50x50

Today, while researching Hex symbols for possible inclusion in Mandala Madness, I stumbled onto a really interesting website/art project called 50x50. It is an ongoing online work of art made of 50 pixel square images from artists around the world.

I thought it was pretty cool, so I submitted this image, called "Ring of Power", I'll just have to wait and see what happens with that. And then, I got to thinking about my Sell Art Online blog, and how I haven't posted there in months, so I got busy and did a little work on that.

It's a lovely rainy day today, and once I get caught up on everything, I must might go looking for online galleries and really go crazy putting my art out there!

Adding an aStore

I spent most of today creating an aStore at Amazon.com for the Mandala Madness blog. I figured that it was conceivable that people who enjoy that blog might also have a need for or be in the mood to purchase gifts with a "mandala" twist.

The store was really simple to construct, and if it was a website instead of a blog, there was even an option to include it as part of a website so that visitors to the site would not be taken off site to browse the store.

Then I made a small advertisement for the sidebar on the Mandala Madness blog, it looks like this:

We have created a small store at Amazon.com, where we have gathered together a wide variety of gift items for the mandala lovers in your life. We would love it if you would check it out: Mandala Madness at Amazon

This is what's new in my world today

At Mandala Madness we have two new posts, art and poetry:

Communion

Stop using words around me
I can’t hear you when you are always talking
Be still and listen with your skin,
like when there is a monster under your bed
I love it when we talk like this…

~Grace Gibson

~

Also today I am working on gratitude at the Prosperity Project, I've got some great quotes up at Way Cool Quotes, and a nifty new gadget at Way Cool Pictures:




Designed by Oliver Blackwell, the “WashDryIron” is an all-in-one machine that can handle up to 16 items at once. All the washing, drying, and ironing take place in seperate compartments with each piece on hangers to prevent creases. Mr. Blackwell expects his machine to sell for $1,389 - $1,562 when it’s released.

Cool huh?

Finding time to over-achieve!

So, the other day I set a personal record for the number of blogs I posted to. It was quite astonishing actually, and my mind was mush by the time it was all said and done. And it occured to me that it might be helpful to say a few words about posting and how I go about it.

I have noticed that for me, putting a couple of days between posts is like the kiss of death. A couple of days turns into a couple of weeks, and pretty soon it's a couple of months. I do best if I can post every day.

But how do you post every day when you are a perfectionist, overachieving, ambitious, possibly nutty person like me with a gagillion blogs? And do I really need that many blogs? And why am I doing this anyway?

What works best for me, is to have the blog organized in such a way that I know pretty much what I'm going to say every day for the next week or so. It also helps if I already have graphics rounded up so that I don't have to go looking for stuff to "pretty" up the post.

Another thing that is important is to have a clear idea of what the "theme" of the blog is, the "reason" for it, my goals for the blog itself, and my motives for doing it. This way, I'm not flailing around unsure of myself, spending lots of time trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing.

This is how it works:

This blog is centered around me blogging. I think of it as my "work at home" job, even though it has yet to pay me more than about $ .02 an hour, if that much. So, that's the theme. My reasons for doing it are as follows:

  1. Easy access to various helpful links that I often use for the blogs.
  2. To provide what I hope will eventually be something helpful for other hopeful bloggers.
  3. Yet another way to "promote" my other blogs. Let's face it, I do promote them here.
  4. Yet another avenue for potential adsense and other affiliate commissions.

Knowing this gives me a good idea of what to write about. And if I happen to write about anything related to this blog, I just copy it and repost it here. That's how the post on "trouble at the border" was created, it was part of another project, but seemed appropriate for here as well.

Organizationally, I have not done as well here as I have on other blogs. For example, on Way Cool Pictures, I have pictures stored in folders (one folder for each series or set of images) and the folders are arranged so that the one that is up first is the one that I plan to put up next. If I happen to find something really cool, and I want to put it next, I just move it up. This way, I don't have to think about what I'm going to post, it's already there all lined up and ready to go.

Way Cool Quotes is my easiest blog. I just flip through my quotes files, find several that pop out at me, and then cut and past them into the post, and voila, it's done. No images to find, nothing to write, it's pretty simple. My biggest challenge with that one is how to organize the labels and tags for them.

The Question of the Day is simple as well. When I decided to do it, I went on a protracted image search looking for question mark images. Once I was well supplied with those, it became fairly simple to "decorate" the post. I sometimes think up questions, and I'm always looking out for questions in books, articles, and emails. I keep them in a folder, ready to go.

