow--that was tough. Anyway, I also got my declutter Wednesday work done. Walked the dogs. Enlarged Clair's pen area where she spends her time with me as the days float by. Tomorrow we go to the new Vet. I am hoping that works out, at this point, it has to be better than the staff of girls at the last vet. They remind me of some of the incidents you have had at the printers through the years. Also Clair and I are going to Amazon tomorrow night for a therapy event. The weather seems like it is going to be in our favor. Spent time fending off rather chaotic Community Managers by answering their wacky emails. I have worked really hard to reduce the client base to exclude most of the clients that cause 95% of the insanity. This has been hard to do but it will result in much less time spent on projects that take hours more than necessary due to client disorganization. Also one more step (Hooray!!!) in me reducing hours spent on office items.
Thursday -Wow Z, that is impressive!!! The bears sound beyond cute!
Excellent day for me! Clair had her 6 week PT evaluation and did fantastic. The Head PT was amazed at how much muscle mass she accumulated and said it was entirely due to me relentlessly getting ALL OF THAT PT done. Hooray! Also they got the radiographs but needed the analysis. More follow up work for me being complicated by my land line phone being out of order for two days. My cell is out of service here so it is rather frustrating but I will overcome! I got the office work rather organized so that Monday another one of our old employees will come to work and start working on that. Nicer day here!
Time for Yoga! Hope you are having a wonderful evening!!! Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Feb 23, 2024 17:26:19 GMT
Good Morning,
Hooray for you and Clair on her healing journey! You're the best dog parent I bet those Vets have every encountered!
I do not know what I typed last. I went to my mom's. Edited version I took care of many things, some necessary, some not really but it made her feel better. Besides the going and overnight away, there were several hours of phone calls regarding this, prior to my leaving which threw a wrench in my original "prior to leaving" plans. Oh well...moving on.
Our basketball team beat Arizona and is #1 in the conference! Woohoo! Exciting game, very close.
Decorating: Michael's called and the farm truck picture was ready! SO I went early evening last night to get it, made them change the hanging hardware on the back, I forgot they try to give you this funky stuff now instead of just wire hanging hardware or I would have said "no thank you" to that when I place the order. Thankfully he swapped it. It looks GREAT!!! Framer recommended a rustic style, aged bronze type frame, it's not super wide, just 2" I think, it's perfect. Looks so good!
Landscaping: I met with the landscaper, I'd gotten back home prior to, took about 5 photos, hilited areas on them, made a key, told him, you might think I'm a control freak, but the goal is for you be able to do this job, even if I'm not here to answer questions, because you know what to do. Paid deposit, he'll do more materials calculations and get back to me.
Needlepoint: -Sent first canvas to sister to stitch. More errors were discovered, she loves, it, loves design, says it's fun to stitch, and the errors on it are not "ruining" it. So some positive and negatives. Then I thought about the tutorial I watched, what can be done differently to reduce errors and painting time. The answer is, put more pencil markings directly on the canvas. I was trying to avoid this, to keep the canvas "cleaner" and do a more stitch count type painting like the tutorial but as the grid is so very tiny, this contributes to errors and time. But I see now that is not necessary, the paint and ultimately the thread covers the pencil in all but three of my designs where this more white. As I'm doing the 2 step canvas prep, that "sets" the pencil so it cannot smudge. If there is a design that has a lot of white....like possibly my "snowy church" and parts of the red and white flowers or polar bears, you leave the "white areas" unpainted I believe, then yes,you want to avoid a bunch of pencil marks all over the place. But the others, most, where it's full on color, doesn't matter pencil guide marks directly to canvas is going to majorly streamline this entire process MAJORLY and is NON issue! -Copyright Submission: I just finished this morning doing the cutting, re-pasting of correct titles, scanning, resaving files as PDF's so file titles match title on each work and I'm ready to try that process again which I'm doing now. IF this goes well, the other 10 designs are also near completion to be ready to be scanned, resaved and I will just do those immediately as the second bundle submission after the first. -Then I need to do some clean up downstairs because things sort of exploded down there before I even think about next steps for canvas prepping or painting.
Z.
UPDATE: SUCCESS! All 20 designs submitted for CR! Woohoo! So glad that is DONE! Moving on!
Mailed another order of cards out , yay! Small grocery shop, dinner is in the oven, now I will start organizing/cleaning again in order to begin next steps.
SATURDAY: -cleaned the kitchen -all hand wash items done -swept kitchen -bed made, showered, laundry rebooted x1 -completed another design for iconic building on WSU campus, it came out darling. -took stuff downstairs
Now I'm going to go downstairs and start with jobs down there, possibly prep canvases first so they can be sprayed and be drying....
Z.
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Post by michelle on Feb 25, 2024 0:49:14 GMT
Z, Congrats!!! on getting all 20 designs submitted. Great job getting things in regard to the landscaping nailed down. That is the ONLY way I deal with the contractors now. Afterall I am in charge not them. We seem to get along fine and I don't end up frustrated or have to hire another contractor to come in and argue for me. I guess it's about how I present myself too. I still have to deal with the HVAC contractor but have had a very full plate. Hoping to get it done this week since life has settled down now.
