Yesterday my 5 year old Godson Blake paid us a surprise visit. While his mother (my cousin) was visiting with Granny, I watched a movie with him. I had been distracted from drinking my coffee by all of the hubbub and when I took a sip of it at last, it was cold, and tasted foul. I walked to the kitchen and spit it out in the sink. Blake looks at me and goes "Bad coffee?" I say yes. He nods knowingly, as if he sees it all the time. LOL!
At another point in the visit, his mother and I were tickling him until he begged us to stop. As soon as we did, he pointed to his eyebrow and said "Do you like my eyebrows? They're really big!" It was the randomest thing ever, I just about split my breeches laughing. Kids really do say the darnedest things.
I was flattered that this time he didn't want to leave when it was time to go. Boy is he growing up fast. It seems like yesterday when his mom told me she was pregnant. I remember holding him when he was little bigger than a football, out on my Grandparents' brick patio, looking out at the water and welcoming him into the family. And now he's such a big guy! He's only five but he looks like he's 7. He really loves hanging out with S. Yesterday they spent a short time running around and then building a stick fort for his toys in the woods.
I cheated on my diet yesterday. I was depressed and hormonal. It was less satisfying than I thought it would be. S made me help him pick up and move his truck bed off the frame so he could replace the fuel pump. Thank Goodness my cousin was there to help us put it back on, I don't think we could have done it by ourselves. But the good news is, it looks like his truck is going to be drive-able soon. That means I can get my car back! And then maybe once his truck is all fixed, he will start saving up to fix my poor car, which needs a new exhaust system.
I am soooOoooo tired today. I definitely need to go back to bed. But when I wake up later, there are a million things to do. But right now I can barely keep my eyes open! So, I'm off to bed!
Monday, July 25, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Thrashing
It's a quiet summer morning. Nothing but the buzzing and chirping of insects sweeping over the trees. It's a prehistoric, primordial sound. Something I usually filter out as white noise.
This morning I thought of all the "best friends" I've had who either took advantage of me, betrayed me, or abandoned me. I wanted to thrash around in my room and destroy everything. I don't keep any friends these days. I have two dear old pals who live on the other side of the nation, and they are really my only friends in the world anymore. I've replaced socializing with reading, crafts, computer games. The me from 5 or 6 years ago, if given a glimpse of who I have become... would not recognize herself. I've built a fortress around me.
After losing (my former best friend) J. A., a part of my heart died. I no longer crave much contact with humanity. I don't know what that means for me. It's probably a lot safer. I don't trust anyone to be anything more than monkeys with slightly more sophisticated brains.
It's Saturday, and I will have a million things to do when I finish my coffee. I've discovered that the best, perhaps only way to get things done is if I set a timer for slightly less time than I think it will take me to complete any given task. I try to race through it, which saves me time an gives me an exciting goal to think about which takes my thoughts off of my mind-numbing chores, and makes them go faster. And boy will I have a lot of them. I've made up my mind to clean house. Every room is filthy, and there's no one but me to clean up because my mother and S are too busy. The job feels tremendous.
This morning I thought of all the "best friends" I've had who either took advantage of me, betrayed me, or abandoned me. I wanted to thrash around in my room and destroy everything. I don't keep any friends these days. I have two dear old pals who live on the other side of the nation, and they are really my only friends in the world anymore. I've replaced socializing with reading, crafts, computer games. The me from 5 or 6 years ago, if given a glimpse of who I have become... would not recognize herself. I've built a fortress around me.
After losing (my former best friend) J. A., a part of my heart died. I no longer crave much contact with humanity. I don't know what that means for me. It's probably a lot safer. I don't trust anyone to be anything more than monkeys with slightly more sophisticated brains.
It's Saturday, and I will have a million things to do when I finish my coffee. I've discovered that the best, perhaps only way to get things done is if I set a timer for slightly less time than I think it will take me to complete any given task. I try to race through it, which saves me time an gives me an exciting goal to think about which takes my thoughts off of my mind-numbing chores, and makes them go faster. And boy will I have a lot of them. I've made up my mind to clean house. Every room is filthy, and there's no one but me to clean up because my mother and S are too busy. The job feels tremendous.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Prepare for Overshare
So I got a visit from Aunt Tampon Face. Wait, that's not how it goes... Whatever, you get the point.
For anyone else this probably wouldn't be so novel, but I have an ailment that suspended my period for literally years at a time. It was pretty great! But also worrisome. Obviously not a sign of vigorous health on my part. Thankfully (?) that seems to be resolved, as this one makes it two in a row, and just about right on time, without the intervention of medication. I can't say I enjoy it much but it's better than the last one, when my body seemed to be making up for lost time by cramming over a year's worth of cramps into one menstrual cycle. Being a mammal is pretty weird!
Being female seems like slightly unfamiliar territory for me. There are some things I took to right away, like an attraction to fashion and make-up and boys. But the whole idea of some parasite-like creature growing in my abdomen only to shoot out of my delicate lady parts after hours of agony pretty much disgusted and scared the crap out of me. Yes, I occasionally suffer from baby fever, but when my hormones aren't distorting my understanding of life, I still think it's scary and gross. This means I will probably never have kids. Heck, I'm already 28 years old. All signs point to a childless life this time around. Besides, I'd be a horrendous parent. I'm radical, disorganized, messy, lazy, and a misanthrope. What kind of a life is that for a kid? He'd turn out to be super weird and not fit in to society at all. Kind of like me. No, I think I had better stick to other life lessons this time around. Thank God for contraception and the new-found freedom and power over our reproductive systems! Take THAT patriarchy! Huzzah!
