As the cashier was ringing up the last of my groceries she informed me that she couldn’t sell me the six boxes of frozen fish sticks that were moving slowly towards us on the conveyor. In disbelief I asked her why, to which she replied that she was only allowed to use one bag.

I began to search my mind trying to remember hearing any news of a plastic bag shortage in the area, or maybe it was a “green thing” and they were cutting back on bags and no one told me… my mind continued to race as I looked to the long line of shoppers behind me for help.

The woman directly behind me tried to be helpful and suggested that the cashier ring me up twice. The cashier made some comment about loosing her job if she rang up the fish sticks. Now my confusion began to turn to embarrassment as I told the cashier the sign posted on the freezer door said $4.99 each and the only reason I was buying them was that I was saving $2.50 on each one. To which she responded, that yes, she was aware of that… Read the rest of this entry »

Winter was nearing it’s end as Pantone LLC released the PANTONE® Fashion Color Report Fall 2010. With the bright colors of spring and summer still months away it was hard for me to get excited about fall colors.

Now that spring is finally here I’ve taken a peek at the fall season’s color pallet. All that I can say is “move over spring and summer because fall is going to be gorgeous”. We’ll all want to include these trendy colors in our fall wardrobe, and of course, in any advertising and marketing promotions that are scheduled to release in the fall.

To help you do this I’d like to give you my “Top 10 Fashion Colors for Fall 2010″ bookmark. You can use it as a bookmark or take it along with you to the shopping mall to use as a guide. It even includes CMYK values for my graphic designer friends. Click here and download yours now.

If you’ve ever worked in an advertising department chances are that you are familiar with the phrase “Cheap, fast, or good — pick one.” In other words, if you want it cheap, it won’t be fast or good. If  you want it fast, it won’t be cheap or good. And, if you want it good, it won’t be cheap or fast.

Nowhere does this ring any truer than when hiring a freelance graphic designer, copywriter, or photographer. Here is how I like to explain it:

If you want it cheap - hire the inexperienced. A newbie freelancer may have adequate skills but  can be slow. They have no experience in what it takes to sell the product or service. You’ll have very pretty advertising but without the desired results.

If you want it fast - even an experienced, knowledgeable freelancer can make costly mistakes. This is what happens when anything is done in a hurry.

If you want it  good - a trusted freelance professional will be given time to do the work correctly. Your advertising will produce successful results and your company will profit from the investment.

Advertising is like most things in life… you get exactly what you pay for.

Remember the phone call I received telling me that I had the ghosts of two women living in my home and one was there with me at that very moment? If your memory is like mine you may need it refreshed, so quickly reread my October 2009 post “Gadzooks—it must be Halloween!”, I’ll wait here until you return…

It was mid-October when I called Wendy, assistant to Mary Ann Winkowski (consultant to the CBS hit television show “Ghost Whisperer”). Wendy, according to Mary Ann’s web site, does paranormal investigation and earthbound spirit and negative energy removal, up to a forty mile radius from Cleveland. As my good luck would have it, Wendy was scheduled to “ghostbust” a home just a few miles away from mine the following week.

When Wendy arrived at my front door she was greeted by my curious husband, Tim, our niece, Danielle, our many, many cats, our dog, and me. My first impression of Wendy was that she seemed very nice and normal, at least by my standards, so I began to worry about the impression my furry hoard was making on her. We were able to sequester our dog in another room but the cats, oh, the cats — how they  loved her and wanted to climb into her interesting satchel that contained sea salt and other paranormal type goodies. Fortunately Wendy likes cats and has a great tolerance for their curiosity.

We settled into the living room where we spent over an hour seated directly across from Wendy, hanging on to every word that she said. She told us that the ghosts of the two elderly women were there because they liked being around Tim. One lived in my upstairs office and the other in the downstairs family room where I sometimes work also. Apparently they liked to “keep an eye on me” during the day while Tim was at work. While alive, these women had spent a lot of time around the corner at the Chippewa Lake Amusement Park during its glory days and were most likely regulars at the popular Starlight Ballroom. Wendy gave us two names but they were common names and a search on the internet revealed nothing.

At one point Wendy sprinkled sea salt across each doorway into the house and also around the bed. Tim helped her tape Quince seeds above all the entrances, including the attic openings and basement doorways. While they were doing this the house became 2—3 degrees warmer and has remained that way all winter. When I remarked about feeling unusually warm, Wendy said that a house with a ghost will always be cold. As she was gathering her things, preparing to leave, she stopped suddenly, looked at us seriously and asked if we knew a man who had been killed in a hunting accident…she was picking up the tragic death of my brother, Danielle’s father, the previous year. This was very unnerving and we spent some time discussing his death. Later, when Wendy was leaving she assured us that our house was no longer haunted and that our visitors were now outside, free to move on to another house or wherever it is that ghosts go.

Some interesting things began to happen almost immediately. (1) The next morning the two cats that called my upstairs office “home” for five years decided it really was okay to come downstairs and join us in the family room, (2) during the day I felt more relaxed and at night I stopped grinding my teeth, no longer needing to wear a night guard, (3) our black and white cat, Cookie stopped walking into invisible walls and (4) the many odd, unexplainable things stopped happening, well, until just a few weeks ago…

Early one morning Tim called out to me from the family room saying that the brass ships lamp on the desk was rocking for no apparent reason. The lamp is designed to gently rock back and forth with the motion of a ship. The lamp continued to rock sporadically on it’s own for the rest of the day, as we both wondered—are they back?