Month: March 2024

Photography backdrops

On By Michel McDonaldIn VideosLeave a comment

I bought some photography backdrops a couple of years ago so that when I made my assembly box cards videos for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas for YouTube to give me a little more festive background instead of just my plain old wall in my plain old bedroom that needs to be repainted stat. Some of them did not turn out to be very good quality, and I’ll tell you why.

So, three of the backdrops that I bought say Econ Vinyl as their material. One of them just says cloth backdrop. The cloth backdrop is still good, there’s no problem with the cloth one. When I say problem, I mean when you fold the backdrop when you’re finished using it and then you open it again many times, it tends to get faded along the folds. Here’s an example of one of the backdrops that I bought that is not holiday related, but something that was related to the theme of a blanket that I was crocheting for a video, which I still have yet to make lol. I used the backdrop many times anyway and folded it and opened it and folded it etc. So this is what it looks like now.

Now, you can see all of those lines where the folds are where the fabric looks like it faded out. I honestly don’t know what happened to them. It happened to all of the Econ Vinyl backdrops that I bought from Amazon.

I have an old light box that I bought many years ago for taking pictures of my Etsy products so that I would have a nice picture for the listings, but it turned out to be too small so I could never really use it that easily. I just bought a bigger one that’s probably twice as big and it is a lot better, but the backgrounds that they gave me were just plain white, black, light blue and gray. Well, I don’t mind the white or the black one, but I’m not going to use the blue one or the gray one. So I figured I want to get something that has this graphic of the space theme that is similar to this backdrop that I had. So I went to JoAnn’s website and found the exact same fabric. This fabric is a little more zoomed out than the backdrop. I mean you could probably say that the backdrop is this pattern a little more zoomed in if you will.

Both of these pictures are taken at the same angle, so you can see what I mean about it being zoomed out. Or the original backdrop being zoomed in. The pattern is exactly the same, except much smaller. Which actually works better for me because I will be taking close up pictures, and I would like as much of that graphic to show on the Etsy listings anyway. So this is perfect.

So what I’m saying is if you are looking for a backdrop on Amazon for photography reasons or you’re just making YouTube videos or whatever it is that you need a backdrop for, make sure it says fabric and not Econ Vinyl, unless you plan on keeping it open all the time.

I don’t know if this works for other people or not but, I just feel like it was a huge waste of money for me because I can never use these backdrops again.

I’m getting better at reading

On By Michel McDonaldIn Books, ReadingLeave a comment

Okay, I know that’s a strange title, but it’s true for me.

So here’s the deal. When I was a kid, I had trouble reading. I had, and still have a learning disability, dyslexia, and ADHD. That makes it very difficult to read a novel.

When I was about 9 years old, my sister had all of these books that I would have loved to have read. I believe they were The Hardy Boys and or Nancy Drew. I can’t really remember, but I do remember seeing books that were like that in the bedroom. Naturally, they weren’t my books, so I wasn’t even allowed to read them because my sister had ownership over them because they were hers. You know how siblings are, they don’t want you playing with their things. But even if I were given permission to read them, that wouldn’t mean anything because I probably would never have gotten past the first page.

When I was 14 years old, I might have been 15, I decided that I wanted to get a book to read. Back then, there was a miniseries that turned into a TV series called V and they had a book based on the original miniseries, and I asked my mom if she would buy it for me so I can read it, and she did, and I managed to read half of it. But the problem was, I had so much trouble reading even half of the book, and I gave up because it was just too hard for me.

When I was 19 years old just before the Back to The Future 3 movie came into theaters, I decided that I wanted to try reading again, so I bought the Back to the Future books that were available at the time. I read the first one and managed to get through it, although it did take me a bit of time. I then read the second book and it took me a while, but I got through it. I wanted to read them before I went to see the third movie and by the time I was finished, the movie had already left the theater. So I would eventually have to wait until it came out on video to be able to watch it.

This is what would happen to me. I would read a paragraph, and then another paragraph, and then my mind would wander, and I would be thinking about something that had nothing to do with what I was reading. I would be distracted by sounds and smells and anytime I read something that kind of reminded me of something that happened to me in my life or something that I wanted to remember for the future, pun intended, I would lose track of where I was and I would still continue reading, but I wouldn’t remember anything that I had read, so I would have to go back a couple of paragraphs, sometimes even a couple of pages to where I was when I could remember what I was reading. So, most of my life, it was very difficult to want to read anything because it was just too hard.By the time I had reached my 30’s, I had a friend who was always reading and she told me I should just try and give it another shot.

So at the end of the year 2005, I decided to make a New Year’s resolution to start reading books. I went to a used bookstore and found more V novels and I bought a whole bunch of them. I actually bought all of what they had available. I also found some Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels, and I started with those because they seemed to be easier because I was a huge fan of watching Buffy the Vampire slayer, so I had the characters faces and voices already fresh in my head from watching the series. I knew that that would make it easy to read the books, and it did.

Then I bought the Harry Potter set that was books 1 through 5 from Amazon. I was so into reading the Harry Potter books that I would literally just sit there reading for like 8 hours non stop everyday. Those books were so easy to read.