Anybody who thinks women should have control over the reproductive power of their bodies, raise your hand. Everyone else- please go fuck yourselves.
Sex is as much a natural urge as any other appetite we humans have. People who offer celibacy as the only alternative to conception may as well be saying "Abstain from eating, or eat when and where we tell you to. Those are your only choices." The Catholic church's long-standing disdain for contraception is nothing more than an outgrowth of patriarchal control over women and their reproduction. It's all about power. It has nothing to do with morality, nothing to do with making a better world. Its consequences are so harmful to this planet that it fills me with disgust and contempt just thinking about it. But the Catholic church itself is so full of sickness and dysfunction these days, anyhow...
It is so ironic that conservative, religious people seem obsessed with enacting laws that curtail one of God's greatest gifts, the thing that makes us human, for better or worse... our free will! Our freedom to choose the course our soul will take through this world. If God doesn't put any limits on our behavior, for good or for evil, what the Hell makes those people think it is THEIR job to do so? Again, go to the back of the line, and put your thumb up your butt.
The whole idea is, YOU have the freedom to choose whatever weird nonsense is prescribed by your cult leaders, and I get to choose what I want to do with my body. I wont stop you from abstaining from sex, so don't stop me from using a condom, or whatever. Get it? It's win-win! Anyway, I need to get back to not having any kids now. See ya later! =)
For anyone else this probably wouldn't be so novel, but I have an ailment that suspended my period for literally years at a time. It was pretty great! But also worrisome. Obviously not a sign of vigorous health on my part. Thankfully (?) that seems to be resolved, as this one makes it two in a row, and just about right on time, without the intervention of medication. I can't say I enjoy it much but it's better than the last one, when my body seemed to be making up for lost time by cramming over a year's worth of cramps into one menstrual cycle. Being a mammal is pretty weird!
Being female seems like slightly unfamiliar territory for me. There are some things I took to right away, like an attraction to fashion and make-up and boys. But the whole idea of some parasite-like creature growing in my abdomen only to shoot out of my delicate lady parts after hours of agony pretty much disgusted and scared the crap out of me. Yes, I occasionally suffer from baby fever, but when my hormones aren't distorting my understanding of life, I still think it's scary and gross. This means I will probably never have kids. Heck, I'm already 28 years old. All signs point to a childless life this time around. Besides, I'd be a horrendous parent. I'm radical, disorganized, messy, lazy, and a misanthrope. What kind of a life is that for a kid? He'd turn out to be super weird and not fit in to society at all. Kind of like me. No, I think I had better stick to other life lessons this time around. Thank God for contraception and the new-found freedom and power over our reproductive systems! Take THAT patriarchy! Huzzah!
Anybody who thinks women should have control over the reproductive power of their bodies, raise your hand. Everyone else- please go fuck yourselves.
Sex is as much a natural urge as any other appetite we humans have. People who offer celibacy as the only alternative to conception may as well be saying "Abstain from eating, or eat when and where we tell you to. Those are your only choices." The Catholic church's long-standing disdain for contraception is nothing more than an outgrowth of patriarchal control over women and their reproduction. It's all about power. It has nothing to do with morality, nothing to do with making a better world. Its consequences are so harmful to this planet that it fills me with disgust and contempt just thinking about it. But the Catholic church itself is so full of sickness and dysfunction these days, anyhow...
It is so ironic that conservative, religious people seem obsessed with enacting laws that curtail one of God's greatest gifts, the thing that makes us human, for better or worse... our free will! Our freedom to choose the course our soul will take through this world. If God doesn't put any limits on our behavior, for good or for evil, what the Hell makes those people think it is THEIR job to do so? Again, go to the back of the line, and put your thumb up your butt.
The whole idea is, YOU have the freedom to choose whatever weird nonsense is prescribed by your cult leaders, and I get to choose what I want to do with my body. I wont stop you from abstaining from sex, so don't stop me from using a condom, or whatever. Get it? It's win-win! Anyway, I need to get back to not having any kids now. See ya later! =)
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Oh Boogers.
The mot recent little thing, which is still in the forefront of my mind, was watching some bidder on ebay go absolutely batshit over black aggie oval rounds, and bidding them sky-high. That display was followed by a similar encounter with someone who is (apparently) willing to give up her firstborn child for 100 bronze-tone 15mm pinch bails. I didn't find out how high she was willing to go. I dropped out of the bidding after 5 consecutive attempts to catch up with her failed. Jeez, lady!
Have you ever seen someone go apeshit crazy on ebay before your very eyes? It's a little scary.
And of COURSE there's a ginormous pile of dishes in the kitchen right now. It looks like no one has bothered to wash up in a week. But I did 2 loads yesterday evening. That's how we roll in this house. Sometimes I wonder how it would be if I lived alone. I've never lived by myself, there have always been other people's dishes to factor in. I look at the dishes covering every square inch of available counter space and wonder how many of them are mine. Half? A third? Less?
My mother has a lot of bizarre habits, and one of them is using far more dishes than seem necessary for a given meal. It's always been a problem, but it's worse now that we're on the South Beach Diet and have to cook virtually everything that passes our lips. No more grabbing a quick and easy snack. Ever again. It's a real pain in the you-know-what, but I've lost 20lbs without breaking a sweat, so it's worth it.
I guess.
How come the week when I pigged out on birthday cake, I didn't gain any weight, but 2 weeks later, while I was following the diet strictly, I gained almost 5lbs back? What's up with that? Seriously.
Today was also a bit strange because, as I tried to sleep, S called me 5 times. He never calls me during the work day. Well, almost never. I thought there was some big emergency, so I finally clambered out of my deep sleep to see what was up. "Sorry. I'm just bored at work today." he said, unenthusiastically. So now I am stuck being conscious for a while. And for some reason I have "O Come All Ye Faithful" repeating mercilessly in my head, about as far you can get from Christmastime in either direction of linear time.
