Two articles I wrote today

Today I wrote two articles. I know, I know.... will miracles never cease?

I just finished this one:

How to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Webdesign Business - Klamath Design

While doing that I made a Pinterest business page for my Klamath Design site.

Visit Klamath Design's profile on Pinterest.

Earlier today I wrote a somewhat whimsical article on my Antediluvian Adventures blog. The blog is for the book series I wrote, with that title.

Today's blog post was ostensibly written by the main character of the the first book, Raoli. I'm using his voice on the blog to help myself get back into character, as I'll be working on these books this coming year.

It was kind of fun and I'll probably do it again.

Small Business Web Design

A few years back, in 2002 or 2003, I started a web design business. At the time I was so sure that was the ideal business for me. I loved web design! I'd been making websites since 1995. I love HTML. In fact, before I started my business I purchased and read a book on HTML cover to cover, and enjoyed it. I wanted to make sure my information and skills were top-notch before I started working for clients.

Well, guess what! After a few years of working as a web designer, getting more jobs than I could comfortably enjoy doing, I burned out. I finally had to admit to myself that although I love web design and HTML, CSS, and XHTML ... I don't love working for clients! My love of web design is for making my own sites, being creative, and doing my own thing.

I totally had to re-think that business! One thing I changed was my web design website, Klamath Design. I made it into a site for telling people how to get into the web design business. I made an auxiliary page called How to Start a Webdesign Business. I know there are lots of people out there who want to start web design businesses, and hope my experience can help. Hopefully they will enjoy it a whole lot more than I did! Different strokes for different folks, as they say!

So, why did I start a new business and put "web design services" into my business license application? My new business, LJ Martin Web, is mainly an online marketing type of business. I've created something that will cover ALL my online money-making activities, which at this time are really quite varied. One of my main interests is in helping people learn to start their own internet-based small businesses. This has worked so well for me, I very much want to show others, stay-at-home-moms especially, how to get started.

I added the "web design services" option to my business license because I wanted the OPTION to be able to do that as part of my business - just in case someone I know needs help. I believe the best online businesses include diversification, and so I'm allowing myself the choice to do web design if I decide I want to.

Now, for this year, I honestly don't want to. Maybe next year that will change.

Color Schemes

I just love playing with this Color Schemer Studio. I use it for choosing website colors...

Musing About Blog Changes

I'm re-writing the HTML in this weblog and am thinking of changing to another design. But there's so many other things to do to make this work right again. I want to gather all the photos and graphics and pages onto this server - get everything together in one directory again. Its coming right along. Then I need to review all the old pages, and make sure every page looks okay. It will all be in one subdomain over at my lindajomartin.com website.

[Update: It was on the other domain for a while then I moved it back to blogspot.]

I'm trying for four billable hours today - though I usually work six to ten hours a day at my business.

Starting LindaJoMartin.Com

I finally got my own server space and moved onto http://lindajomartin.com - I'll be putting most of my weblogs here (at least, that's the plan). This one is more private than the others - it is now protected from spidering so future posts won't be in the search engines. Much better!

Anyhow - I've been way too busy since February and haven't been able to reach all my goals. That's a disappointment... but I've developed my web design business more. That's the good and the bad of it.

Now I have to get back to work.

Never Nothing To Do

I'm staying busy with webdesign jobs and writing a collection of children's novels. I've come up with a good unique factor to put in the first novel in the collection - which is nearly written now. But I have to think of equally compelling gimmicks for the other novels or my readers may be disappointed. It sure puts my creativity to the test.

This weekend, however, I'll be doing mostly webdesign. I have so much to get done. I can't complain about not having enough work to do. My daughter asked me just this morning why I never have nothing to do. (That seems to be her problem.) If it were me and I thought I had nothing to do I'd pick up a good book to read and that would take care of that!

Birthday, Brookings, Bikes, and the River Run Website

On July 13 I had my 51st birthday. I don't really feel that old, but I'm sure by the end of the year I'll get used to it. I've been dieting since June 2 and have lost 14 lbs. plus have been walking almost every evening lately, up to three miles at a time.

On July 4 I went to the coast (Brookings, Oregon) with my children. They have a wonderful pyrotechnics display and the kids enjoyed playing in the ocean. My daughter wanted to find a boy to flirt with and was very pleased that instead a boy from Grants Pass found her while she was standing out there in the ocean. She's 14.

