Press the shiny red button. Go ahead. Press it.

Did you press it? Go ahead. Just press it.

How many times did you press it? Write that number down. Or, at least keep it in your head.

Now, suppose that I told you that every time you pressed the button, $100 would appear in your bank account. Pretend that’s the case. You can press the button as often as you like. Go ahead. Press the shiny red button.

How many times did you press the button this time? Add that to the first count. Multiply that amount by 100. That’s how much money is in your bank account right now. Press the button some more, if you like. Each time you press the button, another $100 goes into your pretend bank account.

How much money is in your pretend bank account right now? Write that amount down.

Are you having fun pressing the button? It’s so easy, isn’t it? Just press the button for $100 in pretend money. That’s all. If this was for real, would you keep pressing the button? How often would you press that button? Pretend it’s real, and press it as many times as you like.

How much pretend money are you up to now? Make note of it, or at least keep it in mind.

Now, suppose that every time you pressed the button, a young child was killed and his or her parts were sold. The organs were sold off on the black market for transplant operations, the skin was made into leather, bones were ground into supposed medicinal powders, and the remaining meat and unusable parts were processed into animal feed. For each child, you earned a commission of $100.

How would you feel right now if that were true? While it’s true that you were deceived, you’d probably still feel guilty about it, right? After all, your actions were partly responsible for the deaths of how many children? No matter how you try to justify it–that you didn’t know–you’d still feel remorse, no?

And, that’s why you need to be careful of the promises of easy money. Sometimes, people, especially when the economy is tough, are lured by the promises of easy money. Just press a button. What could be easier? But, if you don’t maintain a healthy skepticism and aren’t careful, you may not know (until it’s too late) how many people you may be harming in your efforts to gain some easy money.

Be careful out there!

Shame on you for wanting to see dirty pictures!

Well, this is what you get!

Of course, this may upset one of my fifth grade teachers, because I’m calling it “dirt” rather than “soil.” Hopefully, she’s not reading this blog.

As for the rest of you, shame! Shame, I say! Shame!

Shhh. It’s Wordless Wednesday. Enjoy the peace and serenity of vintage clouds.

Shhh. Don’t tell Michelle either.

Vintage. Clouds. Instant classic.

For more photos, visit Wordless Wednesday.

You may remember last Tuesday’s “Dramatic Flowers” post.

Well, here they are today in full color!

Enjoy!

Note: They do look fake or painted, but they are absolutely real.

Yes, there probably ought to be mulch…

Fun Fact: Christopher Daniel Barnes was the voice of Spider-Man in the animated series and played Greg Brady in the Brady Bunch movies.

You may remember the daring jumping spider from my post in late June. You remember how I mentioned they don’t build webs?

Well, I should have known something was up when the spider made a web. But, hey, maybe that’s what made the spider feel comfortable while in captivity. Food rains down. No need to hunt. Why not build a little nest?

So, apparently, the spider laid eggs because, Sunday morning, I checked on some Tiger Lily bulbils I have sprouting in a plastic bag on top of the spider cage and there were lots of little spiders crawling around.

I think I caught most of them. I haven’t seen any about since Sunday morning, except for one who’s taken up residence in a spot I can’t get at.

Anyway, so these little guys are also hard to take a picture of. You think the camera is in focus, but it’s not. Or, the spider moves. The little spiders move rather fast.

Aren’t they cute though?

Oh, did I mention I have two daring jumping spiders? The other one has built herself a nest too…

At long last, the eBook is done!

There is one page to do, but, for all intents and purposes, the book is done. Table of Content-ized, indexed, linked, hyperlinked and proofread.

Sorry! All you get to see in the photo is the back cover right now!

Now, I just need to wrap up some odds and ends, write some promotional copy, get the website up and running, put it up for sale, and hope people will buy it.

This is the longest thing I think that I have ever written.

Some times, I have had questions come up and go online searching for an answer, then I realize the answer’s in my eBook! It’s been so long, sometimes you forget what you’ve written.

I started working on it in mid-February. In early April, I had my first draft, and started sending it out to people to look at. There was a period of about a month where I did very little work on it as I waited to hear from people (which I never did). So, sometime in May (I think) I started working on it again, and really kicked it into high gear in late June. Since then, the size of the book has more than doubled from those early drafts I sent out. Now, I feel comfortable about releasing the book. With the early drafts, I still felt stuff was missing, that it wasn’t enough. However, now I think that I have a quality book on my hands that will be really good for beginners and people just getting started.

So, I’ve spent about five and half months putting this book together, though it’s really just over four months if you discount the time period where I wasn’t doing much with it. I’ve also learned some things that will (hopefully!) make the next book go faster. I also spent a fair amount of time working on details that perhaps readers may never notice, but I think it makes it look and work better than it otherwise would.

