On my way to the Nuthouse

Dear Reader, Today I did the Sean T. Insanity Fit Test. I spent the majority of this test laying on the floor attempting to stop my head from regurgitating my dinner or spinning madly, but as I lay in bed now, typing, I am proud. I am proud because despite my pathetic fit test, the point was to test my level so I could compare as it got better, not to score high. If I scored high on the test to start Insanity probably wouldn't end up doing me as much good. I am proud because I finished the video! I did all the exercises! I have had a problem with deciding I have worked out enough for a day and simply turning the video off. I am proud because I took the first step. I started this, and now that I've started, I have added that bit of accountability. That little motivation that now, I have to finish. It took me 4 days to get my apartment cleaned up enough to have the space to start this workout, so I have been making it a goal to continue. But to me starting this workout program symbolizes so much more than simply exercising. This is one of the steps I am taking to bring my life to where I want it to be. Along with whitening my teeth, dying my hair red, cleaning my apartment, and finishing that online bar tending course. It is something I have decided I will do and am committing to - and this workout was the first step. This week I start my journey - with my new red hair (that is a story that also needs to be told), my new workout commitment, and a new attitude. Updates to come, but in the meantime, think on the things you want to commit to in your life, as a permanent change. Sincerely, Paige

Craftiness Comes

So lately I've been feeling crafty. You know, spend-a-day-in-Joann-fabrics-gawking crafty? So I've started making things. A scarf, some clay trinkets, some mini stuffed things. And you know what? Craftiness is so fulfilling. I had left it out of my life for a while, because I didn't feel like I had the time, and that I didn't have any particularly creative ideas. I've found creativity blooms with use, and the more patterns I follow to make a new knit item, the more ideas I have to create my own pattern, or adjust the one I'm working on. The more cartoon characters I attempt to recreate, the better I become at drawing out my own ideas. Even better than that, the sense of accomplishment I get from creating something new, even if it's as small as one little clay bead, is enormous. I look forward to going home and relaxing because I won't just be watching television, I'll be watching and creating, or sometimes I'll just leave music in the background and focus more heavily on the creative side of things. So, the point of this post... I suppose a large part was simply to say, I'm enjoying myself, this is a good thing. But also, I encourage my friends to try their hand at it. Anything creative, where you make something new, can bring so much more meaning to your life, however small the item. Give it a shot. And hopefully, as my creative streak continues, I may have some more to post to give inspiration and ideas!

My life changing vow - number 294

This is a post about who I want to be. It will be up here, on the internet not for everyone, but for me. If it was hidden away in some file on my computer it might never affect me again. Hopefully this will be different. (I apologize to any poor reader who comes across this and is apalled by my self-centeredness.) Sometimes I imagine the future me. I'm cool and hip, my life together. A stylish apartment, good job, healthy relationships, and delicious nutritious home cooked meals (by me). I go jogging in the mornings while I listen to something out of a movie soundtrack on my mp3 player. I have time to shower, do my hair and makeup, and have a good breakfast before I go to my office job. I enjoy my work, and do well, and I get off at a reasonable time to hang out with one of my many friends at some corner bistro or art festival. Of course I still game when I get home, a cat on my lap and dog at my feet. My fiance comes over some nights and we relax or go out together. I'm also taking an online college course to earn my second degree. Every weekend I visit my family, and I never forget any special events. I just want to be the average well-adjusted member of society. 1. I want to be happy. Pretty much everything else on this list leans towards this one final end goal. None of these things guarantee it. Everyone has their own idea of what brings happiness, and there are plenty that I believe have a good amount of value to them, and are essential pieces of the puzzle. God, relationships, and self-worth all come to mind immediately. 2. I want to be healthier. I'm avoiding skinnier here, or hotter, or sexier, or any such word. I just want to be healthier. I want to feel good about my body and how I take care of it. Lately I've been literally craving wholesome food - I've been such a bad steward of my body. So I'm trying to eat better, listen better, etc. 3. I want to have a high ongoing level of organization and structure to my life. Not that I want to always know what's coming, but I want to have my ducks in a row. All my bills and responsibilities organized. In a roll top desk. Or on my laptop. Just somewhere. Somewhere that I keep up with. If that organization can spill over into my closet, I wouldn't complain about that either. 4. I want to accomplish things that I start. Like college. Exercising regularly. Crafting. A book. I just want to follow through with my own projects. I'm sure this has to do with the organization thing, but it feels like I just don't finish things. And it's a depressing thought for me. 5. I want to be the friend that I want. I try to be a good friend, but (back to organization again?) I have trouble juggling more than say, 3 relationships at a time. I just don't know how to divide things up, and split my energies. I might put too much energy into each individual relationship, or maybe I assume things have to be more complicated than they actually do, but I feel like a terrible friend to most of my friends most of the time. I feel like I constantly need to find a way to be there for and please everyone, and when I can't, I feel like I can't do anything. Failure. So I want to get better at that. At casual, comfortable friendships. Maybe everything doesn't need to be all or nothing, do or die, all the time. That's basically it. It's a much smaller list than I expected really. So once again internet, I pledge to you that this time, I will devote time and effort to slowly bring my life to the place that I want it to be. I will set aside time to pursue my goal of happiness, and I will work through my list bit by excruciating bit. On my honor as a woman.

