Memories-IF

IF-DETACH

Sometimes people detach themselves from the world around them...

I really wish I had more time to develop this drawing. I really wanted to do more but have been extremely busy this week. I hope to come back to it again.

Sail-IF

Illustration Friday - CANNED

Everybody can use a little courage in a can sometimes...
This is my illustration friday entry for this week. I sketched it late-today, mainly because I was really busy entertaining the family, refereeing the kids, and sketching another piece. I may come back to this later and add some fun colors.

Lately...

Do you ever feel like this poor mermaid? Something is just within your reach, but you are about to be overwhelmed with waves... hurry up and grab it! That's all I have to say. I have been up to mucho things. I am trying to get sketch time in as you can see. This drawing may evolve in the future, I like the concept, but we'll see.

My family came in to visit, and everyone stayed with me at the new place. It was loads of fun doing marathon tourist stuff- Dollywood & Gatlinburg in a two day whirlwind, but really tiring! It is really nice, however, to have some help with the younglings every now and then. When you have three children it becomes absolutely terrifying to go to places like theme parks and malls and such. You always hear the horror stories of how some poor mother 'just looked away for one second...' And really, it CAN happen that quickly. I was in the mall with my brood and even had other adult types with me to help keep watch, and my daughter slipped out of sight for a minute. I FREAKED! It seemed like an eternity, but only really moments, and we found her hiding in a clothes rack like kids like to do. That incident actually took years off of my life. I'll have to remind her of that someday...

Illustration Friday...ENOUGH!

You can never have enough cotton candy at the fair!

...

This is something that started out as just a boring pencil sketch of a woman from behind... I am experimenting with shading and color pencils.

Illustration Friday...

Last night was a little foggy...

New Drawing

Lounging around in my skivvies...

Summer fun... what can I say. I have really been enjoying lounging out on our nice new patio furniture... Not in my skivvies, but in very well-mannered shorts... often with a nice cold Vanilla Coke or perhaps a Southern Sweet Tea. Thanks Dad & Eva for the lovely house warming gift! I have been totally appreciating it since the day it arrived and made itself comfortable out on our cement patio. I am so thinking of going out and relaxing on a fluffy chair right now!

I am absolutely ready for the 4th! The little one will have her grand ol' 1st birthday party and we will do much feasting out on our lovely concrete patio. Okay, it's not really technically her true birthday, but fireworks are fun!

How do you like my latest drawing? I have really been doing a whole lot of pencil sketches in my little work pad, but am a little, oh nervous about trying to translate them into a design program just yet. I really like the rough quality of the originals. I am currently working on a new logo, when I am finished, I will show you all the new design. It's for a non-profit org.

What is on your summer reading list? Here's mine so far:
I just bought a cool book on Art Deco Design, Anne Tyler's "The Amateur Marriage," and various books on color and design.

A Valued Customer...

This is how Household Bank Credit Card company referred to me whenever they called over the years with one of their varied and countless offers... 'You are such a valued customer, let's up your credit...' or 'You are such a valued customer... we wanted to let you know that you can transfer a balance for [an obscenely low] APR for a period of [yada yada] months.' The number of "courtesy" calls I received over the years for so many different offers is absolutely crazy now that I think about how they couldn't give me one single courtesy call at the beginning of this month to let me know that they were about to close my account...

Why wasn't I a valued customer now? Why did they close my account? It wasn't due to my being over the credit limit, or for lack of making a payment- I didn't even have a balance! Yes, responsible and VALUED customer that I am, I paid off my credit card last year. How could I fall from grace so quickly?

To add insult to injury, the only reason that I found out that my credit had been cut, was that as a responsible credit user, I regularly checked my statement online, once a month to be exact. When I called to inquire about what had happened, the customer service rep told me that my account had been closed due to INACTIVITY! I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I asked that my account be reinstated, after all, I was a valued customer and long-time account holder- I had been with them for 7 years! Couldn't they have at least given me a heads up before this happened?! The representative said that the only thing that I could do would be to re-apply for a new account! They were treating me like I was a BRAND NEW customer! Not like someone who had built a credit history with them. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This would affect my credit score, which I had worked so hard to build. I was so beyond angry. Oh, he tried to reassure me that it wouldn't affect my credit, but that is an outright lie! It most certainly can affect your score if you lose credit. This is why financial advisors and gurus tell you not to close a credit account once you've paid it off. Your credit score is gaged on a ratio of how much total credit you have vs. how much debt you carry.

Fuming, I asked to speak to a manager, and even though I pleaded my case, he said that it was their policy to close accounts due to inactivity. Where?! I inquired, because I had never received a piece of literature stating that this was part of their policy. I never saw this listed on their website when I checked my account over the years. I had never even heard of something like this happening to anyone I knew. Furthermore, and more importantly, why was I not alerted, either via phone or preferably in writing, that my account was going to be closed due to this supposed policy? Aren't there any ethics left? Apparently, not with some credit card companies... The manager told me that I could write a complaint, etc. etc. However, it didn't change the ugly truth of the matter. I got dropped because on the scale of our all consumptive American society, I didn't charge enough. Oh, I did charge something in the past year. It wasn't like I hadn't used the card in years... it had been months. We have had a lot of new things come up in the past year, a new house, a new baby, and I'm sorry, but the interest rate on this card wasn't enticing enough for it to be my 'go to' card. Instead, I use a card with a more favorable interest rate. That being said, I still liked the idea of having the credit there for emergency use, and as I said before, the loss of this credit can be damaging to your credit score. I knew that the only reason that they closed the account was that they were failing to make money off of me since I didn't carry a balance, so they cut me loose.

