Taking Care of Business

The front of my new business card

I've spent the last two days devoting my hours of energy to various business matters. Since I've opened the new store, I figured I'd better have a business card for it. I also ordered some shipping supplies for larger items, since there are quite a few listings for 11x14 and 16x20 photos in the new shop. I also purchased plastic sleeves for protecting note cards, though several hours later, when I was in the shower, I suddenly remembered that I already have sleeves in that size. Oops. Fortunately, it only set me back $6 or so, and with luck, I will eventually get through them! One of the other things I did yesterday was to order another round of notecards, some for my mouse store and some for the macro store, and hopefully they'll prove popular and I can get through those 5x7 plastic sleeves!

Cards are something I haven't worked out completely yet. People, when they see the mouse photos, tend to remark that they'd make great cards, but I haven't had much business in that area. I have lots that I haven't listed still, partially because I haven't decided whether to offer them individually or in sets. They're tricky, too, because to get the cards at a cheap enough price to be able to sell them for a less-than-astronomical sum, you have to buy them in quantity. I've found a printer that makes beautiful, high-quality cards for a reasonable price, in sets of twenty-five, with as many different images on those twenty-five cards as you want. The last set I had printed featured lots of flower cards for summer, but I spent the summer coping with the head injury, so I fear I missed my best seasonal opportunity. It's also much more fun to make listings for the new store than to cobble together ones for cards with flowers and Mouse on them, which may be a larger part of the problem! At any rate, you can view the ones I currently have available here.

I hope someone agrees with me that this makes a sweet card!

So between putting together the new business cards and getting twenty-five images properly sized for uploading (both endeavors that involve a lot of clicking around in Photoshop and Illustrator), I've really fried my eyes. I had to take a very very very long shower (one hour and forty-five minutes, not a record, but close) this afternoon to quiet the brain down and my heart's been pounding even more than usual, which means I'm under stress. It's just that this sort of thing is so much more interesting than doing nothing! All in all, though, I've done pretty well this past week in keeping my activity level within my limitations, which is why I was able to take care of any business at all!

Next on my (eventual) business matters agenda: figure out some of the vexing wrinkles in my Google Analytics data, such as why it continues to count my own visits to my shop despite the fact that I installed a filter, according to instructions, for it to exclude all visits from my computer's IP address, and why in the area where it tells you what keywords brought visitors to your site, all but three of the nineteen search terms are utterly inapplicable to my site, and seem, rather, to be the results for a seller of vintage goods. Figuring this out is much less interesting than, say, giving myself a raging migraine by designing things in Illustrator; if I'm going to be starting at a computer screen, I like to at least be enjoying myself! But it will ultimately be good for business if I figure out how to make Analytics report proper data and then guide various decisions regarding shop content accordingly.

Oh, and if you're the returning visitor who typed "sascalia" (another Etsy seller, according to my research) into Google and somehow got my shop and spent nearly ten minutes looking at ten different pages, could you explain to me how that worked? Thanks!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

The sun is shining, the flowers are blooming, and Abbey is watching for squirrels. Life is alright today.

8 Weeks: Where I'm At

A sunflower photographed during a sunset visit
to my family's patch at a community garden

Yesterday marked the 8-week anniversary since I whacked my head on the stair rail and I'm ecstatic to report that there finally has been some material progress. I estimate that I'm at roughly 65-75% of where I was before the concussion. Most of this progress came after the 6th week mark, and just in time, since I was starting to struggle with some serious depression. I've been able to decrease my hours in bed and increase my hours of activity, and while I'm still extremely vulnerable to getting overwhelmed, I was even able to leave the house for a non-medical reason the other day without suffering negative consequences! Not only that, but I got some great photos for my effort. So this is all very good news. I also have sufficient stamina to watch movies now, provided they are of the quiet kind, and although it was a bit of a stretch, I was able to look after the Ancient Kitty--an eighteen and a half year-old cat that I've been cat-sitting for years--for a weekend. It was definitely hard at

Me & the Ancient Kitty:
we're friends.

first to walk that block from my house to his, especially during the day when it was hot out. I'd become much better at handling the heat in recent weeks, but being in full sun was another thing entirely. Still, it was nice to be out of the house with my camera again, especially as I got a little stronger, and the Ancient Kitty is not difficult to look after: my primary job is to sit on the floor and pet him! He, of course, appreciates this service immensely and his gratitude makes up for the fact that being skin and bones, he's not all that pleasant handle anymore.

