Vanilla Mist

I know there are people from different parts of the world that come to this blog. My my stats show that most people are from the US, England and Germany, but I see visitors from several different countries. As I was looking through my stats, I started thinking “Wouldn’t it be nice to actually know these people instead of just be looking at ‘them’ as stats, charts, aggregated data and IP addresses? Where do they live, what do they do, what do they think, why are they here?”

I have many friends from all across the globe and I find it incredibly interesting to meet people from other countries. This goes way back, I started penpalling when I was around 12 I think, when the internet wasn’t even around. I would exchange letters and small gifts with boys and girls from other countries and I remember feeling very excited every time a new letter arrived in the mail. In each letter, I could see a different perspective on life, I was fascinated by it. Then I went abroad a few times and not only did I experience some of these different perspectives, but I also ended up making friends who I stayed in touch with for several years afterwards. I wonder how many more people I would have been able to meet if the internet was around in my teen years and early twenties. Wow, that would have been great!

So, I was sitting here thinking about this and decided to write this post. And ask you: Who are you? Where do you live? What do you do? Why are you here? I’m really interested. So, if you’re reading this, please introduce yourself, either in the comments or send me an email if you care about being more detailed or would rather keep it more private. (mpatricia at gmail.com). I realize this could generate either zero replies or so many that I might have trouble writing back, anything can happen, but I think it’s worth a shot. Even if we have no interests in common whatsoever, I would still like to know who you are. Be creative, if you feel so inclined. Cite a quote that means something to you, share a point of view on any given subject, I don’t know, give me a little bit of your own perspective. Even just basic info will do, if you feel it will be nice to introduce yourself but don’t care to share further details. I’m sure there are plenty of cool interesting people reading this blog, so, I’d really like to know who you are. Go ahead, don’t be shy! Post a comment or send me an email, as you will. And who knows, I might even make some cool new friends.

Share This

Hi, folks, I’m back for some updates. Things are slowly falling back into place for me, and the big news is that I will be moving back to São Paulo next month, after 4 years living in a small quiet town. The move is due to professional reasons, I’m finally getting myself a real office and right now I’m working on the buniness model plan with a partner agency. As some of you know, I’m specializing in corporate blogging and this will be the main activity of my new business – as opposed to regular website development. This has been keeping my mind busy and away from personal issues that had taken over my life a couple of months ago. While I still have to deal with them, I’m still moving forward with my life and quite thrilled to see new horizons opening up for me professionally.

Thanks for those of you who took the time to write me with support words.

Thanks again for your patience waiting for the release of Connections 2.0. It’s still not on top of my priorities, but it’s getting closer, so don’t give up on me.

Last, but not least, I’m planning on updating this blog more frequently. Before the release of Connections, this used to be a more personal blog and now that most people come here and read my feeds to monitor for future releases, I became a little confused about the purpose of this blog. So I take personal posts to my blog in portuguese, but I’m thinking maybe I should post here more often too and not just about wordpress themes. Let’s see if I can do that without boring my audience.

Share This

Just a quick note to those of you who emailed me and are waiting for an answer, my inbox is very very full right now, as I have been sick some days. I will answer all emails, just please be patient because I need to prioritize client emails. Thanks!

Share This

I still haven’t been able to pile down all my emails and have not felt very well in the past couple of days, so I still have a lot of email reading to do. I am also working on 2 client’s projects and in desperate need for more coders to work with…

In the middle of all this, I did however manage to finish almost finish the first version of my personal website:

http://www.patriciamuller.com

Please stop by and let me know what you think. It’s pretty simple, but I had been postponing it for a long time and for the time being I’m happy with the results. I will add more sections in the near future, though.

I feel a bit frustrated that I’m not being able to take more commercial projects, even though I have been receiving several requests. If you are reading this and can code WordPress themes, PLEASE get in touch with me.

Share This

I have over 500 emails to read. No kidding, last time I checked there were 523 unread messages sitting in my inbox. And that’s just my main account. So if you wrote me, I might take a few days to answer back, it’s nothing pesonal!!!