Other ways I shamelessly exploit myself

So, I had my photo shoots. Well, two of them anyway. I have to shower and prepare myself for a third tonight (this one will be with a 50% royalty agreement on the photos - yay!). I have to say, I loved my first shoot. The photographer was open and candid, and even though I was a little nervous and unsure of myself, she helped me determine the mood we were looking for and work with it. I did end up with a splinter in my foot (OW.) but I feel confident that the images will turn out well. The second photographer was working with lighting, and did a good job setting that up, but I had trouble getting a feel for what we were aiming to accomplish in the shoot, and I felt my images didn't turn out as well with the lack of creative direction.

Looking forward to setting up more shoots this week, hopefully Wednesday, and maybe even another one on Saturday if the photographers get back to me. You know creative types though... In the meantime, I'm continuing to use other mediums to pursue extra cash. Checking in on my profile on Sitter City to try and start babysitting again (which is much harder than I remember it being in highschool). It's funny, now that I'm older and more experienced in life, people seem more scared to have my watch their children. I'll probably need to suck it up and fork over the $50 for a background check so parents will trust me, but honestly, what happened to finding sitters through word of mouth? I also created an account on Elance - I'll have to go look in on that in a minute. Yes, it's another freelancing website. Then I downloaded this app onto my phone 'We Reward'. Here's the link:
I signed up for @wereward you can earn cash for local checkins so all my foursquare addict friends start earning cash!http://we.rw/u2BhD

Basically, if you've ever used foursquare or facebooks checking in service, it's the same thing, except you get points for check ins at certain places, or activities (taking a photo with your friday's server for instance) and then can cash out. Bonus - if you refer people (like, if you click on my link and sign up) you get 10% of whatever they do. So they get 100% of their earnings, but you get 10% of their earnings added to yours. Win for everyone.

Lastly, I want to shout out and advocate BzzAgent. You don't get paid, but you get to try out things before they come to market... which I think is pretty awesome. Right now I'm testing this website, Smarterer. It tests your knowledge on anything and everything. I've enjoyed the Photoshop and Facebook quizzes (especially being in the top 50, say what?) so feel free to check that out too. And no, I don't make any money off of this one, I'm just spreading the word.

Artistic Exploration... to Deviation?

In my quest to find the elusive 'spending money' my friends speak of, I have become more serious about some of my hobbies. A big one of these, which I never thought about seriously before, was taking pictures of myself. What I always saw as boredom/vanity/creative outlet has time and again gotten my friends to chime in with 'You're so pretty!' and 'You should be a model!' after repeatedly clicking the like button. Maybe that was stretching things a tad... regardless. It led me to decide to take a stab at this 'modeling'.


1. I am not a size 0. I'm more a size 10, sometimes a 12 (sometimes an 8 too)
2. I do not believe I'm breathtakingly gorgeous
3. Besides holding up my phone and grinning, I have posed for very few photos.


So, perhaps not the best decision on my part. I started out at ModelMayhem.com. I have a few friends with profiles on the site, who do work from time to time, so I thought it was a safe bet. After carefully selecting the photos from my phone that showed me in my best light, uploading them all, measuring myself, and creating a bio, I waited for my profile to be approved.


24 hours later, I was told I had been denied. Ouch.


