Friday, August 14, 2009

Friday, August 14, 2009
Waning Moon
Pluto Retrograde
Jupiter Retrograde
Uranus Retrograde
Sunny and pleasant

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day, thank goodness. I got the site work done — in and around the cleaning crew that had come in! Hard to get any creative work or anything that needs serious concentration done with vacuum cleaners and mopping and scrubbing happening all the way around!

The same place has booked me again in October, for two weekends, right after I get back from Prague, book-ending the week I teach at the Muse Conference.

So, basically, October’s booked! Yay! I might take on one or two more small projects, but, for the most part, it’s done. I’ve already got a few things booked for November. This year, I hope to wrap up client work by December 15 and then give myself a holiday break until after the first of the year. If that’s financially viable. Between what’s booked and my own deadlines, it should be a productive autumn, and, while I’ll do some marketing, most of it will be geared to projects after the first of the year.

I’m lining up some guest bloggers to appear while I’m in Prague, so you won’t miss me too much!

I feel better — I’m wondering if the air conditioning caused the sore throat and swollen glands.

I’ve got to head over to the family pharmacy when it opens and pick up some herbal supplements I need, then wait for the Optimum guy. I have to clear out a little more space so we can get at the plugs, and he’s got about 5 feet of space at the phone jack, and about 3 where the cable lead comes into the apartment. And that’s the best I can do for him. He’s just going to have to work around boxes and bins and piles of stuff.

I decided that, since I’ve pulled so much stuff out of the way in the first place, I’m going to dismantle the entire office area and reconfigure it so it works better. It means moving the 3-tired desk unit that accommodates the computer and one printer about five feet to the left and setting up new shelving to my right, where it’s actually useful to me (being right-handed), and getting a row of project containers to sit along the front of it, instead of just keeping things in stacks that the cats rearrange.

The new yoga blocks are fantastic, as is my new mat bag. I still haven’t found where the cats stashed the other block. But the yoga travel mat I ordered simply will not work. The one I saw in the store was like a rough towel — soft, flexible, folded in quarters, could fit in my carry-on. The one that arrived is an overly long piece of vinyl which not only won’t roll up again, sticking on itself like cling wrap, but gives off such a strong chemical smell I nearly reeled. The cats won’t go anywhere near it.

I’m hoping the whole switch over won’t be too painful. I need to get some editing done, and I need to turn attention back to my own deadlines, which ALWAYS must come first.

Tomorrow, I’ve got a 9 AM appointment at the Genius Bar, and I want to get this damned computer re-aligned once and for all. I spent over two hours last night installing software updates. The huge update was for Apple Software. The tiny one was for Word for Mac — which took four times longer, and immediately I got a flag that I had to download an additional update because of “critical failures” in the previous update. Bite me, Microsoft!

I’m hoping these updates will make things run more smoothly, and that tomorrow’s Genius can smooth it out.

The zipper on my three-month old computer bag broke. Can ANYONE make something that lasts for more than a minute? I am so sick of shoddy manufacturing.

Let’s hope the ISP switch isn’t too much of a nightmare. When I switched TO Verizon DSL from whomever I had before (I can’t even remember who it was), I had two weeks of hell.

Fingers crossed.

Devon