Who's Behind The Scenes?
Ok, so you're curious about the people behind the scenes at Custom-Graphics-Plus.com? Well, I'm not trying to disappoint but, "about us" really means "about me". There's no big company, not even a small company. The one and only person behind the scenes is just me ..... a stay at home mom of 4 children living in southern Ontario Canada.
I live here with my oldest son who is 13 (he's officially a teenager now ... YIKES!!), my youngest son who is 3 and my 2 daughters ages 11 and 10. I have a rather large Chocolate Lab named Caesar and a rather large white bunny (ok, he's fat) named Casper. I have a wonderful, sometimes weird, but always loving and supportive family.
To complete the picture....I have a really great guy by my side who for some unknown reason doesn't seem to mind this madhouse and is still hanging around. (Must be love? Either that or it's just coz I feed him.)
For my birthday this past year he bought me a new puppy! A cute and furry, adorable and cuddly, black and white Shih-Tzu named Pokey. I am now thinking we should have called him "Puddles" instead. Hmmm ....
I enjoy spending time with my family, reading, drawing, music, movies, theatre, animals, camping and the crackling of nighttime campfires. Of course I also really love working on the computer creating graphics and web pages!
How It All Began
I was a single mom, with 3 children under the age of 3. No, it wasn't easy. Yes, I would do it again and I wouldn't change it for the world. But that's a whole other story and this one is about my computer experience of lack thereof.
You see, back in high school, computers were a novelty (I'm not THAT old, but I'm old enough), they were something you saw the librarian use. Interesting things, but not so interesting that I wanted to get too close to one.
And so I didn't ....
Up until my late 20's, I had never sat down in front of a computer or even turned one on, much less did anything special on one.
Fate and Devine Intervention
In fact, I probably wouldn't be writing this right now had fate not intervened. I actually won my very first computer in a raffle! I bought 5, $10 tickets and then promptly forgot about them until the phone call.
I was informed that I had actually won the top prize, a home computer system! It cost me 50 bucks. After I picked myself up off the floor I sat there in disbelief. My own computer! I was extremely excited about it, but I was also extremely scared. I mean, hey .... my own computer. Yikes!
Wow, what could be better than winning something like that? A new car maybe. But let's not get too crazy.
In any case, I did what every person that just got a brand new computer would do. Yes, you guessed it. I left everything in the boxes and gave them a new home. My attic.
Isn't that what everyone does when they get a new computer?
Ok, so maybe not...but what did I know about computers except that I was scared to death I would hit the wrong button and blow it up or something.
Obviously, I eventually came to my senses....
.... A year later.
Yes, I let that computer collect dust in my attic for a whole year.
Guilt and curiosity got the better of me and I finally mustered up the courage to dig it out from the cluttered attic. With anticipation and dread I took the plunge and hooked it up. Err, ok so I called someone to come and hook it up for me.
Now, I'm not exactly sure what I expected, but I remember breathing a sigh of relief when it didn't blow up. All systems were a go!
And I was determined to actually DO something with it. So after timidly staring at it for 3 hours, it happened ....
.... I played Solitaire for the next 3 months.
Woohoo, yes I was cookin' now!
Well, maybe not.
And even the most addicting card game can get old after playing it a few thousand times. Since I wasn't having any deep down desires to be a professional Solitaire player I figured it was past time.
I needed to move up in the world. In the world wide web, that is.
Venturing Into WWW Land
Word of caution here, moving up in the world of the internet isn't always a step in the right direction.
I was talking to a friend one day and she was going on and on about how you can talk to people from all over the world. And it was just "so cool"! That's how I discovered chat rooms and ICQ. Ummm, I don't think I need to elaborate on that subject do I?
Let's just say it was an experience and for a completely clueless newly introduced "chatter", you get initiated into the darker side of chatting real quick.
It's not all bad though I did get to meet and talk to some really interesting people from all around the world and they genuinely wanted to know more than just "what I was wearing".
A Right Turn
As a fluke, just surfing around the net one day I came across a website called "Geocities". "Build a free website", they said. "It's point and click easy." Well, I knew I could handle point and click, so I decided to create a personal website about me and my family.
That was it! I was hooked.
I started looking around at other people's personal websites and got ideas for my own. This led me to surfing different graphics websites where I could use other people's designs and creations.
This is how I spent the next few months. Surfing family websites, personal websites, a million different "this is my dog's page" sites and adding new things to my own site.
Along the way, something weird happened. I realized I was getting comfortable being on my computer. In fact I rather enjoyed it. I no longer stared at it in fear from across the room. I stopped holding my breath every time I pushed the "on" button.
As my website grew, so did my knowledge and my burning desire to learn even more.
Now instead of shying away from a new adventure, I was taking initiative and went in search of learning new things.
Again, fate intervened as one of my good ICQ friends gave me Paint Shop Pro and it was love at first sight. I began spending many a sleepless night learning how to use it to create my own graphics. It was so much fun!
About this same time, I was getting even more frustrated with the point and click website builders. They were becoming too restricting. I wanted more 'freedom' to do the things the way I wanted them done. And I didn't like all the extra code they dumped in my pages either. (Picky aren't I?) So I also started teaching myself HTML and how to code my own pages.
I wanted to know how the pages were "written". What made them tick. I wanted to create my own "pretty graphics" for my site and for other people to use on their websites.
Fast Forward A Year or Two
I needed to take a break from the computer. My cousin and one of my best friends was diagnosed with skin cancer and after a little over 2 years, she lost the battle at age 29. She passed away leaving behind 2 little girls ages 4 and 1 and half.
Her husband was understandably not doing well, he was dealing with his own grief over losing his wife while trying to help his girls cope with the loss of their mother. He asked for help. So I packed up my kids and we moved in with him.
I am happy to report that he has moved on and has found love again. The girls are older now and doing just fine.
I also moved on when the time was right and met a wonderful man of my own. We had a baby and I grew from a struggling single mom of 3 to a very happy stay at home mom of 4. :o}
Fast Forward To Today
I am back online again full force, doing what I love to do and trying to help support our family at the same time. Which brings us right to this very website!
I know there is still so much more about creating graphics and building webpages for me to master, but I continue to learn new things every day. It's a never ending journey that I am most willing to take and this website is a small part of me sharing that journey with YOU!
I hope you enjoy yourself along the way as much as I know I will. *Smile*
I look forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences with you!
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