I’ve been a busy bee as of late. First, I finally got caught up on all of the designs I’d been working on for people. I’ve also finished up 7 premades, that I’ll make available on the design blog (which will launch soon). On top of that, I’ve also been finishing 2 new free themes. Despite all of that, I’ve also started working on the design for my photography portfolio, for which I’ve just purchased a new domain name for.

When I finish all of that up, I’m seriously going on a mini-vacation. I’ve already been looking into some bed and breakfasts, so with any luck, this weekend or next, I’ll be relaxing in a lovely place. It’ll be nice to just get away too, even if it weren’t for being “busy” lately. Jo and I haven’t been on a real vacation in a long time!

I guess I’ll get back to the grind though. I want to get as much accomplished as I can. Plus, I need to figure out why I’m unable to access my new reseller account - since June 5th!

EDIT 2; I’ve been in touch with Ermina, and she’s graciously offered to get with Tina and help me sort this thing out. Boy am I ever grateful for that, and happy I decided to make contact with Ermina in the chance she might be able to lead me in the right direction!

EDIT; I decided to see if I could transfer the domain to godaddy. PayPal went through. Got an email stating they needed approval from the registrar, Netrillium and that an email was sent. Now I ask you, if they’re the registrar of the domain.. why in the bloody heck can’t they just renew the stinkin’ thing?!!!!

I’m seriously about to pull my hair out. I’m so crappin’ fed up with trying to figure out how to renew scribblescratch.com. You see, I originally bought this domain through Frozen Midnight. You may or may not be familiar with them, but at any rate, I wound up very unhappy with their service. In 2007, I purchased a reseller account through Reseller Zoom, and changed the nameservers to that. I’ve been happy ever since.

Last year, when my renewal came up, I never got a renewal notice. OK, no problem. I still remembered, so I contacted Frozen Midnight to see how I should go about paying for the renewal to avoid interruptions. Ermina, from Netrillium (I assume she’s still with them…) contacted me back, as she was apparently helping out Frozen Midnight or something. Anywho. She told me how to pay for the renewal and tada, it was done. No interruptions.

Is it too much to ask that I have a painless domain renewal? Honestly!

I realized it was time for another renewal as scribblescratch.com is coming up to it’s second anniversary. I tried figuring out a way to renew it through Frozen Midnight but they’ve apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. Many of their websites are down and all of my emails are bouncing back. So, what do I do next? I decided to contact Netrillium, who is actually showing up as the registrar/admin/tech support for this domain. “Fabulous,” I thought at first, “there shouldn’t be any issues.” BOY am I wrong. I submitted a support ticket through Netrillium.com a few days ago. I got a response from a “Tina” explaining that my domain was with another client, Frozen Midnight. So I replied and explained my findings regarding Frozen Midnight, that there seems to be no way of contacting anyone from Frozen Midnight to take care of this “issue” I’m having with my domain name renewal. I haven’t heard back since, and have since replied to the ticket twice. Perhaps out of desperation? If it’s showing Netrillium as the registrar, what’s the problem with renewing it for me? You know, the person running the domain, that purchased the domain?

Of course when I try to find a number for Netrillium, I fail. The whois information on them gives a ridiculous number, 1+000000000 blah blah. I’m fairly certain (without a doubt really) that the number listed isn’t an actual number.

What in the heck am I going to do? Who else can I contact to try and sort this crap out? All I want to do is renew my domain and avoid any downtime in the process. Why is THAT too much to ask?????????

Any suggestions? Is there anyone else I can turn to?

I swear, after this crap, I’m going to need a vacation or something. Maybe I’ll check out some rates on Hilton Head rentals.

In case you did, I’m apparently in hiding!

OK, so I’m really not in hiding. I’ve just been super busy the last few days. I had 3 designs to finish up, plus I’ve been working on a couple of free themes, as well as several (I think at last count there were 5) premium themes. I also decided to buy a new domain for the premium designs, well, my designs in general. I guess I’ll make it into a portfolio of some sort, but that’ll take quite a bit of time, especially implementing the shopping cart feature - I’ve never done that before.

