Hmm.. I think it's time for an update!

Man it's been a while since I've written on here! lol. I've been swamped. I'm holding a giveaway on my SassmowthDesigns blog (which everyone is free to enter!) so I've been trying to promote that by finding websites that list giveaways and such. Plus I've been trying to fill up my SassKatPhotography shop with as many pics as I can! Of course for the obvious reason of having stock to sell, but mainly because my good friend Tara recently bought a pic offa me to give to her boss. Her boss owns a restaurant here in Burlington, and likes to display work and promote local artists. Apparently the guy LOVED my photo, is displaying it in a prominent place in the restaurant, AND putting out a bunch of my business cards. (I made my own! hee hee) SO I want to make sure I have tons of pics for people to look through if they head over to my website. Now, I'm not expecting local peeps to be buying off Etsy and having me ship to them, that's just unfair! I've put the phone number and email on the business card, so they can just contact me that way if they want.

And yes, I did make my own business cards, for both shops. And why did I do that? Well, yes, some places will print you business cards for 40 bucks, but I don't really have 40 bucks. Plus you get 250. Now I could have just gone that route, BUT, since this isn't our permanent address (we'll be kicked out as soon as my parents return from overseas!) I didn't want to be left with a bunch of cards that has the wrong phone number on it. Technically could I have handed out 250 in 2 years? Of course. But then the wrong number's gonna be on there and that's possibly 250 people with the wrong information. Well, times 2, because I have 2 shops. But anyways, that's enough talk about that!

So what else can I talk about? Who knows. I'm dead tired and all I've been doing lately is promoting, listing, making cards and drawing more. And all of that is pretty exhausting! I clean here and there, which is also good. The other day I was forced to vacuum yet again because it was sunny and I could see a layer of dog hair and it was grossing me out.

Speaking of dog hair, well, not really the hair part, our pup is still on limited activity. Few more days to go! Hopefully he'll get "approved" to start going for walks again because he's driving me CRAZY. Apparently he had torn a ligament and his knee cap kept popping out. And if that keeps happening, he's gonna need surgery. And if I can't afford 40$ for business cards, I definitely can't afford surgery! He hasn't re-hurt it in the past week and a half, and even then when he did, it wasn't a huge production like it had been. He could put weight on it almost right away, as opposed to holding his left back leg up over his head for 10 minutes. It was tough seeing that he was in so much pain, but c'mon! Holding his back leg up over his head?! That was freakin' hilarious! Oh, I'm mean.

 

Alright, I'm gonna add pics into this puppy, take the dog for a pee, get the 3 garbage bags full of diabetic association donations ready, and start work on too many things! Oh and I'll have to eat at some point in there... can't forget that.

Have a great day everyone!

Okay, I'm really laughing now!

I was just fooling around in my 'sitemeter' this morning, seeing how people are finding my blogs. Now, the SassmowthDesign blog is being found mainly by where it's posted - Facebook, Etsy, Twitter, and a hoard of other advertising sites that I've recently signed up on. But I have just as many people (sometimes MORE) visiting this blog. (obviously not as many "followers", but more views and visits - which by the way, i really have to ask a question here at the risk of going off on yet another tangent... what the crap is the difference between a page "view" and a page "visit"???) Anyhoo, like I was saying, was fooling around with site meter this morning. Normally I look at the "By Location" because it totally interests me that I have visitors from Greece, Brazil, Australia, Iraq.. It boggles my mind sometimes, and it's just too cool. People on the other side of the world are readin' about little ol' me! Anyhoo, recently I've been a little more concerned with the *how* they're finding me instead of *where* they're coming from.

Once I noticed that someone found my blog by searching this in google "How to get a dog poo stain out of a silk shirt" Oh I laughed for a few days. But this morning, I clicked on the site meter link that says "By entry page" which would basically tell me which post or how they found my blog. Y'know which blog post I'm getting the most hits on? Like an astounding amount? Like 80% of my views?

Goiter?! Who said anything about a goiter?!

Yup. Isn't this lovely? Seriously, I'm most known for the fact that I have a freakin' GOITER! I thought being found by typing in "dog poo" was amusing! But seriously now. 80%!? 80% of people are finding my blog because they're typing "goiter" into google, and apparently, I'm near the top of the list. Lover-ly.

