Haven’t Written in Ages

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t written in way too long. And yes, I fully realize that since I’m “blogging without obligation” that I don’t have to say that, but even with the protection of that umbrella, it’s been too long.

I’ve done absolutely no art except for my Christmas cards since I last posted. Oh, well, I also made a handmade book thanks to the guidance of my friend Candice. I met her at a crop for Goldens Hill Paper Crafts, a wonderful shop in Fairfax Station Virginia. The owner is such a wonderful sweet lady. She always has great projects planned for the participants. Anyway, I met Candice at one of these crops, and she is really good at making handmade journals, so she helped me make my first successful one. I had made another one previously from a kit from Club Scrap, but it was a disaster cause I didn’t know what I was doing. But Candice sweetly brought all the supplies and tools for me to make a whole new one, and we worked on it together. It was a smashing success. That was the only other artistic project I’ve done in ages.

I did recently find out about SoulCollage(R) which is sort of artistic, but is much more about your inner voice, etc. I only just got the book, but I’m really enjoying learning about this. I have not really started my deck  yet, but I will keep you updated as things change.

I’m being recruited by a government contracting firm as a Senior Technical Writer; the position also has a supervisory component. It sounds like a really challenging position, and would obviously be a good move for my career and my finances (it comes with about  a 20% raise) but it’s contingent on my security clearance, and so far that hasn’t been a fun process. I’m supposed to meet with their security person yet again next week to fix some errors on my form; maybe then it will finally get submitted.

In the meantime, my current boss is great. He submitted me as a candidate for working from home full time, and is letting me work from home occasionally while that’s being considered. With the horrible drive from Leesburg, it sure is helpful to be able to work from home, even just occasionally.

Things at church are going well. We’re starting a church wide study in a couple weeks to determine the direction our church should be going in, especially with regards to missions. I’m really looking forward to participating in that. Handbells are also going well, but we’re playing a crazy hard song and everyone is a little stressed out about that. But stressed in a good way, of course.

I also joined a supper club and we have our first meeting on Februray 10. I can’t wait to meet everyone. I’m a little nervous though, since it’s been quite a while since I’ve participated in one of these. but all the girls were really sweet in their email introductions, so I think it’s going to be a blast.

I joined a book group meetup as well. The book for February is Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez. I just got it from the library yesterday, and I literally read it in one night. I stayed up until almost 2:00 AM. I really enjoyed it a lot. Of course, since i have a lot of Afghan friends, there were parts of the book that spoke to me that other people may not find very compelling, but it’s a good book no matter where you’re coming from.

My roommate, Sohrab, introduced me to one of his friends, Hamid. He works as a contractor, mostly doing flooring, etc. but is also really good at general handyman stuff. He has really been a life saver. He fixed several doors that I had a problem with, he took out that stupid sliding door thing in the shower (who actually likes those things?!?!?), he fixed my extremely wobbly table, and lots of other stuff.  I was feeling bad because I didn’t really have the money to pay him, but then he asked for my help with some computer stuff, so we’re going to do a sort of trade. It’s so nice to know that there are really good people left in the world.

 Oh, I’m getting Dish Network installed next Saturday. For the first time in 3 years, I’ll have a TV. Well, I don’t actually have a TV yet; I’m still working on that. I’m hoping my new roommate will bring his TV by then so they can test the signal using his TV. I’m going to have a connection installed in my room as well, but I’m not all that keen on actually getting a TV. And there is definitely no room for a TV in the living room, so it makes more sense to just get both connections installed in the bedrooms upstairs. That way if I ever get back around to doing workout videos, I can do them in my room.

 One last thing…I’m learning Farsi again. But for real this time. I discovered something called the Pimsleur method that puts the Rosetta Stone to shame. I’ve been taking a 30 minute lesson once per day for 7 days now, and I can already carry on a fairly complicated conversation. I invested in the full 30 day course instead of the quick course, cause I really want to get good. I also have the quick course in Arabic that I’m going to do once I get really comfortable in Farsi. That way I can learn simple things in Arabic like how are you, thank you, you’re welcome, etc. I don’t care about having a complicated conversation in Arabic at this point in my life. Thus the simple version.