Super busy day for me trying to get through emails with my Admin Assistant. This year I am letting the problem clients know that I do not intend on babysitting them. They will need to pay attention and get all the items emailed. I have quite a bunch of "Inactives" now and don't intend on endlessly resending emails that are ignored. It certainly has taken an enormous burden off of me. Of course if DH wants to chase after them he is welcome to do so.
I forgot a major part of a big project so I will need to get that done tomorrow. Such a lovely day here today!!!
Hope you are having a relaxing evening!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Feb 25, 2024 16:15:54 GMT
Good Morning,
Yesterday after doing some chores, I prepped to canvases. Prepped means, put the pencil marks on them for the pattern, sprayed (this has to be done outside) them, then did the Liquidex Matte dry brushing of. The spray sets the pencil, keeps from smudging and also along with the Matte medium dry brushed on, helps to smooth (only somewhat) for paint application. THese steps help the paint go on more easily. Then I taped 2 guide charts, each to their own piece of foam core, then taped each canvas over top of those. Then I started production type painting, painting both with dispensed paint. It is going faster, I will know better when I'm down how much overall time this cut off the process. I will finish these today and mail to my friend and my other sister two stitch. Then I'll revisit the larger angel pattern who has more involved pattern and holds things, do see how long that takes with improved processes. THen I'll figure out what to do after that.
I am marathon listening to a book for book club, it is a very long book and I thought was going to be about a person's whole life. But it's not,just a small part of it, and I need to get through it, but I can listen on headaphones or blue tooth radio while I paint.
Update: One canvas complete, still took a while, still learning curve in effect, even though the canvas are gridded, and making a guide and extra pencil markings, still some areas tripping up on. I have faith this will decrease, and time will decrease, each one I do. I will finish another today which is part way done. The multiple things on on the form core is a good idea.
Z.
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Post by michelle on Feb 26, 2024 4:43:56 GMT
Z, It sounds like you are constantly improving in this area of your creativity!!!
I spent the day working on two very large projects and got both of them done! I was significantly behind but am almost to the point of being caught up. I have four piled up Audits to get done so I am going to stay just a focused as I have been this weekend to get those out of the way. Otherwise, just another lovely winter day!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Feb 26, 2024 15:56:10 GMT
Good MOrning,
Good effort getting through those projects. Yay! And alsmot being caughtup. You are doing great!
Took care of two phone calls this morning dealing with situation and my mom's car, which is totaled, she's fine, but slightly overwhelmed with all that needs taken care of in regard to. But DH and I will be doing the car shopping in hopes of finding something appropriate, similar, used, she feels she is comfortable driving. So this is a little bit of time for me right now in different ways but we'll work through it.
Needlepoint: Hmmmm.....assembly line production painting went pretty well. But, I was off center on one and had applied too much paint prior to realizing to even dream of starting over. I will look at again, I might be able to recenter the topper and simply paint a new circle surrounding it. But this one had additional problems which created a bit of a mess, so I'll probably send my friend two, (she is s beginner stitcher) because the one I'd done in her requested color scheme came out GREAT. It was the second design that had many issues I was working on for my sister that was disaster. I want to send my sister a GOOD one, not a crappy one! I will be able to prep more canvases today and will be more mindful about what I'm doing with the initial steps. I will persevere!!!
Update: Bed made, Kitchen reclaimed, swept, recycled about 20 boxes from downstairs, cleared craft table work area, organized, trashed stuff, put the table cover on the table, organized templates, paint, brushes, pens, I'm ready to try again. I will do another assembly style where I try to do two at a time. But first I need to look at template for the line guides and see where issues are. Mailed a package, dealt with landscaping phone call.
I had bookclub, took care a of a couple more phone calls, completed a second college iconic building design, challenging because it was all brick, with som Tudor like accents/peaks in roof line, but it came out cute!
z.
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Post by michelle on Feb 28, 2024 4:51:32 GMT
Some extremely busy days for me lately. Today I got my Declutter Wednesday done, reorganized the FR furniture and I certainly like it better. Also dealt effectively with the height restriction in regard to some of the furniture and the dogs so several things got resolved correctly. 16,380 steps which obviously includes the dog PT. Not to be complaining BUT--my land line isn't working again and since my cell does not work here either I am fairly frustrated. I will need to drive out to the highway before I can get reception and am not even sure about that now. The bright side is that my internet is fine. Speaking of making lemonade out of lemons, I started making my lemonade list in regard to Clair's surgery and recovery period and have 10 items so far, some of them are fairly remarkable or surprising.
Right now is the craziest time for the business. The amount of stuff flowing in is incredible. I will over come!!!
Glad that your DM is fine! The needlepoint creativity is so interesting and fun to read about.
Hope you are having a relaxing evening!!!
Onward>>>>
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Post by zenamidievel on Feb 28, 2024 15:25:16 GMT
Good Morning,
Nice work reframing situations in a positive way. Perspective, right? Difficult sometimes though. Argh in regard to the no phone situation, that's not good! I hope you can get it working!
I didn't do much yesterday other than complete a second college almamater iconic building needle point design. These designs, the two of them, are pretty good! Both challenging in different ways, the second one particularly, because it is all brick, all of it, it's hard to figure out how to show some details and dimension, cause it's all the same material. But I think I got it.
Procrastination: I am sort of not wanting to figure out my new line guides.....but I must if I'm to continue trying to paint these things. So I will spend time on that this morning.
Some other stuff done, phone calls, etc. but that's about it.
Z.
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