Just thought I'd pop in to let everyone know that! Back to finding out what #FF means in twitter, because I'm a little dim and have no clue what all these short forms are.

Later kids!

Is there something wrong with me?!

Do I have some sort of sign on my forehead that says "Answers calls to crazy people only" or something?

Oy. Okay so here's the deal. My dad has a motor home. And since my ma'am was transferred overseas for her job for 3 years (2 years left!) he's decided to sell it. So I placed an ad on Kijiji for him, including our phone number and name for a local contact. Which of course I don't mind, because it's not like anyone is going to call a 12 digit number to talk about a motor home, and most people may not realize the time change and were more likely to call them when they're sleeping.


We've gotten quite a few calls, but the only ones that have showed a lot of interest were just plain crazy! First couple... We'll just use his first name lol. Mike. Mike calls on a Monday morning around 8am. My husband was on holidays this week so I wasn't up at the usual 5:15am. While I was awake at 8am, I was not interested in talking to someone I didn't know, so I didn't answer. Mike called again at 930am. Alright, fine. I'll answer the phone. He starts asking questions about the motor home and asks if he can see it. I told him that it's not a problem, but if he wants to wait a week, he can get the grand tour from my dad himself as they were coming for a visit, and obviously my dad knows a heck of a lot more about it than I do. I mean, I can tell ya what features it has, and how to put the blinds up and work the shower (HA! That's another story...) but for working the generator, battery, water reservoir, jacks, and how it drives? Ya.. clueless. Well, Mike didn't want to wait a week. So I told him that I'm pretty much free all week, just name a day and time and we'll work something out.

We were out most of Monday and kept missing his continuous calls. When I called back, he had a few more questions ("how long is it? is it nice to drive? how many km's?") and he still hadn't decided on when to meet. Hadda talk to his wife. Okay fine. So, next morning he calls, and asks to see it on Wednesday. I said, no problem! But, got another call later that day from my Father in Law. He has a mechanic near his work that had offered to look at my car, and fix the brakes, only charging me for parts, not labour. And being as poor as a church mouse, took him up on this offer because my brakes were a-squeakin' bad! So we drove up to Etobicoke to exchange cars with my Father in Law, and came back home. Called Mike. Told him I'm terribly sorry, but Wednesday is out, since I wasn't 100% sure when I'd actually get my car back - whether we were driving up to exchange cars again in the early afternoon, or whether it was being driven back to our place by my F in L later on in the day. So he understood. Or so it seemed.

He called back. What about Wednesday afternoon? Noooo because I may be exchanging cars at that time. So what about Wednesday evening? Can't do it, not 100% sure if I'll have my car by then. Called back again to double check. Still the same answers, thanks!

Wednesday. Calls again. "How about Thursday evening?" "perfect, I'll have my car by then, no problems." Calls back again. "How about Thursday morning instead?" "that's fine, I'm getting my car tonite, Thursday morning is perfect". Calls back again. "Can we make it Thursday night again? Around 7pm?" "Okay fine, perfect, Thursday evening 7pm". Calls back AGAIN. "Okay I've talked to my wife, we're going to make it for Thursday around 11:30am" "Alright then, better idea, more time and more light to see the motor home! See you tomorrow morning!" Just after 9pm. Calls AGAIN. But! It's his wife. "I'm really sorry but we have to take my grandson to the doctors tomorrow, we think we'll just wait until your parents get back and have the tour with your dad like you originally suggested." "Perfect! Great idea! Better that way! Talk to you next week!" So at this point, we thought we were done.

Next day. Thursday. 12pm. Rob and I were getting ready to head out - run some errands and go for lunch. Phone rings. It's Mike. Actually no, it's Mike's wife. "Hi we're here." "Whaddya mean you're here. You're where?" "At the motor home, can you come down and show it to us now?" "You cancelled for today. We have plans!" "Are they important?" Are they *important*?! Excuse me?! I took a deep breath. Okay so, no. My plans aren't *important*, but the fact of the matter is, you cancelled, and now you're there. Rob was livid, but I assured him that we could go down there, show them the motor home, and then we won't have to worry about this anymore! So we went down. Rob opened the doors, and went to stand in the weeds. (He didn't want to be in close proximity to ensure he wouldn't get the urge to speak his mind!)