Once I started feeling a little better, I ran into my usual trouble of having no setting between "off" and "high." I had a bit of a hypo-manic spell that had me feeling driven to create and while these phases can be effective in terms of productivity, it wasn't truly necessary to finally open my second Etsy store in the middle of my head injury recovery! It's an idea that has been in the works for months and suddenly I was in the mental mode where I can easily write descriptions for Etsy listings, so after putting up some new Mouse listings, as I reported in an earlier post, I went ahead and wrote up eighteen listings for a new shop as well. That bit of brain-on-fire has passed, thank goodness, and I'm working very hard to take it easy, which is much harder work for me than working!

Abbey in her comforter
nest next to my bed

The dog, of course, is always helpful when it comes to relaxation. She's been sleeping in my room with me at night, something previously not allowed, but when she was in care-taking mode and I was sleeping with my door open because I was overheating in the night, there was no way she was about to sleep in her crate as usual! I have my door closed again, but haven't felt up to the effort it will take to retrain her to sleep in her crate, so it's a slumber party in my room every night. She's been sleeping on my kicked-off comforter next to my bed and is happy as can be. I have to say, it's rather nice to have such deeply satisfied company around! She also loves to sprawl on our back deck, ideally in a patch of sun, and so hanging out in the backyard with her has been a good do-nothing activity for me, too.

Taking it easy with Abbey.

One of the recent developments I'm most thankful for has been the renewed effectiveness of Midrin. It's the only acute migraine drug that has brought me relief  and I have to have it specially made by a compounding pharmacy in Louisiana because it is no longer on the market, so I was really devastated when initially didn't help after the concussion. It's back in business, though, and it's so nice to have a drug that helps with the headaches!

Sunglasses frames vs.
light-sensitivity glasses frames

So things are not perfect. I am still more noise sensitive than usual (I keep Abbey's collar off because I can't tolerate the jingling of her tags, for example) and my eyes are still pretty sensitive and tire easily. (I am glad to report, though, that I've been able to go back to my regular light-sensitivity glasses instead my dark glasses most of the time! I had developed sores on the backs of my ears from the thicker ear pieces on my sunglasses and it was getting quite excruciating to wear them, so being able to finally tolerate the light as seen through my super-lightweight glasses with the red lenses was a huge relief.) The migraine pain is still more frequent and much stronger than it was before the concussion. I have less energy and smaller reserves. But these downsides are being tempered by some upsides. My appetite is returning and I've been able to eat at least one regular sort of meal a day. Sometimes my stomach rebels if I try to eat something too fancy, but I've been able to regain a lot of the weight that I lost during the weeks of terrible nausea. My degree of illness also

Attempting to look
stylish in an X-ray
garment isn't easy!

prompted my parents to make another effort to silence the noisy dogs next door and our neighbors were kind enough to put bark collars on their dogs at our suggestion, which have been very effective! They also got me a blackout blind for my bedroom that doesn't allow any light to enter, so I'm able to sleep longer and as well as fall back to sleep more easily if I wake up in the early morning. Not only that, but I got a lead X-ray apron! It'll take a whole post on its own to explain in detail why a nine-pound apron might be helpful, but the short explanation is that weight helps to quiet my entire overactive nervous system and that's been extremely helpful during this concussion recovery period. And last but not least, two weeks ago I received notice from Social Security that my disability application had been approved! Let me tell you, that went a long way toward clearing up my case of the concussion blues! It took just ten months from start to finish for my case to be approved, which is amazing, especially for something as subjective as headaches, so it felt like I was getting a piece of good luck for once when it came to the migraines! It's an enormous relief that I won't have to wait for a hearing, a process that usually takes two or three years of waiting.

