aurakiss’ blog

You know you want to say something, join in the conversation but in all honesty nothing comes to mind. I should at least write something for the blogs. Let people know I am still alive but here I am. I could get wound up about something but getting angry seems to just be a waste of energy. After all teens will still be making pacts to get preggers, commit suicide and binge drink. I never quite understood the whole pact thing even when I was a teenager.

"Let’s make a pact to be best friends forever!" She said.

"Whatever you say." Meanwhile all I can think. Wow I can only tolerate a few hours at a time with you. Will this mean I have to call you everyday and all that? What if I get in one of my don’t wanna talk for days at a time moods? Is she going to throw a hissy fit?

"We will seal it in blood. Just like in the movies!" She was vibrating with excitement. "Look I got this upholstery sewing needle from my mother’s kit. There is no way it can hurt as much as a knife." She held the gargantuan needle out to me. "You poke my finger then I will poke yours and we can rub them together."

Sounds like some sort of pointless. Pun there yeah, pointless, I thought. I held the needle up to the light. "We should really have some alcohol or something to make sure there are no germs on it." I held her first finger tightly till it started turning pink.

"Do you think its going to hurt?" She jerked her finger out of my grasp.

"Yes." I paused. Then I held open my hand and pulled the point over the lines of my life, love, happiness and health. Tiny red speckles oozed to the surface to start darkening, drying in the warm spring weather. "See? It doesn’t hurt as bad when you do it yourself."

She bit her lower lip. "You know I probably shouldn’t be your best friend forever. Sandy gave me this locket to be her best friend."

Yeah I know she was thinking twice about this whole silly idea. I held the needle by the eye up to her. A little shred of skin and twinkle of blood reflected against the silvery surface. She wrinkled her nose at me just as I was warming up to the idea of this best friends forever routine.

"Its all dirty now. Just keep it I am sure Mom won’t miss it even a little bit." The heavy blond girl got up from under the cool shade of the pine trees and ran for her bike.

Looking at the stolen object I scraped across my right hand palm. In all honesty I really dislike needles but this was just a sword for a Ken doll. I clapped my hands together hard smearing the scratches across one another.

My Webstore http://www.cafepress.com/alitastudio

Does anybody actually read this stuff?

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I was very distressed over this week. Twice a day we drive by a diesel and gas station right off a major freeway. Every morning I rode with my car-pool to see the price of fuel on their big sign. One price in the morning and several cents higher by that late afternoon. It has gone up 14 cents over the course of four days.

So even though our fuel is not as high as say California, it is still quite a bit. I see no cost of living raises for employees, the cost of food, clothing, electricity and heating gas is going up as well. Now not counting the raises of necessities and lack of raises in pay. It cost $50 a week to fill the car just to go to work and back. We have gone to great lengths to make sure the car gets as good a fuel mileage as possible. I am told its estimated at 32 mpg and still that is not enough.

I hear rumors that fuel cost in this area will go up to $8 a gallon double that it is now. You say no big deal I already pay that? Yeah well I only make $10 an hour at work to support a family of four. Figure that out. The extra $100 I did not spend on fuel per month went to buying things like food, electricity and so forth. How does a person supply their family with needs when the money is not there?

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The truth of it all is the oil market drives the other markets. If oil is high wheat is going to be high. Prices of any goods will go up because of shipping. Still I am told right now wheat, corn, safflower and other oil producing plants are high cost because of research into biofuel. Obviously fresh fruit, vegetables and milk are high because of the cost of diesel. The oil market is independent of other markets but it has its oily infections droplets in every other market in the whole world.

We are addicted down to the most basic parts of our lives. Look around your house. Every piece of plastic is made from oil. Many of the paints on the walls are oil based. If you want to get a full scope of how just about everything we wear, use or collect has oil in it. Read this article. http://www.energybulletin.net/4740.html

As of March 2008 the United States biggest importer of oil is Canada beating out Saudi Arabia. Curious about who else imports oil into the United States? Check out: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

I tried to find how how much oil each person’s estimated average per day was..but that seems like way too much work.

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All I know is that people, not just people in the United States are addicted, it must have started out small but consumption has grown astronomically. If you think about it technology, medicine, information and tons of other "growth" took leaps and bounds since the first discovery of the resource.