There are so many reasons to freak out right now. So many reasons to be completely stressed and overwhelmed. But the bigger things are too scary to think about, so I will stick to the small, petty annoyances of day-to-day living. I would definitely have a nervous breakdown if it weren't for my fur-children. I find myself on the verge of a panic attack, and then I see a sleepy kitty, and feel so much better. They are a soothing balm for ALL the senses. Their soft fur, their calming purrs, their adorable faces, their warm bodies... they even smell good. No wonder they're the #1 pet in the world. It's like they were designed specifically for the job! But though they buoy my spirits high enough to keep me from total despair, I still have problems. Like being dirty, and not able to find clean towels. Yes. One more example f how my life is a freaking mess.
I'm also terrified about all the money I
I need a workspace! I need to get S to change the light bulb in my photography lamp! (A task requiring technical know-how and latex gloves!) I need to get my supplies and shipping area organized and ready to rock n' roll again! I lost my motivation after Christmas. But now I have a lot of good reasons to put my back into it. Too bad it also happens to be during a time when I have a million other things that need to be done. AGH FML!!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Why I am a terrible person
I can't believe how fast time seems to fly when you have an appointment at a set time. It's like the minutes are lubricated with oil on those days and they just slide by in an instant. Before you know it, it's time to go. I never want to go. I don't want to go today! It seems like only a few seconds ago it was 11am, but now the clock says it's after 1:30pm and I have to go somewhere at 2! =(
I wish I could stay here and drink coffee and jabber away all afternoon, but my day is to be interrupted by several hours of mystery work at the main house. I don't know what they will have me doing there, I only know that I have to be there around 2pm. I could be finished in an hour, or it could be three or four before I am able to come home. Everything has been very busy lately, which merely contributes to the speed at which time seems to glide away from me.
I managed to wake up early and get a few strenuous chores done, but I wore out and had to take a quick nap, which ate away 2 precious hours while I dreamed about visiting a new candy shop in town and blasting my diet to hell and back with loads and loads of cake and fruits dipped in chocolate. I think I gained back 9 pounds in my sleep.
I wish I had the day to myself. Every day it seems I have a new great task or assignment, and since I am technically unemployed, I have no scheduled "days off". I need lots of days off because I am very lazy and idle. It's like denying a normal person food. I need lots of time to squander pointlessly in order to satisfy my lackadaisical urges. Some people talk about being "lost in thought" but I have made it an art form. Being very still and just thinking about things makes up 99% of my day if I'm left to my own devices. Not a recipe for success, but I never claimed to be one, nor am I really very interested in what other people think constitutes success. That's one thing I have concluded as a result of my navel-gazing, you see. But time has caught up with me, and now I am entering a time of action. "entering" is not the word that best describes it. I am being dragged kicking and screaming.
Having so much to do lately makes me feel rushed and uneasy. Especially when the gains are more karmic than material in nature. I am the only family member available during the day to assist my octogenarian grandparents with various duties. And, aside from the fact that the world has gone to hell and I can't make it on my own right now, I am living here because I want to be close to the aging grandparents who have had so much direct involvement in raising me. They deserve to be waited on hand and foot and to not have a worry in the world, but they had the misfortune, through no fault of their own, of having the most disorganized and sleepy grandchild living here to care for them. Of course, it sort of makes sense, since all of my cousins are off pursuing careers, starting families of their own, going to college, etc. Whereas I am lame and somewhat retarded, so I have stayed close to home.
The transition from being cared for to being the caretaker was a rapid one. One minute they were my overlords, and the next, they needed me to help them with everyday tasks. It happened so fast it made my head spin. I thought I would be prepared, but I was NOT. My grandparents have always been fiercely independent. But one morning three months ago, I was awakened by a knock on my door and their housekeeper came in and told me my Grandfather was having a heart attack and I needed to rush to the hospital. The next week was one of the most painful and stressful weeks I have ever had, as we watched my grandfather fight for his life and grow weaker and weaker. The surgery failed, he experienced ICU psychosis, and we weren't sure if he would survive. Sure, he's 86 years old, but none of us could bear the thought of losing him yet. He is easily the most respected and beloved member of our large extended family. By the grace of God, he pulled through.
But he can't get around without a walker now, and he is still extremely fragile, my grandmother has even more to do now while she helps him recover, and she herself is 84 years old and managing a large property and other affairs. So I have been in charge of cooking dinners and occasionally other work, and staying with granddad while granny goes out for various reasons. They've run out of money and are forced to sell some land. Out back lot has been on the market for over 3 years and still no buyers. To help the chances of a sale, we need to work on the outside of the house my grandparents let us live in rent-free, which includes a lot of landscaping. I just got my assignment for that yesterday and I can assure you it will keep me very busy for the rest of the summer and beyond. Meanwhile, I will still be helping them out at their house a few acres away. I wish I could do more for them, but I don't want to crowd them or smother them. I really should try harder though, because caring for my elderly grandparents as they near the end of their lives is surely one of the most important things I will ever do, and I want to do it well. So why am I here typing into my blog about how much I wish I had the day to myself? The only conclusion I can come to is that I must be the most selfish, ungrateful person in the world. I have this same internal struggle all the time. I am trying to learn to give more of myself, and give it freely, without expectation of reward or gain. Why is that at all difficult? If I were a better person, I would not want the day to myself. I mean, every day I waste doing nonsense, is one less day I have to spend with my grandparents, who wont be here forever! What the hell is wrong with me?!
