Norwest Designs

Free Resource For At Home Caregivers

NWdesigns — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:51:01 +0000

As some of you may know, my husband and I have been caregivers for his 86 year old mother who moved in with us just about two years ago. It has been both a rewarding and challenging journey thus far. Mom suffers from Vascular Dementia due to a stroke that she suffered. One of the biggest challenges daily for her and for us has been in the realm of helping her to satisfy the need for ‘What Day Is It’ …. no amount of circling the date on the calendar nor helping to remind her through the day worked. Also because her cognition/comprehension was also impaired Mom has not been able to enjoy reading typical content such as the newspaper or even Reader’s Digest (though flipping through them does knock a few minutes off the long clock of the day).

In an effort to provide Mom with ‘something’ that would both give her something ‘tangible’ she could trust to answer the question of “What Day Is It” … and to give her a tidbit of content that she could in fact read and comprehend and even interact with I created something that I called my Morning Pages. They went through a few rounds of ‘versions’ until I finally found the one that worked. After several weeks of giving these to Mom, I realized that there may be other people out there in similar situations who need this very thing to help their day and the boredom and needs of their care recipients … so without further ado … I’m quite happy and proud to announce the launch of my site www.day-pages.com where The Morning Pages can be downloaded by anyone for Free.

Click to View Larger Image

Or Go to the Site: www.Day-Pages.com

If you know any one who is a caregiver (at home or professional) who might be able to make use of this please send them the link to the site.

Great ‘Almost Free’ Mailing List Service

NWdesigns — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:06:56 +0000

Constant Contact used to be the standard email newsletter and marketing campaign online service. Well, I’ve found a much better service in “Mail Chimp”!

What makes their service better beyond the much more reasonable pricing is their admin flexibility and management. You can easily set up multiple topic mailing lists and really nice design tool options!

I’m using with one of my current client project now for their Quote of The Week campaign that we’ll be launching in July so I’ll get even more hands on testing to report back about.

If you’re needing a good free-to-affordable newsletter or mailing list service check them out here: www.mailchimp.com

One Month Later

NWdesigns — Tue, 22 May 2012 23:11:39 +0000

This new ‘smaller’ less jazzy website it taking some getting use to! I’m finding myself wanting to design back in all the big-wig bells and whistles that I generally have on my websites. I have to keep in mind that the intent behind redesigning, and redefining, my business presentation was to represent myself more accurately for new clients.

Etsy compared to Ebay is a good comparison. When you look at ads on ebay you generally feel detached and removed from the sellers and in many cases even the products you’re looking at. When you go to Esty however, you kind of feel like you’ve been invited into someone’s backyard or inhouse studio. You don’t question for a moment that there’s a real person there and that the product you’re looking at had a lot of creativity and care put into it’s creation.

Any web designer’s website is a continual work in progress, and it’s generally the last one on the list to get any real attention. Maybe having this be more of an online ‘home’ for my work and clients will change that.

Site Goes Live Today!

NWdesigns — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:10:57 +0000

Today will be the first full run day of the site. More development to do of course but all the base elements are in place and can reinstall the SEO elements and Google Tracking! As soon as the site is truly complete I’ll begin the ‘real’ blog which will included project development tips and time-savers, WordPress tutorials and resources, marketing tidbits, and more!

New WordPress Theme In Place

NWdesigns — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 00:14:42 +0000

Well, just in time to set sail into the better weather months up here in the pacific northwest — I’m launching a new (and much improved) website design. The CMS platform is still WordPress of course! However, I have selected a much lighter theme framework so that no unnecessary code is installed outside of exactly what I need for the site. I am already noticing a much better page delivery response and couldn’t be happier!