I’ve had a wretched headache since sometime last night. But I hadn’t gotten on the wii fit and exercised since Thursday, so I didn’t want to skip another day. I went and did a few carefully-chosen exercises from the balance, aerobics, and strength portions, and then did entirely yoga for about 20 minutes. After all, the headache was centered on a muscle knot in the back right of my neck, and yoga is fantastic for stretching out the spine and the muscles around it.
Whaddaya know—headache mostly gone now. So the wii fit worked better than several rounds of Tylenol.
The latest book review is of Ad Hudler’s amusing and fun Man of the House, and I’m in the middle of reading Mercedes Lackey’s Foundation.
I did a new round of photographing items to go up on Etsy this morning. This includes many of the new wire-wrapped stone chokers, and some other new items like that. Also a cool surprise that our business partner had for us; I’ll post about that as soon as I have it up on Etsy later this week! I also just ordered supplies to make more bookmarks, since those seem to be the things people have been most interested in so far (speaking of which, I sold two more through Etsy at the end of last week!).
I have a feeling there were several other things I wanted to post about, but I can’t think of them, so they’ll just have to wait!
Although I’ve seemed relatively quiet these last few weeks, I haven’t been idle. Today’s book review is of Deidre Knight’s Red Fire, a paranormal romance involving Georgia and immortal Spartans. Really.
I’ve been taking a ton of photos while out and about, mostly of plants and flowers; here’s a sample:
I’ve also been putting together (and posting at our etsy store) plenty of jewelry and beaded bookmarks. Of course what with the economic crisis this was exactly the wrong time to start such an endeavor—I hear even the long-time sellers at Etsy with large followings have made few sales in the past weeks—but I have patience. I can wait until things get better, and in the meantime I’ll build up our stock of lovely things. I’m getting much better at taking photos of items, thanks to a light box and lots of practice:
If you want to buy any of them, the photos at DeviantArt have links below them to their listings at Etsy, or you can go directly to our etsy store (errantdreams.etsy.com). There are a few items that are more expensive—usually jewelry sets—but there are also plenty of items that are under $10.
Plenty more things to come soon! I have some cookware to review, as well as a ton of books. I’m in the middle of reading Ad Hudler’s Man of the House, and we’re making recipes out of some cookbooks I haven’t reviewed yet. So stick around!
Now that we’re in Maryland we couldn’t possibly let a summer go by without our trip to the renaissance festival. The performances are wonderful and the food is sinful, but honestly my favorite part is the crafts and other such joys. I wish the economy was better this year—we only brought home a couple of things, and you could tell many of the artisans weren’t having quite their usual booming business, which is a shame. I’d far rather spend my money with artistic, creative individuals living their dreams than with faceless corporations running assembly lines, so we did get what we could, planning ahead for winter gift exchanges and such. Anyway, here are a few photos of very nifty crafts from the faire. You can click through for larger versions, as well as notes regarding each artisan:
How cool a last name is “Smith-Smith”, anyway? Ya gotta have parents (or a spouse) with a sense of humor to end up with a name like that! What a great way to turn the most ubiquitous, bland name ever into something much rarer and entertaining.
New review of Deidre Knight’s Red Fire is upcoming in a day or two. I’ve also been playing around with wire-wrapping some semiprecious stones I got at the faire and turning them into pretty pendants.
A while ago I spotted a church named “Christ Our Anchor” and ever since then I’ve found myself pronouncing it with certain… other… punctuation: “Christ! Our anchor!”
What can I say. I enjoy language humor.
New book reviews since the last time I posted them: Dr. Davis Liu’s Stay Healthy, Live Longer, Spend Wisely, on the US healthcare system and navigating it safely. Nalini Singh’s Hostage to Pleasure, which established for me exactly why so many people think so highly of her! And Laurel Anne Hill’s Heroes Arise, a fantasy novel that focuses on world-building. I’ve had a friend visiting all last week so I haven’t gotten as much done as usual, particularly in the realm of reading; it’s fun, though, because we’ve known each other since early college, which means I’ve now known her for literally half of my life.
In awesome news, we now have more than 40 items posted at our etsy store (errantdreams.etsy.com). That includes a great handful of beaded bookmarks—each one unique—as well as jewelry and a few trinket bags. Consider buying a beaded bookmark for a friend this holiday season! This weekend I also made some fun things like a garnet and silver filigree bracelet, so expect to see some of those soon.
We’ve also started posting our level 80 designs at cafepress! More to come soon!
Background: I used to work as the receptionist at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics (about 15 years ago). I spent a lot of time typesetting physics papers (that’s how I developed tendonitis) and dealt with a bunch of physics professors, post-docs, and grad students. One of the more fun folks at the CTP was Sean Carroll, who was at the time a post-doc.
Imagine my surprise when, upon watching a Lewis Black comedy special on pay per view tonight in which a couple of comedians “debated” whether it was high school or American Idol that was the root of all evil, I briefly saw him there. He was one of three scientists shown in a clip of a fictitious “last scientist standing” American Idol-style science show.