So of course, Mike starts asking questions I have no clue what the answers were, and reminded him he should have seen it with my Daddoo. They saw the motor home, said they liked it, had to check if it could fit in their driveway, and they'd call us back to talk to my dad when he was home. Good plan! Never heard back. Was very relieved.

But now, I'd take them any day.

(This is my daddoo... NOT a crazy person!)

Crazy lady. That's all I'll call her. Calls on Saturday night. And I *mean* night. 10:45pm. I wasn't feeling well, so I had already gone to bed. Rob was still up, in the living room watching his G.I.Joe cartoons. I woke up a bit to the phone ringing and could hear Rob's conversation. He did *very* well. Rob's not one to tolerate people calling after 930. But nope, he was courteous and politely said she needed to call back when he wife was *awake*. So 9:30am, crazy ladies number comes up. And I answer the phone. She sounded a bit off, like I actually pictured a woman who was a tad dirty, wearing sweatpants and a stained white sweater with "i love husky's" written on the front, with greasy bed head hair, brownish teeth and a blotchy face. So she asks a few questions. "Does it have a slide?!" "yes it does!" (as you can clearly see in the ad) "Does it have a kitchen?" "Yes" (as you can clearly see in the ad) "Does it have a basement?" "what?!" (okay, so my bad on that one, as my dad has informed me, the storage compartments underneath are called "basement compartments")

Then she says "Okay I'm buying it". Just like that. I'm like "you haven't seen it yet!" "Oh, that's okay, it's exactly what we were looking for! So, I'm buying it! We'll be down there on Tuesday to pick it up!" Okay then. You're buying it. Then she starts asking more technical questions, so I said "you best email my dad with those questions. Here's his email address" So I spelled it out about 6 times (she didn't seem to understand the whole 'spacesaverbob' part.) But she calls back 5 minutes later. "I don't know how to email." Huh? Okay crazy lady! So I suggested that I'd call my dad, and see if he can call her so they can talk. She liked that idea. And so did I!

So I called my Daddoo. (It's very helpful now that I can actually do this! Stupid Cogeco not having overseas calling for the first year they were over there!) I gave him the lowdown on the crazy lady, and her phone number. Rob and I left right after I talked with him, we were heading out to brunch... Got home and noticed she had called right after she talked with my Daddoo, but I really wasn't in the mood. So, I called her on Monday because I didn't want another "Hi we're here!" incident. Ya so, it took about 5 minutes for her to clue in who I was and why I was calling. (the motor home? what motor home? does it have a slide? I talked to your dad? oh right, I talked to your Dad!) Anyway, I asked her if she was still coming down on Tuesday. So she's all excited and telling me what price my Dad gave it to her for, and I'm all "yes I know" and she's all "What? How?" Um gee I dunno, how in the world would I know what my Dad talked to you about? Now there's a head scratcher.

So then she's going on about how she has 3 dogs and 2 cats and is happy it has a slide (I have to admit I cringed - Now not only did I picture a *dirtier* crazy lady, but now a dirty crazy lady with 5 dirty animals in our motor home! Oh poor motor home!) Then she's all "oh it has some carpeting? Oh that's not good. Our animals *really* love carpeting if you know what I mean! Piss all over it all the time! HAHAHA!" Oooooh even poorer motor home!


Anyhoo, she informs me that she's in the process of talking to the bank about getting a certified cheque and all that, and will call us on Tuesday to let us know what's going on. So fine, leave it at that. Didn't call on Tuesday and honestly, didn't care.

Wednesday. 4pm. She calls. "I have a favour to ask of you! Can you be our banker?! Like, we pay you in installments, and have our lawyer write up a contract?" ya, like that's gonna happen. I figured the easiest way for this to end, was to have my dad talk directly with her about *why* that's not gonna happen. So I told her that I'd call my dad in the morning, and have him call her. She asked why I couldn't call right now. Well, because with the 6 hour time difference (as I've already told her a few times - but then again I don't talk to her for 2 hours and she has no clue who I am) it's 10pm and they're in bed. She said okay, talk to you in the morning. 7pm. She calls again. "Have you talked to your dad yet?" "uh, NO, I told you I couldn't call him until tomorrow because there's a 6 hour time difference, and currently it's 1am there" "oh, REALLY?!" Yes. Really. Told her I'd talk to her in the morning.

