How do you balance work and home life?
I work at work and sleep at home
21 Sunday May 2023
Posted in Uncategorized
Weird News of the Day
18 Thursday May 2023
Posted in Weird News
Double Feature
Sticker Making is An Art
27 Thursday Apr 2023
Posted in My Life is a Dumpster Fire, Non-Fiction
And I’m no artist.
I’ve recently started making stickers. It requires… a lot. One of the most important things?
Which I do not have. I cannot draw. I can’t. I don’t care what anyone says. I can’t. Most of the things I’ve done have been traced in some form. Case in point:
Okay that gallery is not an accurate representation of my tracing prowess. But the moose is. I’ll show the moose.
This moose silhouette was traced from a screenshot of multiple moose silhouettes. I added the screenshot into Procreate, created a transparent layer over it, picked a brush, increased streamline and stabilization and traced it. It’s not exact as I didn’t take pains. Then I just autofilled with black. Easy peasy.
Simply put:
While there is *some* regret, there’s zero remorse. It does feel a little like stealing, piggybacking off someone else’s work, so to speak. I am not broken up about it.
Mostly because I feel like I’m wasting my time and energy, because I won’t make anything off any of the stickers I make. The kid has made more money off hers.
Which, good for her I’m not mad.
But if I were charging, properly, for the work I do, taking into account the effort I put into it, I’d be charging more than $2 a sticker.
Consider the moose. Let’s pretend he (his name is Clive, obvi) was a commission. A commission for which I charged for my time and the actual physical sticker. Let’s say I charged a dollar an hour for the work, plus the sticker. I’ve worked on this dude for a couple hours minimum. And if the price point of the sticker itself was still $2. I’d be charging $4 at least for the commission.
Granted, he’s a digital file and there’s an unlimited amount I can make off a digital file. I can print it over and over.
The set price of $2 (for all my stickers for sale on the site) was determined after The Hubs helped me “math” the cost of materials (this did not include the brand new printer). I have to sale, like ten stickers to make the money back from the sticker paper an laminate I put over it.
This ain’t no side hustle.
It is the opposite of a side hustle. It’s a side reluctance (I googled the opposite of hustle). You make money off a side hustle. You enjoy a side hustle. You’re good at a side hustle. I am
Let’s be honest.
Between the hours of 5:30pm and 11pm (my bedtime—it should be earlier) I should be left alone. By left alone I mean no outside contact, no internet, no doom scrolling said internet. No communication. I need to either read or sleep.
This is because, it seems, right around 5:30-6:00 i slowly float away into what feels like a depressive state. I think about how I’m not very good at everything and I don’t have any friends. I remember that I’m a bad daughter to a father, a bad sister, and I’ve broken promises.
I remember that I’m a failure: I graduated college but I work retail. I’ve tried to write the same story for going on a year and four months.
Seriously though, I scrolled all the way back.
I remember all these things that remind me that I’m not what I could have been.
Ignore this entire post.
I’m tried, I’ve gotta work in the morning, and I still need to clean off my bed. Goodnight.
Sticker Making is An Art
27 Thursday Apr 2023
Posted in My Life is a Dumpster Fire, Non-Fiction
And I’m no artist.
I’ve recently started making stickers. It requires… a lot. One of the most important things?
Which I do not have. I cannot draw. I can’t. I don’t care what anyone says. I can’t. Most of the things I’ve done have been traced in some form. Case in point:
Okay that gallery is not an accurate representation of my tracing prowess. But the moose is. I’ll show the moose.
This moose silhouette was traced from a screenshot of multiple moose silhouettes. I added the screenshot into Procreate, created a transparent layer over it, picked a brush, increased streamline and stabilization and traced it. It’s not exact as I didn’t take pains. Then I just autofilled with black. Easy peasy.
Simply put:
While there is *some* regret, there’s zero remorse. It does feel a little like stealing, piggybacking off someone else’s work, so to speak. I am not broken up about it.
Mostly because I feel like I’m wasting my time and energy, because I won’t make anything off any of the stickers I make. The kid has made more money off hers.
Which, good for her I’m not mad.
But if I were charging, properly, for the work I do, taking into account the effort I put into it, I’d be charging more than $2 a sticker.
Consider the moose. Let’s pretend he (his name is Clive, obvi) was a commission. A commission for which I charged for my time and the actual physical sticker. Let’s say I charged a dollar an hour for the work, plus the sticker. I’ve worked on this dude for a couple hours minimum. And if the price point of the sticker itself was still $2. I’d be charging $4 at least for the commission.