Dang he’s aged well! And, may I say, it’s VERY surreal tuning in to watch one of your favorite comedians and seeing a clip of someone you used to work with ten or fifteen years ago. I think my head just asploded.
Yes, that’s a technical term.
More soon. Sorry for the lack of communication, but we’ve had a friend visiting from out of town all week!
I’d heard there were people predicting the LHC would bring about the end of the world, but it was kind of hard to process. I didn’t really take it seriously until I saw someone online yesterday talking about how scared they were and how they were just sure that even if the world didn’t end, something would go horribly, awfully wrong. And even then I thought they were joking at first.
*listens*
Nope, we’re all still here.
What really got me was how this person seemed to think there was some sort of huge conspiracy of silence and secrecy surrounding the project. I mean, come on. If this is a grand secret conspiracy, then someone’s doing something very wrong:
Anyway, there are far better things to be scared of than some boogeyman ‘OMG they’re performing SCIENCE’ media frenzy. If I’m going to get stressed, it’s going to be over something that actually has a real chance of ruining my life.
So, all that aside (you did watch that video, didn’t you? If not, go ahead; I’ll still be here when you get done laughing uncontrollably), here’s yesterday’s book review: James Dillehay’s Pricing Your Craftwork. I should have another review up tomorrow. In the meantime, we now have a total of 30 items up at our etsy crafts store (including two more bookmarks!), and have sold our very first item through them!
In case this means nothing to you, it means that we’re starting to put our jewelry and other crafts up for sale online. We have the first 14 items up right now, with many more to come soon. (Sorry, but we’ve already sold that magnificent dragonfly choker!)
Here are some of the nitty-gritty details, all of which should also be on the ’store policies’ page of the etsy shop. If you order more than one item, the shipping charge for additional items is much lower than that for the first item. The shipping cost is what it is because we get delivery confirmation and try to package things very carefully so as to avoid any possibility of damage during shipment. We do have to collect sales tax from anyone who lives in Maryland; PayPal should calculate that automatically. All crafts are made in a smoke-free environment, and we do our best to keep our two short-haired cats out of the craft-work!
If you have any questions, do let me know! I have a light box for photo-taking now, so the photos are really nice and should be pretty clear, but I’m learning more with every batch that I do. Here’s a little frobby to show you some of the things we currently have up:
…for, “my cat just tried to ‘help’ me do the step aerobics program, but I successfully completed it AND didn’t step on her.” And it should give you some sort of bonus points on your score. ‘Cause let me tell you, that’s a whole ‘nother level of difficulty!
Speaking of cats, the latest book review is of Jane Seabrook’s Purry Logic, which is just plain cool! I’m sorry that was it for reviews this week; Monday was a holiday, and then I spent most of the rest of the week working on other things. We’re THIS close to opening that Etsy store; I made a bunch more of those cloth bags; and I kind of got hooked on playing with a fractal program and turning the results into pieces of art:
I’ve also spent a lot of time working on our upcoming level 80 designs for Cafepress; speaking of which, all level 70 designs are on sale—and we’ll be phasing most of them out eventually, so get ‘em while you can!
There are at least three upcoming book reviews, though: of a health care book, a cookbook for cancer survivors, and a pricing/business book for crafters, most immediately. In the meantime, here’s a random bit of fun: Read the rest of this entry »
A couple of months ago I noticed that there was a new organic market opening near us. ‘Great!’ I thought. ‘We won’t have to go all the way into Annapolis for good produce and specialty flours and such!’ Eventually this last week I noticed that they appeared to be open (it’s hard to tell from the road) and I did a little searching online to find out their hours. Eventually I located their site. I discovered the owners used to operate a smaller health food store that mostly carried vitamins, nutritional supplements, and health foods, off somewhere on a side street in the area. They’d decided the time was right (and the newly-built location was right) for opening a real organic foods market. They opened on the 8th of August; we went in on the 31st. By the time we went in, it looked like they were already dying on the vine.
Anything perishable (meats, produce, dairy) was in short supply, and either in perfect condition (i.e. just laid out) or really piss-poor condition (i.e., no turnover, and I guess they can no longer afford to throw stuff out and turn it over themselves). I could only find one usable tomato. Of the three(!) quarts of milk on the shelves, two had expired three days earlier. The shop was very clean and very well-organized, so I don’t think it was a case of them not caring—I think they’ve just hit the end of their money and stuff isn’t selling. There was only one other customer in there while we were there, and at any other grocery store we go to it would have been prime shopping time (late Sunday morning, just before lunch).
It looked like they’d made some questionable decisions. The location isn’t great, IMO: it’s tough to see from the road at all. The only reason we noticed it is because I caught sight of it as the passenger; as my husband noted, if it had just been him as driver in the car, he wouldn’t have had the time in passing to read the sign (small sign on a reasonably fast highway). Also, we heard nothing about their opening other than the one sign I spotted, so I’m thinking they must not have done much in the way of effective marketing. When I searched online for them I found a couple of brief mentions in local forums, and one short article printed before they opened in a publication I’d never heard of.