At any rate, now it’s time to go to bed and get some rest so I can get back to work in the morning. Of course, now there is a heavy weight lifted, because the book itself is done!

It’s July 25th. You know what that means?

It’s Christmas in July!

Sadly, no gifts this time around. Times are tough during the reign of the Obaminable Snowman, so you’ll just have to be happy staring at the pretty lights.

Watch the pretty lights. Try to recover whatever hope you have left after fishing for change in your pockets. What? There’s no change?

Imagine that.

Maybe not. But, it sounded more catchy than “Ant Walking on Brick Wall.”

Maybe I should have used a Spiderman reference. But, Spiderman doesn’t have a belfry. Does he?

At any rate, ants have an almost single-minded focus. Probably. Bear with me. Let’s pretend because I don’t feel like looking it up to confirm or deny it. I’m busy.

Let’s go again…

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Sorry. My bad. Got distracted. Let’s go again…

Ants have an almost single-minded focus. (Probably.) They serve the queen. (Probably.) Gather food for the hive, defend the hive, do battle with foreign ants from other hives. Kind of like bees.

Maybe I’m talking about bees?

Anyway, ants have a single-minded focus. They don’t get distracted from their jobs, except if there is a crumb of food. Then they must decide whether to eat it or drag it back to the nest. Or eat at as they drag it back to the nest. So, what’s the point of dragging it back to the nest if you’re just going to eat it anyway? So, they just eat it and conserve energy by not dragging it back to the nest. No sense wasting efforts.

Wait! Why is that other ant from the nest eyeing my food? She wants to take it back to the nest? That’s my bread crumb! I’ve already determined that it’s a waste of my efforts to take it back to the nest, and that it is better for the collective for me to just eat it now and not waste energy dragging it back, consuming it along the way. As such, I build strength and energy, which is for the benefit of the hive. She wants to drag it back to the nest! That is not in the best interests of the nest! I’d tell her that, but she’s an ant and we can’t talk, except by primitive means of communication which cannot accurately get my point across, which is very nuanced and well-thought out. The only solution is that she must die!

Hey, ant tastes kind of good and I feel so energized. I believe it is to the benefit of the nest that I grow stronger and more energized. As such, more ants must sacrifice their lives to feed me! I will eat hearty tonight! And, so I go on my quest! Since we all smell alike, they won’t suspect a thing!

And, so the ant goes on her merry way, plundering her nest and feasting.

Holy heck, I just ate the queen! Oy. What will I do now?

And, with the same level of determination and single-minded focus, but without the carnage and high death toll, I have been focusing on my eBook (and three client websites, and work, and, oy.) Anyway, hopefully, I will have it finished very soon now.

So, there is much to be learned from our friends, the ants! Well, maybe fictional ants.

Sorry. Too tired to think of a more clever title.

Anyway, these are the critters I found while planting flowers over the weekend. First, I found one. I put him (or her) in an empty flower pot, where he (or she) kept trying to escape through the drainage holes.

After I emptied out a second flower pot, I put him in it, then it in the other, then turned it so the drainage holes were mostly blocked.

And then I found a second grub. So, I had two grubs in two, then three, empty flower pots.

So then I had to go and get my camera while hoping that (a) they wouldn’t escape the flower pots and (b) nothing would come by and eat them.

Camera in hand, I posed them in the soil, as seen. Took a few shots. This is one of the better ones. Not real easy taking these close-up shots on my camera. Don’t have the lens for it, plus it can be difficult to tell on the screen if something is in focus. Sometimes, I think it’s focused, and it turns out later, when I upload to the computer, that it was not.

After taking the photos, I dug up some soil (away from the flowers!), released them and gently covered them up. So, hopefully, they got a fair shot at digging down deeper where ever they wanted to go and avoiding any predators.

On the eBook front, working on formatting and proofreading. Was up late last night, finishing a section, only to find a problem this afternoon, which caused changes, which obliterated much of last night’s work. So, that was a time-consuming setback. At least it’s all written. But, getting it all prepared and ready takes a while too!

And, I’m also working on two client websites too. Make that three–one called with an update yesterday and is supposed to be eMailing me stuff.

Yesterday, I played with black and white imagery. At the same time, I played with another flower image as well.

I started with the Tiger Lily photo from Sunday. You may remember I mentioned I couldn’t find any old pictures of them. Well, the black and white got me thinking… At first, I tried a black and white image, but I didn’t care for it. So, I started with the color photo again. This time, instead of removing all of the color, I just removed a good portion of it. This way, it sort of looks like a photo that’s faded over time. Maybe this is how my old photos of them would look today, if I could find my old photos and if I had taken them sixty years ago.

I think I used a touch of sepia on it as well, so Speedy should be happy, though he can’t claim credit because I had already finished this image before he left his comment yesterday.

Also, I finished writing my eBook yesterday. So, now I have to proofread it…