In other news, my laptop should be here any day now. I’m so dern happy about that, and I know Jo is too. I can tell Jo’s ready to reclaim his computer. I’m not going to be too upset about parting with it to be honest. I hate the way colors display on it. Jo should be pretty happy though. Not only for the fact that he’s going to have full access to his computer again, but I decided to buy some extra ram for him about a week ago. He got 2 gbs for around $60. It arrived a couple of days ago, so he went ahead and installed it. He was so cute installing it too, like trying to explain all the different parts of his system. It sort of cracked me up, but it’s like I told him - I really have no idea what he’s talking about save a few things like the motherboard, ram and the fan. It made about as much sense to me as me going out and getting a cell phone repeater - I’m currently without a cell phone. Ha, ha.

At any rate, I have to finish up these cake balls (did you laugh out loud like I did?). I’ll update more later.

My sister in law and her boyfriend had an allergic reaction a few days ago. This was after they both ate baked apples - I don’t know why they call it baked apples when it’s a berry, but whatever. My sister in law’s boyfriend is actually still dealing with the reaction, perhaps because his case was so severe. It wasn’t just a case of hives all over, which were very itchy, it was also because of the swelling it caused around his lips/mouth. He’s seen the doctor twice in the last week, and though he’s taking a prescription for it, he’s still having some issues with this allergic reaction.

I know I’m not having an allergic reaction to anything, at least I hope I’m not, but I’ve been itching like crazy today. I think it’s just a side effect of watching them scratch. Ha, ha - not that watching that is funny, just that watching it would make me itch.

I’ve been feeling a lot better today so I took some time to get caught up on some work, and put some *almost* finishing touches to Kristin’s new blog designs. I can’t wait to present what I have to her. I really hope she likes it! And speaking of designs; I’ve gotten several emails in the last couple of weeks from bloggers requesting my work. I will be getting back to them before the end of the day tomorrow, so hopefully this will keep me steady for a bit. I’m also toying with the idea of offering some premium themes. Yes, those will have price tags but they’ll be 1 of a kind and those purchasing will be the only persons using them. I’ve been working on a few of these for awhile now but never really finished any of them. I still plan to keep doing free themes too, but I don’t think it’d hurt to do a few premium themes along and along either. If it weren’t for getting so many requests since the beginning of this year, I don’t know that I’d even consider it, but it’s just an idea.

Anyway. I’m going to finish watching Most Haunted. Why? I don’t know, I always have nightmares after I watch it, even though the show isn’t “scary.” Yeah, that makes no sense at all to me. Ha, ha.

I tell ya, if I stare at this computer any longer I’m going to need Lasik surgery for sure.

EDIT; I got a reply, and an apology. She has explained she hadn’t actually been paid for any designs to date, and was only starting to charge for work - none of which she says involved anything in part or in full, of mine. I’ve accepted her apology. Unless something arises in the future, that previous entry will remain private.

People, do yourself a favor. If you download any of the themes I’ve made available.. don’t turn around and alter the colors and sell them. No, no.

I have no problem with ANYONE wanting to alter the free themes I’ve made available. I’ve never, ever had a problem with that. I rarely ever even cause a stink if my credit gets removed, so long as the person using it isn’t claiming my work.

It’s seriously WRONG to take credit for someone else’s work. SERIOUSLY wrong. But not only to take credit for it.. but to then turn around and charge someone for a template you had little to do with.

What am I saying?

I found a blog tonight, using my “Love Bugs” theme. The only changes were the colors and a portion of the header. According to the “designers” (and I’ll use that lightly at this point) design site, she charges folks for templates (blogger and wordpress).

I will get to the bottom of this.. and if I’m not happy with the reply to the email I sent, I will push forward.

