RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Boo.  I had gotten a really neat opportunity and had gotten kind of excited about it, but it didn't work out. A man I worked with at the Sprocket (ptooey) had been a long time, local TV news reporter before he worked there, and after he left, he jumped right back into reporting. We'd always gotten along really well when we worked together.  I'm friends with him on Facebook and he often mentions stories that he's working on.  Last week he sent out a casting call, of a sort, asking for volunteers to film a recreation of something that had to do with a story he was working on. It wasn't a big thing, but it sounded interesting. He needed a woman "between 35-40 with average build" who wouldn't mind that their face wouldn't be completely shown on screen.

It was like he was casting for my autobiography! Haha!

I volunteered. Actually, what I told him was that I was the right age, and even though I didn't know how average my build was (rowr) it should be fine, and that my face is at it's best when you can't see it in it's entirety! He said I'd be perfect for it and he explained everything and told me he'd let me know when the filming would be and then I didn't hear anything else. I kind of figured out that he probably didn't need me to do it anymore, but since he'd never said anything, I sent him a message.  He said management took over and they did the filming two days earlier so the story could run the next week.  Huh, well, thanks for letting me know! I wasn't mad or anything. As I said, I'd started to get the idea that they didn't need me when I didn't hear from him, but you'd think he'd have said something before I had to ask.  Eh, oh well.  I was a little disappointed, of course, but really only because it's so rare that I step out of my comfort zone voluntarily that it seemed like kind of a waste that I'd done it for something that didn't pan out.

At any rate the story is very interesting!  You can find out all about it here! 

Just think, that dark silhouette could have been me!  :)

2) I have hurt myself, yet again.  Actually, I think I probably hurt myself sometime last year and have slowly and carefully exacerbated the problem until it has how began causing me problems on a daily basis! Yay, me! For the past few weeks, my shoulders and left arm have been hurting. I thought I was getting the flu for a few days, but then my arm and hand started going numb in stages. I probably would have freaked out over my heart again if my back hadn't started prickling at the same time.  I'm fine unless I have to sit for long periods of time, which, unfortunately, is what I do everyday. The only way I could relieve the pain was lying down on the ground and stretching my arm out as far as it could go.  It felt like I needed to pop my back but I couldn't.  I tried, though!

My boss' daughter is a DPT, and Steve told me to ask her what I should do. I  didn't want to because it makes me uncomfortable to ask professional people to give me free advice, so he told her what was going on (when I wasn't there and couldn't object) and she was very cool about it.  She sat me down after church and started feeling around my spine. She found the spot that hurt and pressed on it. It was unpleasant. She told me I had some kind of disk torsion (or something, I don't know) and told me to talk to my doctor (I had an appointment the next day) about it.  Of course, she was thumb-deep in my spinal cord at the time, so if she'd told me to put a live ferret down my shirt and dance the Macarena, I'd have agreed!

She also put KT Tape on my back, which weirdly helped a lot.  I don't know how it works, but it did help. She told me I could leave it on for as long as I wanted, but to take it off it it started to hurt or itch. I left it on all day yesterday, but by that evening, it was itchy. I wanted to pull it off, but it didn't want to come off. It REALLY didn't want to come off. I'd resigned myself to living with tape on my back for the rest of my life, but finally just gritted my teeth and pulled it off.  It would have been easier to pull off my own face, and I dare say, it would have hurt less.  I feel like I've got a terrible sunburn on my back and I can't get all of the glue off of myself.  Yuck.

At any rate, My doctor is referring me to an osteopath to make sure no nerves are getting damaged and hopefully my arm will stop going numb! Yay!

3) I've been getting steady freelance design work lately!  Woo-Hoo!  I had forgotten how much I enjoy making things pretty. I just finished a wedding invitation for someone Steve knows.  I had a lot of fun with it, but I have to say, wedding invitations can be complicated. I spent DAYS on the set of drafts that I did, and I came up with six things I thought were kind of awesome! I remembered at the last second that she'd sent me an example of one she'd liked online, so I threw together something similar for her so that she'd know I hadn't forgotten it, and of course, the one I spent the least amount of time on was the one she picked!  Haha!  Oh, well, she's happy with them, so I'm happy.

I've also been working with another bride who's family has the potential to throw some professional design work my way, so I hope I can keep her happy, too!  :)  I'll be working on her stuff during my free time this week. I'm in wedding stuff up to my eyeballs.

My only problem is that when I bill these clients, I do not charge them nearly enough. I need to figure out how that works. I don't want to over charge, but I want to be fair to myself, too.  Eh, I'll figure it out one of these days.