Granted, he’s a digital file and there’s an unlimited amount I can make off a digital file. I can print it over and over.
The set price of $2 (for all my stickers for sale on the site) was determined after The Hubs helped me “math” the cost of materials (this did not include the brand new printer). I have to sale, like ten stickers to make the money back from the sticker paper an laminate I put over it.
This ain’t no side hustle.
It is the opposite of a side hustle. It’s a side reluctance (I googled the opposite of hustle). You make money off a side hustle. You enjoy a side hustle. You’re good at a side hustle. I am
Let’s be honest.
Between the hours of 5:30pm and 11pm (my bedtime—it should be earlier) I should be left alone. By left alone I mean no outside contact, no internet, no doom scrolling said internet. No communication. I need to either read or sleep.
This is because, it seems, right around 5:30-6:00 i slowly float away into what feels like a depressive state. I think about how I’m not very good at everything and I don’t have any friends. I remember that I’m a bad daughter to a father, a bad sister, and I’ve broken promises.
I remember that I’m a failure: I graduated college but I work retail. I’ve tried to write the same story for going on a year and four months.
Seriously though, I scrolled all the way back.
I remember all these things that remind me that I’m not what I could have been.
Ignore this entire post.
I’m tried, I’ve gotta work in the morning, and I still need to clean off my bed. Goodnight.
27 Thursday Apr 2023
Posted in Uncategorized
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
I’ve got more risks I’ve taken that I have all the regrets.
I don’t know, the perm?
The Hidden Costs of Buying a New iPad
25 Tuesday Apr 2023
Posted in Non-Fiction
Nearly five years ago, not long after my mother died, I went through a spending spree. Basically, I used buying things as a really bad coping mechanism.
Now, it’s true that I did “need” a new one. The one I was using, an iPad mini, was several years old and had a crack in the screen (I think that happened when I had it it’s been a while). And my very young child had it more than I did.
And apple had a payment plan that I didn’t know WAS A CREDIT CARD until after the fact.
But it was at that time, after my mom died, that I got that credit card and put a new iPad and Apple Pencil on it. Without ever having the card in my hand.
Now, five years on and this iPad’s 32 GIG brain has run out of space for new stuff.
Now, initially I was going to just buy a new case.
But then I remembered how, when I tried to transfer videos from the iPad into the VideoLeap app in order to edit (such as the next drawing challenge video) it would warn me it didn’t have enough space. I’d have to go in and delete and clear as much space as possible to make this happen, even though I would be deleting videos once I was done.
Anyway, I told myself that I’d buy a new iPad, through my phone company, once I got my phone and Apple Watch paid off (I’m only just remembering wanting to go through my cell company because I was gonna get a data plan, what convenient timing).
But instead of waiting I managed to convince myself that I needed to buy one today. Yes. Today. Did I have almost $600 just lying around. Heck no. But I did have easy access to a monthly payment/loan style of “buy now pay later”. I’ve used it three times now, why not four?
So I did. And the buyer’s remorse kicked in fast.
The Hidden Costs
When you buy a new iPad, a ver expensive piece of technology, you want to protect it. So, oops, gotta get a case. At the time of purchase I was told the only case they had to fit it was a $70 Otter Box case. While very protective, I’m not that stupid. I mean. I’m stupid, clearly. But that’s well beyond.
I quickly found and ordered a new case and paper-like screen protector on Amazon. But it wouldn’t arrive for over a week (The Hubs cancelled Prime and I wasn’t paying $15.99 shipping). My first thought is “well, I’m not taking this out the box until the case arrives.” But I happened to look, and lo and behold, they had a $15 case. It wasn’t pretty purple like the one I ordered but it’ll keep her safe until the pretty one arrives. This order totaled $30.
I get home and release the new iPad from its cardboard prison, and begin setting it up. I don’t want to get rid of the old iPad right away, as I have projects on it I don’t think I can transfer over, so I don’t use that method to set up the new one.
I get to the number one priority, my Apple Pencil. Now, I use my Apple Pencil, first generation, a lot. I need it on my iPad. So, I go to connect it, and remember the first thing I noticed about the new iPad. It charges with USB-C. Unlike all the other apple devices I own, including, you guessed it, the Apple Pencil.
Now see, friends, I forgot that the Apple Pencil required being plugged into the device to connect. After it’s plugged in it will auto-connect via Bluetooth. But initially I remembered that it connects via Bluetooth. And it was only when iPad didn’t pick it up did I realize this.
So I googled and it told me that I could buy a USB-C to lightening (apple) cord and used the adapter that came with the pencil to connect. So I drove to the store, and paid $18 for a cord (also some sweet new sunglasses).