I don’t care if you change the colors.. I don’t care if you change the header.. I don’t care if you rearrange the theme entirely to make it more unique, and more “you.” I don’t mind those things at all, like I said..

It’s one thing to remove a credit, it’s a totally different thing to actually get paid for something I made.

With any luck, I’ll have my new laptop in a couple of weeks. The laptop I’ve picked out is set up for wireless internet. Good news for me because I plan on using it anywhere I can! Because of this though, we’re going to have to upgrade our current router to a wireless one. Like most everyone else, money is tight these days. We definitely try to stick to a budget, but occasionally we enjoy splurging for things we want. That being said, I was excited to see the ZyXEL P-330W wireless router that’s on sale in the weekly deals section over at Buy.com. This router will allow us to share our IP with multiple systems like we’re already doing, but this one will have Wi-Fi support unlike our current router. The list price alone isn’t even that bad, but I’m loving Buy.com’s regular price of $35.99, and even lower price of $19.99 after the mail in rebate. The icing on the cake? That would be the free budget shipping.

I like that this router is small in size too, because we’re pretty limited on space in all office areas (3 systems, digital camera equipment, telephones and a printer/scanner). Most of the tech specs are pretty Greek to me, but my husband knows more about them and thinks this is a really good deal. It doesn’t hurt that it has advanced WPA2 security standard either, which will help keep our data safe and ultimately secure. I can’t say that I’m really worried about security in our area at all, but it’s nice to have that little bit of peace of mind!

So much for catching up, huh?

Jo had a follow up appointment with his doctor earlier this week. They had him go in for more blood work and x-ray of his lower back. Since he got “sick” (not just from the pneumonia, but the cold that spawn that monster to begin with), he’s been having sharp pains in his lower back. Usually it occurs when he coughs. Some of you will probably recall that Jo was injured on the job last Summer and underwent extensive physiotherapy for nearly 2 months because of it. What you probably didn’t know is that he was never given an x-ray or anything for that injury, they just rushed him right into physiotherapy. I wasn’t sure about that at first because I questioned whether or not the injury was worse than they “assumed” it was. He could’ve really hurt himself a lot more than what he was already hurt, but I guess that’s what you get when it’s a “company doctor.” Anywho. So his new doctor requested the x-ray. We won’t have those results (blood work and the x-ray) for a few more days, but the doctor always scheduled a CT scan for sometime next month. This whole thing has just been one big roller coaster ride.

To top all of that off, I’ve still not gotten over this cold. I haven’t had much energy at all and I just feel awful, which explains why I haven’t updated. I did manage to get my arse out of bed today and get some things done though. I don’t feel nearly as bad, so hopefully all that catching up I promised earlier in the week (or was that last week?) will get done in the next couple of days.

I have so much to tend to this week, it’s not even funny. Aside from some design work I want to finish (first), I also wanted to finish up and release that free theme I mentioned in a previous entry. I plan to run a new contest in the coming days too, so I’ll need to work on that too. I have a few emails to respond to, so after the design work I’m doing is done, I’ll hop on those. We have some errands to run early tomorrow morning, along with a Wal-Mart run too. We have a few things to pick up and Jo mentioned he wanted to look at some exercise equipment so we can both start getting back in shape - perhaps we’ll price some treadmills or something?

So this is me checking in!

I only have a minute, but I wanted to put this out there..

I’m selling my Olympus E500, Zuiko 35mm macro lens, Zuiko 14-45mm lens, 1 GB memory card, camera bag, battery, battery charger, manual - all of the software that was included with the purchase. I still have the box too. It’s like one big gift basket, ha!

Why? Because I’m being allowed to upgrade, but the only way I am being allowed to do so is if I sell my current gear - the lenses will not work on a Canon, so I can’t use them. Selling it all just makes sense. This gear is just under 6 months old and I’m the ONLY owner of it all.