Well, that’s about all folks. Those are the highlights of whatever has been happening in my life since the last time I updated.

Ebay Feedback Changes

(yes I’m well aware that I haven’t posted in ages, and here I am with an “I told you so”. I’ll get to the other stuff later, but this was just too good to pass up!)

So, for all those people who responded to my extortion on Ebay post with responses indicating that I was being unreasonable, etc., I  just wanted to point out that evidently I’m not the only one who felt that way. Ebay just announced several changes, some of which apply to their feedback structure. The very first change they list on their article for feedback? “Buyers will only be able to receive positive Feedback. “

They haven’t provided much detail yet, but it appears that sellers now have only two options when it comes to leaving their buyers feedback: either leave them positive feedback or none at all.  I don’t know about you, but I personally think this is a great change, as it will no longer benefit sellers to try and extort positive ratings from their buyers…since the only kind of feedback they will be able to leave is positive, they can’t threaten to give us a negative rating if we’re honest with their ratings.

 Whoohoo to Ebay for finally doing something right!

Rant: ACEOs etc.

Most people who participate in altered art have probably heard of ATCs, even if you do not make them yourself. As such, you probably know that they are called trading cards for a reason–they are to be traded, never sold. I even wrote an entire document as an introduction to ATCs for new altered artists that was used in my newbie group for quite a while, so this subject is near and dear to my heart. So you can probably imagine that the development of ACEOs was a bit annoying to me (as well as several other prominent altered artists; Lisa Vollrath is furious at people who sell them and refuses to allow the use of any of the materials she sells in their creation…go Lisa!). However, I can’t stop people from trying to make a buck, even when they are doing so by taking something beautiful and turning it into something commercial. As long as they are clearly indicating that the cards they are selling are ACEOs and not ATCs then all I can do is cringe whenever I see one, but I can’t really say much about it.

Jump forward to a post that came through my Google reader for a blog that I subscribe to. I originally subscribed to this person’s blog because I liked the look of her art. I did not realize that her blog was basically one big commercial and she would hardly ever actually muse over anything (which is kind of ironic since the subtitle includes the word “musings of …”). Once I realized this, I had two choices: keep subscribing or unsubscribe. I’m too lazy to unsubscribe, and plus her artwork is nice even if it’s not my cup of tea to constantly promote my money making endeavors, so I decided to continue subscribing. Thus it was that I received a post in my reader today letting all her loyal readers know that she had updated her Ebay shop with additional items. This is pretty common for her (in fact it seems to be all she ever posts on her blog) so I didn’t immediately think much of it. Until I noticed what it is that she’s selling…

This person, who calls herself an altered artist even though she flagrantly disregards the sacredness of one of the sacred institutions of our field (i.e. ATCs), is now selling “prints of my favorite ACEOs & ATCs“. Once can only assume that the ATCs she is making prints of are at least her own to distribute as she sees fit because the alternative is too shocking to even consider. But regardless of whether they are her own artwork or not, the sheer audacity of her actually admitting that she is selling ATCs is what is getting me hot. She’s not even bothering to pretend that she is honoring the spirit of ATCs any longer.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I personally think people like this are not fit to truly call themselves altered artists, because it’s clear that their focus is not on art at all, but rather on money. Please join me in boycotting the items of all such “artists”, and perhaps posting comments on their blogs that explain the true meaning of ATCs.

Update: The writer whose blog originally prompted this rant contacted me letting me know that she had removed all mention of ATCs from her listings.  I admire her integrity in this, and only hope that she, along with all other “artists” who sell ATCs in the guise of “ACEOs” will eventually realize that calling them ACEOs is not changing what they truly are, and is not acceptable.  I challenge all altered artists out there to rise up against this practice and let our peers know that they are violating a very sacred rule by selling these.

