Living the Creative Life

After a day of partially  unplugging --- okay not even 12 hours --- I'm already going a bit nuts. The thing I miss the most is Twitter, oddly enough. I didn't even think I was that into Twitter. I found myself watching a little bird chirping on a tree branch outside and instead of being in the moment, I was thinking, "Okay, I need to Tweet so-and-so about such-and-such... oh wait... I don't have a Twitter account..." And there was this giant panicked feeling, like all the adrenaline in the world entering my body at once. This happened several times yesterday. Sleeping was strange too. I've gotten so used to reaching over and checking my iPhone whenever I think of something I'm curious about. Google. Wikipedia. YouTube. They're all my friends. But I figured part of the disconnect process was keeping them in their places. Nothing wrong with looking things up, just... not when I'm supposed to be sleeping. I did something else last night that I ...

I spent the last 20 hours without (much) technology. Starting Saturday evening around 8:30pm, I powered down my iPhone (!!!) and stashed it in a drawer. Then I covered over my television, put my MacBook on a shelf, and... read a book! It was amazing. Haven't actually done that in awhile (with the exception of textbooks). I got the idea on one of the million blogs I follow (can't remember which one at the moment) and thought it sounded like a breath of fresh air. I chose Sunday because it seemed like a good day to focus on God instead of Twitter, but it could work any day that you choose. Maybe next week you'll join me? Just... pick a day... the same one every week... and purposefully free yourself of the interwebs for those few hours. You don't need to forgo electricity or cars or microwaves (unless you want to). Just consider what is constantly pulling on you for attention and lay it aside for a day (unless that thing is your kids -- don't stuff them in a drawe...

I've debated forever whether or not to delve into my tv/movie-watching habit on my blog. Every few months I'll decide to blog about it but then end up deleting the posts again in the hopes of culling my blog into the perfect, artsy-fartsy, blogger's blog. But alas... I'm a nerd. And part of being a nerd involves technology, books, and yes... tv/movie-watching. So... I've decided to embrace my nerdiness and incorporate two new sections to my blog -- What I've Read and What I've Watched. Hopefully you'll enjoy them! :) New Years Eve This movie got horrible reviews on Rotten Tomatoes - not sure why because it was great!  I'm a sucker for romantic comedies, especially ones created by Garry Marshall, so of course I had to check this one out -- I wasn't disappointed! It was funny, romantic, and even coaxed a tear or two. Whenever this hits iTunes, I'm definitely adding it to my movie collection! I give it 4.25 out of 5 stars. ...

I had a very interesting question the other day when I was talking about blog stats , and I thought it'd be worth it to make a post about this subject: "One thing, I am not sure how to link my really good posts to other posts of mine. I am open for any suggestions. :)" Let's take this from the top. So, the first thing you need to do is figure out which are your most viewed posts. Go into your Blogger Dashboard and find your Stats page. On the left side you'll see an option for Posts, and it should automatically list them in order of views. On the right are options for how you view this data. You can view your monthly stats, weekly stats, etc. For this purpose, it's probably good to look at "Month" or "All Time". For my blog, an old post I wrote about 80's cartoons is the most popular post I have. For some reason that gets found on Google quite a bit more than anything else I write about. Since I know people are going to be entering my b...

Part of being a graphic designer is learning when to scrap something and start over and when to just keep pushing through. You have to weigh how much time and energy you've put in vs. whether or not what you're doing is actually working. It's like when you're knitting and you're about halfway done with a pattern and realize that you did something wrong on the 2nd row. Is it worth it to start over? Will it make a difference or can you hide it? Sometimes it really is better to start over. Sometimes you can fix it. It just depends. Last night I spent hours trying to illustrate the bicycle from my travel poster and it was still turning out rather dodgy (sorry, I've been watching Australian television again) . Between that and being tired, I just set it aside and went to bed. Maybe there's something to be said for working out your problems in your sleep because when I woke up I knew that I'd been making it way too complicated for myself. The solution was t...

I was recently reviewing my GoodReads account and realized I've only finished 22 books this year! Twenty-two!! That's... like... crazy talk. Seriously. When I was 12, I could easily finish 22 books in one month. Granted, my life is busier now and the books I read tend to be longer, but still... If anyone's curious, I read 27 books in 2012, 22 books in 2011, and 13 books in 2010. This is an alarming trend, people! One realization I've been coming to is that I spend far too much time zoning out in front YouTube, television, The Sims, Solitaire... basically anything on my computer or phone that could be considered fun. And while there's nothing wrong with fun, I think perhaps I need to put fun back in it's rightful place. So... I'm going to try an experiment. I'm starting this week, even though it's not the New Year yet, because if I don't start now I never will. This is a modified version of my previous  technology fast , in case you were won...