So overall, the news is good. I had a follow-up appointment with my neurologist yesterday and from a strictly neurological standpoint, I'm doing great. It'll just take more time for things to slowly make their way back to my version of normal. It's not always easy to be as quiet as I need to be, but the amount of progress I've made in the last couple of weeks is extremely heartening!

A Few Things I've Been Up To

For the last few days I've actually been being good about doing the thing that I find the hardest: being quiet! The weather has been very nice, so I've spent a great deal of time on the back deck, eating popsicles, lying on the bench looking up through the fuchsia at the blue sky, and hanging out with the dog.

Abbey in her favorite outdoor afternoon sun spot.

Sooner or later, though, I was bound to get sucked back into doing stuff, and yesterday I decided, after two and a half months of making nary an Etsy treasury, to jump back in the game. The result was this treasury in deep fall tones. It takes a great deal of concentration for me to compile a treasury and it really was a bit of a stretch to spend so much time staring at the computer screen. Therefore, after vowing not to, I immediately sat down today, despite still having migraines from yesterday's exertions, and made another one. It's just so much fun, as well as a business strategy: it's a way of getting your name out there. The Autumn Spice treasury is my first for my new macro shop, as opposed to my mouse shop.

I hope to write a major post-concussion update one of these next few days (it's been almost eight weeks!), but it may take a while to accumulate the necessary stamina to do so.

In the meantime, check this out: www.facebook.com/ccreativityphotography Yes, I've had the Facebook page for quite a while now, but just today I figured out how to have a nice tidy username instead of a horrible long url! You are most welcome to admire it.

Too Much Cute

Abbey has a groove down the center of her forehead that is just perfect for holding Mouse!

My love for my dog and my habit of taking Mouse photos intersected this afternoon on the back deck. I've attempted this pose before, but found Abbey to be much more amenable to have something sitting on her head when she is basking in the sun!

They color-coordinate so nicely!

Me and the Antique Tint Trend in Photography

I've noticed that in the realm of fine art photography, there is definitely a predominance of images that have been given antique (yellowish-orange) or sepia (which is browner) tints. They also tend to be overexposed with a softened focus and don't get me wrong, the images look very cool, and certainly separate themselves from snapshots taken by just anyone who has a halfway decent eye. It's a trend, however, that I haven't explored much myself (hopefully not to my detriment) for two primary reasons: 1) with my migraines, the visual concentration is takes to manipulate photos is generally a recipe for a nasty headache, and 2) I love color, the more saturated the better.

My favorite color: burgundy!

Color theorist Johannes Itten, writing on the topic of subjective timbre in "The Elements of Color," describes his experience of discovering that each individual has his or her own view of what color combinations are most harmonious. These vary widely, but can roughly be broken down according to physical appearance:

Light blond types with blue eyes and pink skin incline towards very pure colors, often with a great many clearly distinguished color qualities. Contrast of hue is the basic feature. Depending on the forcefulness of the individual, the colors may be more or less luminous. A very different type is represented by people with black hair, dark skin, and dark eyes, for whom black plays an important part in the harmony... Good assignments for a dark type would be Night, Light in a Dark Room, Autumn Storm, Burial, Grief, The Blues, etc. (Itten, 24-25)

I don't know if it's true for everyone, but Itten's theory of subjective harmonious color being tied to physical type is certainly true for me. At left is how I looked when my hair was still black, taken nearly ten years ago when I was in college. (With silver hair, my look is somewhat less dramatic.)  As you can see, high contrast and "black play[ing] an important part in the harmony" would come naturally! My college thesis and corresponding art show dealt with the way color and shape convey emotion. With my history of serious depression, it's no surprise that I focused on loss and suffering, but it's also intriguing that those emotional themes correspond exactly with Itten's theory of which subjects would be of interest to me based solely on my hair color!