I wish I could stay here and drink coffee and jabber away all afternoon, but my day is to be interrupted by several hours of mystery work at the main house. I don't know what they will have me doing there, I only know that I have to be there around 2pm. I could be finished in an hour, or it could be three or four before I am able to come home. Everything has been very busy lately, which merely contributes to the speed at which time seems to glide away from me.
I managed to wake up early and get a few strenuous chores done, but I wore out and had to take a quick nap, which ate away 2 precious hours while I dreamed about visiting a new candy shop in town and blasting my diet to hell and back with loads and loads of cake and fruits dipped in chocolate. I think I gained back 9 pounds in my sleep.
I wish I had the day to myself. Every day it seems I have a new great task or assignment, and since I am technically unemployed, I have no scheduled "days off". I need lots of days off because I am very lazy and idle. It's like denying a normal person food. I need lots of time to squander pointlessly in order to satisfy my lackadaisical urges. Some people talk about being "lost in thought" but I have made it an art form. Being very still and just thinking about things makes up 99% of my day if I'm left to my own devices. Not a recipe for success, but I never claimed to be one, nor am I really very interested in what other people think constitutes success. That's one thing I have concluded as a result of my navel-gazing, you see. But time has caught up with me, and now I am entering a time of action. "entering" is not the word that best describes it. I am being dragged kicking and screaming.
Having so much to do lately makes me feel rushed and uneasy. Especially when the gains are more karmic than material in nature. I am the only family member available during the day to assist my octogenarian grandparents with various duties. And, aside from the fact that the world has gone to hell and I can't make it on my own right now, I am living here because I want to be close to the aging grandparents who have had so much direct involvement in raising me. They deserve to be waited on hand and foot and to not have a worry in the world, but they had the misfortune, through no fault of their own, of having the most disorganized and sleepy grandchild living here to care for them. Of course, it sort of makes sense, since all of my cousins are off pursuing careers, starting families of their own, going to college, etc. Whereas I am lame and somewhat retarded, so I have stayed close to home.
The transition from being cared for to being the caretaker was a rapid one. One minute they were my overlords, and the next, they needed me to help them with everyday tasks. It happened so fast it made my head spin. I thought I would be prepared, but I was NOT. My grandparents have always been fiercely independent. But one morning three months ago, I was awakened by a knock on my door and their housekeeper came in and told me my Grandfather was having a heart attack and I needed to rush to the hospital. The next week was one of the most painful and stressful weeks I have ever had, as we watched my grandfather fight for his life and grow weaker and weaker. The surgery failed, he experienced ICU psychosis, and we weren't sure if he would survive. Sure, he's 86 years old, but none of us could bear the thought of losing him yet. He is easily the most respected and beloved member of our large extended family. By the grace of God, he pulled through.
But he can't get around without a walker now, and he is still extremely fragile, my grandmother has even more to do now while she helps him recover, and she herself is 84 years old and managing a large property and other affairs. So I have been in charge of cooking dinners and occasionally other work, and staying with granddad while granny goes out for various reasons. They've run out of money and are forced to sell some land. Out back lot has been on the market for over 3 years and still no buyers. To help the chances of a sale, we need to work on the outside of the house my grandparents let us live in rent-free, which includes a lot of landscaping. I just got my assignment for that yesterday and I can assure you it will keep me very busy for the rest of the summer and beyond. Meanwhile, I will still be helping them out at their house a few acres away. I wish I could do more for them, but I don't want to crowd them or smother them. I really should try harder though, because caring for my elderly grandparents as they near the end of their lives is surely one of the most important things I will ever do, and I want to do it well. So why am I here typing into my blog about how much I wish I had the day to myself? The only conclusion I can come to is that I must be the most selfish, ungrateful person in the world. I have this same internal struggle all the time. I am trying to learn to give more of myself, and give it freely, without expectation of reward or gain. Why is that at all difficult? If I were a better person, I would not want the day to myself. I mean, every day I waste doing nonsense, is one less day I have to spend with my grandparents, who wont be here forever! What the hell is wrong with me?!
Snoring Cats
I love my cats. I love them like I would love my own children. They are outrageously wonderful, and I'm not ashamed to say so. They have turned my mate of six years into an obsessive cat fanatic. This is the same man who once told me, shortly before we moved in together, that he just didn't understand "having pets". Now, he is occasionally late to work because he can't stop cooing and cuddling with my seventeen-year-old grey tabby, "Tom", one of three fur-babies in the house.
Everyone falls in love with Tom, but he and my pseudo-husband are like peas in a pod. I'd be jealous that Tommy doesn't love me as much after I've spent almost two decades feeding, loving, sheltering and caring for him, but it's just too cute to see those two together. My boyfriend, for anonymity and clarity's sake, I will call "S", appreciates everything about Tom's unique personality, and some of the longest chats we have during an average work week are about the details and nuances of Tom's patterns of behavior. S positively GUSHES about his "best friend". Tom rushes from his day-long nap each day to greet S when he arrives home from work. He follows him around the house. If S manages to sit still for any length of time, Tom inevitably claims a spot in or near his lap. At night they snuggle together and sleep in the same position, Tom always sleeping pressed up close to S's body. They also snore in unison.
My cats are very sweet, loving creatures. During the day they always choose to nap close to where ever I happen to be planted, no matter where that is. They are here right now, snoozing the day away.
WTF FMG?
I placed the order on the 11th. It shipped on the 14th. The earliest date I was told I could expect it is on the 21st. That would be TEN days from my original order date. I was told all this SEVEN days after I placed my order when I called customer service because I never got a shipping confirmation email or a tracking number. I talked to someone very nice, competent and helpful, but I didn't like the information she gave me. Because she was so cool on the phone, I decided not to complain... at least to her.
