Saturday, January 1, 2011

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a fun safe new year celebration!

What are your new year's resolutions?

Mine involve:

  • Finish writing my book. The first book in the Empath Series. 
  • Loose weight. I gained a lot of weight after my injuries and I would like to start getting back into shape. 
  • Become a more successful Etsy seller
  • I have a couple blog ideas for what I hope will be very interesting blogs, and I would like to publish those and make them awesome. 
  • Create a non-etsy online store and make it popular to sell my uncle's candles. 
Ok thats enough. I could go on. But those are the biggies. 

I hope everyone accomplishes all their goals and has a great year!

Olivia 

Friday, December 31, 2010

Gaming and Photoshop Laptop

The primary uses for my laptop is photoshop for picture editing for my store, MS office for all business stuff and gaming for funzies.

I need a new computer soo bad. I am SO UNHAPPY with Dell's customer support. I mean I didn't pay them 3k for a laptop worth under 1k just so they could blow me off when I needed something fixed. So ya this computer has had it. It probably would still be OK if they would have fixed it. Instead they sent a guy out to replace all the not-broken parts ignore the broken ones and refuse to just replace the laptop like they did for some of my college friends.

Anyway, need a new laptop.

I'm torn between: Gateway NV79C50u 17.3 Inch Laptop - Satin Black and Sony VPCEC390X Configure to Order

Same stats. The difference is mostly money.
$910 vs. $1212.
The 910 comes with 3 yr warranty (nice) but thats it. The 1212 one comes with some adobe software that I don't really need because I already have a full version of photoshop and preimere but the acrobat would be nice. Although I can take the money I save to buy that.

I think writing this blog almost cleared up my debate!

Now my only problem is overheating. Do either of these computers over heat? If so I can't get them. That will cause endless lag problems and constant hardware failure.


Yay amazon. They always have the cheapest rates! I just wish there more reviews on this computer, its just too new. Off to go research if they overheat or not.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Lolcats

This comic I found on http://icanhascheezburger.com at: http://icanhascheezburger.com/2010/12/20/funny-pictures-comics-cat-vs-internet/#more-325662

I thought it was soo cute and so funny I just had to share!















I love kittens and lolcats! Whenever my cat is doing something adorable I run and get the camera but by the time I am ready to take the picture he is just sitting there looking normal! lol. I think if I want to get some hilarious photos of him I'd have to just take pictures of him all day.

Another cute cat:
i lold too

Monday, December 20, 2010

Speed Bumps in Business

There has been minor and i mean super minor speed bumps in this online business stuff. As you probably know we have an Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Desert2ForestArt

Well we got this postal scale: Weighmax 2822-75LB postal shipping scale, Battery and AC Adapter Included It had great reviews so I was super excited with it arrived. I put in the brand new battery and plugged it in and turned it on and it said "Lo" which the manual says means "Low Battery."
So I let it charge for a day. Even though new batteries shouldn't need to charge.
Still "Lo." Bought a new battery. "Lo."
So I sent it back to the manufacturer. Still waiting for my new one.
ANYWAY the whole purpose of the scale is to weigh my package, print my own postage and they mail person comes and picks it up. No wasted gas money for me. But I go to use our printer and its out of ink. Not going to bother buying new ink for a printer we are about to replace with: Epson WorkForce 610 Wireless Color Inkjet All-in-One Printer (C11CA50201) anyway.
So ya this all happened a while ago but I just thought I would share!

Not everything goes super smooth but so far so good!

One bad thing did happen. We got a package we mailed to a customer back as "no such address." We copy pasted the address so you know we didn't mess that up. It was the post offices error but we had to reship. Getting pricey.

Our profits are very low since we sell stuff pretty darn cheap but I see many sales in the future so that should not be an issue.

We would like to get a resale license to buy supplies at wholesale prices and resale them. So ya should be awesome.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Holidays!

OH YEA. I posted a sort of guide for Etsy sellers and other small business owners at our other blog:
http://desert2forestart.blogspot.com/ Its definately worth checking out if you want to promote your business better, sell more strategically ect. Some hopefully helpful tips and I hope to learn from others so ya please leave me a comment.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

World of Warcraft

So I'm hoping after Jan. 1 to be much less busy and much more rich. My plan is to play World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.
 World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
I'm very very excited about this! It's been over a year since I've played WoW. When I quit playing the Lich King wasn't even fight-able yet but World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Expansion Pack was out. I hope to get to lv 85 get some pwnage gear and go and solo him. Lol ok that wont happen but hopefully I will get to see him die someday. I've seen the videos of it and the cinematic and its quite awesome so I would like to experience it first hand.

I'll probably only get to play for a few months but who knows I might stay another 3 years!

World of Warcraft is pixelated crack. I kid you not its addictive. Even after all this time I'm still hard core jonesin' for a WoW fix.

I'd like to give kudos to the person who has made me want to play wow the most with his hilarious videos.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut
http://www.cynicalbrit.com/

So bye bye molten-wow. https://www.molten-wow.com/ Maybe I'll be back when I don't have as much time to play WoW and therefor can't justify the subscription fee. Hopefully it doesn't take too long to get Cata on private servers. I don't imagine that will be easy but everyone in my molten guild on Frostwolf was QQing that they wont have cata for a while and it's cause they suck. Its not. I'd like to see those QQBears get it working.