Came back home and connected it. No dice.
More Google told me that first generation Apple Pencil and Fifth Generation iPad air (the new iPad obviously) ARE. NOT. COMPATIBLE. And so, buyer’s remorse has turned into buyer’s anger. Because I’m to dumb to thing that far ahead and make sure the new guy and the old guy get along.
So clearly the only logical options for me here are to A: return the iPad completely and save myself $40 a month over a term of 24 months, or buy a new second generation Apple Pencil. No, it didn’t occur to me until now that I could go and buy the same off brand pencil style stylus that my child got for Christmas for her iPad.
It actually works great and she loves it.
See, the thing is, if I had known this incompatibility information when I was purchasing the iPad, I would have just got the pencil on loan too. Because, again, I don’t have that kind of kind of money lying around.
TLDR
Crystal is a dummy.
Steps to Completion: Drawing Challenge
24 Monday Apr 2023
Posted in Arts & Crafts, drawing challenge
Tags
crash landing, crashdlanding, drawing, drawing challenge, dread., editing, non-fiction, video, video editing.
In an effort to improve my drawing skill, of which I have none, I started a drawing challenge.
I visit Random Generator’s Random Things to Draw. The first drawing challenge I used the first image that came up. It was a sunflower. I feel pretty good about the results. I screen recorded the drawing process and made a video, which I posted on my YouTube Channel.
At the end of that video, I shared three options for the next drawing challenge. And of course the one and only person who ever comments on any of my YT videos chose the next Drawing Challenge subject.
TLDR
Long story short I’m in the middle of the fourth one of these, and the soul reason I’m doing it is because she wants me too. Am I a good aunt or what? So here’s a list of steps to completing a drawing challenge from start to finish.
Drawing Challenge
- Have niece choose next subject.
- Contemplate not doing it
- Open safari and Google subject (ie: sword)
- Look at pics of swords
- Ask a question my Facebook which no one will answer
- Get really good ideas
- Don’t draw anything for at least a month
- Remember you need to work on it every day for said month
- Open Procreate, regret life choices.
- Draw… something.
- Start over
- Cheat. Just a little (take the lazy way out. Not cheat on your significant other that’s wrong)
- Doubt yourself. It’s part of the process.
- Put on a podcast and eventually zone out while working, complete forgetting to record.
- Don’t work on it for a month. Minimum.
- Niece keeps asking about it. Make up excuses.
- Wallow in self pity. Everything is going wrong, you’ll suck at this too.
- Schedule a time to work on the thing. Make yourself do it.
- Actually work on it, manage to finish the drawing fairly happy with it. Don’t look at it too hard though, you’ll find the flaws.
- Put all videos in a folder on iPad so they’re in one place and easily accessible. This is responsible. Remember not to delete the videos until everything is complete. Trust me on this. I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE.
- Create Video intro: basically just update the last one to the number of the challenge and subject. Upload to VideoLeap app.
- Upload videos. Probably one at a time since your iPad is five years old and has to think about it for a minute.
- Edit videos for length and content. We don’t want a 30 minute video.
- After editing is complete, research and write script for voiceover.
- Record voice over
- Add background music where needed. Note title and artist. (You will get copyrighted, but the video won’t get taken down. At least they haven’t yet.)
- Remember: don’t touch anything. If you add in stuff then change the video, YOU. WILL. HAVE. TO. MOVE. EVERYTHING. AGAIN.
- Once you think you are done watch it through. AGAIN.
- When you’re finally happy or just content or about to throw the iPad across the room with vigor, upload to the ‘Tubes.
- Schedule it to premier so The Niece has a countdown to watch.
Profit. Wait.
The editing process will take several hours, if not days. I’ve gotten migraines. I’d hate to be a popular creator and have to have quality videos.
Honestly I dread it.
Sunday Spotlight: Chris Ramsay
23 Sunday Apr 2023
Posted in Non-Fiction, Sunday Spotlight
Tags
card tricks, Chris Ramsay, crash landing, crashdlanding, creator, magic, magician, non-fiction, puzzles, slight of hand, Sunday Spotlight, YouTube
I attempted to start this weekly thing a few years ago and didn’t have the following to get it off the ground. I still don’t but here we go. But it’s not up and coming creators and artists it’s already established ones.
Since the practically meteoric rise of the social media platform that sounds like a refreshing breath mint, I’ve noticed many of my favorite YouTube Creators have lost the views they have been used to getting. I firmly believe it’s this other social media website’s catering to a world’s ADHD tendencies that has created this issue.