How do we end our addiction? I am not positive on that because with our addiction to oil also came our dependency on other things as well. We think it necessary for heat in the winter, cool in the summer, easy food on the table, and mind numbing entertainment at the flick of a switch.

We would have to give up so much. Closets full of clothing for basic items for dress, casual and lounging that could no longer be washed at midnight, noon or morning at our whim. Drying out on the line on a nice day instead of washing daily. Why? Because running the dryer costs electricity and right now oil prices push the electricity price.

Could we go back to the local corner grocery store instead of the mass, volume sale retail place? Not traveling 30 miles to the big store and instead walking to the corner grocery that may not carry ever single piece of plastic junk for under $1? It might even mean only going "to town" every two weeks or month. It means that couples go to the movies or theater once a month or every three months. Dates would be picnics, rock hunting, reading poetry by candle light, contemplating the theories of the universe under the stars.

Entertainment would change completely, no more kids ignoring parents by turning on the video games or watching error filled tv shows. Plastic is made from oil and tvs, games and the circuits are all plastic or silicone. Could you adults give up turning on the computer every day to release your dependency on oil? Could you turn it off and only get use it twice a week?

Could you eat less single packaged foods? Could you buy less items in plastic containers? Could you store you leftovers in wax paper wrapping and paper for the freezer?

Now I am not saying you want to save oil. I am suggesting that you release some of oil hold on your life by saving and there-fore releasing the oil company’s lordship over your life. If the demand goes down so do prices.

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So what would I like to do to gain some freedom? Well I would like to get either a Toyota Prius or a smart car to go back and forth to work. If I could save up 13k I could get one. Guess that means winning the lottery.

Here is a picture of the smart car.

Smart car

Isn’t she just the cutest little thing! I guess if I could get enough sales from my cafepress product designs. http://www.cafepress.com/alitastudio I could get one in about 10 years. HA.

So my Dad who is an older fella pushing 80 drives an electric golf cart to his business. Yes he is still working. He lives about four blocks from his business site but his age and age related disabilities make it so he can’t really walk that far. I would recommend anyone that drives less than five miles to work to get a golf cart.

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It costs money to make changes but it costs a lot of money to stay in the same situations too. So buying solar panels would mean basically buying a new house. Since lumber prices is now going through the roof that is somewhat difficult too. I know of two houses on the way to work that sport both solar panels and wind machines.

Most states offer tax breaks on property taxes for not just the purchase of solar panels and wind generators but also offer tax breaks for the upkeep of those items.

Suggestions for the home. Buy eggs in paper cardboard boxes instead of styrofoam. Request "paper" at the checkout instead of plastic bags (plastic is made from oil). Even better yet buy a fabric bag to transport groceries. I have lots of designs on canvas bags http://www.cafepress.com/alitastudio

When buying things that only come in plastic packaging buy the extra large size so it lasts a long time before you have to buy again.

Paper bags can be just as handy as thin plastic bags because you can wrap gifts in them and with a few markers, paint or glitter make great gift wrap. They also stand up so you can clean and dump without having to fight a plastic bag open.

Last but not least write a letter about oil or gas prices to your state representatives. Tell them personal experiences and if you have ideas about how to improve the moral of your state. I had one about the state providing a coupon or rebate for 1/3^rd or ½ the price of a vehicle that gets 40+ mpg or am electric vehicle.

So to find the person and address of the state representative go to: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

I’m so frustrated. Not like that is anything new or exciting.

So I am trying to figure out how to manage and market my stuff. At one time I had purchased a domain name and website space, but I must have done it wrong because unlike other people’s websites mine had the host name attached to it. For example mine had godaddy/alitastudio.com instead of just www.alitastudio

Recently, last month, I purchased a premium account on cafepress. Again it read http://www.cafepress.com/alitastudio

instead of www.alitastudio I feel like I am missing something but I have no clue where I am going wrong. I can’t afford both the website domain and hosting and the cafepress site. I barely have enough money to get my daily dose of chocolate (not counting all those other things needed by my family.) But something still experimental stuff like webstore’s are just not in a monthly budget. So hiring someone to help me is out of the question.

I skipped the Whys about websites and tried to figure out how to promote what I do have. So I looked up google’s adsense but I can’t use that because it requires that I own my site and if there is a surname of godaddy or cafepress on it I must not own it directly right? So that isn’t going to work.