I paid a special "handling fee" and it took them three days to get my package "handled" before it even shipped? What is that nonsense? And then it takes (at least) an additional 7 days for it to get to me? Stuff I ordered from half way across the world, days AFTER placing my FMG order, are already arriving sooner than that.
Now, the last time I ordered from them, quite a while back now, before they started using FedEx, they did send me a shipping confirmation email with a tracking number. So, I tracked. My package sat in the Portland, OR post office for days. Just sat there. I compared notes with other shop owners who order from FMG and they said the same thing about the Portland PO. Based on this information I gleaned two things. A) The Portland Post Office is either grossly under-staffed, or just suffers from pacific-northwest-itis (an ailment I discovered when I lived in Seattle, WA) and is dead slow.
B) FMG's sluggish shipping times therefore are likely a result of the crummy post office their packages are routed through. Not their fault.
But now they are using FedEx. If I recall correctly, that shipment that caused such a headache for me as it crawled its way through the USPS, arrived about 7 days after I placed the order. This one, through FedEx, is expected to take a total of ten days or more. Is FedEx transporting things by stage coach to save money on gas? In this day and age, you can ship a bloody car across country faster than that. What's the hold-up?!
Ok, so getting my crap isn't exactly a matter of life and death for my business right now. I can wait it out if I have to, but it really baffles me as to why it should take so long to get my order from them. Why did it take so long for them to ship it? Why will it take at least seven days to get it from there to here, especially when I paid a pretty penny for shipping?
Another reason it throws my nose out of joint is because I have components coming in from all over the world, from many different sources, and in order for me to plan my projects and keep the various components organized, I need to know when everything is arriving. It also is super frustrating when you have everything you need to start your project except what is in a tardy package that for some mysterious reason is arriving way later than the rest. You have all this stuff and you can't put it to use because you're missing some crucial component. It's so annoying. And while you wait, you might misplace something or lose your interest in it. it just messes the whole thing up.
I'm actually already suffering from that scenario in my sewing department, but its my fault. I was so excited about a new pattern I bought that I dove right in, thinking that I could just substitute a normal snap for the 14mm magnetic snap specified by the designer. Then I decided I'd better stick to the pattern or risk massively screwing it up, so I have had to put my fabric and templates and partly completed project in a ziplock bag while I wait for those damned snaps to arrive from Assbackistan. And wow, they sure are expensive. Speaking of which...
I need to make some money. I'm getting butterflies in my stomach every time I have to pay for something, but I'm too nervous to look at my account balance. I'm supposed to go over to my Grandparents' house and do... something... today, I don't know what... but I'm hoping it is a paying gig. The funny thing is, well, actually, come to think of it, it isn't funny at all. The sad thing is, if/when I make any money from my shop (hardly ever) I just spend it all on more supplies and stuff for my shop. Sadder still, pretty much the only time I am able to sell something, except at Christmas, is when I sell at a loss, so i just dig myself into a deeper and deeper hole of anti-profit. But I didn't start my business thinking I was going to get rich, I did it because I ran out of places to put all the stuff I make. I sure as hell can't wear 50 pairs of earrings, especially since I don't have pierced ears. And what am I going to do with 100 pieces of my own handmade jewelry and other objects d'art? I can't use them all myself. So I figured I would sell them. But guess what...
We're in a depression. I don't care what anyone says. It's not just a recession. Selling online is a lot harder than selling in person, and at a time like this, people aren't shopping for non-essential goodies as much, and they generally don't want to pay extra for the time and skill it takes to hand-craft an item. Especially when they can buy a similar item from China for like... a penny. When I first started, back in March of 2010, I was really amped up and motivated to make my business a big success. I studied and did workshops and advertised locally and on Facebook and on the web. I poured lots of money into promoting my shop. None of it has done any good. It just ate all my money.
Not only that, but because everyone is looking for a little extra income, I get more hits to my items from people searching for "how to make a..." than are looking to buy such an item. The craft market is flooded, and it seems like everyone and their mom is trying to start a home-business these days. The only people making money are the host websites and the advertising media we use. It is completely demoralizing.
In conclusion, running my business is hard enough without having to wait an inordinate amount of time for my crap to arrive. Thank you.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Over the River and Through the Woods...
I am enjoying a cup of coffee and getting ready to head over to my Grandparents' house in a little bit. My Grandmother is having her 84th birthday this weekend and she has asked me to play chef for a birthday dinner for her! She is going to pick the menu and she might have some other jobs for me to do. Several members of my family are unemployed or underemployed due to the recession of doom, and my Grandmother has stepped in, offering us odd jobs to help us survive, for which I am eternally grateful. My Grandfather's health has become more fragile this year, but Granny is amazingly robust for her age. My bank account definitely needs some fattening up, so I hope she will have plenty for me to do.
I'm a creative soul, and I make a lot of art and crafts. I have a shop on Artfire that I've been neglecting since Christmas, but I've just finished spending all my birthday money on new supplies, so I need to put forth an effort to get things rolling again. I really love what I make, but it doesn't sell very well, unfortunately. I've been at this for more than a year now and it's done nothing but suck money into a deep, black, bottomless pit. But I keep doing it because I love to create and I need a place to at least display my work to the world. One of the hardest things is photography. I still have products that aren't listed because I hate doing the pictures and descriptions. And then, to add insult to injury, after spending countless hours getting great product photos, retouching them in photoshop, resizing them, and then creating voluminous listings for my web gallery... they never sell. I don't get it. My stuff is really awesome. I'd buy it! But I just don't get the kind of traffic I need to make the sales.
