FAQ

Why is your blog called Grace is Overrated?

Truth be told, if I had to do it over, I'd choose a different name.  In fact, I'm in the process of switching from this old blog to a newer, shinier one with a brand new name.  But until that day arrives, which may still be weeks, months, or likely possibly years away, I'm left with Grace is Overrated, which came to me one morning while I was obsessing, as I often do, about failure and perfection and mistakes and the scary, scary prospect of starting a new blog.

As a general rule, I tend to think of myself as a rather awkward specimen.  I'm not particularly athletic or rhythmic.  I don't know how to accessorize and I'm still not sure how to correctly apply eye shadow.  (So I don't wear it.)  I'm not comfortable on the telephone and I blush at all the wrong times, particularly in the midst of nervousness or embarrassment.  (We're not talking about a little flush on the apples of the cheeks, no, we're talking about angry red blotches that extend from my forehead to well beneath my chin and linger for hours.) 

99% of the time, I am convinced that I am calamity on wheels and when I named this blog, on a bit of a whim, I wanted a name that would remind me to jump in with both feet, to share some ideas (even if they might be a little odd) and not to be held back by the fear of appearing ridiculous or awkward.  Take that grace and poise and, you too, style and elegance.

Grace is Overrated seemed a good place to start, so I bought the domain name, took a deep breath, and started posting.

What program do you use to create your journal pages?

I create all of my journal pages on Adobe Illustrator, which I've been slowly teaching myself to use over the last year or so.  I draw in all of my borders, boxes and doodles by hand using a pen tablet. 

I am having difficulty downloading your journal pages.  Can you help me?

Occasionally, I get emails from readers who are having trouble downloading my pages.  I broached the issue with readers in a couple of posts a little while ago, but I'll sum it up here as well.

From the feedback I've been able to gather, it appears that most readers are able to download my pages without difficulty.

Some readers do encounter downloading issues occasionally, but they've found that if they wait a while and try again, they are able to download without any problems.  Google Drive, which hosts my pages, can be a bit glitchy from time to time.  (But not too often.)  I definitely recommend giving it a second try if you can't access my pages on your first attempt.

Also, some readers have had difficulty downloading my pages in Internet Explorer.  If you're getting error messages instead of pages in Explorer, downloading in a different browser is definitely worth a try.

There also, unfortunately, seems to be a small group of readers who have difficulty accessing pages no matter what they do.  If that group includes you, I'm sorry about that and I'll absolutely try to help you in any way that I can.

I have a couple of suggestions.  Possibly it's a firewall issue.  I'm not an expert regarding the nuts and bolts of computer security, but my limited understanding is that some folks' computers may not be letting them access my pages.  So you might want to check your computer's settings to make sure your firewall isn't preventing you from downloading my pages.

Also, I have received several emails from readers (including my mother) who aren't familiar with the setup over at Google Drive.  Just so we're all on the same page, when you click on the link to my pages, you should end up at a screen that looks like this:

On the left side of the page, right under the file name (in this case: Journal Page 5 by Christie Zimmer - colour-free.pdf), you'll find four menu options: File, Edit, View, and Help.

In the screen shot below, you can see where I've clicked on File, which has opened a sub-menu with several options, including Download right at the bottom.  You should be able to download the file from there and then print the page from your reader.

If you are still unable to print the page or can't get to it when you click on the link in my post, all is not lost!  Send me an email at christie(at)graceisoverrated(dot)com and we'll sort it out together.  In your email, I'd love it if you could explain what happens on your end when you click on the link.

P.S.  My mother read this section and was concerned that I'd written my email address incorrectly.  I've been writing it that way to avoid any scary spam robots that might be lurking out there in the interwebs.  So, at her insistence that "No, not everybody knows that.  I didn't know that and I'm on the internet all the time," please note that the (at) should be replaced with an @ and the (dot) should be replaced with a . 

P.P.S.  See?  Now I have a grammatical issue.  Should I put a period after the dot, as in "please note that the (at) should be replaced with an @ and the (dot) should be replaced with a .."?  Because then it becomes confusing.  One may wonder whether the (dot) should be replaced with .. or whether the second dot is simply the closing period.  Italicizing the first dot to differentiate it from the period doesn't help at all because they're both teeny, tiny dots.  So, for the sake of clarity -- sort of -- I'm leaving the dot by itself and leaving the end of the sentence unpunctuated.  (Which, according to spell-check, is not a word.)

P.P.P.S.  After further thought, I suppose I could choose not to end the sentence there.  I can't think of anything to add right now to extend the sentence beyond the . except for "so there," which is never a good idea, but I will add something more at some point, after which these last two P.S.s will be gone.

I'm a teacher and I'd like to make copies of your journal pages to share with my students.  Can I do that?

I absolutely love the idea of students using my pages and I'd love to learn more about the classes in which my pages are being used (ie. what grade you teach and roughly where your school is located).  If you'd be so kind as to send me a quick email at christie(at)graceisoverrated(dot)com to let me know that you'd like to start using my pages with your students, I'll be happy to send you my copyright permission statement.

Is there some way that I can download all of your pages at once?

This is a question I've struggled with quite a bit.  The short answer is:  no.

The longer answer has a lot to do with the amount of work that goes into every page.  I can totally see how putting all the pages in one file would make it easier to print them out.  I have been tempted in the past just to do it because I get this request a lot.  But creating such a file would completely strip my pages of the context in which they were created and that hurts my heart a little.  (Maybe more than a little.)

My pages are the result of many, many hours of hard work, a lot of which is described in the accompanying posts.  For me, this blog is more than a repository for a collection of journal pages, it is a reflection of my life, and I can't at this point see my way clear to separating the two.   

I may feel differently about this at some time in the future, but I'm not there yet.