Not looking forward to going back to my resto druid which used to be my main. Now they look like weird disco trees with big afros and tree form is just a short buff =( so sad. That means I'm a cow most of the time. Free race change plzzz.

And of course I still have to get my account back. Which was like everyone else's hacked. =( So lame. I think blizzard's security was compromised after the stupid battle.net thing. Its a lot of steps and some crap I have to fill out. fun.

Thanks for reading.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Big Screen TVs

My dream TV.

I've been looking around and this is the TV I want. Mitsubishi is by far the best brand.
















Of course with the 3D TV there is other stuff you have to buy


The starter kit.















A TV stand big enough for this TV.















This TV is $500 less on amazon than on Best Buy!! Gotta love amazon.

http://astore.amazon.com/oliviasstore-20






Monday, December 13, 2010

Books of 2010

The year is almost over so I'm going to list all the books I've read this year and give them a star rating. 5 stars is the max. It doesn't mean "perfect" it just means "really awesome I totally reccomend it." 1 Star is the lowest (there is no 0) and that of course means I absolutely hated it.

If you love to read and would like suggestions on books to check out you should definately read on!

Minimal spoilers.

House of Night Series by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast         5 stars! *****
  • Marked                             5 stars! *****
  • Betrayed                           5 stars! *****
  • Chosen                             5 stars! *****
  • Untamed                           5 stars! *****
This series is basically about a girl who is "marked" and goes to a vampire boarding school. Lots of crazy stuff happens. Its very fast paced full of action and a lot of fun to read. Great if you like YA Supernatural - Vampire type books. 

Fever Series by Karen Marie Moning               5 stars! *****
  • Darkfever                         5 stars! *****
  • Bloodfever                       5 stars! *****
  • Faefever                           5 stars! *****
  • Dreamfever                      5 stars! *****
This series is about a girl who goes to Ireland to investigate her sister's death. Evil faeries are everywhere craziness ensues. Another supernatural book but not for the kiddies. Its violent and sexy and full of twist and action. 

Weregirls by Petru Popescu book: Birth of the Pack              2 stars **
This book sucked. I don't remember it very well. I remember it being a boring predicable book (much like Twilight but worse) not a whole lot happened and there was a super anticlimactic ending. Like everyone prepares for a huge battle and everyone has super powers but then they just run away in the end (sorta like Twilight). I hope that wasn't a spoiler for anyone. That wasn't exactly how it ended but I forgot. I wont give it 1 stars even though its tempting because I think it could be worse. 


Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead                  4 Stars! ****

  • Vampire Academy                  4 Stars! ****
  • Frostbite                                 Reading Soon
  • Shadow Kiss                          Reading Soon    (come back later and I'll edit this) 
Sort of like the House of Night series but a completely different story. About a school of vampires and their guardian like people. Drama drama romance drama action violence. You know the drill. Maybe its the writing style or something but I didn't give it 5 stars because I found it less interesting and didn't get into it as much as some other books. Less action or something I don't know. But its still very good and I would recommended it. 


Sookie Stackhouse by Charlaine Harris                 5 stars! *****


  • Dead Until Dark                             5 stars! *****
  • Living Dead in Dallas                      5 stars! *****
  • Club Dead                                     5 stars! *****
  • Dead to the World                         5 stars! *****
  • Dead as a Doornail                        5 stars! *****
  • Definitely Dead                              5 stars! *****
  • All Together Dead                         5 stars! *****
  • From Dead to Worse                     5 stars! *****
  • Dead and Gone                             5 stars! *****

This series is great. The True Blood HBO show that you may be familiar with is loosely based on these books. The books of course are way better. A telepathic waitress gets sucked into the vampire world. All sorts of supernatural mayhem action, drama and romance. What makes this series so special and why I love it so much is that on top of the typical supernatural romance drama theme there is a murder mystery. You never know who done it until the end. Very exciting. Will put you on the edge of your seat biting your finger nails. Not a kiddie book. Read these books you will not be disappointed. 

Need by Carrie Jones                               4 Stars! ****
This book is about a regular high school girl being stalked by faeries. I read it earlier in the year so I'm not remembering it very well. Not sure whether I'd give it 3 or 4 stars because I sort of forgot the plot and that usually isn't a great sign. I do remember liking it though and I intend to read the next book in the series: Captivate, soon. It was a little weird but definitely a good story, good character developement, unique and worth reading. If you liked the Twilight Saga as so many people seem to then you will love this book. Actaully just about every book on this list. This book is better than Twilight in my opinion. The main character is sort of weak so I guess at first she is less likable than most heroes but the story really turns out great. 

Real Murders by Charlaine Harris.     5 Stars! *****
There is a club of people who discuss murders and one of the members is murdered! Its the beginning of what is bound to be a great series and the star Aurora Teagarden is just so likable. I can't wait to read more.

Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris         5 Stars! *****
Another great murder mystery by Charlaine Harris. This is the first book in another series starring Lily Bard. Its great of course and you should read it.

I'd like to end this with a special note. Support your local libraries because they are awesome. 

Thanks for reading my post! Happy umm.. book reading!