It just occurred to me…

…that perhaps I should give y’all, my, ahem, loyal readers, a bit more information about the place I purchased. Although I’m sure it will bore some of you to tears (or perhaps not, since if you’re really that uninterested, you’ll probably just stop reading), some of you have expressed quite an interest in it.

So here goes: It’s a 3BR, 1.5 BA townhouse style condo. It’s located in Leesburg VA, which is a very pretty town that reminds me of a slightly more sophisticated version of the place where I  grew up. Since it’s townhouse style, it’s two levels. I have a small fenced yard with two trees in the front and a private bricked patio with flower planters on the side/back. It has a fireplace (painted, which I know lots of people hate, but I actually like) and tile all through the downstairs. It also has a tile counter-top on the breakfast bar area. There’s carpet all through the upstairs (well except for the bathroom, obviously). The only room with two windows is my bedroom, and they are so big they practically go floor to ceiling! (or maybe the ceiling is just that short; I hadn’t thought of that) I have attic access for storage, which I probably won’t use, but it’s nice to know it’s there just the same. I also have a small utility/storage/access room outside that looks like a second door to make things nice and symmetrical.

All in all, it’s very cute, very practical, and has lots of room for storage (hmmm…kind of like me, come to think of it, except I need lots of room for storage. LMAO)

So, that’s the gist of it; I’ll try to get some pics soon, but at least give me a chance to unpack first. Otherwise, y’all think I didn’t learn anything at all and that I’m going to be a crazy messy person–totally not the case.

Yippie! I’m a homeowner

Well, it’s official–I am now a homeowner! Ok, so technically, my status became official as of October 15, and come to think of it, I’m a homeowner in name only as classified by the United States Census Bureau. Because as anyone who is a homeowner knows, you aren’t really a home “owner” until you own the home and for me that will be 30 years if I stay in the same place and pay according to my current amortization table.

But still! I’m a “homeowner.” I’m now classified as “owns home” rather than “rents” on all official (and unofficial for that matter) documents. And now that I’m actually moved in, it really feels official. For instance, I actually made my bed the last two mornings in a row! I haven’t made my bed since I was a kid and was forced to! But there’s just something about living in a place that you own instead of rent that makes you want to act like a grownup. I guess it’s because I’ve now passed all official rites of passage of adulthood that are not involved with starting a family:

• I turned 18 (and could vote, buy lottery tickets, cigarettes, and porn–er, if I was so inclined);
• I turned 21 (and could drink);
• I turned 25 (and got lower rates on my car insurance without having to call Geico);
• I turned 30 (and panicked at the thought of my impending old age); and finally
• I bought my own place.

If you ask me, there aren’t any milestones left for me to tackle except getting married and having kids (which I’ll get to just as soon as I have time, thank you very much). So, since I’m now officially an adult, I figured it’s time to start acting like one.

I do hereby swear (or affirm) that I will do my best effort to keep my room nice and neat (including, but not limited to, making my bed as often as possible); I will do housework and laundry on a timely manner; and I will clean the bathrooms at least every other week if not more often (I do live with two guys). And as such, any of y’all can come visit me any time you want to, and can even crash in my room without me having a panic attack at the thought of someone seeing it.

It’s a good thing I’m blogging without obligation…

….cause it’s been several weeks since I’ve written a darn thing, and even longer since I’ve written about anything arty. As those of you who’ve ever bought a house (or condo) can well imagine, it’s for a very good reason…that reason is that my life is consumed with condo thoughts. All I worry about from waking to sleeping is “will the deal go through” with a bit of “what paint colors should I use” thrown in to keep it interesting. Of course, I’m hesitant to get too excited about picking out paint colors before we close, but since the estimated closing date is only two short weeks before the last day of my lease, I have no choice but to at least start packing, etc. in anticipation that it will indeed go through as planned.