Luckily it was an easy fix! The reason for my denial was the low quality of my photos. Understandable, considering cell phone pictures weren't considered studio quality the last time I checked. The issue is, I have very few friends with good cameras, and even less with any skill at taking photos. Narrow it down to the ones in my area, then the ones with free time, and my options were less than skimpy. What's a naive model to do?


Craigslist. Gigs>Creative: TFP(Trade for Print) work


I degraded myself, I know, but I laid out a few ground rules. I would bring an escort to any shoots, and I would only do tasteful shoots. The response was overwhelming. Not all top quality, most definitely, but I found a few great leads. Those few great leads led to some great conversations. Spitballing ideas for shoots, locations, props, the works. And those conversations? Well those led to me scheduling not 1, but 3 photo shoot sessions so far. One of which is paid, another might be in the news soon (part of a great project  the photographer is working on), and the other? Just another experienced person well worth working with.


Now, there is a catch. You have to be open to being creative. Everyone I'm going to work with I feel comfortable trusting. Also, I will be implementing the use of contracts with my photographers. Not because they aren't wonderful trustworthy people, but because it's important to cover yourself. You don't want to end up being left not only with no pay, but with inability to use the photos you took to market yourself. So we'll see how this goes.


I know my writing has petered off here at the end, as far as quality goes. I'm sorry to my (loyal?) readers. I'm still new at this. Anyway, until next musing...


And yes, I will post <some> pictures. Just for you.

The Things We'll Do.

The point of this post is the things people will do. More specifically, the things people will do for money. Now, I'm not trying to take this in a bad direction, I've just been thinking about money lately. Trying to come up with ideas on how to get more money, of course. Some of the things I've considered have been a little ridiculous though, while other things, that I won't consider, are much more reasonable. So, what is it that makes us willing to do something for money or not? Ideas? Comments? Please. I'm obviously dying for some good conversation.

Here are things I thought about, or tried doing for money:

- getting a second job

- making crafts/art to sell

- babysitting

- selling items I own

- doing online surveys

- looking for freelance work

-Graphic Design/Photo editing

Those are pretty reasonable, decent ideas. Except none of them were as instant as I'd hoped they'd be. It can be hard to convince people to give you money. So I got more desperate and considered doing things like getting an overnight, full time, second/third job, or chatting/video-chatting while playing online games with strangers, for pay.

Now, this isn't saying that there are things I wouldn't do for money. I'm not about to start shooting porn, or taking bids to eat something completely disgusting (that works better when you fill in the blank) etc.

Then there are things that I could definitely do for money, and aren't so out there, but for some reason I'm totally averted to. Like (I'm sorry to say) working in close proximity with my dad. Let me clarify here before anyone gets offended. I love my dad, I really do. I do not love working with my dad, our work styles are very different. Our musical preferences can vary widely, and while they overlap at some points, they don't always coincide. And it's hard for me to respect my father as my boss. It's a different dynamic, and unfortunately I'm not great at adjusting. I also tend to avoid strenuous manual labor. Offer me $20 to rake leaves, or weed a garden, and I might take you up. But I might not. Does this make me lazy? I would argue no, it doesn't make me lazy, just because I know I have a work ethic. I don't want to leave my job until I've finished my work. I'm considering taking 2 full time jobs because I want financial security started in my life. I prefer having something to do at work than nothing. Those sorts of things make me feel like it isn't fair to say I don't have a work ethic, but there are still undeniably types of work that I avoid.

So, internet community, what do you think? Do you think I'm lazy? Do you think I'm crazy? Or are you just wondering what you could get me to do for some cash?

Comment. Write your own post and tag me in it as a response. Send me a private message. Give me an opinion. And if you're so inclined give me a new idea to make money. Or make me an offer of your own.

I doubt any offers made will actually be something I'd do. Just a forewarning. I know some of my friends can be... more than creative. No thanks. Keep the inappropriate things to yourself please, I'm trying to keep this intellectual folks. If you're tagged it means I think you'll have something worth saying. If you aren't tagged, I might have run out of tags. Or I may have been worried about your comment content...

But seriously, I need money.

And if you were wondering about the above mentioned ways to make money, here they are:

www.gamecrush.com

www.freelancer.com

www.sittercity.com

www.bzzagent.com

www.deviantart.com