Since I started this "business" casually, I've only recently created spreadsheets to help me keep track of my costs and effectively price my items. I had a decent Christmas season last year, so I will have to start NOW to get ready for the one time of the year that I sell anything. I've been re-organizing my supplies and shipping area. I have an elaborate range of gift boxes and other packaging to keep track of, and of course, my trusty postal scale.
One thing that makes me happy about my business is of course, my customers. I love my customers. Not for their money, but because they shopped a small, handmade marketplace like my website. They love the same cute things I do. They appreciate creative packaging and the free gifts I like to include with their purchases. They get excited when their package arrives in the mail, with all the signs of love and care I took getting it together for them. I love my customers, and I love making them happy.
Well It looks like my trip is being delayed, the sky is purply-black with thunderheads. The heavens are going to open up any minute. I think I will wait till I have the car!
I'm a creative soul, and I make a lot of art and crafts. I have a shop on Artfire that I've been neglecting since Christmas, but I've just finished spending all my birthday money on new supplies, so I need to put forth an effort to get things rolling again. I really love what I make, but it doesn't sell very well, unfortunately. I've been at this for more than a year now and it's done nothing but suck money into a deep, black, bottomless pit. But I keep doing it because I love to create and I need a place to at least display my work to the world. One of the hardest things is photography. I still have products that aren't listed because I hate doing the pictures and descriptions. And then, to add insult to injury, after spending countless hours getting great product photos, retouching them in photoshop, resizing them, and then creating voluminous listings for my web gallery... they never sell. I don't get it. My stuff is really awesome. I'd buy it! But I just don't get the kind of traffic I need to make the sales.
Since I started this "business" casually, I've only recently created spreadsheets to help me keep track of my costs and effectively price my items. I had a decent Christmas season last year, so I will have to start NOW to get ready for the one time of the year that I sell anything. I've been re-organizing my supplies and shipping area. I have an elaborate range of gift boxes and other packaging to keep track of, and of course, my trusty postal scale.
One thing that makes me happy about my business is of course, my customers. I love my customers. Not for their money, but because they shopped a small, handmade marketplace like my website. They love the same cute things I do. They appreciate creative packaging and the free gifts I like to include with their purchases. They get excited when their package arrives in the mail, with all the signs of love and care I took getting it together for them. I love my customers, and I love making them happy.
Well It looks like my trip is being delayed, the sky is purply-black with thunderheads. The heavens are going to open up any minute. I think I will wait till I have the car!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Smoking Gun
Sigh.
When I was in college back in Montgomery County, MD, a militant anti-smoking/ anti-smoker campaign swept the area with great success. Cigarette smoking is pretty impossible to defend if you value optimal physical health, cleanliness, and not giving your money to a company that is the epitome of corporate evil, also, most people can't stand the smell, which really seemed to be the impetus behind the campaign. So with virtually no case to be made for us smokers, laws and campus policies were enacted restricting smoking on campus to a cordoned off area under a bridge. Simultaneously, laws were passed banning smoking in any commercial building including bars, and restaurants with a specially ventilated smoking section. This utterly destroyed my favorite pastime of going to the Diner a few blocks away from my apartment and smoking and drinking coffee all night long, which I had been doing since I was about 15. It was the only place left where you could still smoke inside.
Some thought that perhaps smokers would give up this indefensible, foul, smelly, costly, and unhealthy habit if it was made less convenient to indulge in it. But the argument was mainly based on the dangers of second hand smoke, saying workers shouldn't under any circumstances be exposed to it while doing their jobs. Meanwhile, smokers were derided endlessly for our wicked ways, shunned, scolded, or shot looks of disapproval and disdain. Only the hard-core addicts like me remained in the smoking circle. Even I tried to quit a few times. I once held out for 8 months but that first puff I took after imbibing at a New Years party was just so damned GOOD.
The last time, (at the end of 2009), I "quit" for a little over a month. I tried hypnosis, affirmations, the works. But by the 30 day mark I was an emotional WRECK. In the end, I realized how much I like to smoke. See, I don't just smoke because I'm a complete slave to my addiction, which I am, but because I also happen to LOVE smoking. I love smoking, drinking coffee, and writing. That is what I live to do. It might be a shitty thing to live for, but we don't all draw the "cure cancer" or "end hunger in Africa" life goal when we come to this world, and I don't think that necessarily makes me a "bad person".
When I'm in withdrawal, however, I definitely am a bad person. I metamorphose into a crazy, wild-eyed gollum in search of my "precious". It's pretty ugly. I can feel him clawing around in my brain, skittering over the slippery rocks in my synapses. I try to calm him by thinking at him "it'll only be another couple of hours, you can make it that long." And that seems to keep him from fully possessing me and doing something insane to get my hands on the precious.
I think the knowledge that there aren't any cigarettes in the house, and that I have no way of going anywhere panics my inner gollum. I know I can get through a shift at work (when I had a job) without smoking till my lunch break, so why am I freaking out over 6 hours with no smokes? It's because I know when the craving hits, I wont have a choice, I will have to abstain and ride out the next craving and the next, each one more unnerving than the last, until my sanity starts to crumble. Not the way I intended to spend my day.
Again, since smoking is so indefensible and universally despised so far as I can tell, there was little resistance when the state of Maryland raised taxes on cigarettes, making the price for a pack an average of $6.00. To give you some perspective, a pack of brand-name cigarettes was $2.75 cents when I started smoking in 1999. My mom was a smoker as well, and when we would run out of money and sell our books for $20.00 we would by cigarettes instead of food. To me, it doesn't quite seem right to tax the hell out of people who are chemically dependent on the product being taxed. That just seems opportunistic and a little cruel. Especially when most smokers are in the lowest income bracket in this country. But if you try to hinder ANYTHING by word or deed, which makes smoking harder to do, then you are certainly considered an assmuffin. So no one spoke up. At least the money I spend on my addiction will help go to pay for the state program that helps me with my anti-depressant meds....? I guess?
