National Alliance on Mental Illness Chicago Walk

Tom and I and some friends will be walking in the National Alliance on Mental Illness walk in Chicago on September 19. This is an important cause for me in particular for a lot of reasons.
One is that regular therapy over the past few years has probably been one of the most, if not the most useful treatment I've received in terms of learning to cope with becoming disabled, having chronic health conditions, dealing with the unknown and unexpected, etc., etc. I'm deeply appreciative of all the professionals who have helped me and continue to help me.

Another is that I am all too aware of the stigma associated with mental illness. I understand it to a certain degree but I don't like it. I like it even less now that if affects me personally. I want to walk to show solidarity with others who have or have had mental illnesses of any kind.

A third is that the state of mental health care, particularly access to mental health care is in many ways absolutely pitiful. Public funding has been cut in many circumstances. Some of the people who most desperately need help and support whether it be crisis intervention or long term care often have little or no access to the help they need. I have been remarkably lucky in that our health insurance covers mental health care at all and that our coverage recently removed the yearly cap on office visits. Others are not so lucky.


Here is the link to my personal walker page: http://www.nami.org/namiwalks10/GCH/shovelingferret
And here's the link for our team page: http://www.nami.org/namiwalks10/GCH/jamesgang

Any support, whether it be moral support, sponsorship in any amount, or joining our team if you're in the Chicago area will be immensely appreciated, not only by me but by all the other people your donation will help.

I'm hoping to figure out a way to stick a permanent link/gauge over on my sidebar as well...

Motivation - I needs some

Image via Wikipedia

I mentioned I felt like I was spinning my wheels health-wise a few days ago.  I feel like I'm spinning my wheels in general lately too.
Lots of plans and ideas, but no action on them.
I think this is partly a matter of fear - of failure, of wasted time and money experimenting (because my perfectionist self insists that "failed" experiments are wastes), of wearing myself out.
It's also an issue of TOO MUCH STUFF running around my brain.
I want to start selling crafts online. 
Do I go with Etsy or Artfire.  Or both?

I have ideas about branding and packaging and photography style and theme (an overall archaeological theme).  Do I do that stuff now or wait until I actually have an inventory of stuff to actually, you know, sell?  Also, I am intimidated by Inkscape and Scribus, etc.  I have a start on part of my planned logo, but I still have Inkscape-fear.

What about bookkeeping?  Will I go nuts with that?  I already have some excellent spreadsheet setups, but, but, numbers are the debil!

Oh, and what do I actually sell?  The overall theme here is archaeological/Egyptological inspired stuff (I'm being vague out of an additional fear that someone will steal my ideas!!!eleventy!)  :Looks around shiftily:
- Amigurumi patterns (that I need to actually make and write and layout and test and make look purty)
- Jewelry (that I need to actually make to be sure it isn't hideous because at the moment all the designs exist solely in my head and run around and mock me when I'm trying to sleep).  And do I stick with all polymer clay (with the exception of findings) or do mixed media pieces?  There's a learning curve here as well  - I haven't done much jewelry.  How much experimenting (and therefore time and money spent) am I going to need to do?
- Fascinators and hair bobbles (that won't necessarily fit with the rest of the theme, but are easy and fast and fun to make)
- Hand printed textiles?

Photography:
My hands shake.  I suck at photography.  The light is bad.  I hate fiddling with stuff.  I do have awesome ideas for settings and composition though.  And a tripod.  And a husband who is a photography hobbyist.

So, in general, I look at all of the above, get overwhelmed, twitch a little and then go back to aimlessly surfing the internet and reading about nuclear weapons or UFO accounts or mid-19th Century European royalty and politics instead of doing anything productive.  I read various blog posts from various awesome people in the crafty world talking about a lot of the stuff (the crafting, not the UFOs) above, but I still do *nothing.*
It's a little bit like the classic paper-writing conundrum of getting so caught up in research that you never actually write anything.  Or getting so caught up in collecting sources you don't so much read them as acquire them.

So - how do I kick myself in the ass/brain?  And how do I do it in a way that doesn't wear me out physically or mentally?

Zafu Production

So, I finally got started on making my very own zafu (meditation cushion) tonight using these instructions.

All well and good except either I messed up or Michigan Buddhists are bad at math. I have my 59 inch strip of cloth. I made 3/4 inch pleates 3 inches apart from each other. I do not have 14 pleats. I have 11. For the time being, I'm inclined to say "so what" and keep on going, but I'm not working on it any more tonight anyway so if a reader who has better sewing or direction following skills than me can point out either how I'm stupid or how it doesn't really matter and everything is cool, that would be awesome.  Haven't ironed the pleats yet either, just in case I do need to re-do everything.