As if that wasn’t enough to keep me busy, I recently started dating. I’m not going to go into details because we’re sort of in a holding pattern right now, but I will say that he’s a wonderful man who I’ve known for nearly a year and had never thought about romantically before. But about two weeks ago, we spent an evening talking and getting to know each other and I realized that he is someone I could connect with. Things started moving a bit fast, and (as men are wont to do) he got scared and pulled back…thus the current holding pattern status. But I’m not worried; I know that things will work out for the best…the only thing I don’t know is whether the best is for us to continue dating or for us to not continue dating. But that’s the fun of putting everything in God’s hands….I never know what will happen, but I do know that whatever it is will be for the best in the long run.

So, the condo adventure, and my attempts at dating, are the things that are keeping me away from doing any art and more importantly (at least as far as this blog is concerned) keeping me from blogging about the small amounts of art I actually have done. But since I have no obligation to anyone but myself I’m not worried about it. I’m in a very exciting part of my life and I am enjoying it too much to worry about little things like how long it’s been since last I updated my blog.

Update on Condo

Well, most of my friends have come to terms with the fact that I’ve sort of fallen off the face of the earth for a while due to all the craziness involved in this condo hunt, etc. But I did promise some of you that I’d keep you updated, which I have not been doing a very good job of. I tend to be more than a little long winded, even in emails, so if I try to email everyone who needs emailing and tell them the status, it’ll take me forever. In lieu of that, I’m just going to write a long-winded post here and hope that everyone can forgive me for being bad about my personal keeping in touch at the moment.

First, I switched realtors. The lovely Christian realtor guy was wonderful, but it just wasn’t working out. Besides, I had originally talked to my friend Hussain ages ago, and should have used him anyway. The only reason I didn’t was because he was out of the country for a while, and then after he got back he had a lot going on, so I wasn’t sure if he had the time to take me on. Turns out he did, so the logical solution was for me to switch over and use him as my realtor since Marc wasn’t working out for me anyway.

Next, we went to Leesburg on Tuesday and looked at several properties. It was quite an adventure, involving lots of rain, lots of laughs, and surprisingly, lots of fun (see why it’s a good thing to have your friend be your realtor?) and ultimately we found three places that I both loved and he also thought would be good decisions (again, see why it’s a good thing to have your friend be your realtor?).

The three places are as follows:

• a very nice, completely renovated 3 BR 1.5 BA condo where everything is brand new inside.
• a very nice, less recently renovated 3BR 1.5 BA condo where things weren’t as new, including several features to make up for the less newness (a fireplace, a private brick patio, tile throughout, etc.)
• an ok, somewhat updated 2BR 1.5 BA condo that I would be satisfied with but would not love as much as either of the other two unless we got it for a much lower price than they were currently asking.

The current status is that Hussain is talking with the owners of my favorite of the three properties (obviously one of the 3BR places, but I’m not telling which one….gotta have some surprises for blog updates) and is trying to negotiate a better price plus closing costs. Since all three properties have been on the market for well over 90 days, and there are tons of other properties in the same complex for sale, I’m optimistic that it will be successful. But please everyone be sending lots of positive, condo-friendly, thoughts my way, cause I’m too excited now to be happy if this falls through.

Oh, P.S. I’ve decided to switch back to having a roommate. Otherwise my life would be not very pleasant for at least the next couple of years.  More on that to come later.

Extortion on Ebay

Anyone else noticed that sellers on Ebay are now making your feedback contingent on whether or not you leave them positive feedback first? I’m sorry, but as buyers, we’re already the ones taking the biggest risk first by sending some stranger money for an item that we have not received, and the only proof we have that we’ll actually get what we’re supposed to get is that they haven’t yet cheated too many other people. Our reward for taking that risk first should be that once we’ve completed our end of the bargain (i.e. paid for our purchase within the seller’s guidelines) we should receive positive feedback. It should not matter whether we ultimately leave positive feedback, negative feedback, or neutral feedback for the seller. We did our part, and therefore we deserve our feedback.