So I decided I’m going to spotlight these creators, regardless of my lack of following or influence. There are conditions. These creators aren’t going to be the biggest names in the biz. No Mr. Beast or Sepsis’s Eyeball or Cut the Pie or whoever. These will be creators that craft, or make you think, or teach you something. Creators that work for your views.
This week’s Spotlight is on a YouTube Creator named Chris Ramsay.
Chris Ramsay
Chris Ramsay is a Canadian slight of hand artist/magician/ and puzzle, uh, guy? Puzzler? The Puzzler. Sounds like a Batman villain. Lol wait there’s a video.
He also commissions puzzles, has his own line of merch, decks of cards, escape room puzzle, the list goes on. The dude also spend what cannot be a small chunk of change creating his own studio/workplace to create in that honestly looks like the coolest place to work ever.
I first came across him three years ago, I think. YouTube recommended me one of his puzzle solving videos. And the puzzles have gotten even more complex as the years have gone on.
One of the most important things to note is the intros. He and his team can create absolutely stunning, movie quality puzzle intros. Like, if they do not one day make a full length movie with the skills and equipment they possess it will be a disservice to the world.
I enjoy watching him solve puzzles because I would never have the patience to finish one without throwing it, or taking it apart. Some of the puzzles he solves are absolutely so elaborate and expensive that I’ll never lay hands on him. So I’ll live vicariously through his videos.
He also has an entire series (there’s a playlist) of “future me” puzzles, where he received a message from his future self and he has to solve the puzzle.
And I cannot forget the entire escape room he had built just to solve with his buddy Wes Barker.
Like I said, though. He’s not just puzzles. He does magic too.
He managed to snag a small role in the movie Spiral with Chris Rock, because of his magic.
He does videos reacting to people doing magic, he teaches card tricks, which to be honest I’ll never be able to do, and shows magic tricks.
Chris as a few other channels as well, Chris Ramsey TV, where he plays escape room games and Bottom of the Barrel a podcast channel with Wes Barker.
Chris’ most recent video was one where he honestly and vulnerably shared how the change in engagement on his channel(s) has been affecting him. And considering the movie quality level of his videos, how hard they have to work, and the money spent on them, it’s understandable.
Understandably Chris is taking a break right now. But I highly recommend checking out is videos on YouTube and Instagram, and his website!
A Day (off) in The Life: The Spite Diet Edition.
17 Monday Apr 2023
Posted in Uncategorized
I decided to do this on a whim. My last post was about what I eat when I have to work. Here’s what my day off is like.
6:00 (ish): my husband wakes me up so I can get The Kid ready for school. She likes mg day la off because I let her watch TTS that I filter before she goes to school.
7:00: The Hubs leaves with the kid and texts me that she did great getting out and into the school. He does this because sometimes we can tell how her day is going to go based on her mood. But it’s not always a good indicator.
After he does that, and tells me to have a good day and that he loves me, I watch some TikToks myself.
Then:
9:45: I force myself out of the bed, knowing if I don’t get up I’ll get a migraine from too much sleep, even though I’m super comfy. I sleep later knowing if I’m fasting, I don’t usually eat until 8:30 or later.
Todays breakfast: whole wheat tortilla with peanut butter, cinnamon sugar and a banana. With a cup of almond milk.
12:30pm: Lunch time. Every time I go to hard boil eggs I have to Google it. Every time. I’m and I didn’t pay attention to said boiling eggs and under boiled them. Then I put them back in and they came out perfect. Anyway, my egg salad consisted of four eggs, about three tablespoons or Mayo, some dill relish, and a tad bit of mustard. I ate it with one whole wheat tortilla and a slice of white bread. And it was delicious.
6:00pm: Dinner was tacos. I was going to make some chicken and quinoa but got lazy and distracted by The Sims. The hubs made dinner? For which I’m grateful.
The hard thing about dieting and using an app to track your meals and macros is that not everything is easy to track. I can’t throw into the app how much of a taco seasoning packet I ate, because I don’t know. And I don’t know if he used the Great Value or the Old El Paso.
Also, what if my mother in law makes dinner? I don’t know what she puts in her vegetable soup or her soup beans.
It really is a struggle, so dieting isn’t an exact science. You just gotta try, I guess.
The Spite Diet: 108 Days
16 Sunday Apr 2023
Posted in Beauty and Body, Non-Fiction, The Spite Diet, Uncategorized
Reminder
I started The Spite Diet because my gynecologist wanted me to talk to my family doctor about a weight loss drug even though I wasn’t trying to lose weight. And I simply said, “Hold my Pepsi.”