Anyway, it doesn't really matter anymore, because I happen to believe that our entire civilization is doomed, and that we've already entered the start of an American Dark Age. All hail our corporate overlords!!
I'm seriously considering learning how to grow tobacco on our land here for when it all goes down the tubes. Funny, growing up as a city girl, I never contemplated winding up in the countryside nursing survivalist thoughts. Not once. I could not imagine anything more opposite me. But 8 years of Bush/Cheney, 2 or 3 wars, an economic depression, and of course 9/11 has sent a lot of people into "Bizzarro World".
People will do absolutely insane things to satiate their cravings for cigarettes. They will hold up a drug store or gas station at gunpoint just for the smokes. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I can see it happening! And that's saying something, because I'm as shy as a dormouse! Not only that but I detest guns. Now that's something I'd like to see them put a ban on. Hmmm... guns are bad for your health and that of the people around you, statistically speaking, so....??? But everyone knows you don't mess with gun owners. Smokers get to take all the guff.
Okay, so far I've occupied myself writing this and researching how to grow tobacco in my back yard for almost the entire remainder of my mandated sentence. Apparently my sweetie is stuck in traffic about 6 miles from here and he's got four packs of cigarettes with him! I wonder if a prayer to St. Anthony will work here, or if I need to go the goat route again....
Seek and ye shall get sweaty
Before commencing my search, I closed my eyes and chanted my plea to St. Anthony. "St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please look around! Something is lost which must be found!"
I had done a preliminary search of my computer table in the living room last week and was alarmed to turn up no trace of the paperwork I was seeking. This time, when I walked into the room, there it was, right on top of a pile, as if it had floated down from the ceiling and landed gently askew on the table. Thanks, St. Anthony!
Feeling encouraged by my success, I decided to try the incantation for the item I REALLY wanted to find in a hurry - the lost cigarettes. "St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please look around, something is lost which must be found." I felt a little awkward asking a saint to help me find cigarettes, but hey, I was desperate enough to give it a try. I spent the next 2 and a half hours tearing the house apart and I never found them. I was dripping with sweat from my exertions. "No smokes for you! Ha ha ha ha ha!" Said St. Anthony.
Maybe I really do need to sacrifice a goat or something? After my extensive search the only thing I can figure is that they got left in their brown paper sack and got mistakenly thrown out. That, or my dear feller left them in the old garage on the other side of the property, where he sometimes works on his broken-down truck and my semi-functioning '94 model sedan.
When it comes to losing things, he's even worse than I am. One night he was close to hysterical when he couldn't find his "Tofurky" "Sausages" in the fridge. (If the name has to be put in quotation marks, it probably shouldn't be a food.)
I don't even know what's in tofurkey besides, I assume, tofu, and that fact alone is enough to keep me from wanting to eat it, but he was suspicious that someone had secretly stolen and consumed his mystery non-meat. He was so frustrated that he huffed and puffed around the house for 45 minutes before storming outside and sitting on the back deck in a torrent of grouchiness. I went into the kitchen, and opened up a drawer where we keep the plastic baggies and found the missing tofurkey wrapped in a baggie and stuck right on top of the ziplocks. He had hidden it from himself. Naturally I couldn't wait to share my discovery with him. After that he figured it was still good though, since it didn't have any ingredients that could degrade under normal conditions... and then he ate it. Tofu and all. TOFURKY! Say it with me! It's fun!
I had done a preliminary search of my computer table in the living room last week and was alarmed to turn up no trace of the paperwork I was seeking. This time, when I walked into the room, there it was, right on top of a pile, as if it had floated down from the ceiling and landed gently askew on the table. Thanks, St. Anthony!
Feeling encouraged by my success, I decided to try the incantation for the item I REALLY wanted to find in a hurry - the lost cigarettes. "St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please look around, something is lost which must be found." I felt a little awkward asking a saint to help me find cigarettes, but hey, I was desperate enough to give it a try. I spent the next 2 and a half hours tearing the house apart and I never found them. I was dripping with sweat from my exertions. "No smokes for you! Ha ha ha ha ha!" Said St. Anthony.
Maybe I really do need to sacrifice a goat or something? After my extensive search the only thing I can figure is that they got left in their brown paper sack and got mistakenly thrown out. That, or my dear feller left them in the old garage on the other side of the property, where he sometimes works on his broken-down truck and my semi-functioning '94 model sedan.
When it comes to losing things, he's even worse than I am. One night he was close to hysterical when he couldn't find his "Tofurky" "Sausages" in the fridge. (If the name has to be put in quotation marks, it probably shouldn't be a food.)
Where's my stuff!?
So, 2 months ago my coverage under my estranged father's COBRA package expired and I was left scrambling to refill my very expensive prescription - ($500 for a 3 month supply). I got an appointment with a local community health service and they gave me some paperwork for my family to fill out. (There will be another round after this one, too.) I got the paper work handled and promptly... pushed the whole thing out of my mind while life ticked away, thinking I would turn it in one of these weekend days when I had access to a car.
Now I need to find that paperwork and I should actually be looking for it right now. Heck, I should have been looking for it weeks ago. But I'm actually terrified that when I look... I wont find it... and I will have to go through several really annoying steps to remedy it. I will have to get access to a car during office hours, which is not easy, and may even necessitate borrowing one from my grandparents, which is stressful for me. Then I will have to go there and get the paperwork, and bring it home for my mother to fill out (again) attesting that she is helping me since I don't have a job. Then I will have to find a way to get it back to the doctors' office again. Then I will have to apply for their prescription coverage program. I am not good at this stuff.
