Squidoo Article Master List

Here you will find a link link for all of the articles ("lenses") I've published to date on Squidoo, organized by subject matter.

Art and Art Tutorials:
* Creating a Classical Still Life Oil Painting
* Getting Started with Oil Painting: Recommended Materials and References
* Giorgio de Chirico
* Modern Art Quiz
* Paint a Portrait Like a Renaissance Old Master
* Painting from Photographs: How to Achieve More Realistic Results
* Renaissance Art Quiz
* Reproducing an Old Master Portrait Painting
* Tips for Painting Realistic Flesh Tones in Oil
* Using Grisaille and Glazing Techniques to Reproduce an Old Master Painting
* What is Verdaccio and How To Use It in Your Paintings
* Why Reproducing Art is An Important Learning Tool For Artists
* Yves Tanguy - Surrealist Artist

Artwork for Sale:
* Cat Portraits by Nicole Pellegrini
* Kindle and Nook Sleeves Featuring Science Fiction Art
* Podiatry Wall Art
* Space Art by Nicole Pellegrini
* Still Life Oil Paintings by Nicole Pellegrini

Coloring Pages:
* Free Cat Art Coloring Pages
* Free Iris Coloring Pages
* Free Orchid Coloring Pages

Debates and Controversies:
* Are Infertile People Annoying?
* Does Internet Slacktivism Hurt or Help Real Activism?
* Men's Rights Movement vs. Feminism

Fandom:
* Actor John Glover
* DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia: Your Survival Guide
* Dwight Schultz Fan Page
* FanFiction.Net vs. Archive of Our Own
* Is Fan Fiction Wrong?
* Slash Conventions and Slash-Friendy Conventions in the United States
* What is Band Fanfiction?
* What is Fan Art?

Food and Wine:
* BBQ Hot Dog Casserole
* Easy Paella Recipe
* For the Love of Sushi
* How to Make Pizza at Home
* Kielbasa, Sauerkraut and Potato Casserole
* Learn Italian Cooking From the Best Cookbooks Available
* Making Lard and Cooking with Lard
* My New Jersey Wine Quest
* Save Money on Groceries and Eat Healthier, Too!
* Sicilian-Style Pasta with Eggplant
* Secrets to Perfect Pasta
* Shrimp Stir Fry with Bok Choy and Wax Beans
* Simmered Summer Squash
* Top 10 Favorite Cookbooks
* Welcome to Eataly New York
* Winter White Pork Chili

Gardening:
* The Foxglove Plant: Facts and Care
* Growing Seeds From Italy

Health and Wellness:
* Infertility's Common Thread
* Living with Garlic Intolerance or Allergy
* National Infertility Awareness Week
* Raising Infertility Awareness and Coping with Fertility Struggles
* Weight Watchers Points Plus: The Problem of 29
* Weight Watchers Points Plus 2012

Interviews with Cool People:
* Portrait of an Artist: Dr. David D. Carrozzino

Jewelry and Gemstones
* Beaded Jewelry Basics
* Charoite: Stone of Transformation
* Labradorite Jewelry
* Moss Agate Jewelry
* Pietersite Jewelry - The Tempest Stone
* Rainbow Fluorite Jewelry
* Seraphinite - The Angel Stone

Music and Musicians
* Can't Stand Losing You: Surviving The Police
* Foo Fighters Drummer Taylor Hawkins: A Tribute
* Guitarist Andy Summers of The Police
* How Well Do You Know The Police?
* I Blame Coco
* MercyMe Fan Page
* The Police Tour 2007-2008: My Wild Adventures Following the Band
* My Top 10 Concert Experiences
* Roger Waters The Wall 2012 USA Tour
* Stewart Copeland: The Rhythmatist of The Police
* Stewart Copeland Soundtracks
* The Ultimate Beatles Fan Survey
* The Ultimate Duran Duran Survey
* The Ultimate Foo Fighters Fan Survey
* The Ultimate Pink Floyd Fan Survey
* The Ultimate Police Fan Survey
* The Ultimate Van Halen Fan Survey
* Who Are The Hoosiers?
* Who Is The Best Drummer in Rock Music?