Some cutting edge sellers have finally realized that if they provide bad service, they get poor feedback for it. (duh!) So instead of leaving their buyers feedback upon receipt of payment (like they should) they wait until after they receive positive feedback from the buyer. This is in effect rendering the Ebay feedback system completely useless because now the buyers are afraid that they’ll get bad feedback in retaliation for justified bad feedback to the seller, even if they paid immediately upon winning the auction and within the payment guidelines of that seller.

Well I don’t know about you, but I personally am sick of this. I have a feedback rating of at least 75 (I know this because I got a star from Ebay upon receiving my 75th transaction rating) and I am happy with that. In my entire time as a Ebayer (primarily as a buyer but occasionally as a seller) I have received only 1 negative, and that was due to some miscommunication and a misunderstanding between me and the seller. She later regretted giving me negative feedback, but alas there is nothing that can be done about it now.  So, being secure in my lovely 75+ transactions, 99.99% positive rating, I have decided to stop leaving feedback for sellers who try to, in effect, blackmail me into leaving them positive feedback. So, every time I get an email or paypal slip from a seller indicating that they will leave me positive feedback only once they have received the same from me, I am not only not going to leave them feedback of any variety, but also going to send them the message below:

“Hi. I received all of the items, and am very happy with them and with your service. However, I am opposed in principle to sellers who refuse to leave me feedback until I have left them feedback. This is unfair since I will have already completed my part of the transaction long before the items are ever shipped. As such my feedback should be based entirely on that fact, not on whether I rate you for also completing your obligations correctly. As such, I never leave feedback for people who require me to first leave their feedback because they are in effect trying to extort a positive feedback listing from me. I am secure enough in my 76 positive feedback listing to not need to give in to this extortion, and therefore do not participate in this practice. I just wanted to let you know why I will not be leaving feedback of any variety for you, which is a shame since I was thrilled with your products and would have been happy to leave you a glowing recommendation. Thank you and have a nice day.”

I also plan to do some research in the Ebay community to see if they have plans to do something about this. (for instance, not allowing the seller to use the paypal shipping system for items that they have not yet left feedback for, etc.) and if not, then I’m going to raise a serious stink about it. I do not take lightly to extortion!

Ok. Stepping down from my soapbox now…

Buying a Condo in Northern Virginia

After nearly two years in Northern Virginia (for those of you outside the D.C. Metro area, that’s Northern Virginia, or NOVA, as opposed to the Rest of Virginia, or ROVA. Really they should be two separate states seeing as everything about the two areas is completely different. Many Northern Virginians have been saying this for years, but since many of them have never lived in ROVA, I never really considered that they knew what they were talking about. Now having lived in both ROVA and NOVA, I can agree that yes, they should indeed be two different states, and it’s quite a shame that it will likely never happen) I have decided to attempt to buy a condo. Now, everyone probably knows that it’s a better idea in the long run to buy than to rent (therefore, you’re not throwing your money directly into someone else’s pockets, but are indirectly sliding it into a pocket you may or may not possess in the future assuming that you keep the property long enough to both build up some equity and take advantage of said equity). But two years doesn’t sound like an unduly long time to live somewhere before deciding to buy, right? However, I lived in Blacksburg for 10 years, and the entire time kept saying that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay so I should keep renting. Well, I am not even going to do the calculations to find out how much rent money I threw directly into someone else’s pockets during those 10 years because it’s way too depressing, but suffice it to say that it was a lot. As such, I decided that since I do like NOVA enough to stay for at least a few more years, that it was high time for me to get myself in gear and take the home-ownership plunge.