So then I looked up google’s adwords unfortunately that is a type of advertising that puts your website on the right hand side of the google search page if your search words match those that the client puts in for searching. It also costs money per click. Budgets suck.

Then I tried googlebase which is supposed to connect up your ebay, yahoostore or oscommerce store into some sort of shopping network on google. I can’t figure out how to make it work! WAAAA!

I feel so old and disconnected! I am starting to feel inadequate so I will be right back maybe I can find a chocolate bar laced with Prozac.

No Prozac just chocolate pudding and a couple B-vitamin complex. Ok so what can I do? What doesn’t confuse me and make me feel like the oldest, dumbest person on the planet? PRINT MEDIA! Yeah I can do that its not so terribly frustrating that I want to just curl up under a blanket with a ½ pound hershy bar.

So I designed a page that kind of looks like something out of a catalog. I have done tons of layout and design pages so it makes me feel better. Anyway it got me thinking that I should make a catalog and buy some order forms and sell directly. Not sure if that is a good idea or not.

In the meantime, I decided to email the page to people in two of my three email addresses and see if that doesn’t generate some views or sales. If you want to look at it its here.

http://aurakiss.deviantart.com/art/Catalog-page-85384703

Hope the week isn’t as frustrating as today.

More Rain! Please More Rain!

Sometimes I really want to clone 3 more of me. One to do the housework and yardwork. One to design artwork. One to do the writing. And the last to support and advertise the other three. So four of us all together could accomplish what One wee little lass is trying to do all by herself because all of these things seem to be full-time jobs on top of the full time day job I have.

I treasure the time when I can drop into bed or take a nap. :sleep:

As some may have noticed I have put the jewelry/music boxes on HOLD until I finish illustrating a children’s book for a self-publishing author. Because the individual is retired and on limited means the cost of the illustrations are at rock bottom for him. I figure its just a way to get my outwork out there but still get money for my supplies.

When I get back to the boxes I have been considering actually using real rattlesnake skin to either line the inside or outside of a box. I wanted opinions on this action because real cured rattlesnake skin is a long hard process to do and DANGEROUS. It might mean that I could get bitten trying to catch several snakes to process.

If you think this is cruel you are so very wrong. Right now in our drought plagued area the warm weather has caused some animals to over-populate thereby endangering rancher’s animals. Rattlesnakes are not an endangered species. Still opinions on this ideas are welcomed before I go to all the trouble to either track down professionally worked skin or try and do the process myself.

Have a nice weekend or week everyone! Pray for me to get rain so I don’t have to go outside and do yard-work and get some artwork done.

:dance: Rain Rain Rain please Rain Rain Rain! :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:

SSA: Shameless self advertising http://www.cafepress.com/alitastudio

When the Wind Blows and At the Lake House.

A series by James Patterson.

Okay right off the bat I am going to write that these are easy read books. Nothing complicated at all, the words are common and easily defined. "At the Lake House" contained a few curse words, maybe five or six total. There is generic type sex scenes, on in "When the Wind Blows" and two or is it three in the sibling book. The paragraphs short and quick just like the chapters. There was one chapter that was only a page long. Both of these books didn’t go over 350 pages. I would say the reading age for these books would be about 12-14 for an average C student.

The thing about these books is there is some high thought content. DNA manipulation, human organ testing, cloning, cyborg, sex, legal concepts but all these subjects are glazed over quickly without a whole lot of explaining. I would say that an older, more experienced reader, okay like myself, would feel ripped off.

It seems that both books should have been bigger, more expansive in descriptions and plot fat. The plots in both are easily readable and predicted. There were no surprise moves by the characters and not even the "It was a surprise" and "All of a sudden" s didn’t help a bit to build my tension. I was not reading because the book sucked me into the plots. I was reading to pass the time and I felt no qualms about putting the book down to find something better to do.

The characters were interesting. Mr. Patterson tried to give them real depth and intricacies but I was just not feeling it. I felt no connections to any of the characters. That is why I never was able to suck into the book. Even the characters actions and feelings passed quickly from one page to the next and so it was almost impossible to get attached to any of them. I would say for both plot and characters it was like seeing a hyperactive person off medication and on sugar cubes, one every ten minutes. You just kind of sit back watch the activity passively until the kid falls over in sugar coma.