So, instead of just sucking it up and looking around where I last saw the paperwork, I am sitting here psyching myself up for the search. I'm being gnawed by worry about what will happen if I don't find it, regret that I let it get away from me, and feelings of self-deprecation for being in this situation at all.
I discovered years ago, and came to accept that I am a person with very intense emotions. All of my experiences are distilled into hyper-potency, and my feelings have to be processed and tempered and all hammered out sometimes before I do something, or else I'm left with some sort of electric residue coursing through my day of unprocessed and festering emotions. How can I live like this?, you wonder. Not as effectively as say, a Spartan, but my life is much more rich due to the robust fullness of my emotional experience of it.
My days are free form Jazz since I don't have a job anchoring the hours in place. When I wake up I only know my next step, which is obviously, a healthy breakfast of coffee and cigarettes. Over my first one or two cups I begin to formulate ideas about what I want and need to do with my day. Sometimes I go so far as making a list. Then I either spend the rest of the afternoon drinking more coffee and "thinking about" what I need to do, or I actually do what's on the list. For most of the summer it's been the "thinking about it" part that gets done instead of the "doing it" part. That's why I find myself up against the wall today.
But I can just sense that I'm not going to find that pesky piece of paper. Where it went will be a mystery akin to the secrets of the pyramids, just like the missing pack of Camel Lights my boyfriend brought home last week which has unaccountably vanished. While I work on the case of the missing paperwork and the case of the missing Camel Lights, my frustration will balloon almost to the breaking point before I give up and consider them claimed by mischievous elves bent on stymieing my efforts.
When things go missing, as they frequently do around here because of my genetically predisposed bent toward disorganization, I often find myself at such a loss that I turn to the supernatural for help. Prayers, divination, incantations... I've tried them all. I'm not Catholic but I have prayed to St. Anthony for help locating missing objects. "St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please look around, something is lost which must be found!" (This has worked well, actually!) Other times I try an affirmation "I easily find what I am looking for." If I'm feeling really desperate I try to test my supposedly innate psychic powers like "remote viewing" to show me where my lost stuff is hiding. But now and then, something is just GONE, and no amount of frantic effort or supernatural intervention will reveal its fate and location to me. So what's it gonna be this time? Will my prayers be answered? If so, will I be required to sacrifice something like a chicken or a goat? Tune in next time to find out!
Now I need to find that paperwork and I should actually be looking for it right now. Heck, I should have been looking for it weeks ago. But I'm actually terrified that when I look... I wont find it... and I will have to go through several really annoying steps to remedy it. I will have to get access to a car during office hours, which is not easy, and may even necessitate borrowing one from my grandparents, which is stressful for me. Then I will have to go there and get the paperwork, and bring it home for my mother to fill out (again) attesting that she is helping me since I don't have a job. Then I will have to find a way to get it back to the doctors' office again. Then I will have to apply for their prescription coverage program. I am not good at this stuff.
So, instead of just sucking it up and looking around where I last saw the paperwork, I am sitting here psyching myself up for the search. I'm being gnawed by worry about what will happen if I don't find it, regret that I let it get away from me, and feelings of self-deprecation for being in this situation at all.
I discovered years ago, and came to accept that I am a person with very intense emotions. All of my experiences are distilled into hyper-potency, and my feelings have to be processed and tempered and all hammered out sometimes before I do something, or else I'm left with some sort of electric residue coursing through my day of unprocessed and festering emotions. How can I live like this?, you wonder. Not as effectively as say, a Spartan, but my life is much more rich due to the robust fullness of my emotional experience of it.
My days are free form Jazz since I don't have a job anchoring the hours in place. When I wake up I only know my next step, which is obviously, a healthy breakfast of coffee and cigarettes. Over my first one or two cups I begin to formulate ideas about what I want and need to do with my day. Sometimes I go so far as making a list. Then I either spend the rest of the afternoon drinking more coffee and "thinking about" what I need to do, or I actually do what's on the list. For most of the summer it's been the "thinking about it" part that gets done instead of the "doing it" part. That's why I find myself up against the wall today.
But I can just sense that I'm not going to find that pesky piece of paper. Where it went will be a mystery akin to the secrets of the pyramids, just like the missing pack of Camel Lights my boyfriend brought home last week which has unaccountably vanished. While I work on the case of the missing paperwork and the case of the missing Camel Lights, my frustration will balloon almost to the breaking point before I give up and consider them claimed by mischievous elves bent on stymieing my efforts.
When things go missing, as they frequently do around here because of my genetically predisposed bent toward disorganization, I often find myself at such a loss that I turn to the supernatural for help. Prayers, divination, incantations... I've tried them all. I'm not Catholic but I have prayed to St. Anthony for help locating missing objects. "St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please look around, something is lost which must be found!" (This has worked well, actually!) Other times I try an affirmation "I easily find what I am looking for." If I'm feeling really desperate I try to test my supposedly innate psychic powers like "remote viewing" to show me where my lost stuff is hiding. But now and then, something is just GONE, and no amount of frantic effort or supernatural intervention will reveal its fate and location to me. So what's it gonna be this time? Will my prayers be answered? If so, will I be required to sacrifice something like a chicken or a goat? Tune in next time to find out!
Friday, July 8, 2011
About This Blog
This is a blog about the thrilling day to day experiences and ideas I feel like sharing with no one in particular, such as, how much I hate doing dishes, and a pretty moth I saw on my back porch. So fasten your seat-belts and prepare to read nothing to get excited about!
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