If you spend much time on etsy forums, you hear that everyone should have a positive attitude, all the time, ever. I'm skeptical, as I'm thinking, when do you ever craft or promote, with all this telling others how to be?

So this study amused me. Basically, folks who already felt bad felt worse when thinking positively. Personally, I know I do. Objectively, I'm a middle of the road jeweler, so I find it more useful to try to improve my skill than to think I'm awesome anyway.

AlwaysAmy has suffered a loss in the family. Let's all be nice to her.

Climate change is killing people in poor countries. Now, I'm not a saint in the carbon emissions field-mailing stuff is a high carbon activity, of course.But let's all be more mindful of how we use our carbon. Are we driving just to be driving? Are we utilizing local foods in our cooking? Summer is coming, so even in more Northern climes, there is some local food to be had.

1/4 of children in US Hispanic, study shows. There are also millions of black children- under 18s represent 31% of the 40 million blacks that live in America. This isn't even including the millions of Asian, Native American, Arab, and other diverse communities of children in the US. So get to crafting folks- there's plenty of diversity out there. Show it in your crafts.

I nearly peed I laughed so hard.

I did some crafting today. *happy*

Wired magazine posts list of 100 geeks to follow on twitter. I didn't know Diane Duane[that Young Wizards series writer] and John Scalzi[hey, it's that bacon cat dude] had twitters. I updated my follows accordingly.

Don't retweet something without reading. That is my twitter tip for the year.

Thank you writer guy. I'm glad that someone realizes the ebb and flow are natural.So when your friend is feeling down, don't throw them under the bus for being 'negative', help them out. Of course, I have to pay a little bit more attention to my ebbs and flows than others might have to.

When I'm able to do one thing, another thing often falters. For example, right now I am doing a ton of laundry, but I have no motivation to do much else. When I get into say, writing, my laundry will be neglected. I have to do very small steps. Tomorrow I'll do the other half of that application. I couldn't do the whole thing, even though I did four loads of laundry[I'm not sure how many loads that translates to in normal person- imagine you did ten in a day, that's the equivalent of four loads for me]

People fall victim to radio ad ripoffs. Remember, if people are advertising directly to people with bad credit, there's usually a catch.

Memphians share their unique food culture. The great part of local business is that innovations usually start at that level before sweeping the nation.

Local man of color creates gaming company- inspires people.

Also about people of color and gaming, here's a talk on gaming and multiculturalism. Watch the whole thing and think of huge marketing opportunities YOU may be missing by making assumptions.

Support local businesses this website says. There's one fallacy here- online business can be local business. Today I did some supporting of local business. I went to Muddy's Bake Shop, which I had heard about on twitter. The lemon rosemary cookies were unexpectedly delicious, so I bought one. I also bought a lemon cupcake, which was very good. I expended $2.10 or so. The ambiance is nice with little tables outside, and in the back, I could see someone doing something to a pie that probably causes deliciousness. I also saw a sign promoting some sort of lunch. There is also a community pinboard, so I left a card.

After that, I ended up stuck behind two geese and three goslings in traffic. The goslings were yellow, like long necked ducklings.

I also went to El Metzcal and bought two tacos. I enjoy their strange white cheese and general taconess. I expended about $4 on this. I also put some cards on their front desk.

A warning on this post. If you post any trite 'advice', I reserve the right to say something really mean. But as a concession, I admit you're a much better person than me, knowing what's best for strangers all the time.

I'm always late on the train. I was reading the sample chapter of Carol Lay's book about fat and the first thing I thought of was 'man, that's a whole lot of time and effort spent on eating every day. A whole lot of mind space spent on ticking off how many calories an orange has.' With the amount of time and energy we spend on weight loss, we could have set up colonies on Mars by now. My second thought was 'Too bad Random House didn't pick up her awesome comics that she's been drawing for years and collect them'. I understand that the American appetite for books on weight loss is insatiable, but man is it disappointing to hear yet another story about fat thighs when Carol has told so many other interesting and amazing stories.

Also, I was reading the American Failure blog, and I thought 'this guy is way too optimistic about most folks.' In this post on video games, he gets two things wrong. First, video games are not just young men anymore. Second, there's an underlying assumption that these guys could obtain any actual real success in life with years of effort. Of course, the problem is that the bar for success is way too high for some people to reach, even with years of effort.

In a world with so many variables, some people are going to be stuck with less than optimal abilities. Something taking them years of effort may be considered total crap by everyone else. For example, it would be a big achievement for me to go into a kitchen without causing havoc and chaos, but for everyone else, that's extremely easy. I guess what I mean is that the effort is too high for the return on investment.

What if greasy Cheetos boy spends years trying to be able to run a mile? Would he really be better off than if he played video games for all that time, had fun with some pals, and wasn't able to run a mile?*


*I can't run a mile, actually. And it would probably take me years to be able to. Scoff if you will.

You know, it took me forever to get the news of pussy daddy's muting because of how AWOL I've been.

I agree with this lady about following. I'll follow anyone I am interested in following whether or not they follow me back, although that is appreciated. I have to admit that I follow much fewer people than follow me because otherwise my twitter might get too confusing.

Some of today's photos may be salvageable. I've made two pairs of paper earrings, but I also have some necklaces and bracelets made of gemstones for fans of that type of item.

I'm in a treasury! My new paper crafting experiments are also turning out.

Etsy admin tells us that for god's sake, stop insulting huge groups of other sellers

I'm doing a great book sell off, to raise funds for future awesomeness. Paper punches, beads, ear wires...who knows what amazingness will be funded by my aweinspiring book sale?

On May Day, I learned about the beauty of contact paper.

Crafty Chica talks about crafty de mayo. I plan to do a lot of crafting today.