So if you are out for a book that you can read while the kids play at the park. This would be excellent because you can throw it down at anytime to keep Susie from shoving Dandylions up Bobby’s nose. It is also thick enough to be used to lightly paddle said Susie without causing serious damage. Easy to read so you can always just back track a couple paragraphs and begin reading again.

It would also be a good 14 year old girls birthday book. I don’t think boys would like it because there is just not enough descriptions of Weapons of Mass Destruction (HOOAH). It would also appeal to girls because it is about angels with a frosting of romance.

SSA: Shameless self advertising.

http://www.cafepress.com/alitastudio

I’m not hard.

I know I put off this air or at least I think I put off this air. The air of being hard and crusty. I guess in non metaphoric terms I seem grumpy, unhappy, unfeeling and bitchy.

The truth is that I feel everything sometimes I actually take on feelings of someone else. So to combat the situations I pull away, so that my feelings don’t empathize so much I lose myself. When I get unhappy I pull away more so that I can try and sort it all out to start feeling better. It hardly helps but talking about being unhappy without a reason really confuses people. They don’t seem to understand that a person doesn’t need an outside source to feel unhappy. I don’t want to seem like a whiner.

I consider myself more of a biscuit. A little crusty on the outside but hot, soft and warm on the inside.

There is not a whole lot of confidence in this body, that level goes up and down. Some days I feel like nothing can get in my way and other days are not so great.

I would like to think I do my best day in and day out to be the best person I am capable of being. I honestly try not to hurt anybody, physically, emotionally or mentally. I try on a daily basis to rid myself bitterness and resentment, its not always an easy task. I try not to gossip but I admit that it happens unintentionally. I try to think of neat things to create or make so that my own living situation gets better. I am not always successful.

I need to quit smoking. I have tried on and off for the last three years but failed. I have no reasons it just happened. I want to make my cafepress site successful in the respects that I am hoping that whatever I earn there will go to help my kids go to college. Even just making enough this year and next year until this time would be a godsend because my daughter graduates high school next year and I would love to give her a time with it.

That graduation thing includes:

Taking her to a dermatologist because she has had acne bad since gradeschool. Tried all the products you can imagine and it didn’t work. The last choices are the dermatologist or putting her on birth-control even though she is not sexually active. If we do this we can get professional type graduation pictures.

Either renting a spot in a restaurant or fixing up the house so that it is presentable for guests. Right now I don’t invite people over because my house is just a junky trailer and it embarrasses me. To fix up the trailer I would need to finish the bathroom. (right now there is just cement board on the walls and floor.) Painting inside and outside and some new floor covering for different areas of the house.

Thats not counting all the cleaning, sorting and tossing out of junk. That I can do for the most part without money but it takes time and I spend a lot of time working.

Purchase of invitations, gown, and graduation presents. Food for the reception and that kind of thing.

Getting the whole family to the dentist and the eye doctor.

I figured to do all even with the shortcuts like taking her graduation portraits myself, renting a restaurant spot rather than fixing the house ($300 vs $3000). I figured I would need about $5000 for the doctor, dentist and eye doctor, little things like invitations, food, gifts and gown. I guess I should get a second job rather than depending on a web-store that might not make anything.

I would post the whole article but it is extremely long. http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Columns&article_no=3605&%3E%3Cimg%20src=

The basics are this. The US government and European governments are trying to make it so that all artworks, even those that are registered with the copywrite be registered with a privately owned registry office.

Each artwork, photograph, song, poem and literary work would have to be registered with a minimum $5 fee. Otherwise the artwork is considered "Orphaned" and will be allowed to be used by the general masses for anything. THIS IS THEFT!

Imagine spending months working on an artwork piece. Then when you decide to display it for sale on ebay or the web, that anyone can take that image and use it for their own benefit. They can make prints of your artwork and then sell them without giving YOU the creator any of the profits from that sale!

It is tough enough to make a living as it is..I work a real job and do freelance and artshows on the side. It is hard to pay for gas just to get to my so called "real job". Let alone pay to registered every piece of creative artwork or writing I do.

Writers have to beware too! The Orphaned Works Bill going through congress affects YOUR WRITING TOO!

Write your congress!!! Not just about the high cost of medical care! NOt just about the high cost of gas!