That friend that I mentioned earlier bought me a Buffy the Vampire Slayer book because she was really proud of me for making an effort to read. Then she sent me a whole bunch of books in a series called Xanth by Piers Anthony. That turned out to be a really good series for me to read.

So I’ve only read books that were Supernatural so far. That’s it. I hadn’t gone back to the V books, even though they sat on my bookshelf for a very long time. I was reading Buffy, Harry Potter, Xanth, then I started reading a gay series based on a gay vampire. The first book is called My Heart is Within You and the book is written by Marguerite Labbe. It’s actually a three-part series, and it’s really good.

I have always been into the supernatural as far as TV shows go that it only made sense that I would enjoy reading Supernatural books, and that seems to be the only thing that I like to read.

So Goodreads has an option for a reading challenge. I only started doing the reading challenges in 2018, and I wasn’t really reading that much. I have so many crafts that I do that I barely give myself any time to read any books. I read six books in 2018, I read zero books in 2019, I read 14 and 2020 and 2021 and in 2022 I didn’t read one book. Last year in 2023 I decided I am not reading anything because I’m too focused on watching TikTok which is not something that I should be focused on.

So in July of 2023 I decided that I need to start with the reading again and I went to Goodreads and started a challenge to just read 5 books, and I ended up reading 18 from July until the end of the year. I’ve also been on a long reading streak on my Kindle and I don’t want to lose the streak so I just decided that I’m just going to read every day, even if I only read two or three chapters, at least I’m keeping my streak up.

My reading challenge for 2024 is just 30 books, and I’m already 12 books in. We’re only in March. But while I’m reading every single day, I’m learning that I’m not having as much trouble reading at all like I used to. I used to stumble and get sidetracked and forget what I was reading and have to go back a paragraph or a page or two and that never happens to me anymore. I can literally just sit here and read all day if I wanted to and I would be happy.

So what is my point? I’ve taken all of your time reading up until this point, so what am I talking about? I’m talking about the fact that I have issues reading, and since I’ve been reading pretty much daily since July, my problem is not a problem any more. I can read three or four chapters in one sitting and there hasn’t been one instance where I had to go back a paragraph because I didn’t understand what I was reading because I had been interrupted by somebody, or because I heard a sound or because I was thinking about something else.

My point is, reading is a skill I guess you would say, and when you start getting better at the skill, it becomes easier to do that skill or thing. Once I had an issue getting past the first page, and now you can’t even stop me from reading and understanding what I’ve read. Also, I still remember everything that I’ve read in all of these books that I’ve read. Maybe not so much books I’ve read in the past, but the books that I’ve read since july, I can still remember what I read. Obviously, not every single word or sentence, but I remember the story and how it started and went throughout the story and how it ended. I couldn’t say that a year or two ago.

So, if you have problems reading like I have, don’t let that stop you from trying. Perhaps you will end up loving reading more than anything in the world. You will like reading more than you even like watching tv. I don’t even watch TV anymore. Well, except for the two shows that I actually have that are currently on the air lol. But other than that, I’m not just sitting there watching tv. I’d rather read a book.

Ward Parker Supernatural Novels

On By Michel McDonaldIn eBook, ReadingLeave a comment

Some time in the year 2020, I was scrolling through Facebook when I started seeing these ads for a book called Snowbirds of Prey by Ward Parker, and this is what the book cover looks like.

I kept thinking that this looks just like Ellen DeGeneres, but a vampire Ellen 😂.

Ok, so here’s the deal with me. I am typically only interested in watching TV shows and reading books based on the supernatural. I don’t know why, but I’ve always been this way. I didn’t buy the ebook right away, in fact, it took maybe a week or so of seeing this Facebook ad before I finally decided to buy it.

After reading this first book, I was hooked and bought the new books as they were released. In fact, I pre-ordered them and read them as they showed up in my Kindle library.

The books aren’t serious. If I remember correctly, they are advertised as being a comedy series of books, which I’m also into.

Here are all of the books in this series called Freaky Florida. There are only 7, but that last one with the blood bag on the cover is a short story which pretty much introduced the series. I don’t know why it’s listed as book 9, but it’s the first one you should read.

These books are based on a middle aged home health nurse named Missy Mindle who takes care of retired vampires and werewolves who live in condos next to each other. The vampires live in a building called Squid Tower and the werewolves live in a building called Seaweed Manor. Oh, and Missy is a witch and they all live in Jellyfish Beach in Florida. Missy ends up helping to solve crimes with her reporter friend Matt.

At some point in the books, a new character is introduced named Darla Chesswick, who happens to be Missy’s cousin. Darla eventually gets her own series called Memory Guild.

So the Freaky Florida series ended after book 7, but Missy’s adventures don’t end there. A new series was introduced in June 2023 called Monsters of Jellyfish Beach with Missy Mindle as the main character, and she is still a nurse, but she has retired from working for the home health nurse company. Now she runs an occult shop with her business partner Luisa.

The 10th Memory Guild book is the last one, but there is a new series coming soon.

These books are fun and pretty easy to read. I say that because I have issues reading. I have a combination of ADHD, dyslexia and a learning disability, which makes reading a little difficult lol. So these books are really nice to read because I have very little difficulty reading them.

If you are into vampires, werewolves, witches, and other supernatural beings, these are the books for you. So check them out and tell me what you think.