Several things in my life reached a favorable conjunction in order to cause me to actually consider this. First, my current lease is over at the end of October. Second, my roommate is only paying me through the end of September ’cause she’s moving out then. Third, I got to thinking about my future pockets and how I’d like to be sliding a bit of money into them rather than throwing it unabashedly into some stranger’s current pockets. So I started looking into it.

I’ve already done a few steps prior to this writing (sorry, but I didn’t want to jinx it by announcing to the whole world before things started moving) so this is a belated attempt to catch my readers up and keep on top of things. So as of now, I have a realtor (a really nice Christian guy who I’d be happy to give props to if I had a website for him. As it is, all I have is an email and phone number and I don’t hold too kindly with passing out that kind of information, especially without permission. But if he tells me he wants props on my blog, I’ll come back here and update this post for all of you who are looking for your own really nice Christian realtor guy in NOVA) and have been pre-approved for a nice chunk of change (not a great one; I can’t for instance afford to live in the area I currently rent as a home-owner, but I can afford to go out a little ways and get a quite cute little place). Unfortunately, the bank guy I was first working with could only pre-approve me if I could put a significant chunk of change down, and I hadn’t been planning this long enough to have a down payment saved up. So, I talked to a friend of a friend who thinks they can get me 100% financing at a pretty good rate. If so, I’ll be a happy girl. If not, very sad, cause I’ve already got my heart set on having my own place.

But in any case, I have now shifted my plans anyway. My original plan was to buy at least a 2BR/2BA place and rent out one or more of the bedrooms. However, now that I’ve decided it would be quite nice to live alone (I am getting to the age where a girl likes to have some independence after all) my price ranges have dropped. Not sure yet whether they have dropped enough to where I can actually afford to live alone, even if I can qualify to live alone (a difference that many people do not understand, which is why we’re currently seeing such a huge influx of foreclosed homes recently) but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. In fact, there are a couple of places that are priced low enough that I should be able to even put the 5% down if I use my 401K as my down payment (or maybe as collateral toward it somehow if that’s possible. Anyone know if I can do that?). Granted I’d have to go from driving 20 minutes with no traffic to 45 minutes with no traffic (easily 1.5 hours when traffic gets bad) but I think it will be worth it to be able to both have my own place (as in I own it) and have my own place (as in live alone).

So, for those of you who wonder why I suddenly have been a busy little bee with everything except my art, now you know. Buying a home (even a condo, which I equate more with an apartment search) is not something you can do quickly or easily. It’s quite exhausting in fact. But exhausting in a good way. So for those of you that pray, please be praying that I’ll be able to recognize God’s will and know if this is the right time for me to be doing this. And check back often for updates on the process.

My (graphics) fairy godmother

An absolutely wonderful blogging lady (who I have not yet had the pleasure of virtual meeting, but hope to soon with this link) named Karen has started a blog called The Graphics Fairy and from what I can tell, the sole purpose of this blog seems to be to share her arty goodness in the form of graphics that we can download.

Now I have seen other people who are willing to share their goodies at times, but it’s far more common to find people who are trying to sell their goodies instead. But from the “about the site” post, it seems that her motives are entirely pure. Not only is she willing to let you use the graphics in personal art and pieces for trade, she’s even an Angel company, which means she’s letting you use them in pieces you plan to sell, as long as you use no more than four of her graphics in any one piece. I think this is so nice of her, and I so wish I had an award to give her. Unfortunately, I have not yet (here’s hoping!) been blessed with a “Nice Matters” award or she’d definitely be a person to pass it on to. At my company when someone does something above and beyond the call of duty (so to speak–we’re not exactly in the business of saving lives or anything) their coworkers have the ability to present them with a star. It doesn’t come with any formal recognition, or any monetary value or anything. It is just a way to recognize your peers and let them know you appreciate them. So in lieu of any actual award to give Karen, I am hereby awarding her a virtual star for going above and beyond. Thanks, Karen, for sharing with all of us!