Personal Pages:
* All About Sockii: Jane of All Trades
* Jewelry by Nicole Pellegrini
* Sockii Cooks! (And Eats...)
* sockii's 10 Most Recent Lenses
* sockii's lensography
* Sockii Rocks! My Music Lensography
* sockii's Winter Holiday Lensography

Travel and Destinations:
Caribbean:
* Visiting St. Kitts: A Guide for Tourists
Italy:
* Beautiful Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore
* Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper in Milan, Italy
* Rome: A Guide to the Eternal City
* A Tuscan Holiday in Siena, Italy
* Visiting Vencie: City of Romance and Mystery
London:
* One Week in London
Philadelphia:
* BYOB Dining in Philadelphia: A Guide
* Dining Out in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* Philadelphia's Magic Gardens

Winter Holidays
* 2011 Christmas Gifts for Classic Rock Fans
* About the Feast of the Seven Fishes
* Best Gifts for a Jewelry Maker
* Buy Nothing Day vs. Black Friday
* Cooking for a Holiday Party
* Gift Ideas for Your In-Laws
* Christmas Gifts for Beginning Home Cooks
* Christmas Gifts for Philadelphia Eagles Fans
* Gourmet Holiday Gifts for Italian Food Lovers
* Great Christmas Travel Destinations
* Holiday Events in Gloucester County, New Jersey
* Holiday Events in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* Holiday Gifts for Poultry Enthusiasts
* Infertility and the Holidays: A Survival Guide
* Jewelry with a Twist for the Holidays
* Klark Kent's "Yo Ho Ho" - My Favorite Christmas Song!
* Leonardo da Vinci Gift Ideas
* Make Money at Christmas Craft Fairs
* Music Box Sets for Christmas 2011
* My Top 10 Christmas Pet Peeves
* Nativity Scenes in Public Spaces: The Controversy Continues
* New Jersey Christmas Ornaments
* Our Fontanini Nativity
* Philadelphia-Themed Christmas Ornaments
* Philadelphia Union Major League Soccer Gifts
* Running a Fan-Fiction Secret Santa Exchange
* Sockii's Christmas Wishlist
* Sockii's Picks: Best Squidoo Christmas Lenses
* A Totally Awesome 80s Christmas
* The Ultimate Christmas Survey
* The Ultimate Christmas Movie Survey
* The Ultimate Christmas Music Survey
* Traditional Italian Holiday Treats

Honestly, I wish mainstream media (even Public Broadcasting Mainstream Media) would just try NOT to analyze/talk about fan culture. At all. They just inevitably mess it up and make me cringe, like they did in their recent "webisode" of a series called OFF BOOK.

OFF BOOK: Fan Art proposes to look at the creative world of fan artists, where "Limited only by the imagination of the artist, the fan art world is full of surprises and brilliance."

Only according to PBS, it seems that the world of fan artistry is limited to men.

How could they not include a single solitary woman fan artist in this nearly 10-minute program? Particularly when they even include some brief mentions of slash-themed art, an area that is basically, um, completely dominated by female fan artists? When I think back on my many years of attending media conventions, I'd say at least 90% of the most well-known and beloved fan artists in my circles were/are women: TACS, Suzan Lovett, Karen Rivers, Leah Rosenthal, Lorraine Brevig...there are countless more.

Could it be that many female fan artists - unlike the male "fans" presented by OFF BOOK - are not graphic design students/hopeful-professionals looking to build and promote a portfolio? Most female fan artists I know do it out of pure love for their fandom sources, as complete amateur artists (even if they are extremely gifted, talented, and trained in art techniques.) They aren't looking to "break in" to a graphic design job. They just want to share with others, and what little money they might make off art sales is just to pay their way to attend fannish conventions and other gatherings.

The whole program struck a really sour note in me - not just from the "outsiders" perspective on the subject that felt off, but this disturbing erasure of women's importance in fan art and general fannish history. If it bothers you as well, I encourage you to leave a comment on the PBS Arts website about it, or tweet @pbsoffbook where they might actually bother to take a look.

...to start the month of May with four lenses in Tier 1 instead of my usual two. However, I'm not sure they'll be able to all stay in T1 for the entire month, but I'll be happy if two of those stay where they are and I at least get a T2 payment out of the others.

I'm feeling a bit burned out on lenswork at the moment, as in April I really went a bit overboard and finished 14 new lenses and did a lot of work on some older ones. But that's okay as I have a lot of other things I should be focusing on this month, including getting back to my jewelry work in time for this summer's conventions, the first of which (Media*West) is only a few weeks away. I also need to get outside more as soon as the weather is less unpredictable, and work on my vegetable garden. The seedlings I started inside are getting crazy big, but we still had frost last week, and then this week was too rainy to get outside much. It is exciting though to see some of the foxglove I started as seeds last summer just getting ready to bloom. I've missed having foxglove in my garden the way my mom does, and they aren't the easiest plants to get started from seeds. It encourages me to pick up some more seeds this week and see what other varieties I can get started for next year.