I'm concerned about bike theft in this small town we live in. This last winter my son rebuilt a number of bikes. He got old bikes and parts from the dump and had quite a few ready to sell this year but a thief took most of them! Others in town have been stolen from as well. Its very frustrating and I can only say I'm so proud of my son that he's not the one doing the stealing. He's a great kid. He still has the Mongoose mountain bike I bought him last year and we've found a place to buy him a new derailleur. He broke his during a bike crash a while back.

I offered to create a website for the River Run (motorcycle run) our community sponsors every July fourth weekend. I'll probably have to wait a few weeks to see what they decide about that.

Wrecked Cars, Weeds, and Web Maintenance

Saturday - my son took me on a tour of the town to see old classic trucks he's scoped out, and one wrecked classic car... we recorded this with photos in our homeschooling weblog.

I'm trying to get some weeds out of the garden. I thought I'd have a nicely landscaped yard this year but the guy who was doing yard work for us got into a silly argument with our son, then our neighbor accused the guy of stealing food. Anyhow, he's disappeared from our section of town and my half-started yard needs help. I'm trying to spend time out there every day to "make progress" and I'm encouraging my boyfriend and son to do the same. They are helping. My son weeded around our front stepping stones this morning. Any little bit helps. So far we've planted sage, periwinkle, iris and rosemary in the front yard. The kids planted the vegetable garden and though there's some seedlings showing, I have no idea what they are.

I got a lot of work done on a web maintenance job tonight and am feeling good about it right now. My to-do list has gotten so long, its scary... and there's several high-priority items I need to get on right away. Guess I'd better get busy.

Webdesign and Homeschooling

I finally came up with a design I really like for my new webdesign website. It is complex to build but when done will be simple to view. I'll let you know when its ready! (This is my third attempt to get something on the web for Klamath Design.)

Homeschooling is going great this year. It is just Aaron and me (my daughter is at the local school) so we have lots of time to work one-on-one with just Aaron's interests in mind. It is lots of fun.

Learning More About Webdesign

I've been busy working on my webdesign site. Tonight I'm studying CGI/PERL to use with the request form. I know there's other ways to do forms, but this is the only book I've got on it and besides, my current server doesn't offer PHP or ASP... at least not to lowly people like me who don't pay much.

Anyhow, I'm so glad to have the site nearly done. You can look at it now - but don't laugh - if you want to make constructive, polite suggestions, that would be welcome. :) Sorry you can't use the form for that since it isn't ready yet.... but there's always email. If you have Netscape Navigator 4.7 for a browser - don't bother looking at the site because the inline frames won't work for you and I haven't set up any other options. I would suggest an upgrade... try http://www.mozilla.com for a change... for example.

So... I plan to go to Yreka on Monday for my business license. I'm taking my son ... Aaron wants a video game and I want to buy him clothes. My daughter needs school clothes. Her friend predicts she'll last two weeks in school before quitting. We'll just have to see about that. I remember in third grade she lasted just one week before all hell broke loose ...but she wants to try this so in the interests of her having the kind of educational experience she wants, she's going back to public school this September.

Shopping, Restaurants, Water, and the Webdesign Business

Tonight my daughter and I drove to Oregon to go shopping. Well, on my birthday, which is already passed, I wanted to go out for dinner in Cave Junction (Oregon) and everyone I mentioned this to was telling me there were no restaurants there except a pizza place and a Chinese food place. So today we went through the town looking around and saw a lot of restaurants, both large and small, cheap looking and expensive looking... really a variety - and I wonder why those other people don't realize how cool it is to have all those places to eat out just over the hill... accessible in the summer when the road's not closed, anyhow. There were actually at least two pizza places and two Chinese food places. Anyhow, should we ever be able to afford it, we will go out to dinner there. Right now we barely have enough money to buy groceries until the end of the month.

When I got home, there was an email waiting from a guy who wants to talk to me about redesigning his website. I know I should be excited but for right now I'm having a panic attack. I don't know if I'm ready to start earning money! I don't even have my own webdesign site done, my business plan is only about half written... and I'm just plain scared. I'll go ahead and check out his project anyhow.

I love good bottled spring water. Now, if you happen to be in Mt. Shasta City or Dunsmuir, you can take your bottle and get your own fresh spring water at the source... filted through miles of lava within Mt. Shasta... I just love that. Here in town I'm at the mercy of the local grocery store, but usually there's some kind of good water. However....... over the hill in Oregon, there's some really interesting water. Right now I'm drinking Mountain Mist - premium artesian spring water - from Washington. It is so good! I also brought home four large jugs of Earth2O water from Opal Springs in Oregon - one of my favorite waters... and I don't know why it isn't sold in California... but every time I go north of the border, I get some of this.