Share This

Here’s where I’ve been, although I’ve olny been to 2 states in the US – and the way it shows makes it look like I’ve been all around – but still fun:

create your own visited country map

Places I still want to visit:

Canada, Australia, Japan, Argentina, India, all remaining countries in Europe that I haven’t been to, specially Scotland, Portugal and Spain. And I will go back to England as many times as I get the chance to!

In Europe, I’ve been to: Austria, Belgium, Germany, England, France, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Vatican City, Italy and Wales.

create your personalized map of europe

Share This

Share This

I have been pretty busy in the past week or so. I haven’t even had time to add the usual things to the sidebar since I started using this theme on the blog. Yesterday I added the tag-board, but haven’t even finished the static pages yet. Meanwhile, Sadish and I have been working on two client’s projects, there is a significant amount of inquiries that we received via wpthemes.info, we are working on a couple of projects of our own and also on some new themes. My email inbox is piling up like crazy, so those of you who have emailed me, if I haven’t yet responded to you, don’t take it personally, I will pretty soon!!! My husband keeps asking me if I don’t get to sleep anymore. That’s how bad it is!!! And I’m feeling extremely energetic while all this is going on. Who needs to sleep, right?

Share This

I haven’t posted for a while, I know… I have many projects going on at the same time, that’s why… Besides it’s Carnaval here in Brazil and although I don’t go dancing or anything, my sister came here and I’ spending some time with her. She just got engaged (yay!!!) and she came with her fiance. We had a nice dinner together yesterday, watched American Idol and talked.

I have other news too: I’m starting my very first commercial project this week (the 2 projects mentionsed in this entry have been postponed). I will design and code it myself. It’s a simple project, I will not make much money, but it’s definitely a milestone for me. I still have so much to learn, but I probalby won’t be coding every project myself. Instead I will concentrate on designing and and when more complex projects come along I will work with a programmer. I can’t really do everything on my own: sell new projects, take care of the business as a whole, design, code, manage, write documentation. It’s too much. I can handle simple projects. But if I was to be 100% responsible for complex projects, I’d also have to apply some serious time learning php, which I can’t really do right now if I want to sell more projects. My main background and expertise is in web project management and, more recently, designing. This means I am really good at writing documentation, on budgeting, on setting deadlines and making sure everything happens on time, on leading staff, dealing with clients, organizing chaos, defining strategies, setting priorities, understanding and keeping up to date with all technologies, analyzing the project as a whole – design, coding, programming, information architecture, usability, navigation, marketing strategies, media planning, brand-design adequacy, etc, etc, etc… It’s a multidisciplinary work, but it’s management. You don’t actually get to code or design, you lead the team that does these things. I did – however – become a designer nonetheless. This came from personal practice, studying and also from the interaction with professional designers. I feel confident in designing these projects: I think I manage better than I design and I certainly design better than I code – or program for that matter. So I will focus on what I do best and outsource the rest. This will allow me to concentrate on the business, which is, by the way, the priority.

I’m just thinking out loud here, I guess… But anyway, these are the news.

Share This

I have a new HD and have spent the last couple of days reinstaling everything, from the operational system to yahoo messenger, making backups, transferring data from programs, importing email and all those joys of installing a new HD. There is still a lot to do, so I apologize for the – still – unanswered emails and such, but I´ve had this HD sitting here, in the box, for several months and had been postponing this change because, well… you know why, it´s a major pain to go through all the configurations, reinstalations, etc… But I felt the need to finally put it to use, because I have a couple of projects that might start this week, both commercial projects and therefore I must have everything in order before the week starts, a faster computer, more organized directories, so I built up courage, closed my eyes and went straight ahead. Now it´s almost done.

Also, being on this flow of “courage”, I will probably upgrade my version of Wordpress as well, as I do want to use the recent themes Sadish and I have been developing, along with the nice new features in the newest version. But one thing at a time, right now I´m getting ready to spend the rest of my sunday installing and configuring everything to start the week able to kick off the new projects in case I get the “ok” from the clients tomorrow.

On a more personal note, it was Kat´s birthday on Saturday and I didn´t post anything here for obvious reasons (I didn´t even have a browser yet), but Kat, I hope you had a fantastic birthday and that your party was loads of fun. I had my thoughts with you, dear…

Share This