Wednesday, May 31, 2023
I have not posted as much as I thought I would this spring. I have been distracted with a medical emergency and a number of projects I have been trying to complete.

It appears everything is better than expected and I am trying to complete some of my spring time projects.
Hope to get back on schedule within the month.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Yesterday, I installed new scones on the garage. Originally, I was a little concerned because I was unsure whether I would get on a ladder to do this.
In late April when I installed the new sconce on the front porch to house the security camera, I was not concerned because I only needed a stepladder. I have a slight fear of heights.
My brother offered to install the new garage door sconces, however, recently while watching a Youtube video- I noticed the guy (Ox in the Shop) taking his father-in-law's advice on how to handle construction on a high ceiling and thought it might work for me.
I placed a painter's ladder behind me so that I could stay on the first rung, use my back to lean on one side of the "V" of the ladder, and reach what I needed to reach. It worked.
If I only needed the first rung, why was it so scary?
Several years ago, I tried to replace the LED bulb in one of the old garage scones. The lantern had to be unscrewed from the top- which was quite high. I had problems getting one of the screws out so I tried to get off the ladder, which was on the incline of the driveway. I lost my balance and hyper extended my knee. It unnerved me so I never changed the bulb.
The following photos show my handy work from yesterday's efforts.

I had several problems, however pretty happy that project is complete. How do I know how to install electrical things like this? Years ago when I bought my first place, my father showed me how to ground a wire and put black with black wires using a twisty and then the white wires. I wanted a dimmer switch in my dining area.
I was so pleased with how all of this turned out that I decided to trim back the boxwoods and azalea bushes in the front of the house. While doing this, I tripped on the arched bricks that edge the garden and skinned up my legs and hit my head. I am okay.
Items discussed in this post...

Saturday, May 13, 2023
I am looking into a new business venture, so I have continued research into the online world of content creation.
I have to say, it is not that I think others have not thought of these ideas- they have, its more that sometimes content is hard to find or lost and I am researching in an attempt to find a unique solution.
For instance- I often search Youtube for terms like:
Day in the life of a...
and mostly surprised by the results of my search.
The following table shows Youtube sites I visit on a regular basis. The data includes the number of subscribers, and the estimated yearly revenue of the channel according to noxinfluencer.com or Starstat.yt.
Channel | Description | Subs | Annual Revenue |
---|---|---|---|
Amber Baldwin | YouTuber & Entrepreneur | 73.2K | $21,6352 |
Athan Wright | Living life at Duke University | 1.68K | $2622 |
Cherissa Lindsay | Lifestyle / College / Fashion / Travel | 2.04K | $3392 |
DominiqueSachse | YouTuber / Author | 1.84M | $248,7812 |
Erin Byrd | Real Estate / Lifestyle / Education | 287 | $ 25.551 |
Hannah Elise | 24 Y/O College Grad Living in NYC | 758K | $99,9542 |
Leah Megan | Video Diary / Final Year at University | 36.1K | $4,339.851 |
LetsTurnItUpWorld | Tanya and Dave from ‘Turn It Up World’ | 62.7K | $61,2632 |
Life Uncontained | Texas Dream Build Debt-Free Off Grid Shipping Container Home | 1.37M | $407,4792 |
LivinFearless | Fashion / Lifestyle / Travel | 111K | $6,522.551 |
Marcos Rico Peng | Cal Men's Swimming Team. Recent Grad. Now Software Engineer in NYC | 61.2K | $12,541.41 |
Ox In The Shop | Drew & Woodworking | 16.5K | $1,9772 |
ROSA GOLD | Mobile Home / Tiny Home Renovation / Online Shop 📍Germany | 30.3K | $18,874.151 |
Scout The City | Fashion Content Creator | 51.9K | $14,2282 |
Shealyn Ari'el | Home / Lifestyle / Self Care | 1.1K | $94.91 |
Simply Nikki | Lifestyle / Beauty / Decor / Mum Life | 529K | $30,3972 |
Tech Mentor Maria | Tech, Career, Personal Finance, Healthy Habits, Travel 📍NYC | 6.85K | $1,887.051 |
Young Lady Business | Lifestyle Vlogs / Decorating | 155K | $56,4602 |
1noxinfluencer.com | |||
2StarStat.yt |
Of the Youtube sites I visit on a regular basis, you may notice- I tend to love watching creators who film the process of building on or updating their living conditions. I also like college students discussing their studies and small business owners discussing all things related to running their businesses.
The other area I am concerned about- the amount of effort to create content for online consumption and the relatively low ROI- both in terms of time and the cost to own the equipment for these efforts.

Monday, May 08, 2023
In a recent post, I discuss my old leather day planner.
On Friday, May 5, 2023 I decided to research day planner applications for my iPad Mini and downloaded the program shown in the following illustrations.

Yesterday (Sunday), rather than scream about the latest issues with my web hosts, I decided to wash (laundry), cook, work a little on a new database/Java JDBC servlet, and customize one of the templates that came with the AJournal program.
The reasons I chose the AJournal app for my iPad Mini include:
- User ratings
- Icons available within the program
- Multiple templates to edit and add too
- Writable
I am pretty happy with this free offering, though I did find one or two glitches.

Thursday, May 04, 2023
Since the beginning of the year (2023), I have had a number of problems with my new real estate site.

I installed the core site area on a subdomain (realty.reginathomas.studio), because I decided to use the WordPress CMS.
I used Wordpress quite a bit in the past, however in 2011 decided the program's programmers changed too many core features for new releases.
In addition, my web hosting services regularly requested I allow the updates for outdated Wordpress installations. This meant I had to stop what I was doing and "fix" any problems that arose because of a new Wordpress update.
This was very time consuming, so I moved on to Thingamablog.
The main site (reginathomas.studio) area is a Thingamablog. I use the main site area as a blog and the subdomain (realty.reginathomas.studio) to maintain property listings.
When (March 2022), I initially installed Wordpress for my new real estate site- the Wordpress version was 5.9.2.

In March 2023, when I began having issues with the automatic updates installed on my site, I changed the wp-config.php to disable the automatic Wordpress updates. See the following illustration.

My current Wordpress version is 6.1.1 and no longer works. The latest release of Wordpress is 6.2.
I spent most of yesterday researching this problem with no luck. It was almost as if someone else was online at the same time changing my .htaccess file as I was trying different options. The error is a 403 code which is normally very easy to correct.
Long story short, I have updated most of the links to the Wordpress site to the blog on the main area. When I stop screaming (get off my site), I will look at this issue again.

Monday, April 24, 2023
During the summer months, Washington and the surrounding areas can get pretty hot and sticky. When I do need to go out- I like being cool & stylish.
When I was younger, I found that classic styles suited me, even if it seemed they would also suit an older woman.
Today, though I still have many of my classic suits and dresses, they are now- more than a little tight and not made of today's popular stretchy fabrics.
The good news, I am losing weight. That said, I prefer the stretchier fabrics I have grown used to, and though I do no get out as much now- have been looking for a summer style I can dress up or down if the need arises.
I wanted to go with what works for me- and the style shown in the following images- is similar in style to some of my older summer dresses.
The first set of images are my color choices.
The remaining color options...
Though a little short (my older dresses were short too), I think I can get away with the length, and need only worry about my arms.
