The Duck's Nest: online home of mizducky

Back in the Mesa College

Back in the Mesa College saddle again. First week of classes - Flash class online, Japanese 102 in the evenings.

Some self-affirmations, my way

I often feel a little uncomfortable with the affirmation thing--and I don't think it's because there's some deep-down-inside part of me that believes I don't deserve success or happiness or abundance or whatever. I think it has more to do with the types of happiness and success I've seen mentioned in a number of affirmation lists I've run into. I actually saw an affirmation on the net the other day that read "I climb the corporate ladder with ease." Ugh. No. My personal vision of success does not include any corporate ladders. Nor does it include six-figure incomes or a large beautiful house (cue that Talking Heads song here) or any other such overly materialistic tchatchkes.

Further, I think it's unrealistic to expect that one will never have upsets and crises in one's life. Shit happens, and often enough on a totally random basis, so there's no point in asking "Why me?" when the answer is "Well, why not you?" This kind of stuff is capable of happening to anybody.

But I do want and need some affirmations in my life, because there are indeed some things that I feel lacking, and I do believe in inviting the universe to provide the opportunities to get those things.

I deserve a serene, secure, and fulfilling life.

I do not have to be perfect, by anyone's yardstick (including my own) in order to merit a serene, secure, and fulfilling life. For all human beings are imperfect by their very nature, and I am fully human. But I also have more than enough positive qualities to merit the life I desire. I may not be perfect, as the old joke goes, but parts of me really are excellent.

I have a lot to offer the world.

When trouble comes my way, as it will inevitably do, I have the strength, resources, and allies to meet those crises and surmount them. The universe never hands me anything I'm not capable of handling.

The existence of crises in my life is not a reflection on my qualities as a human being. Crises come to everyone sooner or later.

I am in the right place. I am doing what I need to do. I am putting in the footwork, one foot in front of the other.

I am open to what the universe is trying to show me. I am teachable. As someone once said, luck is what happens when opportunity meets preparation. I am doing what I need to do to be prepared when opportunity knocks. And opportunity will knock. It is always knocking. Maybe not in the guise I might be expecting, but I'm open to recognizing opportunity in whatever form she chooses to take.

Someone else once said that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. I am making up my mind to be happy today.

Oh yeah--and one last one: "She who laughs, lasts."

"Why a duck" part trois? -- whyaduckwebdesign.com registered!

So once I discovered that my first choice in domain names for my little fledgling web design venture (fledgling! get it? get it? oh, I quack myself up!) was already taken, and doing a lot of studying up on the pros and cons of various domain name strategies, plus some SEO-type searches on likely keywords to include in domain names, I put the whole thing on the back burner for a couple of weeks, so I could come back and look at it with fresh eyes.

And what I finally decided: it may be a blessing in disguise that whyaduck.com is not available, because while that name would get lots of hits, not so many would be searches for web design. SEO Rule #1: if you want people to find you, use words that say what you do. So I finally decided that rule trumped the "beware of excessively long website names" rule, because right now people wouldn't know my little startup from a hole in the wall, and would be searching on "web design" ... but I also want to differentiate myself from all the other web design outfits out there, so including "whyaduck" is still cool. And once people do start to know who I am, remembering "whyaduck" plus "webdesign" is not all that difficult.

And I found a really cool, and totally public domain, graphic to incorporate into my website's design, and even as a logo. Little webbed ducky footprints! (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, who got them from the US government of all places--I believe they were from some federal wildlife site back in the day.) The minute I saw these little duck feet, I realized they had a great balance of cuteness and clean design--they will look really classy on a business card. I can even make a little Flash animation of them walking across a page. And every time I look at them they make me smile--which is a great way to feel about a project.

So--next step: building some stuff in Dreamweaver and Flash. More updates as I have 'em.