What's On My Table

Just an unfinished practice sketch for a class I'm taking over at www.willowing.ning.com. It needs some details and shading, but it's close to done. I'll finish this practice sketch and move on to the actual watercolor paper this weekend.

The Penny-Pig

...in her natural habitat.


She has a couple of pig-type nicknames we call her because of the pig sounds she makes and because she'll eat until she explodes. Plus, check out those ears. We love our Penny-Piglet.








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Test Post

I'm using Blogpress from my phone, so this will be short. I want to try posting to 2 blogs at once. So, how about a few new screenshots of my iPhone apps.






























Yes, I have a LOT of apps.

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Getting to Know Siri - iPhone 4S Fun

So, as I announced on Facebook a couple weeks ago, I got my hands on a new iPhone 4S. I was so excited to check out the new camera and updated features I'd heard such great things about. I still can't believe my PHONE has an 8 megapixel camera! And that's front AND back camera! It also has a flash which can be set to auto. LOVE!!!

The kid in me, though, really just wanted to get to know Siri. I'm sure you've seen the ads about her, right? If not, here it is...

This is the kind of futuristic shit we dreamed about when we were growing up in the 80's, right? Joel and I have had lots of fun coming up with tasks and questions for Siri. Here are a few examples of my questions and her answers.

Me: Siri, do a search for Rischa Heape.

Siri:

Gee, thanks for the new nick-name, Siri. Joel now calls me Orrery. *smirk*

Me: Siri, do a search for R-I-S-C-H-A. (spelled out)

Siri:

Switzerland? WTF?

Me: Sing Happy Birthday to me.

Siri:

After a failed attempt at another silly question...

Me: Who made you?

Siri:

My Siri is a smartass. I love it!

Me: Kock, knock!

Siri:

I now call my iPhone "My Precious". I have way too much fun with this thing. I loved my 3GS, too, but the new features on this thing just have me swooning. <3

iPhone Screenshot

Why did I not know about making folders for the apps on my iPhone before? If you knew, why didn't you clue me in? I love that it's now organized!




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Sew Out of Practice

Sewing has never been my strong point. I know enough to get the basic stuff done. Even the basics can be forgotten, though, when it's been a couple years. So when I got my Singer out I knew there would be a practice sleeve that I made mistakes on. Oh, I forgot to mention what I wanted to make? I have several of those ceramic coffee cups that I use quite often. So I wanted to make a sleeve for them. Coffee Cup Sleeves are to keep you from burning your hands when you pick up the hot coffee. Like the cardboard things they stick around the Starbucks cups. I'm sure you knew all of that, but just in case there are a few non-coffee drinkers reading I might as well explain. So yeah, I made mistakes. I learned from them. My second one will be better and better still, the third. Here are the crappy cell photos from my first try.

I know; Not very straight on the stitching and maybe I should've used something other than white.

Yeah, yeah....the button MAY fall off. LOL I need to watch a YouTube video or something.

It's reversible. Like the polk-a-dots?

So there's my practice sleeve. It'll do, Pig. It'll do.

Email Etiquette

Hello lovely people! Rischa is out for the day, so I, The Email Police, am filling in for her. Nice to meet you! Are you ready for a lesson in email etiquette? No? You'd rather just go around sharing your friends, family, clients, coworkers, and future enemies' email addresses with the world until they're on so many spammers' lists that they have to change their addresses and refuse to give YOU their new one because you're so important you can't take the time to learn and do it correctly? Okay, but don't blame me when you get that error email because your friend has blocked or bounced your emails. Muhahaha!!!

(Tape is from Pugly Pixel)

Have you ever received an email from someone where you have to scroll and scroll and scroll through hundreds of email addresses to find the actual content of the email? Yeah, it's annoying. Don't be one of those people! Clean up your emails before forwarding. It's easy....just highlight and delete everything except the intended content that made you think, "Oh yeah, I bet so and so would get something from this". 

Once the email has been properly cleaned, here's what you do next. Yes, more instructions. You're a big girl (or guy)....you can do this! Trust me! If I can do these things, so can you. After a little while you'll wonder why everyone doesn't do it because it's so simple. If you need to copy and paste my instructions into a personal note, please feel free to do so until you get the hang of things. 

First an image for the visual learners out there. Click this image to see it larger and read the instructions included inside the image. You may right click and save if it helps.

First, I want you to add a new contact to your email address book. I can't be too specific here because I don't know the instructions for EVERY email client out there. I use Apple's "Mail" email client. Do a quick Google search for "How to add contacts to -insert your email client here-" to find out how to add contacts if you don't know how.  In the "name" field you should type, "Undisclosed Recipients". In the "email address" field you should type in your own email address. Then, next time you send an email to more than one recipient you'll type in, "Undisclosed Recipient" in the "To" field. 

Next, you'll want to make sure your "BCC", or "Blind Carbon Copy" is visible in your email client. Once you set this option you won't have to go through this every time you send an email. Again, I can't (ok, I could, but I'm not doing ALL the work for you.) give specific instructions for every email client, so you'll want to do a Google search for "How to make BCC visible in -insert email client's name here-". Once you do this you'll start adding the multiple email addresses into this field each time you send an email to multiple recipients. 

I know it's sounding like a lot of instructions for a simple task at this point, but keep in mind that you won't have to set things up every time. You'll only have to set up the "Undisclosed Recipients" contact once and the same goes for making the BCC field visible in your email client.

Now that we've got that all straightened out, let's talk about a few other annoying or just, plain rude activities. 

1.  Signing others up for things at web sites. If you think I'd be interested in a web site, that's great. I appreciate you thinking of me. Thank you! (That's not sarcasm....no, really) However, please send me the link and tell me why I'd be interested. Signing me up for something by using my email address without my permission is rude. It's like giving out my phone number to random strangers. It also makes my email address vulnerable to those pesky spammers. 

2. If you send me an email with just a link I'm going to assume you've been hacked and the email has been sent by the hacker and the link will cause me all sorts of trouble. I don't click links in emails or on Facebook unless I know for a fact that it's legit. When I get an email and all it contains is a link it seems suspicious. If I receive an email with a link and a personal note from you, a person I know and trust, I'll open it. 

That's your lesson for today my super sexy blog readers. Thanks for stopping by and thanks to Julie Prichard for the nudge to write up this blog post.