I. We had to do this for homework – core values. I wrote them down last Wednesday and thought about them again today. I do not wish to change them. My core values are clarity, consistency, forward-thinking, humor, and determination. Yes, integrity…..yes love…blah blah…..all that other stuff.
II. My Beltane newsletter is ready! I made last year’s newsletters plus the Valentine’s edition of Arythmancy Magazine available to everyone because when my Shopify site hiccuped and I had to return to a self-hosted site, I lost my email list. It happens. I’m not sure if I should dangle it as a carrot to encourage sign-ups again or link it from Pinterest like I did with the other newsletters.
III. My other newsletters are linked through Canva, not my website. This has just occurred to me. Mercury retrograde usually brings me Amazon orders that they accidentally fulfill twice and scratch tickets with $100 prizes, not balls-out screw-ups like this. Damn! *Pulls out To Do list and adds another thing*
IV. I switched my posting system from Classic WordPress to the Block Editor and I’m not sure about this. Something called Templately appeared and I touched it of course, but I’m not sure what to do with it. It’s in my overhead task bar giving me the side-eye.
IV. Last year I wrote a 77-page introduction to numerology. It was light and fun and meant to be easy to read. It was meant to go to Amazon Kindle but I made it in Canva with a magazine-style template that hiccuped and vomited everywhere when it was converted for Kindle. It was so difficult to reformat that I gave up. I found the original PDF this weekend and started changing outdated links. I was feeling on fire and created an Etsy store to sell it at instead, and then made the mistake of looking at other numerology digital downloads. Mine doesn’t look like theirs. I don’t know if that’s good or bad but I do know that it made me crawl back up into my head and spend 48 hours criticizing something that I *was* really proud of until I saw things. I still haven’t put it up there yet.
VI. In art-related news I picked up my oil pastels again and started on a shark painting that is about 4 ft long and 3 ft tall. Oy. I got a box of oil pastels to try and I loved them but burned through three of them completely trying to do that ocean background. I had it taped to the basement wall so the cinder blocks started coming out as a pattern in the pastel. I was like, “Ok, so it’s going to be a surreal shark. I’ll make it weird” and then the pastel just WOULDN’T blend on the paper I was using. So then I tried to blend stand oil into it and that made it worse. So now there’s a drippy oily shark on my wall swimming through a sticky sea that looks like a cinder block hallway. I keep feeling like I can save this but it’s probably time to admit defeat and start over with a sturdier paper.
VII. Also in art-related news, I have this thing in my head that I will conquer velour pastel paper. It hasn’t happened in the six years that I’ve been trying to conquer Hahnmule velour. What happens is the paper kicks my arse instead. I have refollowed soft pastel artist Emma Colbert on Patreon and I am also experimenting with oil pastels to see if I can do that. I am secretly GREEN-EYED JEALOUS of artists who can make this paper work for them.
VIII. I am having a Yoast vs Rank Math debate with myself. Rank Math appears to do more at the free level than Yoast. As soon as I have $100 to invest I will get a year of either, I just don’t know which one. Right now it feels like a “Tastes great, less filling” kind of thing. They’re both very similar at the paid level. I might just take Rank Math off my site and run screaming back to Yoast because I’ve had that plugin for about eight years. You know what? No. I won’t do that. I’ve researched and if I research any more, I’ll be so informed that I won’t do a damned thing. When I have the money to invest I’ll get the damned Rank Math because it’s working for me and it takes up a lot less space than Yoast.
IX. Adjacent to the Yoast vs Rank Math, “Tastes great, less filling” debate is the desire to grab ANOTHER domain and install ANOTHER site in my account so that I have a “proper” art account. Ye gods, I need an internet supervisor. Repeat after me, self: “We do not need another website. We need to learn to make the one we have work for us.”
X. It’s a beautiful day out and I need to force myself out into the sunshine. I need to walk over to Muju and get some coconut milk and peppers for supper. Eww, the light. Eww, the people.
XI. I have exceeded the 10 Things! I am doing a pop-up next week at The Tram. I do Tarot readings there periodically. It’s a lot of fun! I enjoy myself. I actually do like people. I don’t know why I’m behaving like a three-year-old being dragged to daycare. I’ll be fine once I get outside.