I promised the manager that I would file a complaint, and then proceeded to call the BBB [Better Business Bureau] and the OCC [Office of the Comptroller of Currency] and sadly found out that a credit card company can close an account at any time for any reason. They don't have to give written notice first... Somehow, this seems so wrong. It is just shady if you ask me. It almost seems that good customer service and courtesy is going the way of the Marlboro Man. I did, however, find out that there are others out there. People that Household Bank has really given the shaft in the form of predatory mortgage lending, and shady business practices. There is even a HSBC watchdog website: householdwatch.com, dedicated to protecting and informing customers of this lending institution. It is appaling when you read the real-life instances of shameful tactics used on their customer base. Believe me-my little story pales in comparison.

Just before I hung up with the manager at HSBC I asked him, if I had been delinquint in payments, I wonder how many calls I would have received before they decided to close my account- I guarantee you I would have gotten at least one!

New Web Design Concept

I am redesigning the look of this site. The first concept was not very fetching... I hope this one is much more visually appealing as well as a lot more user friendly. I rushed through the first time, really because we just needed to get something up and running... I had all these cool ideas, but we really had a lot of things going on at the end of the year. I promised to revise the site, and so here is the new concept for the design. I really had to think carefully about the logo placement. One of the stipulations was that it needed to be on a white background. I had to challenge myself to find a way to integrate it into the design so as to make it a much more prominent and interesting feature so that it didn't just get lost on the page. The new look will be up sometime this coming week.

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf...

How's this for wildlife conservation:
The Federal Endangered Species status of the gray wolves of the Northern Rockies was lifted on Friday, and there are already plans in the works by state wildlife agencies for organized hunts.

I don't understand things like this, how many tax dollars were spent to save the wolves in the first place with all the re-introductions of wolves to places they were almost extinct. Now, that the populations that we painstakingly re-introduced are flourishing, it's okay to do "controlled" hunts... Oh well, I am just a little sensitive about the issue because I happen to actually like wolves, and I like the idea of having creatures like this still running around in our American forests. Living so long in the urban lifestyle, it's nice to know so much of our wonderful wildlife is still out there. My hubby and I had the privilege of staying at a chalet in the Smokies for our honeymoon, and next door lived a couple of captive born wolves that had been rescued from inappropriate homes. We were able to hear them calling at night, it's just so beautiful, peaceful, and haunting. We even got to meet them, and Steve Irwin was right -when you get to see and experience an animal up close, you become passionate about it, and suddenly you become interested in its welfare. I never forgot the experience... then again, I'm not a rancher, or livestock owner whose herd animals are being preyed upon. I am just a city girl with a love for these beings, high ideals, and a 'can't we all just get a long' wildlife philosophy...

Anyway, this is just food for thought - Read more about the issue here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23856723/

New Stuff

Fun With Filters

Domino Sugar Factory At Sunset

Erin's Meadow Herb Farm

I love things like this... We have a local business here called Erin's Meadow Herb Farm. Every Saturday, they have wonderful classes that you can take, many of them related to gardening and cooking, and some are even free to attend. Tomorrow they will have a workshop to make a 'tobacco commitment pouch' and later this month they will be featuring an “Eat Green” Vegetarian cooking class, “An Introduction to Feng Shui for Homes and Garden” Demo/Class, and a “Plant a Patio Tea Garden” Gardening Workshop. I just received the April class schedule, and the new line-up has some interesting workshops as well. Check them out at erin's meadow herb farm.

Creative School Projects

Yesterday, I received a notebook that originally came from a 4th grader in PA. It arrived to me via my sis-in-law in Maryland. It is a traveling school project! The accompanying note requests that we write something about our state. You can include pics, maps, postcards, or anything else that might be related and of interest. How fun! I am the 3rd person to receive it. It started out in Pennsylvania and so far it has traveled to people in Virginia and Maryland, and now it is with me in Tennessee. Who knows, maybe something like this will be traveling your way! I wish that teachers had come up with these kinds of projects when I was in school.

My daughter goes to a wonderful little pre-school. Today, we were given the charge of one Mr. Chappy Bear. He comes to us complete with a diary of his travels. He goes home with each one of the kids for a few days. We then get to write about everything Chappy gets to do with us while he's here in his little journal, and they read about it in class. Hopefully, there won't be too much mischief involved...

When I'm really feeling spunky...

I love to crochet quick pieces when I find the time. It really relaxes me, and is another mode where you can be as creative as you want to be. I love to find cute simple patterns that I can do in a fairly short time. I just finished this little project today. It is a baby sweater made all in one piece... I followed a fairly simple pattern I found on crochetme.com and it's turned out lovely! I added the cute little button flower as an additional accent. I really love this pattern because I have really wanted to do a sweater for a long time but was intimidated by the idea. This one called 'baby it's cold outside' is fun and really easy to manage.

New Stuff

As always, I am working on different projects at a time, and juggling the new baby and new house stuff. Currently, I am re-designing my website, and I thought this blog would be a good way to keep folks posted with what I am up to these days... all the cool fun stuff like changing diapers, playing romper room, scraping up playdo off of the rug, and sometimes squeezing in a new project here and there... Oh, did I forget to mention making my own baby food. It's hard sometimes being an iron woman. Anyway, when I have down time I like to de-stress by having a little creative playtime to experiment and have fun. This little creation adapted from my love of Hawaiiana and the seductive, glamourous lines of the women you see in travel posters of the golden age.