Compromising Job Decisions

Today I decided to stop complaining about my Job. It's not my favorite place to be and everyday when I get up to go there I'm angry and when I leave I have the same feeling; It's getting really bad. I was talking to a friend/co-worker and told her that if I complain and or vent she's allowed to hit me. I told her it's sad but I'm seriously considering looking into jobs that pay less money just so that I don't have to be so upset anymore. 

I know that there is no guarantee that the next job is going to be any better. It's just that I'm to that point where my present environment is not healthy for me mentally or physically. I know that typically when someone is looking into another job they look for something that pays more not less. However I'm at a point where I don't know what I really want to do, however I know that not being at peace with myself or my current situation is not a good thing.

I wonder if other people consider going to lesser paying jobs just to get away from their current jobs stressful environment?

Ebay

So last month, I attended the Philadelphia Pen show. While there I spent some time at Susan Wirth's table. Ok so I spent pretty much all of Friday sitting there trying out different pens. I purchased two pens; one is Japanese and the other is a Esterbrook with a Osmiroid Sketch nib. I was and still am very happy with my purchases. I came home and hopped right away onto ebay searching for more Osmiroid nibs to put into my Esterbrook. my first purchase. (Not first Ebay purchase ever. Just first Osmiroid purchase.)  Was a left hand set of Osmiroid nibs. I paid for them right away. It's been 2 weeks and I have not heard anything from the seller. It says that they would be delivered anywhere form 2/8-2/22 .  Since then I have won two other sets of Osmiroid nibs off of ebay. Both sets now reside in my house. My question is should I contact the seller before the last date the nibs should arrive or wait until the last day and then make contact. It is bothersome to me because the second seller emailed me to let my know the nibs where in the mail and the third one had the mailed icon show on ebay. I'm just becoming worried about whether or not my nibs are going to come anytime soon or at all.

Procrastination

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday and avoiding today.” –  Dr. Wayne Dyer

So Procrastination, It's my life and I live it well. It's so not something to be proud of. I'm not proud of it, just telling it like it is. 

 My first excuse for not blogging regularly was because my mother was sick. One week she would be home and the next in the hospital. So I told myself I didn't have time. Now that she has passed away. I no longer have that excuse. 

It's super crazy how in life all the thing we say we are going to do or want to do just never get done. Or Maybe it's just a me thing? I always have and excuse or a reason why I should just put it off. Today I read a blog where there was a list reasons of why people procrastinate. The two that really got my attention were, 

"Fear of success- you might find this strange, but it is true that some of us are afraid of what might happen if we are successful.

 Fear of changes – you do not want to change yourself to adapt to the new state because you are afraid of the impact the changes will bring to you, it is simply that you are already in your comfort zone."   

They really got me thinking am I just avoiding things so that I don't have to worry about what changes will happen tomorrow?  So now I'm kind of tired of the same thing everyday. There is saying I'm not sure if I'm about to say it correctly but here it goes. "If everyday you do the same thing and nothing changes maybe it's time to try something different."  So I'm going to try something different. Not sure yet what, but it's time for change. I can't keep complaining and not doing anything different to change the circumstances.

So It's Official...

I can not spend any money for the next 5 months that is not on preplanned events. Today I realized that I need to have money saved before August to buy plane tickets and pay for a hotel in Amsterdam. So other than the Philadelphia Pen show, a friends birthday next month, and Calligraphy class in April. I can not spend money on unnecessary items. This will be a very big challenge for me. This means no new books, pens, paper, inks or art supplies. I really don't know what I am going to do with myself. Before I realized this I had been planning on saving for a silkscreen kit. Well I guess this means I have to just play with whatever I do have and be happy that I at least have that. I can only take this one day at a time and pray that I don't slip up. I just hope that it is not going to be like the last time I went on a spending freeze, and everything I had ever wanted was now on sale. The worse was when I would go into the book store to pick up books for my mother and a book I had wanted to read was now out. Wow I'm really being a downer before anything has started. Wish Me Luck!

Online Stores and Shipping and Handling

So a few weeks ago I went to the NYC pen show. It was great! I purchased a nib and some sacs for some old fountain pens a coworker gave me that used to belong to her husband. I also received a lot of good information from a few vendors. While I was there I also purchased a TWSBI EF fountain pen. The great people of TWSBI were really great because they gave you a few ink choices to fill your brand new pen with, I chose Sailor Blue-Black.  OMG let me tell you, I normally don't like blue ink. It's just something about blue which makes me think of the ugly blue from the Bic Stic Pens in school. So normally I stay far away from blue. However the shading that Sailor Blue-Black gives in the TWSBI is phenomenal!