I didn’t want to just start taking a drug to lose weight when I hadn’t made a real effort to do so.
So I made a real effort.
The main components of The Spite Diet are the real things I think I needed to work on to lose weight. Portion Control and making better choices.
The tools I’ve been using are the Lose It App and Intermittent Fasting.
How It’s Going
Okay, so I am two days off of a weeklong vacation where most of what I did was sit around. It was GLORIOUS. I regretted it later but that’s not what this post is about. I thought, “Okay, its time to start all over, go back to the beginning and try again. I just knew that I had gained some weight back. I knew this because I hadn’t weighed myself in about seventeen days, and I’d managed to not meal prep my lunches for work, drank lots of carbonated sugary beverages, stress eaten and all kinds of naughty, not very healthy decisions.
But I just weighed in and I am 295. I am under my initial goal weight of 300 pounds, and I’d “lost” five pounds since my last weigh-in, which was before my vacation. So, pleasant surprise for the win.
What I’m Eating
The lunch I prep for workdays is always the same, because its quick, easy, and I always have the ingredients.
- whole wheat wrap (I prefer the Mission Carb Balance Whole Wheat wraps, but I currently have the great value)
- Some form of meat (I love the Oscar Meyer Cracked Black Pepper Turkey Breast Deli Sliced)
- Cheese (I like any kind of swiss or provolone, lately I just have kraft singles which get a little gooey–not in a good way–overnight)
- Kraft Mayonnaise (a tablespoon is a serving size)
- fresh spinach (about a 1/4 cup)
- Great Value Zesty Ranch Veggie Straws
- baby carrots, with a tablespoon of ranch.
I try to be a good girl and have my Oats Overnight oats for the day, but honestly, the consistency gets a little monotonous for me if I have it too frequently. I mix my oats in the shaker bottle they send for free, with vanilla almond milk. If I have it or have the money to get it, I choose a protein bar and an equate vanilla protein shake for breakfast instead. Again, I have been a little naughty and didn’t stick with this, and have often had starbucks coffee (in the glass bottle) and tasty cake donuts. But… stress.
Dinner has mostly been whatever is easiest for me. That consists of, usually, my husband cooking, or fast food. Like I said, I’ve not been a good girl. But I do love me the Butterball Seasoned Turkey Burger Patties. I will make a burger out of them, with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Or I’ll have some broccoli. I enjoy quinoa, but it takes a while to make it.
Thoughts.
My goals moving forward with the diet are to at minimum maintain my weight loss. At best, continue to lose. I am purposely choosing to not set outrageous goals or have too high of expectations. I do not wish to set myself up for failure, which I often do. I have been known to set goals way out of reach and when I do not reach them, take it as a total failure, and fall into a depression. I’m trying to improve myself, not destroy myself.
Fears: One of the reasons why I haven’t really wanted to try hard at losing weight before was the skin. I don’t love my body at 330 pounds. And I know I will love it even less at 200 pounds with 40 pounds of loose sagging skin hanging off of it. I’m afraid that if I lose a significant amount of weight I will be left with all the lose skin to deal with. I cannot afford surgery to remove it, and I will not want to spend the rest of my life looking at it. I fear that my mental health will deteriorate even more should that happen.
I had also hoped that with weight loss, I would see a reduction in chronic pain. I have lower body pain (legs, knees, ankles, feet) that is constant while working. I hoped that losing weight would alleviate that pain and I could work harder or at least suffer a little less. But I have yet to see a significant improvement, and taking a week off work and going back was absolutely horrendous.
I see now that the damage done to my body is not only the extra weight I’ve been carrying for decades, working for eight hours a day on my feet on concrete floors. And that damage is not going to be repaired just by losing some weight. Probably not at all.
Changes
I’m currently considering a change in my intermittent fasting schedule. I am currently loosely on a 12/12 eating fasting schedule. Fasting for 12 hours a day, and an eating window of 12 hours a day. I usually fast for about twelve and a half hours, as that is what works with my work schedule. But changing to a 16/8 fasting schedule, would leave an eight hour window to get my meals in.
I also need to increase my protein intake, but I can only eat what I have on hand and can afford, so we shall see.
Final Thoughts
Portion control, smarter choices, activity level, and eliminating stress and emotional eating are all things I need to work on. Doing so would improve my results and help me achieve my goals. It’s a battle and I’m still fighting it. Sometimes halfheartedly, sometimes I want out, sometimes I wonder what would warrant a dishonorable discharge. And then I see that I’ve lost five pounds without trying.
Crash Landing 