10pm. Phone rings. I didn't get to the phone in time, so I promptly called back from the kitchen as opposed to the BEDROOM. Where my husband was SLEEPING. I call. She answers. I'm like "this is Kathryn McLean." "WHO?" "Kathryn McLean. You JUST called me. I'm guessing it's about the motor home" "Oh right! Kathryn! Okay so I was wondering." "NO NO NO, *I* was wondering why the hell you're calling my house at 10 o'clock at night. My husband gets up at *4am* for work, and you're calling at 10 at night?!" "Oh gosh! I'm so sorry! The nights are getting shorter! I just lost track of time on the internet!" Right. So does your computer not have a little clock in the bottom corner that you can glance at before picking up the damn phone?!

I was more than a little pissed. It was then that I decided to F*ck it. I'm not bothering to talk to my dad about the whole 'banking' thing, cause it's gonna be no anyway, and there's no point of him spending money to call long distance to talk to a crazy lady. So I called her back. She didn't answer. She called me back. I told her right out that the only way my dad was accepting payment was with a certified cheque for the full amount. She said "oh okay. And you're in Kitchener right?" I'm like nooo, Burlington. "Oh that's closer to Toronto. Perfect. Okay then, thank you!" and hangs up the phone.

Okay then, thank you? What does that mean? Is she going to show up anyways? Oy. So while I don't know 100% whether I'm completely done with the Crazy Lady, I'm not calling *her* to find out.

Oh sane people, do none of you want a motor home?!

Whoops!

Okay so I've been so busy "etsying" that i completely forgot to update this blog! Between emails, blogging on SassmowthDesigns, forums, listing, creating, colouring, brainstorming, I've neglected a few things! But, any regular followers on this blog shouldn't be too surprised that that happens to me lol. Especially if i say "I'll be back soon!".


Let's see, what's new?! Well, Kermit started dog training classes. I was horrified the first day thinking that he'd be the worst one there, and distract all the other dogs. Yup, figured we'd be kicked out for sure. But! I was pleasantly surprised. He's actually one of the smarter dogs there, but that just means he gets bored very quickly and tries to play with the St. Bernard beside him lol. We've been getting lots of "homework" with him, and it's going fairly well. We just have to work on his getting distracted constantly. Apparently everything at the store is far more exciting than we are.



Oh! I attempted to take photos of the moon the other night, cause it looked so damn cool - but i didn't have time to grab the tripod. So it's a pattern of: deep breath, hold it, snap the picture, continue to hold breath, turn blue, shutter closes and finally breath out and spend a minute catching your breath.


Well, Rob thought he could do a better job at it. Here's his attempt.

He sneezed. Good one honey!

In other news, i fell down the stairs last Monday! Yup, 5 am, and there I am sliding down the stairs towards my husband while he's putting on his shoes. Luckily he heard me comin' and leapt outta the way before i landed on him. How funny would that have been. Me and my "Chris Farly'd" husband laying at the bottom of the stairs until an un-unGodly hour when everyone else got up. Woulda been shits and giggles kids! Shits and giggles.

So i guess i can use that as another excuse to my absence. Walking - i can do. Standing, ya that's fine too. Laying down? Well, in certain positions. But sitting? Oy, ya that's not fun. Currently it feels like I'm sitting on a golfball graciously positioned at the top of my buttcrack. Last week, ya that couldn't even be done, any pressure on my tailbone sent me yelping into the air, but now, not so bad. Getting up on the other hand is another story. I'm like an 88 year old man grunting and groaning, trying to get my footing before standing upright. And you should see me getting out of the car! Yeesh. First of all, takes me atleast 5 minutes. Driving is a pretty amusing sight to see, since i have to have the car seat at a tad over 90 degree angle so I'm leaning forward, has to be almost all the way back so my legs are stretched forward, and i have to be leaning inwards so most of my weight is on my right buttcheek. Yup. I get the stares. And I stare right back dammit!

In etsy news, still desperately trying to think of a shop name for my photography. I desperately want to split the shops, but figuring out a name is driving me crazy. I want something original. I want something professional. I want something humourous. And all those things combined makes it extremely difficult. When i type in "sassmowth" into google, ALL i get is my stuff. Of course it does the "did you mean sassmoUth" and i say loudly everytime "NOOOooooOOO i did NOT mean sassmoooouuuuuuuth! Thank you very much!" Great thing about using a different spelling means you have a better chance of finding your stuff. BUT a different spelling also means people will forever be spelling your shop name the *correct* way, and never finding you. (Do you know how many emails i haven't gotten because of this?!) So that's why I'm not naming my shop SassmowthPhotography.