The Prosperity Project is harder because I often have to "write" the post and then find ways to illustrate it. Usually I do it first thing in the morning when I'm "fresh". And when I'm at work, I jot down ideas for it, and try to flesh them out as much as possible as I have a chance. The same goes for Mandala Madness, which is a cross between the picture blogs, the quote blog, and the prosperity project. I have it organized with folders, and I do the "thinking" and "writing" while at work if possible.

I do have a blog at Zaadz, which I have been trying to stay current on, and what I've been doing there is taking bits and pieces from my daily posts and mashing them together to make a sort of collage of what's up with me. I've also done that here to a certain extent.

When do I do all this blogging?

I blog when I get home from work, usually for about 2 hours, and can usually do the picture blogs, the quotes, and the question. Sometimes I get to the prosperity project, etc. And then, when I get up in the morning, I check my email and get the Prosperity Project up, and spend another 2 hours or so. On weekends, and on my days off, I spend time looking for images, organizing posts, gathering ideas, and sometimes writing rough drafts.

For me, it seems like with this schedule, I can do about 5 or 6 blogs a day and keep them current without too much trouble. I would love to have about 15 blogs going... but... hey... it's just little me, and I have to keep my "day" job for now, so...

War and Peace

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

~Jane Howard

posted today at Way Cool Quotes


New today at Way Cool Pictures:
A striking image from the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show in London, UK. The garden was designed as a 'natural haven of peace, inviting visitors to journey from the stressful world of consciousness to an altogether more alluring destination, idealised in dreams..'


After the 2006 Chelsea Flower Show closed, this figure was bought by Olivia Harrison, the widow of George Harrison. She has been continuing to restore the large Victorian garden at their house in Henley-on-Thames, UK.

Beautiful isn't she?

And then as I was surfing for pictures for my picture blogs, I came across this one, and decided to post it as today's Question of the Day.




My answer was that I engage in warlike activities all the time, for example... I might be engaging in a war on dirt in my house, a war on weeds in my garden, a war on mice in the walls of my home... etc etc. And it occurs to me that maybe there is another way to go about accomplishing my goals without having a warlike attitude.
How about you guys, what do you think?


And so I started thinking about peace vs war, and I was able to come up with a desktop wallpaper for Mandala Madness. I think it came out pretty cool, here it is:



A beautiful mandala to bring peace to your desktop.

If you want to download it, just go to Mandala Madness. If you have a desktop wallpaper mandala image, or get inspired to make one and want to share it, just let me know. I'd love to post it at the blog, and I would of course give you credit, and links back to your web pages. So don't be shy.

And last but not least:
On the prosperity project today, we have one of the weekly meditations that come to me via email. It's from Pragito.

Description:
Suddenly you see a friend you have not seen for many days and you feel joy arising in your heart. But your attention is on your friend, not on your joy. Then you are missing something and the joy is momentary.

When you see a friend and suddenly feel a joy arising in your heart, concentrate on this joy. Feel it and become it, and meet the friend while being aware and filled with your joy. Let the friend be on the periphery, and remain centered in your feeling of happiness.

When and Where:
You can try this technique in many situations. For example, the sun is rising, or you suddenly see your pet, or any external situation that brings a feeling of joy arising in your heart.... be centered in your own feeling of joy. Instead of being
object-centered, become self-centered.

Whenever there is joy, you feel it is coming from without. That is not the actual case. The joy is always within you. The friend/the external situation has just become a situation to trigger the joy within you.

Benefits:
Whenever this happens remain centered in the inner feeling, and then you will have a different attitude about everything in life. You become the emotion of joy itself, and there will be a great change in you.The joy spreads through your whole being and your awareness deepens it.


And that's it for today!

And then I did this...

I am still mulling over the issues of tags and labels and the best way to organize Way Cool Quotes, however I did get the "label cloud" for this blog finished. Looks cool, huh?

Having finally stopped obsessing over labels and tags, I posted to a number of other blogs. Here's a "teaser" from the post at Way cool Pictures. It's a test of a fire fighting foam system at Ellsworth AFB. but something went hilariously and terribly wrong...

There are about 10 pictures in the post, too many to put up here, so go see it. It's really funny!

Speaking of pictures, On Way Cool Pics I posted several incredible images of the awesome surreal art by Vladimir Kush. Here's one of them:



If you visit the site, just be aware that some of the images previously posted might be a little "over the top". No porn, nothing too offensive, but if you are sensitive, you might want to approach this site with caution. I call it the "dark side" of Shirley.