Tiring but good day

I didn't sleep very well last night and had to be up this morning for an appointment, but today still managed to be a good day.  My dear friend took me out to do a bit of shopping, including a visit to Vogue Fabrics.  Drool!!!!!  We spent a generous amount of time rummaging through the remnants and I got a great haul of stuff.

Going through some of their other lovely stuff has also reinforced my need to get sewing again and build up some skills so that I can go back and buy some of their lovely silks, for example, to make clothes.

As it is, I have some wonderful cottons to work with for bags and for table linens.  Enough, in fact, that I'm looking around as we speak for some basic accounting tools in order to take the next step toward starting a little product line for sale on Etsy.  

I know myself well enough to know that I need to start keeping books from the get-go, even if the whole thing fizzles.  Otherwise, I may wind up in a mess of receipts and papers and no clue what is going on.

I also need to figure out a few other "business-y" things - like tax stuff.  Groan.  Anyone with any resources to share, I will be immensely grateful.

I am now exhausted, though, and probably need to stop with the thinky stuff for now before I get thoroughly confused and frustrated.

Crafting For a Cause - Handmade Items Help Sick Baby

From the Craftzine blog is a story about fellow crafters banding together to help raise funds to help baby Isaac "Ike" Roy, the premature baby son of Kari Anne and Steven.   Fundraising is especially important to the family at this point as  Steven was recently laid off.  

There is a website devoted to information about Ike and many crafters from all over have donated items for an auction to raise money.

Do what you can to help, even if it's just passing on the links! A summary of the story is also in the Craftzine post linked below.

Craftzine.com blog : Crafting For a Cause - Handmade Items Help Sick Baby

Mmmm, pain relief (aka NSB from theferriswheels review)

Mmmm, pain relief
Originally uploaded by shoveling_ferret

So, I promised a review of this wonder product once it arrived.
Sally from theferriswheels was wonderful to work with - if she was weirded out by my gushing in happiness over finding this thing, she hid it very well. :) She was wonderful about communication and let me know as soon as she got it in the mail. It arrived on Saturday, but I didn't get around to picking it up until Sunday. That's super fast!
No mess of packaging to waste or have to dispose of - very good! Very nice directions included!
So, I popped it in the microwave and...ahhhhhhhh! Yay! It fits as far up my neck as I want it to, drapes my shoulders nicely, and hits the tense parts very well too! It doesn't stay heated quite as long as I would like, but I suspect that's more to do with our craptastic tiny microwave than with the actual pack. (Also, if you're like me and never clean your microwave, put it on a plate or something when you heat it - you don't want popcorn-butter residue on your happy.)  I love that it stays in place really well too - I can get up and putter around a bit without having to untangle myself from cords or make sure things are unplugged AND I still get my warm relief while I do it.

Overall, I'm very pleased, as I hope you can tell from the photo (I'm also rocking some great camo jammies my Nana bought me last Xmas and having a particularly achy/icky day, so I probably look a bit more sickly than usual). I will definitely be recommending these to friends and family!

(I also love that there's yarn, an amigurumi book, and the upper part of my old-fashioned electric heating pad visible in the photo...)

And what do you know...

In my brain-fogged state, I failed to realize the difference between WordPress free hosting and WordPress the blog client (for which you must obtain a host).  WordPress free hosting does not do what I want it to do and is not nearly sufficiently flexible and I don't see the point in paying for web hosting as this blog has maybe 2 devoted readers at the moment.  Sigh...  

As much as Blogger annoys me, I prefer it to WordPress, primarily because of the integration with various Google services, especially Reader and because of the relative degree of flexibility even if you have no html-fu to speak of.  However, I hate the Blogger web interface, especially when dealing with images.  At the moment, I'm looking for a desktop blogging client for Mac OS X - preferably free, but as time goes on I may be willing to pay a bit.  I've already tried Qumana and find it annoying and not particularly functional - I especially dislike the failure to recognize and download drafts for editing.  Nor am I seeing the ease of "drag and drop" though that might be because I'm slower than usual today.  I tried an extension for Open Office but it cannot seem to connect to Blogger, despite claiming that it could do so, so that did no good, especially as I haven't the patience to fiddle with the blasted thing.  

I'm contemplating trying Flock, but I prefer using Safari as my primary browser, especially because Safari (and Safari alone) integrates so beautifully with Notebook.    I'd rather not run multiple browsers...

So, I need a desktop blogging client that meets the following criteria:

• Mac OS X (native, no running X11 or any of that happy crap...yes Gimp, I'm looking at you and flipping you the bird)
• Integrates well with Blogger, including draft management regardless of where the draft was originally made (in other words, if I started it via web or if I started it in the client)
• Easy to use (seriously, my brain has shiny spots...)
• Better graphic management than the Blogger interface
• Free or inexpensive (under $30)