If you think you might be interested, send an email to me at helloreese @ gmail.com. Minus the spaces, of course.

As I’ve mentioned a few times over the last couple of months, I’ll soon be getting a new laptop. The one I really wanted had a neat tablet feature, which would be perfect for the illustrations I enjoy doing. The only problem with getting that particular laptop is that it only had a 12″ display. If it was only a bit larger, I would’ve gone with that one rather than the one I wound up picking out.

No worries though, it’s not the end of the world for me! I have a solution. Since I obviously want a larger display and the laptop doesn’t come in any other size, I’ll just buy regular tablet. Naturally I don’t want to spend a fortune doing so, so what better place to look for a good sale than Buy.com? In this weeks deals, they feature the Genius MousePen tablet, for a price I can definitely live with - $34.99, which features free budget shipping. It comes complete with the tablet (8″ by 6″ working area), and a cordless mouse and pen. This will make a great addition for me, because I do a lot of designing, which almost always features my own illustrations which were done with a regular mouse (hasn’t been easy). I’m not sure how I was able to pull off some of those illustrations, especially when I’ve had some trouble with my mouse locking up.

Having a tablet will definitely make it easier for me to draw the illustrations though, and hopefully it’ll motivate me to finally do that greeting card collection I’ve been talking about for the last year. I’ve already got a few ideas for some illustrations, so I really look forward to having a tablet. I wonder if I can create fonts with my own handwriting with it? That would be neat!

Seriously, we are.

Jo’s still fighting pneumonia, though I must say, he’s looking and sounding a lot better today. He hasn’t had to go back to the clinic/doctor yet but that’s not to say he’s “better” by any means. He’s still got a horrible cough, which really is taking away every ounce of his energy. He had a pretty bad coughing fit during American Idol last night (speaking of which, yay for David Cook!). He said he felt a really sharp pain shoot from the middle of his back, straight down into his lower back. That happened twice last night, but his coughing isn’t nearly as bad today so hopefully he won’t feel that anymore.

As for me, I woke up this morning with a toothache and since Monday, I’ve had some really bad pains in my left knee. I’m not sure what that’s all about. If it were my right knee, I’d say it’s arthritis (thanks to a knee injury and surgery). It felt similar, so I guess it could also be arthritis in that knee too. Joy. I’m not even 30 years old and I already feel like I’m falling apart! I can only imagine what’s to come in 10 or even 20 years. Fun times, I’m sure.

We’re supposed to run some errands tomorrow, so long as Jo’s feeling up to it. He’s put in for “Age of Conan” - a game he’s been wanting since he heard about it. I also want to look for some Kohler faucets, to spruce up the bathroom with. I’m also going to pick up a few things so I can get started on those handbags. I plan on making my first attempt this weekend. In fact, I’m going to set up my little work area tonight. I’ll probably do a few testers with some of Karen’s old fabrics, just to see how they will turn out. I don’t want to waste that much of the really nice fabrics I bought on the testers, you know?

I’m supposed to make homemade pizzas tonight. I have a feeling though, that some people aren’t going to like it. I’m making two; a) chicken, spinach and alfredo pizza and b) shrimp scampi, spinach and alfredo pizza. We’ll see how those turn out. I’m also thinking about making some more fudge tonight, with an altered recipe. The last batch I made was way too sweet, plus that particular kind of chocolate gave Jo really bad heartburn. I’m going to do half milk chocolate (morsels) and half white chocolate - swirled/marble style. Hopefully that’s easier on him.

I have quite a bit of catching up to do, again. I’m hoping to make a dent in some of that later on. I have that free theme ready, so that’ll probably be released tonight and I’m also going to put some finishing touches on the work I’m doing for Kristin’s blogs. After that, it’ll be time to catch up on work and emails. I want to get all of that completed before Saturday, so I can make some time to try those handbags I mentioned.

Before I close this out; is it just me, or is flickr down?