My favorite water of all is Castle Rock spring water from Dunsmuir, CA... but the company changed hands and it is hard to find. I can only find little 16.9 oz. bottles here in town now. Castle Rock was my constant water source when I lived in the SF Bay Area - and when I moved north I found their bottling company in Dunsmuir - where I stayed for two months while looking for a home. The Dunsmuir site tells the story of The Best Water In The World... well, I believe it!... their "water supply" is piped into fountains all over town that run constantly (no on/off valve) so to get some, all we had to do was take our gallon jug to the nearest fountain and fill up.

Now if you look at a photo of Mossbrae Falls in Dunsmuir - you'll see where Keith and I went on our first "date" if you want to call it that..... the Falls are about 1/2 mile down the railroad tracks in northwest Dunsmuir and if a train comes you have to step aside... or else. Well, two trains passed us when we went to the Falls that day. It was fun and Mossbrae Falls is one of the most beautiful places in the world... just very hard to get to... so it is not crowded. :)

Fires continue and he air is smoke filled ... and fire crews were coming into Cave Junction to spend the night - at about the time we were leaving. There was so much smoke in the air tonight that on the way home the nearly-full moon looked like it was behind a cloud... barely visible. So far it hasn't been enough to make my eyes sting.

Pink Scrollbars

Well, I wanted pink scrollbars.... and now I have them. If you're not using Explorer, you might miss that fact... but believe me, matching scrollbars are the in thing these days...

[Update: The pink design on this blog went away a long time ago.]

Project of the Day & The Internal Alarm Clock

My project-du-jour was my webdesign website. This is actually my second attempt at getting this together. Tonight I changed the photograph, wrote the HTML and javascript, and worked out some problems with the graphics. I haven't got the individual pages done yet so.... it will be a while before this is ready to be looked at close up.

Isn't it strange how our internal alarm clocks are so often right-on? Lately I've been leaving the computer from 7 to 10 pm for my daughter to use. During those three hours I like to lay down and relax. Well, since I'm fifty now and stay up all night most of the time, this is reasonable... so I lay down at seven, fall asleep, and suddenly just before ten every evening I wake up... via internal alarm... not a physical one. I think it is just amazing. So far it has always worked just fine for me.

Fiction, Websites, and Trying to Stay Cool

I've been writing on a fiction project every night.

Also I've made progress on a few webdesign projects.

I'm nearly done with the Chamber of Commerce website... or I should say I'm nearly done with the second phase of the project... there's a lot more I can do for it. Eventually I will turn that front page into ... a flash or javascript slideshow. I'm also building an interactive street map for that site that will be lots of fun to play with... hehehe in case you don't have anything better to do with your time.

For the Fight CPS And Win site I made a mock up for a redesign. The links at the top don't work yet.

This week I started another new project associated with that, for a national class action lawsuit.

This website will be for the purpose of collecting evidence from people who want to support the class action. We don't have a lawyer to handle it yet but... a well-known family rights lawyer in Massachusetts offered to give us some pointers next week on what we can and can't do with class actions. A secondary mission for the website is to locate a lawyer to handle the case. The website isn't quite ready to go public yet - which is why I don't link to it.

I finally figured out how to keep my house cool for the summer by letting the swamp-cooler air flow out a window in the back of the house only. I used to do that when I lived in the San Joaquin Valley - but forgot the process until today. It is so much cooler in here now!

Oh - one more thing I'm kind of happy about this week - I have been appointed to be a board member for our local Chamber of Commerce this coming year. Since I like attending the meetings, at least I'll be one more person there who can help make a quorum.

Classes: Weather Spotting and It's Your Business

Wednesday night I went to a Weather Spotting Class and now I'm a trained weather spotter for the National Weather Service office in Medford, Oregon! About eight of us were trained and signed up for the job. It was fun and I learned a lot about summer thunder storms.

On Thurday night we had the last "It's Your Business" class ... it was a lot of fun listening to and giving presentations about what we learned and what our next steps are in forming our businesses. I've decided to start a webdesign business believe it or not. It will be Klamath Design and the website won't be up for another month but I'm already busy making websites for the Chamber of Commerce here. In exchange they gave me the software I've been needing to start this business. I'm also doing other things besides webdesign but that is what I like doing best.

Of course I'm still writing my novels and I'm also putting up an author website that will hopefully help me sell my stuff.