I think they also made some questionable decisions inside the store. They appeared to be carrying a lot of highly specialized stuff that only a few people would want. Whole trays of wheatgrass, but no squash of any kind, either winter or summer? Don’t get me wrong, the bags of pappadum snacks are freakin’ awesome and I could gain several pounds on those alone, but I’m thinking most shoppers would rather buy chips. I’m glad I finally found a source for amaranth and teff flours, but so few people are interested in those that even the Whole Foods Market in Annapolis doesn’t carry them, and Annapolis has a higher-income selection of residents who are thus more likely to shop for such ingredients. (Besides, it isn’t huge as grocery stores go, and even people who want amaranth flour or teff flour will probably only buy them once every handful of months. So it’s not a great use of space.)
I feel really badly for them. They clearly put a lot of love into the store, stocking items they thought were cool and that couldn’t be found elsewhere in the area, and I loved being able to buy those things. They got top of the line checkout equipment with touch-screens. But they don’t appear to have done the market research necessary to make sure they had the right inventory, location, and marketing, and it was probably just the wrong time and place for such a store. Certainly if they stay open I’ll go there when I can for specialty stuff, but honestly, a lot of what I want an organic market for is the produce—and for that, it’s clear I’ll still have to go to Whole Foods.
In more upbeat news, in light of the crafting stuff we’ve been doing lately, I finally initiated a section of crafting links in the links directory. Feel free to sign up for a free account if you want to submit links for crafters’ supply shops, storefronts, community sites, or blogs. Just make sure it has something to do with hand-crafting!
Speaking of hand-crafting, here are a couple more shots of recent projects:
We’re getting closer to opening up that etsy shop—we’ll let you know when it happens! In the meantime, we do have some new stuff up at cafepress. I turned some of my flower photos and photomanipulations into gift items like mugs, prints, and greeting cards in our flower-lovers’ section. The mixed flowers section so far includes items with four different photos on them. Here are a couple samples of our new designs:
We also have a little bit of psychology humor for you geeks out there, with our ink blot test design:
No book review today, I’m afraid. Between taking a four-day weekend, dealing with a new cherry allergy (having a rash on the roof of your mouth and on your lips sucks), sewing a bunch of bags from that scrap of skull fabric, making jewelry, and putting up designs on cafepress, I didn’t quite finish the book I was reading. Soon!
Question: How many Apple & AT&T techs does it take to get voice mail working on your brand-new iPhone?
Answer: Six. Or was that seven? I’ll have to ask my husband whether he spoke to one or two reps the last time he called.
Okay. It isn’t too fascinating a story, so I’ll try to keep it short. Our old cell phones were about four years old and desperately needed replacing. We already had AT&T as our carrier, and we decided to pick up iPhones. Yeah, yeah, everyone’s ragging on them, it’s cool to hate the iPhone. Well, too bad. We like them. I like the features. I like the fact that, historically, Apple’s had a good track record when it comes to producing working hardware. Okay, so there’s a chicken-and-egg problem regarding reception (AT&T didn’t want to roll out lots of G3 towers until they had plenty of customers for them, so the coverage isn’t good yet), but we aren’t far from DC, so we didn’t think that was likely to be a huge problem. I heard rumor of iPhones being fragile, but everyone I talked to who actually had one said they were amazed by how durable the things were.
So. We got ‘em on Saturday.
The good: TOY! Weather reports, maps, driving directions, a good contacts database, etc. I can customize which ringtone matches up with which caller so I know who’s calling. It doubles as an iPod music player. I’m no power-user, but it certainly meets my needs and then some. The battery life so far has been wonderful. Best of all: the reception is AMAZING. My old phone sucked. This one’s fantastic, at least where I live and where my husband works and in the spaces between.
The bad: the voice mail button didn’t work, and anyone who called us got told we hadn’t set up our voice mail boxes yet. My husband had to go through five levels of tech support over the course of more than an hour, repeatedly trying the same things over and over again, until he reached a ‘voice mail specialist’ who sent something to the sim cards on our phones and had the problem fixed in under five minutes. Oh, except I guess the person who force-activated our voice mail boxes didn’t realize we were supposed to have the ‘visual voicemail’ feature, so that’s what the second phone call was about.
On the plus side, by that time they were so worried we’d be unhappy with them that they were going out of their way to make us happy, including not only back-dating the minute plan downgrade we wanted to the beginning of the month, but also rolling over all our extra minutes to the new plan, which usually you can’t do. Just try getting a company like, say, Comcast to stick with you long enough to fix this kind of problem, let alone volunteer to do nice things for you afterward to make up for it. So while it’s really silly that it took that many people to fix our voicemail, it’s great that they kept at it until it was fixed and then tried to make sure we’d be happy customers.
Today’s review is of a kitchen-related gizmo: the Wine & Dine. Yesterday’s isn’t exactly a review, but rather a non-review of Melina Morel’s Prey. And this is the necklace & earrings set I made this morning. Best viewed in full size (click through and click on the image to enlarge it).