Things that I have come up with so far: Crosseyed Photography, PoorHouse Photography, (and thanks to my daddoo) Wandering Eye photography. (just so we're all clear - i *have* a wandering eye. And I'm poor. So that's the reason for these names being the first to mind!) But, can you believe wandering eye photography is already a photography shop? geez. So is crosseyed AND poor house. I've been trying to find tweaks on photo related words (EyesWideShutter - already taken! ShutterYourMouth - already taken! I think i should give up on "shutter") But to no avail. Then i read an interesting forum on etsy about how people came up with their shop name. I'm like ooh hey, maybe I'll get some ideas of what i can use. So a lot of people were talking about using their name "meaning" for their shop. So i was like, cool, I'll type in my name for the "meaning" and i got "VIRGINAL". There we go. That'll do. Yup. Sounds great.






So i will continue to brainstorm. And drive myself crazy.

Soup Nazi revisited

Well, not really. Just that Kermit had some issues with what was coming out his rear end. More like a stew then a soup really. Poor guy, lifting his leg up to pee and soup shoots out his bum and all over his leg. He seemed a little embarrassed on the long walk back home... Hadda get Rob to come out and hose him down for me before we went back in the house!

BUT, he seems to have evened out pretty good, with a tip from Robs sis Becca (she's a vet tech). So the secret to getting dogs poo soup to go back to poo logs? Pumpkin! We got the canned pumpkin (no sugar added of course) and mixed some up with vanilla yogurt, and he ate that right up. Had a light orange beard afterwards which was amusing.

We don't know exactly what caused it, BUT it could have just been all the excitement. One day we went to Fort Erie to visit Rob's parents, and took him with us, so he was playing with their dog Spanky for hours on end. The very next day it was the dog park with Ljub and his favourite "girlfriend" Elby, the next day it was a car ride to Becca's in Etobicoke (a car ride in which he puked during - first time ever) and played with Zeek, and not so much played with gettin-the-grumps Tyson. After that ride he *started* getting a little "through the eye of a needle" poops. (I'm sure you're all excited hearing about this... ) But the next morning he *seemed* to be back to normal, but it was just an overnight buildup cork. Because then we brought him to Robs sister Shannon's house to play with Diesel, who he had never met yet. So in 4 days, he saw ALL his friends and got all wound up each time. So we're thinkin, that's what it may have been. OR he just ate some poop of someone else's.

But i was segueing here, because i wanted to add in photos of Kermit's first meeting with Diesel. HILARIOUS! .. Let's take a look see shall we?...


Okay, PLEASE do yourself a favour, click on the picture, and look at their faces close up. I can't stop laughing.

And again. Diesel's expression is priceless.


Aw ain't they cute, drinking water together?


And all I'll say about this pic is, Ya.. I'd run too.

So basically in a nut shell, I've spent the last couple of weeks with Rob at home, playing with dogs, driving too much, and cleaning up soupy poodoo. But, interesting little tidbit here... So on Thursday, (i think it was Thursday.. all my days blend!) While i was talking to my Daddoo in the Netherlands, i watched a young lady walking up the driveway (with some scruffy lanky boy at the end of the driveway with his bike) and she's carrying a clipboard. Well, she rang the doorbell and let's just say, i don't answer the door to strangers that carry clipboards, because it always involves money, and i ain't got any! PLUS i was on the phone with my daddoo! So i ignored the door. Watched her walk back down, pick up her bike and the 2 took off down the street. (Things happen from then until this next part, but i won't bore you with them.. mainly involves eating dinner)