Write six letters ONE FOR every topic you feel upset about. If you are not a registered voter it doesn't matter if you pay taxes YOU HAVE A VOICE! That even includes teenagers that drive because guess what if they work teens pay taxes too! If they drive they pay gas taxes! and sales tax! YOU HAVE A VOICE ~~~ USE IT~~~

How to contact the US Elected Officials:

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

I would post the whole article but it is extremely long. http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Columns&article_no=3605&%3E%3Cimg%20src=

The basics are this. The US government and European governments are trying to make it so that all artworks, even those that are registered with the copywrite be registered with a privately owned registry office.

Each artwork, photograph, song, poem and literary work would have to be registered with a minimum $5 fee. Otherwise the artwork is considered "Orphaned" and will be allowed to be used by the general masses for anything. THIS IS THEFT!

Imagine spending months working on an artwork piece. Then when you decide to display it for sale on ebay or the web, that anyone can take that image and use it for their own benefit. They can make prints of your artwork and then sell them without giving YOU the creator any of the profits from that sale!

It is tough enough to make a living as it is..I work a real job and do freelance and artshows on the side. It is hard to pay for gas just to get to my so called "real job". Let alone pay to registered every piece of creative artwork or writing I do.

Writers have to beware too! The Orphaned Works Bill going through congress affects YOUR WRITING TOO!

Write your congress!!! Not just about the high cost of medical care! NOt just about the high cost of gas!

Write six letters ONE FOR every topic you feel upset about. If you are not a registered voter it doesn't matter if you pay taxes YOU HAVE A VOICE! That even includes teenagers that drive because guess what if they work teens pay taxes too! If they drive they pay gas taxes! and sales tax! YOU HAVE A VOICE ~~~ USE IT~~~

How to contact the US Elected Officials:

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

I would like to write that something exciting and new is going on, but that is certainly not the case. Nothing good exciting going on in my world or perhaps it is my perception right now. My day job had me doing overtime for a long time, now just the opposite is happening. I am now getting four day weekends. Now you would think with the extra time I would be getting tons of stuff done, instead I feel like I am doing hardly anything.

I did open the website and I keep putting up new designs, and old ones so people can purchase t-shirts and other products with some of my images on them. Here http://www.cafepress.com/alitastudio

Last weekend I did a CG design in both white and black, so it can be printed either on white or black shirts. Also I did two designs for my sister’s fly tying hobby. I thought if I did a design for her that it might make her feel better since she’s been having some real life problems.

I’m still doing keepsake boxes. This last one is taking forever because I just can’t get into it. I decided I do not like painting on small boxes. This one is only 2 ½ inches by 4 ½ inches by 2 inches. I put some dog-dragons on it but I just don’t like the way they came out at all. Neither did my second worst critic like them either. She gave both my small boxes a low rating on her scale. That means that I am probably only going to price them at $5 without shipping. And neither small box rated high enough on the artistic scale to warrant putting music in them.

I am going to try and start another box Monday at the latest. I am going to do another dragon one. I only have two blank boxes left and I can’t buy any more until my hours at work go back to regular 40 hours a week. Thats okay because I have another project that takes up time as well so I am sure the two boxes will last me till at least next month.

The big project needs to be done sometime around April 15^th to give me time to enter it into the artistmagazine.com contest. I don’t have a lot of confidence in winning, or even placing but I think for artists growth its a good idea I enter. Can’t really explain what I think I will learn from it but its just a feeling that it needs to be done. I still haven’t decided on a title on the WIP of the deer and mountain lion but I have some ideas kindling. Perhaps when I can officially call it done the full title will be in my head and ready.

Writing...Well believe it or not I wrote two things this week. Another fable after months of being in a writers block on my collection of fables and a random assignment for an online writers round table discussion. The fable is titled Tiger’s Voice. I think it came out well and would like to do an illustration for it soon.

Well thats my update...

Hugs everyone.

Well sometimes when I get really tired out or my self-esteem takes a dump, I turn into a work-a-holic.  Okay which to my family and friends I must be always into the workaholic mode.

So this weekend I have an extra day off work because its slow there.  This will be the second time this month I have a long weekend off.  So I have been going a little crazy designing so hopefully I can make up extra money for those missed days from work.

I have four new designs done for my clothing store

http://www.cafepress.com/alitastudio

I worked on a really large colored pencil painting this weekend and kind of neglected my latest keepsake box project.  Maybe I will get back to that tomorrow.