Dec7

MyBlogLog

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MyBlogLog

It should be interesting to see how this turns out. MyBlogLog is a Yahoo service for searching, tagging, and ranking blogs. I put this blog up and AlisonSews (better update that one, eh?) and have been exploring the various blog communities while the list is still small. They’re a little dicey about exactly what you get with the free version, but I’ll find out after my trial of the Pro version is done. It might be worth it if it drives some traffic over. Heck, extra traffic might be the incentive I need to sew.

Then again, so far it’s been enough of a time-waster that I have not only not sewn, but haven’t even gotten dressed. *sigh* Hubby reminds me that now I will be hitting the lunchtime rush at the mall when I go to pick up my corrected bifocals. Oh, well.

Dec5

Bad Design!

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Bad Design!

I haven’t felt much like blogging lately, at least not in the way that would let me compose a thoughtful or thought-provoking post. I’ll get it back in time, I’m sure. However, I was just inspired by a post over at IKEAFans about putting in a corner sink.

A corner sink is a bad idea. I’m speaking with the voice of experience. In our last house, the kitchen sink was in the corner. Seems like a good way to put an otherwise unused space to work, right? Well, there’s a geometry issue. In the small kitchen, using normal depth cabinets and counters, the corner sink doesn’t put this space to work, it just makes it harder to reach. When I wanted to clean the counter and wall behind this sink, I had to clear everything off the entire counter because I had to lie down on it and snake my way under the cabinets to reach. Inconvenient barely scratches the surface when describing this. In addition, in order for the door on the cabinet over the sink to be reachable, it had to be a deep cabinet. Again, geometry became an enemy, because the door to this deep, wide cabinet was about five inches wide.

This house, for all its flaws, is nowhere near as bad as that one, but the previous owners did a lot of work to make it pretty, and that’s where the problem lies. They moved and don’t have to deal with living with this stuff, but some of you might be considering remodeling or fixing up, and I feel compelled to tell you that it’s not all about pretty. So here are some things to consider that might make your life easier. Read the rest of this entry →

Nov27

ADD – I’m a Human, Not a Magpie

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ADD – I’m a Human, Not a Magpie

So I was scouring around a couple of places for some new bumper stickers. Now that I have more than three (I don’t know if this is a real rule, or I just made it up) I can keep going to as many as I want. Heh. So I’m not certain what exactly to add besides maybe this:
sticker.jpg

So I decided “Gee, maybe someone’s made a good ADD sticker out there.” I don’t know where this came from, because my brain was all over the place yesterday. Oh, wait, that’s where it came from. I was all frustrated from the whirlwind, pointless meanderings of my unmedicated mind. There ya go. Which reminded me of a bumper sticker proclaiming that ADD is a myth, which pissed me off enough that I would have talked with the driver if he hadn’t been, well, driving. The search did not make me feel any better.

There were thousands upon thousands of variations of this (no link ‘cuz I don’t like it):
squirrelsticker.jpg

and this (same deal):
shinysticker.jpg

You know, it’s such a misguided, simplistic view of ADD, no wonder people think it’s made up. Sheesh. Yeah, ADD makes you easily distracted, but not usually by just any old thing. If I’m distracted by something moving or shiny or whatever, it’s because it sparks my imagination. I’ll see a color I want to use in fabric or clay or painting, and that might catch my attention for a moment. I might even interrupt a conversation or stop in the middle of a sentence to point it out, but it’s not going to stop me from picking right back up where I left off. The real problem is getting distracted by things that will take up large amounts of your time, because you’re reminded of something on your to-do list, or one of the many tasks you started but didn’t finish, or a sudden creative inspiration that must be attended to right away before you forget it.

ADD doesn’t make you stupid like that. (Often, it’s just the opposite. It makes you think outside the box, helps you make connections others don’t see, and inspires unique creativity.) You’re not carrying on with something important and just lose it because something caught your eye. Heck, if it’s really important, you’re probably hyperfocusing and can’t be distracted by a darned thing. This characterization of ADDers as people who can be stopped in their tracks by the sight of a small animal or a shiny object is just as offensive as the assumption that we’re making it all up.

Many of the others carried a more positive message, but were overly wordy, or angry. With one exception, my bumper stickers are short and sweet. I might go for something a little peevish, but I would never put something on my car that would incite someone else to anger. So I guess I have to come up with something on my own. Thank goodness for cafepress. Let’s see if something comes to me as I go off to run more errands. . .