Body for Life, the Universe, and Everything

Being a description of the author's thoughts on the experience of participating in the "Body for Life" Challenge, questions of great philosophical import, and randomly selected topics of no significance whatsoever

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Location: Missouri, United States

In no particular order, I'm a professional lettering artist, a yoga practitioner, a cat lover, a vegetarian, a reader of everything from books to cereal boxes, married to a very attractive guy named Tom (nope, no kids), an exercise enthusiast, and a lot of other things I don't care to admit in a public forum. I have a BS in applied math that I haven't used in over 10 years, and I can put both feet behind my head. What else would you like to know?

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Fixed and not-so-fixed

The air conditioner is fixed...for now. It really needs replacing, but the tech got it going for the duration. We were all SOOO relieved. Tom did not do well with the A/C being out. Note to self: If air conditioning is going out, get fixed ASAP because otherwise you will be dealing with both a hot house and a hot-tempered spouse! We had one night where we were all pretty miserable. The cats were panting, which worried me. But everyone is okay now.

My sleep schedule is totally out of whack. I've been going to bed at 6 a.m., followed by 11:30 p.m., followed by 6 a.m., followed by an all-nighter...I don't know whether I'm coming or going anymore! Really, I gotta get this under control. Life would be so much easier if I were on a normal schedule. I think.

Martha Stewart Weddings Magazine called me and wants me to work on something with them!!! We've been playing phone tag, so I haven't actually found out the details yet, but I'm very excited about having my work in a national wedding magazine!!

I need to get started on another wedding order. Right after I finish de-furring things, since we have friends coming to stay overnight tonight and tomorrow, and one is allergic...our house is not a great place to stay if you're allergic to cats....

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

If you can't stand the heat...don't move to St. Louis

Wow, it's been a while since I posted! I'm sure if I had 3,000 people checking my blog every day, like Debra at the Barmaid Blog ( http://barmaidblog.livejournal.com/ ) , I'd be more inspired to post regularly. If a person posts to his/her blog, but there's no one to read it, does it make any sound? ...uh...or something like that.

Latest news is that our air conditioner, which we think is the original one for the house (house is 26 years old, we've owned it 16 of those years), is in the process of expiring. It's been showing signs of its age for a few years, but the last few days, which have all been 100+ degree days here, it's been over 90 degrees INSIDE the house in the afternoon and evening. I got home about 9 p.m. tonight after delivering an order and hitting the grocery store, and there was an extension cord running from the front door across the yard and around the corner of the house. What the hey?? At the end of the extension cord there was a small fan, which was blowing on the box for the big A/C fan, which has apparently just retired from duty and gone to cool off hell, or something else more feasible than surviving another St. Louis summer. It's currently 11 p.m. and when I checked a little while ago it was 93 degrees and 46% humidity inside. It's actually only 92 degrees OUTSIDE. Hmm. Maybe we should give it up and open the windows now. The weather report indicates that the excessive heat warning remains in effect until tomorrow evening, and maybe longer. I called an A/C repair service yesterday and the earliest they will be able to get to us is tomorrow morning. They're swamped, when the heat index has been over 100 for a week; imagine that. I hope our poor cats can take this a bit longer. Me, I just try not to drip sweat on the paper while I'm working.

Speaking of working, I'm swamped too. Weddings, poems, corporate work...it's all pouring in. A lot of it is thanks to a stationery designer I've been working with for a few months, who does a lot of East Coast weddings...I'm getting a ton of weddings through her. People on the coasts just have a totally different attitude about spending money on things like wedding stationery than people here in the... frugal...midwest. I just completed my biggest wedding place card order ever...almost $2000.00 just in place card calligraphy!! I also decided to lower my prices temporarily, starting a month or so ago, because I decided something had to give in order for me to get more work. I went to a calligraphy conference in early July and talked with a lot of fellow calligraphers, mostly professionals, and most of them said they were very busy with work, unlike me up to that point this year (actually for most of the last six years, ever since 9/11), and most of them either are in New York or charge less than what I was charging or are much faster, or some combination of those things. I figured if they were busy, I could be too if I could just figure out what to change, because my work is at least as good as that of most of them. I figured the most obvious thing was to lower my price, so I did that, and I think it's helped some. The other thing I need to do is FINISH my website!! I still have a bunch of pictures to prepare, but I'm so busy with paying work I'm having a hard time getting to the website stuff. Of course, if I wait until the paying work is mostly done before finishing the website, the pipeline will be pretty empty and I'll be hurting again until my web traffic helps me get busier. Kind of a catch-22; gotta do the marketing so you have paying work coming in, but it's hard to find time to do the marketing when you have a lot of paying work! However, my new designer cohort did shepherd my work to Martha Stewart Weddings Magazine last week, and she says they LOVED it! And, also though this same designer, some of my work may be featured in New York Magazine! Is that cool, or what?? (And right now I'll be happy to take almost anything that might be considered "cool"!)

Okay, I think it's time to go open the windows now...