Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time.
Bruce Springsteen 
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/consistency.html#GaqhobBvoblMfghM.99 

Using consistency in a business Model.

http://www.youtube.com/user/marieforleo

Now I am working very hard at consistency. Or rather I am working at certain things that I have not been consistent about. The link is to Marie TV aka Marie Forleo. I believe she is going to be a superstar. She gets so many things, but one thing she gets and can communicate is the power of online business. Within that context, and within the context of business she talks at great length, and discusses the importance of consistency, She is the reason I took a look at what was not working and realized I need to be regular, and yes more consistent with my posts. Bruce Springsteen is just another voice.

So following that though I said I would fix the 'Cat in the Door' piece and repost it. I liked the darkness of the first one because I think it communicated mystery, and that sense of night I wanted. I am working on this between other projects.  It is still a work in progress. 

I am working on Discipline

“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, whether you like it or not.”
― Thomas Henry Huxley

I am actually fairly disciplined, but I am not very disciplined. Being very disciplined makes me feel hemmed in and restricted. The spontaneous parts of life don't fit well into a disciplined one. I like drifting off track from time to time and discovering other things. I like following a path and becoming emersed in something creative and seeing what develops.

I am disciplined about things I believe are important. I get up early because I work better in the morning. I feed the animals after I make coffee, but before I eat myself because it is only fair since they cannot feed themselves. I walk the dog as soon as it gets light, or when he comes to tell me it is time, because that also seems fair. The animals are my responsibility, so I have disciplines around them.  The small orange cat that has become a part of our yard, is now a responsibility. he is very sweet and does not act or look like a ferral. I feed him every day, for which I am rewarded by being able to pet him. He even lets me pick him up for a short time.

I water my plants, put them all in the garage when the weather freezes. I prune and weed, and mow and dig because it is what is necessary to keep my yard from taking over in ways that are not appealing. The current yard discipline is two fold: mowing and putting in the February vegetable garden. Starting the plants for March inside and under lights is more than I want to pay for, so they are out in little plastic containers I get food in. Little greenhouses. So far the lettuce is the only thing that is coming up, but it is really a February start. The grass is high, so mowing is the order of the day tomorrow.

What is interfering with discipline now is the inability to walk as fast or as much, and being unable to spend all day on my feet. Now I choose carefully because not everything is possible.

I am usually disciplined about school, and work and the things for which there are outside rules and imitations. So I need to get to bed, another minor discipline. I need to start drawing in the mornings again, but tomorrow I have to write code in the morning, an errand to run, and after the mowing, a second set of onions to plant, then watering and more vegetable beds to dig and turn. The weather is just starting to warm, but I already feel I am late.

Spring is here, blossoms on trees, green shoots and buds. Time is a wastin'.

Day 21

Since I missed two, I hope I am on 21.

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."

— Steve Jobs: was an American inventor and businessman

I found all these posts I had somehow saved as drafts and am posting them. The things stress will do. 

Day 11

Let each man exercise the art he knows.

Aristophanes (450 BC - 388 BC), 

Day 6

"Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect"

- Emerson

This is the logo and device design for the advertisement I posted yesterday. The program is Adobe Illustrator 5.0

Staying on top of everything.

This is the first thing I started working on right after I was loaned a lap top by a friend. I was stunned by how much I had forgotten since July. BTW Adobe Illustrator (CS6) There are things that do not work well with this. But I think posting it, fixing it and reposting will be really valuable. So this is a draft. obviously everything about the cat needs to be lighter. 

I had a a whole story around this image. The first is that the Bunny Slippers look terrified. It dawned on me that when the cat opened the door there was something disconcerting there. So disconcerting that it scared the slippers too. Then I thought, well, maybe it is embarrassing to see friends at the door when you have a strange robe on and bunny slippers and everyone, including the slippers are just mortified. Friends should really call before they stop by. 

Goodbye 2012

I must have been sidetracked. Good riddance 2012

“I used to spend so much time reacting and responding to everyone else that my life had no direction. Other people's lives, problems, and wants set the course for my life. Once I realized it was okay for me to think about and identify what I wanted, remarkable things began to take place in my life.”
― Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go: Hazelden Meditation Series

I honestly don't know anything about Hazelden Meditation. I liked the quote. I watched a wonderful Ted talk the other night about a boy who loved to draw and tell stories. He talked about his struggled, the people who influenced him and his ultimate successes, and as he talked I found myself getting more and more emotional. He is now a well know children's book author. When he finished I burst into tears, that turned into long hard sobbing.  I think there are a lot of things tied to why I cried so long and hard. Mostly that I have been derailed from the career I wanted. And all the people, and circumstances I have let derail it. I have always known what I wanted to do, I have just never believed it was more important than the other people, or the other considerations in my life. And I know that it is just a repeating pattern. Going way back. Putting off what I wanted to do, for what someone else thought or needed me to do. And all the fear that follows in the footsteps of putting off dreams for yet another day hoping that things will change and you will have time, money,  or courage or the something that you don't have now. Not because I believe any of it, but because people that I respected did and they are still in my head, whispering in my ear. 

By-the-way, if you haven't heard it has been cold in CA. I took this photograph of a young cabbage plant yesterday, late in the  morning. those are ice crystals. Beautiful. I spent a wonderful day  today cutting back freeze burned cannas. It was warm in the sun, and a glorious day. Yesterday I saw two huge flocks of Sandhill Cranes heading south. Their shifting "V" pattern glittered. I felt blessed. 

Education is an ornament in prosperity 

and a refuge in adversity. 

Aristotle

From my garden in Sacramento "Yellow Nasturtium", 2009 

So I have another degree. This one as difficult to pursue as the first, in some ways harder because of my age.  But it was easier to be in school, with a task at hand than it is to look for work and be denied. It has made me bolder, but it is also emotionally exhausting to keep your belief in yourself strong when the seeds of hope are your children, sailing off into the unknown. That is what it is like to send out a resume. Especially when many employers admonish you not to call or stop by the place of business. I know there are people more qualified than me on paper, but I know I have a better work ethic. I know that my combined skills, gained over time are valuable, but that is offset by my age. I could freelance, but the tools to do so in a digital age are expensive. So everyday I vote for myself in the FedEx small Business Grant contest. and see that I have less than one hundred votes and know that is not enough. Vote for me reminders on Facebook don't seem to be doing the trick. Maybe I will post an ad on Craigslist. LOL. Life is good in a lot of ways. I just need more gainful employment. In the meantime, Vote for me and my business, Ferris Design & Illustration:

http://grantcontest.fedex.com/fedex-small-business-grant-voting/microsite/gallery/506f6c2e0191173746027419?cmp=EMC-1000968-2-1-200-1110000-US-US-EN-GRANTCONTEST000&ACXRID=1222955616&link=vote

Fed Ex Grant Contest

I have been accepted for the first part of a grant contest, now it is up to friends and family to help me out. With $25K I could get some decent equipment, get my car tuned up. I don't even make that much in a year. That is very sad. I guess they will take taxes out, so kiss a third of it goodbye. Still more than I made last year. Plenty to work with, and pay off a small debt or two. I included a detail of this poster.

http://grantcontest.fedex.com/fedex-small-business-grant-voting/microsite/gallery/506f6c2e0191173746027419?cmp=EMC-1000968-2-1-200-1110000-US-US-EN-GRANTCONTEST000&ACXRID=1222955616&link=vote