You’re So Boring!
Mr. Sunshine is right, but I apologize for boring these felines to tears! And for missing quite a few posts in the past few weeks, or probably a month. But things are pretty well set back to where they need to be so possibly I’ll be able to post all the things I’ve prepared and play with my cats now and then!
I work on three computers in the house: one in the office, one in my studio and one in the kitchen. I generally complete my graphic design assignments in my office and my art-related activities in my studio, and posting is balanced between the two. I check email and take care of sharing posts in the kitchen along with a surprising amount of writing. Until two months ago I had my larger newer computer in my office, my old old one–13 years old–in my studio and a newer but less capable one given to me by a friend moving to a tablet in my kitchen.
My old computer in the studio was moving slowly, moved more slowly, stopped connecting to the internet, and aside from becoming like a big external hard drive was pretty useless to me. I thought I could get by in there without a computer but for everything from creating portraits and having the digital images on my monitor to printing labels for shipping, and printing the art to make my handmade goods as well, and designing all my greeting cards, garden flags and calendars and other books for printing. I could get along without a computer in that room, but only if I spent…about 15 hours a day at the computer in my office, and I just can’t do that anymore.
I gave up the one in the kitchen and tried using it in the studio. It had been in there for about a year but wasn’t pressed to quite the service I need now, like running my graphics programs and printing to the newer, more demanding Epson printer. The programs ran very slowly, and worst of all it had none of my art and writing stored on it and would not network with the computer in my office to be able to pull from the internal and external drives there. That meant that while I was composing posts with photos, writing articles, painting portraits, and designing handmade and printed goods I was constantly running into the need to run downstairs to that computer and either put materials onto a flash drive, into my Dropbox, or email it to myself.
A month of that and I had files everywhere and I’m still confused, plus exhausted and frustrated at running up and down the steps, losing things, moving them into the wrong places and generally being less productive all the time. Add that to the need to move all my printing from one printer, who was no longer able to print my greeting cards and garden flags, to another and start all over with the need to run proofs of everything before printing, a very time-consuming and expensive process, and my productivity ground to a standstill. No more wood-mounted artwork and keepsake boxes, shorter articles and more re-runs, even fewer daily sketches, and worst of all work on commissioned portraits while I spent time moving images to the right place to be able to work, stored downstairs or in email, had me working on four at one time to so I could complete work with what I had on hand rather than run up and down the stairs one more time, and very little has actually gotten done.
A new computer is a big investment, especially one of the type that could manage huge art files as I need in my studio, but I have enough keyboards, mice, monitors and other peripherals that all I need is the CPU, and I knew what I wanted for that. I lucked out with one of my occasional perusals of craigslist weekend before last and found one I could easily afford like that day, and still feed the cats and pay the bills, installed it, set up the network and got back to work in my studio. I also moved the other one back to the kitchen. I feel like I’m back in business. I have my schedule drawn up for this week, and so far so good.
So tonight we took a little break and made a pumpkin pie. I haven’t had time for anything but basic cooking too, and that’s really disappointing for me. I’m about to enjoy a slice of pie before I get back to work for a little while. I’m sure I’ll have supervision on that too!
Browse some rescued cats and kittens—browse here or visit PittsburghCAT!
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
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did sum one say pie….we R on R way !! ♥
Tabbies, I’ve been having it for breakfast–you’ve got your fruits and grains and fats and sugars, especially when I add a big dollop of whipped cream for Mimi to share!
groannnn…computer woes! I’m with you on THAT. Mine decided it didn’t have a startup disk image 3 weeks ago, and I’ve been battling it ever since. And yes, it’s the one with all the high end software and loads of RAM, so I’ve been diligently trying to resurrect it. ALMOST there…now just to reload all the content since Jan 1 (the last time I did a full backup). *sighhh* Faraday wants to knwo if he can come snag a slice of pie. Pumpkin’s his FAVORITE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hyw1yG06Trk&list=UUMKCODxRwVRwjdhNO8iWXqA ) heee!
Oh, computer woes! I can’t imagine only having one computer–I’ve always had an old one limping along in addition to a more updated one so that I could still get things done while one was down. And I backup about every 32 seconds–but still I’ve lost things on older drives. I remember when yours went down! I hope you can get it going soon–so you can go out and harvest some pumpkins and make some PIE for Faraday! Is he a little bun there or does he just look small for some reason? He’ll have to get here fast before we finish it all.
Bernadette, sounds like tough conditions to work under…glad you were able to find something you can afford that could get you back to working normally…sounds worth it to me!
Sued51, I am so glad–I have so many ideas and I hate to see them all be forgotten just because all my computers were a problem!