Well, let's see. I published my entry for the Squidcademy Awards, a lens about Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, on Saturday. By Sunday it was featured on the Squidoo homepage for the week and it's already ranked at #2,683 - nearly in Tier 1. Of course the question will be if it can keep performing like that after May 1 when I can begin earning Tier payments from it...

Then, on Tuesday, a lens I'd just done a little touch-up work on to try to improve its rank received a Purple Star and got a write up on SquidooHQ for Purple Spotlight. The lens, on a pretty obscure niche topic in painting (Verdaccio), jumped from about 11,000 in rank to #742. Of course, not soon enough to average out in T1 for April but I should at least get a T2 payment for it now, and perhaps it can keep building momentum for a while.

So yep, a good week for Squidoo and a good way to end up the month, looking at 2 lenses easily averaging in T1 and probably my most ever in T2 at one time. Things just keep getting better and better...no wonderful Squidoo is so addictive!

This post is in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, April 22-28 2012, and the Bloggers Unite challenge.

The Infertility Community on-line can be a wonderfully supportive place. In a world that so often ignores the pain and hardships of discovering you suffer from infertility, it is a huge relief and blessing to be able to find others who have been there, who understand, whom you can rant and rave to when faced with insensitivity and lack of understanding from friends, family members, and even random strangers who don't get why a casual question like "Do you have children?" can hit you like a slap in the face.

Except, sometimes I actually feel like I don't belong in the infertility support community, or am not as welcome in it as others. Because I'm not going through any fertility treatments yet - nor am I sure if I ever will, or pursue alternative family building methods including adoption.

So much of the emphasis on a lot of IF messageboards, blogs and Facebook pages is about fertility treatment discussions, triumphs and tragedies with them, and I totally accept and am fine with that, really. But...what about those of us who are not sure we want to go down that path? Right now it's a simple matter of me not even being able to consider it, because I'm not in a financial position to do so. I went as far as the first $500 bloodwork screening last year, and then was told the next step would be a laparoscopy (my second; the first I needed because of a dermoid ovarian cyst cost me over $5000 several years ago) and that's when I stopped. I'd only just finally bought a house that cost me nearly all of my life savings because, being self-employed, I couldn't get a mortgage or even then a loan against my house. The idea of needing anywhere from $10,000 - 50,000+ more to undergo treatments that may or may not work, it's just not gonna happen for me right now.

Beyond the financial aspects, I'm not sure I want to put myself and my partner through the emotional and physical turmoil of IF treatments. I see how difficult it's been on friends of mine (both "real life" friends and "on-line" ones), many of whom had their relationships nearly fall apart from the stress - some even were driven to such depression that they became nearly suicidal. Adoption is a possibility I have been starting to research, but again, money is a factor, as well as mine and my partners' ages, the fact we aren't married yet, and a lot of other reasons that I know will not make the process particularly easy for us whether we were to try domestic or international adoption.

I do want to have a child, but I also love the life I have right now. I love my partner, I love our relationship, I love saving what spare money we are able to sock aside to enjoy traveling and art and making a wonderful life together. I'm not willing to put that life on hold for something that may be impossible or cost us too much beyond the financial price tag. And sometimes I feel like, within the Infertility Community, that means I don't want a baby "enough". Because I'm not willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of that dream. And it is still very much a dream that I hold on to, but right now, perhaps, I have to put more of my efforts into coming to terms with a future that may mean my family remains a family of two (plus cats), not three or more. A child-less future - not child-free, because I still consider that a term that implies an active choice of not wanting children. I want children, I just can't seem to make it happen naturally. And so I'm left right now trying to find peace and acceptance, giving it up to God and His Will as to what my future will hold.

So yes, I'd like to see more room in the Infertility Community for those who are trying to accept a childless life. I'd like to see organizations like RESOLVE give us more support too, and not make it seem like this is merely the "last resort option" for those who have tried every method desperately to have a child and failed. I don't consider myself a failure; I just consider myself someone who wants to accept and enjoy the life I have now without sacrificing it to a dream that might never be realized. Don't ignore me because I'm following a different path in my infertility journey. Don't treat me different if my choices are different from your own. Let's all learn to respect and support each other, please, because we face enough challenges and misunderstandings from the fertile world already.

