selling photographs

Christmas without Wally…

(Wally-World, that is.) I can do it, can you?

I dislike– in so many ways it can’t be adequately described– Wal-Mart.

So much so that I can tell you exactly when I last set foot into my local WM. It was just over a week before Thanksgiving. So that puts it at what, 49 weeks ago?? I can’t say I’ve missed a thing not being there. Understand please, that it is SO convenient to my daily world that I can see the sign over the front entrance from the window of my job; that their parking lot is across the street from my parking lot….

I just am never HAPPY when I am there. The light is ‘off’, the air moves oddly, the hollow feeling of the place, even when over-loaded with (often cranky) people just bothers me. I have never saved enough money there to make it worth my while.

I have never found it one-stop-shopping enough to make it worth my while. It isn’t more than a lowest-common-denominator kind of place for me.

I have never stood on the check-out line without the thought running through my head, “WHY did I come in here?” (And all this without the first echo of the more overt political, environmental, labor and capitalistic  etc. issues that cause me to simply not need WM in my life!)

Oh, back when I lived on the Island, and the closest WM was over a bridge in another state, AND was a relatively new addition even there, I thought it was a fine thing.  A place I would have to make PLANS to get to. (It was before a Target became available to me, in that same out-of-state, ‘destination’ type of experience that even IKEA was.)

And when I moved here, I did on occasion shop there; before I really became comfortable with the other local grocery stores, and who carried what; before I had learned my way about the area.

It is the only place down here open 24 hours, and coming from a city where EVERYTHING seemed to be open 24 hours (even Home Depot), I felt it was the place to be. However, there is nothing I would need in the middle of the night that I can’t find at my CVS, closer to home and less of a headache.

So, with perfect honesty, I can say, I will not be doing my Christmas-ing at WM. I realize that for some, WM really IS the only ‘local’ alternative. And I feel for you. But, if you are reading this blog, you have within your reach, the entire WORLD.

Use it! Keep your UPS man in a job, and buy online! In your jammies, in the middle of the night, and think about those fools standing in WM at 3 am, cursing the 25 CLOSED cash register lines, while they stand 10 deep at the 3 lines open, waiting their turn to deal with tired, harried cashiers.

And order gifts to your hearts content; gifts far more unique, more whimsical and probably far more personal than the same red and black plaid flannel shirt that exactly 3,550,673 other tired Christmas shoppers tossed into their carts at the last minute, remembering that Uncle Jimmy would be at Christmas dinner this year!

(What? you don’t want to pay shipping and handling?? Well, how about GAS, and TIME, and all the other things that end up in the cart over and above what you NEEDED??)

Where to shop? Well, let me list a few gems:

Photography My photos, they make WONDERFUL gifts…

Collectibles My Dad’s web-site, where you will be able to find one-of-a-kind ephemera and small household collectibles; things that you will remember from your youth, and things that will make you smile…

T-shirts My babiest brudder’s T-shirt site…(he has a more unique view on the world than most, a great site for the teens and young adults you need to shop for…)

And hey, there are a gazillion OTHER sites out there, big and small, that offer just about anything!!! (But, if I were to start picking and choosing…. well, I figure I will just advertise for Us!! LOL)

(Oh, and by the way, I am NO LONGER early, folks. It is NOT too soon to be thinking about Christmas gifting. It is 53 DAYS till Christmas, otherwise known as November 1st, AKA ‘Happy Birthday Kerin and Elaine!’)

Now I’ve Gone and Done it… =)

What follows below is a huge, self-serving commercial announcement:

——————————————-For all of you who have, for all these years, told me I should be selling my photography:

LOOK  at what you’ve gone and made me do!!!

Officially going ‘live’ today is my photo website, The View From the Passenger Window.This website is my virtual gallery, for your viewing (and shopping) enjoyment!

The photographs in most of the galleries are available for purchase. (Christmas is coming–hint, hint…the perfect gift for that someone who has everything!)

Please take a few moments and enjoy a walk through my world. There is a very convenient shopping cart available to you, to make shopping a cinch. Your art will wing its way to you printed on KODAK professional papers.

I am asking you (begging? pleading? cajoling? –you choose the descriptor that best suits!) to send a link to this blog to anyone who you think may enjoy it!  Or even better, simply send them a link to the site!

(You’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends….

…)

I would love to receive comments on my art; there is a comments field in each gallery…comments are like virtual hugs…and you can never overdo hugs!!!

And, THANK YOU for your purchase!

—————————————–END of commercial announcement.

(*Were there enough subliminal messages there? Do you have a sudden urge to hang a few new photos over your couch? Did you take the hint?? Or are you just repeating that silly commercial, above? LOL)

Oh,  and by the way…..THANK YOU!!! For your friendship and for your encouragement!

Where does the time go?

They say (revise that to IT IS SAID, ‘they’ will be dealt with in another post) that as you get older that time goes by more quickly. Maybe that is why I thought it was just the other day that I posted. Where does the time go, indeed. I just spent a wonderful Easter weekend with my family up in Connecticut. All of the little kids are still insisting on growing a foot between visits and losing teeth and getting cuter. Heck, one of them even got her drivers license!

But that is nothing on the feeling old thing that my daughter pulled on me on Tuesday last, when she had the audacity to turn a quarter century! 25. Amazing. She is a beautiful woman now, don’t you agree? She graduated last May and is still looking for full time work. The only jobs she’s ever left have been because she moved away from them, and even those she found hard to quit, because her boss’s would bend over backwards trying to keep her. She worked for me while in high school and I will honestly say that she was my second best employee. (It’s ok, she knows I favored her boyfriend, Ozzie.) She will do ANYTHING at this point. You won’t regret hiring her for almost anything, almost anywhere. ANYONE???)

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Checked in on Dad on the way home from Connecticut. As you may know we have an odd relationship, but he is enjoyable to be around. Keep your thoughts flowing positively in his direction, as some of those spots have re-appeared on his lungs.

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So, now that I have all this free time since I am not writing anything currently, you’d think I would have made headway in the studio, in any fashion, right? Wrong.

But, I DID open an ETSY shop. I am selling my photography. I have only two prints available at the moment, because I want to be able to order them, sign them and ship on demand, not have a large inventory. At least that is my idea for the moment. I am TOTALLY open to suggestions as to that thought, by the way. Part of that is probably my lack of confidence in what is considered ‘good’ by other people. The pictures I like are not always saleable. Or maybe that is merely the deep-seated procrastination in me.

I decided to just do it! I have been debating, plotting, thinking and ruminating over my photographs lately. I pull them up on PSE6 and play with them; I colorize, and age, and re-touch new and old images and generally have a grand time playing with them.

…but, it is time to motivate. Get moving in a direction that means something…I need to be more active in pursuing this goal; not forgetting the show deadline at PRAC every month, get down to the show, put art in the show..

…is it laziness or fear?…whichever…

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What else….hmmm. Here, click on this link to my husband’s photo page. He went crazy at the New York International Auto Show last week, and has written a very good intro and his captions are amazing (even if you think he may be speaking in tongues)

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They think a tornado touched down at the corner of Temple and Puddledock this evening…far better than last year this time, when it shredded part of our roof at work, while i was hard at work under it …(a half mile from tonight’s action…it may be time to get out of DODGE!)

OK. Think we are all caught up.

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We are off to Florida on Friday for a ten day vacation…. Beach, sand, sun, seashells…. Bring it on!