This week Sandra and I are working on an iteration or somewhat-redesign of her Debutante Clothing blog. The other night I went over to her house and used a photo of Justin's sister to make a big bold splash of a banner header.

But by the time I got home and all through yesterday day, I felt it was too bold for the rest of Sandra's blog and overwhelmed the content. This afternoon, I plugged my Wacom tablet in, turned on Fireworks, opened up the photo of the roses outside of Sandra's front door that I took on Tuesday evening and started to draw over the photo with colors from her blog.

I wasn't sure if Sandra would like the drawing for her masthead or if she liked our big bold statement, or if I should take the the drawn over roses and weave them into the new masthead I created on Tuesday evening.

Tuesday Evening's Masthead:

This Afternoon's Rose additions to the Bold Banner:

Now looking at the two ideas above, I thought of a subtler iteration:

What do you think?

I am happy with them. Yes, blur is good.

When Greg took off before I could capture the photo of him & Ryan in the hot rod, I was afraid that my Nokia N95 could not and would not take the photo fast enough to capture Greg's peeling out on to Electric avenue. But the N95 did get the photo.

Last evening, as I drove north-east to Sandra & Justin's house in Ontario, I wanted to get a photo of the golden Brea Hills that were speckled with oak trees and shrubs. I kept pointing the N95 to shoot while I was driving at the or a bit over the freeway speed limit. Due to the fact that the sun was going down, the light was all wrong and I kept getting a bright sky with dark hills. I decided to fool the light meter in the N95 by pointing it low and then moving it to see a bit of the sky as the shutter was releasing, which caused the white out effect. I love it when I can get a Nokia camera phone to white most the landscape out but leave a few saturated objects, in this case the red car speeding by on the other side of the freeway.

This morning I took Scruffy for his yearly vet check up and shots. He gets nervous and shakes violently when he is at the Vet and the Groomers. This morning it took a while for the vet, Dr. Kali, to come into the examining room, so to distract Scruffy I tried to take photos as he attempted to jump off the exam table and into my arms.

It wasn't that bad. Scruff survived. I love how the N95 focused on his legs & paws on the exam table but everything else is slightly blurred.

Which brings up one of the major reasons I primarily shoot photos with my camera phone: the gift of a good shot within the randomness of very little control and the constraints of capturing good photos with a mobile phone.

Wed 05.07.08 - At Scruffy's annual vet visit. Dr. Kali rocks. He is very calm and he calmed Scruffy down.

Mon. 05.05.08 - Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Greg & Leah stopped by this evening in "Ojitos - Hecho en Nuevo Mexico", a fun 1927 modified hot rod owned by Greg's friend Thomas. Thomas wants to sell Ojitos to Greg, Leah is wary, so they have Ojitos for one day/evening.

Ojiotos, she was the toast of Seal Beach. And danged loud, too.

Sun. 05.04.08 - Happy Sunday to you from four local iris-type flowers making their May debut into the big bright world.

Last Sunday I made a note for myself of four things I wanted to blog about this week, but due to busy-ness I have not gotten to a single one of them until tonight.

Let's talk about work vs. rest or how to take a day off when you are a freelancer:

I have blogged a few months ago that I have spent the last year traipsing down a variety of career avenues in search of the perfect post-graduate-school career position but there has been no perfect path, only the path to being overwhelmed and over-committed as I have found myself involved in a wide swath of interesting projects and working many days in a row without a true day off. Then I get frustrated with spending all day every day with my computer and then I start to slow down & procrastinate about finishing things up with the excuse that I need time off.

Add it up and you get....

A desperate need to catch up, finish up, and actually take a day off. But the worst part is that when I do take time off, I feel too stressed out and guilty to enjoy it. This is bad.

Enter Ryan's article on the 4 Day Work Week. Carsonified says the 4 day work week makes their office more productive as folks arrive on Monday actually rested.. The 37 Signals folks found that they were honestly only productively coding a certain amount of hours every day so why not distill that time into 4 days and have 3 days off.

There also is the guy writing/talking about the 4 hour work week. The trick to this is outsourcing every task in your life and then writing a book about it and it selling well.

I don't think that I will want to whittle my life down to a 4 hour work week, but I would like to set a goal to a productive 4 day work week rather than a stressed out with productivity falling 7 day work week.

Where to start? Just do it? I love being online and on my computer, my work merges with my passion. My computer is also my main tool, next to my mobile camera phone, for my creativity and art. When I create art with these tools, the Protestant Guilt Ethic creeps in and asks why I am playing instead of working.

How do the Carsonified & 37 Signals folk walk away for 3 days? Or do they separate their job work on their computer with their love / passion for being online and creating?

If you are freelance or your work & love are on a computer, how do you manage the work / life / creativity balance?

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95 in and around Seal Beach, Calif., on Sat. 05.03.08.

Fri. 05.02.08 - I meant to post this over at the Happy Tastebud, but I did not fully inspect Lifeblog before I pushed sent. Oh well.

This is a photo of the diary-free Shrimp & Argula (Rocket) Risotto I made tonight. It was tasty.

Thurs 05.01.08 - Happy May Day or Beltane! May your spring be overflowing.

I woke up early this morning from an involved dream fresh in my memory that included a river flowing under my house / apartment, and the back room opening up into a wide staircase that went down into a grotto with a Virgin Mary on the riverside.

The river was clear, fast flowing, and deep. The statute of the Virgin Mary was in a light blue robe with a white robe underneath. The grotto was well lit, of which people freely came and went. The house / apartment was a mash-up of my last few favorite historical places I have lived in: shaped two rooms in a row like the 1860s brownstone apt. I lived in in Boston, hardwood floors (Misty's side of the duplex) and the back room of the Victorian in Orange, and the plaster & lathe walls of my current 1930s/1940s flat.

It was a peaceful dream and even in it, I yearned to live all the time in this 2 roomed apartment with its subterranean river of life and stairway of people come and going. This is the first ever dream I have had with Mary in it. I did not grow up Catholic and tend to find the veneration of the Virgin to be a bit bizarre. Upon research today, see links above, I found out that May is considered the Virgin Mary's month.

Tues. 04.29.08 - Jason, Bryan, Arnold, and Donna at the Sky Room Bar in Long Beach.

This photo was taken with my Nokia N95 and then posted to this blog via the N95's Lifeblog as a demo on mobile blogging during the Nokia Open to Anything event.

Mon 04.28.08 - Robbie and Amir at dinner at FuRaiBo in West LA.