In other news - my daughter's birthday is tomorrow! We got her a karaoke machine and are paying for her to have a pizza party downtown with a few friends.

Happy Camp History Research for my Novel

When I woke up this morning ... first thing, I picked up a copy of the Siskiyou County Pioneer - the historical society's annual publication.

The one I own (the ONLY one I own) is about the history of bootlegging and prostitution in the county, the 1994 edition of the Pioneer. The reason I bought it was... because I have in mind to write a children's book about this area.. taking place in about 1920. I'm trying to get a good grasp on what the culture of that era was. Still I have so many questions. Were there telephones in Happy Camp then? If so, were they just on this side of the Klamath River or were they on the other side too? Were there any wild horses then? Were bootleggers out here very concerned about being caught? How many elementary schools were there in 1920 in this area, and where exactly were they?

Bird by Bird
by Anne Lamott
Buy at Amazon

Sure, I could make up a lot of stuff and probably most people would never know the difference, but do I want to do that or do I want the absolute facts? How deeply must a historical novelist dig in order to find factual data for a good novel? Somehow, it is much easier to write a fantasy... and that's why my first novel IS a fantasy... at the time I didn't want to stop to research because I knew I was going to write that novel in a hurry. (It took 17 days to write 50,152 words, and since it is a children's novel, that's more than enough.)

Writing Down the Bones
Freeing the Writer Within
by Natalie Goldberg
Buy at Amazon

At night now I'm reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott... I just love that book. It is strong on both humor and good writer's information. I like it better than the book I read last month - Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, though that's one of the classics for writers.

Keith stayed up all night last night. Now he looks so tired. He says he couldn't sleep... like he really tried.

(later...) Now it is noon and he is resting. He said he planned to wake up in an hour and I told him I wouldn't wake him up. We'll see what happens.

All I've done so far this morning is write this and read my email. I have too much email coming and and must delete most of it. I just scan for information except on the lists I own, and the web design lists - I try to get as much information out of those as possible.

River Girl
by Linda Jo Martin
Buy at Amazon

Update: My novel, River Girl, was published in 2011.

St. Patrick's Day in Happy Camp, 2002

Tonight we're having a St.Patrick's Day dinner and dance here in town. The Chamber of Commerce does this every year. I'm so excited.. I'm taking my daughter and a couple of her friends. Meanwhile I'm making a new website for the Chamber of Commerce. I'm excited about that too because I just finished phase one of that project and now am ready to get feedback on the designs from the Chamber members.

Thursday night I got to meet Chris, who teaches the business class I've been taking through College of the Siskiyous. The class has been via video-conferencing... so this is the first time I've actually met her. It was fun. I'll be meeting with her later (probably online) for an individual consultation on the business plan I'm writing. After meeting her, I got more enthusiastic about searching the web for business support, and I found a lot out there! Now this has revolutionized my life. I'm planning to start a virtual assistant business and to keep writing children's novels. After the class ends, I'll be writing a business plan for a pet store business - for the rest of the family to work in. We'll see how that goes!

Okay, on to other things. I'm going to run down to the Family Resource Center to see how the St. Patrick's Day festivities are progressing.

LATER...

The dance tonight was wonderful. My daughter and her friends had a great time. There were about 30 people there. I had to get tough with some of the kids who walked through the doors without paying. It is so hard for me to be tough on anyone... but I bounced them anyway. There were a lot of little kids there, and towards the end there were lots of teenagers. My daughter got a nice pair of sunglasses for a door prize. I got a nice wooden recipe box to hang on my kitchen wall - from the silent auction.

*we should do this more often*

411 Rally Website, and Other Websites Planned

Website projects update - the 411 Rally website is as done as it is going to get for a while. It is very plain. All I plan to add to it is printable press releases, posters and flyers, yet to be written and designed. Since then I was given the graphics software I needed to do better sites, and will be using the new software to design the Happy Camp Chamber of Commerce site so it will look better than the ones I've done before, hopefully! I made two design samples for them and will be working on one or two more designs during the coming week. I just accepted another design project for the California Family Rights Association.

People here are pestering me for chocolate bars and pastries so I need to quit writing and go to the store.

Later... I'm back. I remembered one more website I'm supposed to do - for the new Klamath River Writers Club. I also offered to do free websites for each of the members that don't have one yet so we can all start offering our writing skills for sale online. After that I should put up a website for website design... maybe I can start doing this for money soon, especially now that I have the software I needed.