On a more uplifting note, I was going to post desktop wallpaper at the Mandala Madness blog, but I ran out of time, and didn't get one found or created. If any of you out there reading this have, or know of, great Mandala Art wallpapers for the desktop that are free to use and distribute, please let me know. If you want to contribute something you've made yourself, it would be greatly appreciated, and I'll be happy to plug you, your art, and your site on the blog.

Let me see... what else... On the Prosperity Project we are saying "thank you" for unusual things. If you'd like to contribute your own thank you's that would be great!

So that's it for me today!
Blessings to all my readers and supporters.
I love you and appreciate you more than you know!

Labels out of control

So today, I have been working on the labels for Way Cool Quotes. There are so many that it's just out of control. I wish I could find a way to tag the posts in 3 different ways, and have the option of posting each one.

With Quotes you've got first of all, the author. If I'm looking for Abraham Lincoln quotes, I want to be able to click on "Abraham Lincoln" and pull them all up. And then you have the more general categories such as "humor" and "motivational". If I am just looking for an inspirational quote, I need to be able to click on "living large" and then pick and choose from there. On the other hand, I might also be looking for a quote about something really specific, like for example "fog". I would then want to look at all the quotes with the word "fog" in it.

I do have a nice little search widget which I got from Beautiful Beta, and that would take care of the "specific word" issue, and even the specific author issue. However, I cannot seem to make myself limit my tags to just a few categories. Plus, sometimes I find it really difficult to decide just what category a quote might fit into. And then there are lots of quotes that just don't seem to fit into any category. So what happens is that I tag each post with every tag that I can think of that seems appropriate, which gives me a gagillion tags that are only listed once.

With the label cloud hack, I have been able to avoid having ALL of them show up on the page, but I just keep thinking that there must be a better way to organize it all. So that's what I've spent all morning doing... tagging and retagging a gagillion quotes.

Ok, enough said about that, now I'm going to get busy and get the label cloud hack going on THIS blog.

Hello Again

So here I am, I know it's been a really long time since I last posted, but I have had a bad case of bloggitis... and it got the better of me... and I had to take it down a notch or two so I could at least get a grip on SOME of them.

I have thought of a way, though, to keep this blog updated without too much trouble, and I thought that I would duplicate my post over at Zaadz if I didn't have time to come up with anything new or interesting. This way, there will at least be a running dialogue, new content, and the illusion of getting this blog up to date.

Illusions are good!

The blog I'm currently having the most fun with is Way Cool Pictures. This is a part of today's post.

It looks like a house that couldn't possibly be for real, but it is...

As for the rest of the story, here it is:

On the Prosperity Project, we are currently working on Gratitude, this is today's post:


Two things I can say "thank you" for are:


The image is kind of dorky, but I have been coming up with a new "thank you" image every day for the last... 15 days or so, and it's getting to be slim pickins!

This month's Project (gratitude) has been working really well. I really think that we are all getting a lot of benefit from this one. If you would like to join in, feel free - we would love to have you!


And then on the Question of the Day, today, I posted this question:


Your body communicates with you all the time. If you were to take the time right now to really listen, what do you think your body would be saying?

Hmmm...

And I think that right now, my body has got to be saying "Shirley, for crying out loud, shut up and go to bed!" and I'm saying, "But wait... there's more!"

Continuing with the "body" theme, the current quote from my Way Cool Quotes blog is:

What is always speaking silently is the body.
~Norman Brown

I don't know about you guys, but sometimes my body isn't very silent when speaking. Some times she yells!

And then there's Mandala Madness, todays post is about Madhubani yantra paintings, this is the first part of the post:


The wall paintings of Madhubani are a queer mixture of aestheticism, ecstasy and sex. Put here on paper are some of the same representations.

The major part of the painting has a circle of yantras representing different gods and goddesses. It is the influence of Tantra on the religious scene. The Kali Yantra, Sri Yantra etc. form the conglomeration of yantras, akin to mandalas, a symbol in Tantrik art.....

I have a little bit more information and another image posted on the blog, so if this interests you, you might want to check it out over at Mandala Madness.

And then there's my "R" rated picture blog... Way Cool Pics (yes I know the name is really similar to the other one - but it's too late to change it now) This picture blog may not be suitable for everyone. No porn, nothing too offensive, but some of the images are a little over the top - so if you're sensitive, you might want to NOT go there.

However, that being said, today's picture was hilarious and cute, so I'll include it here, this is it:

Hi Sweetie,
Can you smile pretty for the camera?


LOL
And on that note, I'll just say "goodnight"

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