But back to the topic. I really love the ink so I decided to buy a bottle. Normally I would have purchased it at a physical store, because tax is cheaper than shipping.  However my normal stomping grounds don't sell this color ink. Well one just doesn't sell Sailor ink and another one only sells the newest colors. So that leaves me with buying it online. My usual online retailers for ink do not sell the brand either.  So I had to scourer the internet for a reputable company that did sell it. Now for the fun part, Shipping & Handling! I don't mind paying out the ___ for large and cumbersome items. However what ticks me off the most, with these charges is when I pay $8-12 in shipping and it only cost the proprietor $4-6 to ship the item. Do they refund you the money that you spent on shipping that was not used, No they do not. However we the customers are at their mercy for products that can not be found in local stores.

I guess I have become spoilt by online retailers that give free S&H after a certain dollar amount purchase or those that have a very nominal shipping fee.

I have now vented and should be ok for a while.

Calligraphy Nib Holder

So I told my mother and aunt that I wanted to learn calligraphy. Being the kind women that they are they gave me all of their old calligraphy supplies. One item that I found to be interesting is this nib holder. I have never seen one like it before. I tried searching for it online; however I was unable to find any information about it. Has anyone ever seen at calligraphy nib holder like this before? If so do you know anything about it?

Yeah so..

My lack of posting is all do to lack of time spent reading or doing anything of any type of interesting. (<-Run on sentence I know) So my world last week was hospitals, home and work. This week Ma Dukes is home so it's home and work.
I wanted to go to the NYC pen show which starts tomorrow. I was think of stopping by it on saturday. However it all depends on how she's doing that morning.
This is my life now. I was so going to work on changing my life perceptions and figuring out what I wanted to do most in life. However this blog seems to be more of a dud due to lack of prolific post or any post at all. Ish happens in life it's all a matter of how we deal with it. Anger gets us no where fast and I have learned that in the past week during all this. Staying calm and collected and never loosing your cool( <-Really who does that). It's ok to cry; I have learned. People get tears and stay clear of anger. It's when your life seems to be falling apart you find out who is really there for you.

Rhodia Web notebook (Webbie) Review

Hi all! First I would like to thank Stephanie and Karen for giving me the opportunity to do this review! Weeks ago Rhodiadrive.com had a Web notebook giveaway. So like any lover of great quality paper, I entered. Not too long after the contest was over I received and email from Stephanie at Rhodiadrive.com asking me if I would be interested in receiving a Web notebook to review. I was hesitant at first because I don’t know if anyone actually reads my blog. However after much internal debate I emailed her back saying; Yes! I was given the opportunity to receive an extra one to give away however I really don’t know how many people are reading my blog if any. So I declined that offer. I am sorry if you do read my blog and I have now hindered you from the possibility of owning one. A few weeks ago Karen from Exaclair, Inc. sent me the Web notebook. I was so excited to get it, however I left it in the packaging until I had time, as to not damage it before taking pictures to review it.

So here is my review. As you can see from the pictures I like the color orange. It’s not to say that I don’t own black Rhodia books because I do. However there is just something about having a nice orange to pull out and brighten up your day. Left to right are a blank N ̊16 staple bound, Web notebook, graph N ̊18 staple bound and a lined notebook stapled in the center. Now as you can all see from the open books picture the Web notebook has a cream color where as the others are all stark white. While I like cream for drawing and painting purposes for writing I tend to like white and the brighter the better. Not really for any other reason than sometimes it’s harder for me to focus on my notes on darker paper. Yellow legal pads at work just irk me. It’s much harder to highlight yellow on yellow.



So with that I decided to use the Webbie for drawing purposes. Mind you I cannot draw for the life of me. However I have learned that with the right stencils I can create really nice stuff. So here are a something’s I tried my hand at in the Webbie. The first page I found to be too much going on in the tag shape. So I left that alone and went to the next, next page (No typo I really did skip a page and go to the next one). So I created the stars and such. After doing that I went to the skipped page and wrote some quotes down. As you can see I write hard because the back of the writing page picked up the color pencil. As you see from the written page you can faintly see the “stars and such” image in the background almost like a water mark. I loved using the color pencils on it for every color I used except yellow. However it made making the color pop less stressful than with pure white paper.



I am very new to using blogger I have no clue as to where my pictures are or if they even uploaded. If by chance they did not. Here is the link to this set on flickr! http://www.flickr.com/photos/laoriginaltec/sets/72157624726636011/