So took Kermit out to pee, walked back up the front stairs, looked at my smokes that are sitting on the windowsill tempting me to have one, but kept on walking. Brought the dog in, went in the kitchen to get a glass of water, and the doorbell rings. So I open the door while holding back Kermit, as he loves to jump *through* the screen door to lick some faces, and its the young girl again with her clipboard binder thing. She says all sweetly "HI! I'm collecting for the MS Society!" and before she could continue i said "I'm really sorry, but i donate to other charities through other venues" Meaning i DON'T give money out to people who show up on my doorstep. So she snottily closes her binder, bitchily says "thank you" and i shut the door. I go back in the kitchen to grab my water, i walk out the front door, notices she's gone, sit down on the front step, went to grab my smokes and well.. they weren't there. I thought for a second that *maybe* i brought them inside and didn't notice, but no. I knew i had taken the dog out no longer than 6 minutes previous and they were there. That little bitch stole them! So y'know what, I'm thinking, not a huge deal, because it's just a pack of smokes. BUT on the other hand, it is a huge deal, because this person is collecting for a charity, and if this person can steal things off peoples properties, can they be trusted collecting money? So, Rob picked up the phone and called the MS society, and got an answering service. He left our number, said what happened, and we pretty much forgot about it.

Well... This morning i wasn't home because i hadda drive my sis to the go station (she got dropped off at the Burlington Go by Iain, he left, she was notified the trains weren't running out of Burlington cause someone was hit by the train between here and Bronte) so she bussed it back home, i dropped her off at Oakville, when i got back i walked the dog... and again none of this is very important to the story, but i have an issue with tangents. I can't stop making them. Anyhoo! So i missed a phone call back from the MS Society. They want Rob to call back, because guess what? They don't HAVE anyone collecting for them!! OOooooh the plot thickens!! But no worries, I'll keep everyone posted on the outcome of this little shenanigan. Of course, you may have to search through a whole crap load of tangents to get to it, but i promise it'll be in there somewhere.

Alright, off i go! Hope you enjoyed the pics, and you didn't go cross eyed reading all this crap.
Have a great day everyone!

Want FREE stuff?! Contest starts September 3rd!

Hey all!

Yes, I'm having my very first contest! I've posted all the details to my shop blog SassmowthDesigns so head on over there to check it out! I didn't want to leave anyone out, I know i have a few fellow etsians following this blog (so go check out my other one!) BUT this contest is NOT just for etsy artisans! It's open to everyone! So, any followers on this blog, head on over to follow my other one, and read all about how to get lots of entries into my contest! The winner will receive one free photo (of their choice!) PLUS free shipping!

Very exciting... so, check out the contest, gather your entries, and you could WIN one photo from my etsy site! Here's some examples of what could be very soon be hanging on your wall! (or a friends or families wall! These are perfect to give as a present!)




So go on over and check out the contest! It officially starts September 3rd, 8am EST (BUT i won't discount your entry if you do it right now!!)
Good luck everyone!

NO SOUP FOR YOU!

Could i look any more excited in this photo?!

I'm still so incredibly excited that i met the Soup Nazi! (His real name is Larry Thomas!) Went to the comic convention this past Saturday and even though there was Linda Hamilton, and Lou Ferrigno, ya.. i was excited about the soup nazi! While i was tempted to buy the ladle that he autographed (lol) i went for his pic instead, in which he signed it with his famous no soup for you saying. Got a pic taken with him too! But, i'll post in more than just his... here's who we saw:



Bruce Campbell sticking out his tongue. I got lots of shots of him because apparently Iain (sisters man) is obsessed with him. Huh. Okay.


Lou Ferrigno drinking a slushy! I got tons of pics of him for my sis. Even one from the side so you can see how much his muscles flex as he's signing autographs!


Walter Koenig (Chekov on original Star Trek) I only put the description of who he is, cause i for one didn't recognize him lol. But here he is relaxing!

EEEEE this guy creeps me out, Udo Kier. His eyes are so piercing, it's not even funny. My sis came with me when i went up to say hi and shake his hand.

There were many others, but i don't feel like continuing to put pictures up, i'm rather tired! Spent the better part of the day cleaning the house, then i did a blog on SassmowthDesigns, added photos to Facebook that i put up on my etsy site today, drew some Christmas cards (more cards that are inspired by my mom! They're a new line called "Have a SAFE and happy holiday season! hehe) Oh, and Leonard Nimoy was there, but we never saw him! All we saw at his seat was his lunch! Some crisp veggies, a sandwich and a bag of original Lays chips! I was very tempted to take a pic anyway with his name showing in the background with the title "Out to Lunch". Ah well. Okay, i'm off.

Have a great night kids!