Infertility 101
Learn more about National Infertility Awareness Week
My personal page about NIAW

So, yesterday I published my lens about Philadelphia's Magic Gardens - my entry for the Squidcademy Awards contest. And in one day, the lens has already not just scored 100% (meaning getting 20+ likes among other criteria) but is featured on the Squidoo homepage.

Dang! Whether or not it wins the contest, I'm pretty chuffed at how this one seemed to hit a target just right.

With today marking the beginning of 2012's National Infertility Awareness Week, I wanted to begin by sharing links to my Squidoo pages all about Infertility Awareness. Later this week I'll be participating in the blog challenge, I just have to work on editing my entry for that first.

I also will be completing a self-imposed "SquidAngel Blessing Quest", to find and highlight the best Squidoo articles on infertility and infertility-related subjects on the site. Truthfully, sadly, there is an awful lot of garbage about infertility on Squidoo - lots of gimmicky TOS-violating lenses promoting scammy ebooks and "Miracle Pregnancy Cures", which I hate. So it's time for me to do a small part to try to promote the GOOD lenses that are there on the subject. I hope mine listed below are part of the good ones, and I look forward to sharing more excellent resources soon.

Are Infertile People Annoying?
Infertility is a subject I spend a considerable amount of time researching and writing about for the internet. Recently I looked at the search traffic to my ...

Infertility and the Holidays: A Survival Guide
When you're dealing with infertility, every day can present challenges to your mental health and well-being. Even so, the holiday season can be especially di...

Infertility's Common Thread
Infertility is a disease which can leave its victims feeling very isolated in today's society, with our strong emphasis on having children and the prevalent ...

Raising Infertility Awareness and Coping with Fertility Struggles
Fertility is a fact of life most people take for granted. Most assume that if you want to get pregnant and have children, it will be easy once you find the r...

National Infertility Awareness Week
National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) is a campaign sponsored by RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association. The goal of this annual event is to brin...

Despite saying we wouldn't get our Squidoo payday this month until after the 16th, it actually showed up on my dashboard today. Yay! My second month earning over $200 on Squidoo. I'm happy. I have a goal to get to $500 a month, but I know that will take a while.

Meanwhile, I've been cranking out more "quick" lenses which I may eventually put up for sale, once I build a few niches and establish if they're salable or not. To date, these are my potentially "for sale" lenses:

* Moss Agate Jewelry
* Rainbow Fluorite Jewelry
* Labradorite Jewelry
* MercyMe Fan Page
* I Blame Coco

I of course reserve the right to not sell any of these if they suddenly shoot up into T1 in the meantime :)

So I've been following the Buying and Selling Squidoo Lenses Facebook group for a while, even though I've never bought a lens before - and I'm not especially interested in doing so, either. I like working on my lenses from the ground up, using my own words, etc.

But I'm thinking about working on some new lenses with the sole purpose of selling them. Not lenses that would take an awful lot of time to set up, but good basic starter lenses for people that are more interested in doing things like constantly monitoring Amazon links for expiring/sold out products and stuff like that. Which happens a lot on jewelry lenses, and I find them tedious to maintain.

So I basically want to try to create a starter set of about 20-30 lenses, ones that shouldn't take me more than 1-2 hours each to build and basically promote, and then see if I can sell them after a month's "test marketing". Because while I hate to give away lenses that might eventually become big successes, it would be nice to get some quick cash for lenses that don't take me a lot of time to build and create.

I'm going to be starting with jewelry sales lenses featuring different, more unusual stones. This is the first one I've created for this project/idea:

Moss Agate Jewelry.

My favorite conspiracy theory so far regarding Squidoo and the new duplicate content filter? Is that it's all part of an evil liberal government conspiracy to shut down conservative and (Christian) religious content on the internet. Because if a Bible scripture lens got locked for duplicate content, it's OBVIOUSLY all part of some greater left-wing conspiracy to censor the 'net and stifle right-wing thoughts.

Clearly. Of course. Because Glen Beck, Jesse Ventura and their fellow ditto-heads said it, it must be true.



(Note I'm not even a liberal. I'm a Libertarian. Which makes me more subject to mocking than just about anyone ELSE these days.)

Meanwhile, I'll just keep writing original content about things that I love and know so well, I don't need to copy and paste from elsewhere. Like my recent Stewart Copeland Soundtrack Discography. Obscure topic? Maybe. But it's what I know, and what I like.