One of the pastel and pen & ink drawings from my thesis show,
on the subject of man's frustration in the face of the unknowable divine.

After college, during the years I spent working as a floral designer, I dealt with, of course, every possible combination of colors and was perfectly adept at creating lovely soft arrangements in light spring colors. When working with soft colors, though, the more complex they were, the better I liked them. We had one delicately green rose whose coloring got lighter and more ivory nearest the center, where the petals were tipped with just a blush of pink. It was both subtle and stunning and I loved that! But despite being capable of working with a wide variety of hues, the fact remains that my favorite color is burgundy and the darker the better. I'm also partial to purples and reds so dark that they are almost black. My least favorite color? Yellow. I consider it a repulsively insincere color, an opinion my fellow florists thought was hilarious. But then again, they were almost all blonds or light brunettes!

One of my favorite floral combinations (captured, unfortunately, in light that makes it look
more orange than it really was): burgundy, copper, orange, rust, blush, bright green, and peach!

Of course, I take photographs of all kinds of things, not just ones that are burgundy, dark red, deep purple, or dramatic rust (my favorite of the yellow-based colors), and some of my recent favorites have been in the yellow or orange family. But when it comes to the possibility of manipulating the color of my photographs, I find I always prefer the purest, most saturated version to any antiqued variation.

I think the coloring of this dark purple bearded iris is scrumptious and sublime!

However, despite my love for intense color, I do check to see how images might look when viewed through a warm filter because I also would like to be in the business of selling photographs and if an antiqued appearance is what sells, it is worth my while to investigate it. After all, I get that a nice washed-out image with a warm tint is a lot more pleasant to have hanging in your living room than the kind of colors I favor. They aren't exactly restful!

Did somebody say dramatically shadowed maroon? Yes, please!

Lately, though, perhaps because of the color implications of the approaching fall, I've finally had some happy results with tinting photographs in a way that I feel makes the images greater than what they were before the manipulation, the true test of the worthiness of any image doctoring! Here are the best.

This hydrangea was actually blue, though it had started to form some
antique tints on its own. The only thing I hate more than the color yellow
is a blue mop-head hydrangea, so I think this is a big improvement!

A rare instance when I think something purple
(a red onion) acquires more depth when tinted yellow!

I think that this white dahlia becomes more than just a
garden flower when manipulation grants it an unreal tinge.

Only subtly different from the original, narrowing the range of color in this
photo makes it look less like a tree in my front yard and more like a work of art.

This ugly yellow dahlia is enormously improved, in my opinion, by using
tint to shift the focus to the beautiful way that the light illuminates the petals.

The colors in this image are very similar to what they were before being converted
to sepia, but it unifies the image nicely to have the pine cone, the surface on which it rests,
and the shadow all the same color without losing any of the detail and contrast.

Check out my new store featuring photos like these!

New Listings

A few days ago, right around five in the morning, the part of my brain that writes the descriptions for my Etsy store listings lurched to life after several months of silence. The brain is a rather mysterious thing, so while I was suddenly able to write clever little product descriptions, at the same time I was having a great deal of difficulty doing other tasks with language such as speaking coherently. However, since it HAS been so many months and I have quite a backlog of items that I'd like to list, I've been making the most of it. I've put up enough new items that I thought a blog post might be the best way to showcase them.

Peach & Mouse Notecard

Mushroom & Mouse Notecard

Asparagus & Mouse Photo

Cookies & Mouse Photo

Fall Leaves & Mouse Photo

The last one is a listing that I have reactivated ahead of the approaching change in seasons (I had a number of summer ones I missed getting up because of the migraines and concussion, which is a pity, since Etsy is very seasonally inclined), but all the others were written over the last few days. It would be simpler, of course, not to do the clever writing and just post the images and ordering information, but I hope that the descriptions add to the charm of the photos and give my entire store a certain vibe that hopefully makes people feel good about buying! If the listing brain continues to work, there may be more to come, but here's a fresh taste of Mouse after a long hiatus.

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