Older but no more wiser...

Tomorrow is my birthday. I won't reveal my age but let's just say 40 is coming up quick!
I treated myself and got my hair done. I needed to dye the grey out and the blue chunk which had faded miserably. I got it cut shorter in the back and longer in the front which I thought would be a nice change. I like it but I don't think my husband does. I'm not too worried about it though.
So I have been struggling emotionally lately. The same old, same old with regards to my business and my job. I would love to work for myself fulltime but not sure my business can make enough money. Sales were slow in August :(
I have also been overweight for years now and am sick of trying weight watchers etc. I am thinking about lap band surgery but it is so expensive and I am not sure I even qualify. I am trying to get some answers. My husband is not on board with it. he doesn't want me to spend my money on it and I kinda think he just thinks I am lazy which is so not the case. In any event, I am looking into it and will make the right decision for me.

Gimme A Break

Give me a break! Break me off a piece of that KitKat bar. MMM I love me some kitkats.
So I took a short break from blogging. I got a bunch of work done, made some jewellery and I even spent some time at the beach.
Don't worry though, I am back at it and will be blogging away aimlessly on a regular basis again :)

I am too clumsy for my own good.

I fell down the stairs late Friday night! Who does that? I was tired and I have a bit of a hard time with stairs ever since I broke my knee in February but I don't really know how it happened. All I know is that it hurt. I wacked my head, cut open my arm, broke a toe and "re-aligned" my already messed up knee. Let's just say, when I am going to do something I never do it half way!
In other news, I did get some jewellery done this weekend as well. Here is one of the pieces. It is a charm necklace made with a Swarovski crystal, a flip flop charm and a simulated beach glass nugget in soft aqua.

Picnik

Today I found Picnik! For those of you not already aware, Picnik is a great photo editting site. It is so simple to use and I am sure it will help me on my quest for better pistures!
The nice part is that it costs NOTHING and only takes about 15 seconds to register!
How sweet is that?
www.picnik.com for those interested. I think it is a great site

Amusing Thoughts

I will pre-warn that today's post is a bit of a grumpy-cakes post. It is all true and it kinda makes me chuckle but it is also a wee bit nasty which I am not particularly proud of. Yet, I still choose to type this out and go for it.
So what I am finding quite amusing today is, shall we call them, grammatically challenged, people on facebook who try to post deep and thoughtful status updates but they just can't quite pull them off. I am sure you know the type. The attempted insightful message usually:
1) is filled with grammar and spelling errors
2) makes not a lick of sense
3) doesn't apply in the slightest to the person who posted it
So this leads me to question a few things about myself. The first is, am I the only nasty bugger out there who likes to laugh at these ridiculous updates? Am I going to Hell for being so rotten? And finally, why do I have so many under-educated, under-read and amusing in the wrong sort of way people on my facebook?
Please tell me I am not alone!

New Jewellery

I have not had a lot of time to make jewellery and this is a little upsetting to me for a few reasons. They are:
- I have three big shows coming up between now and the end of the year and I don't have enough stock!
- I sell less when I don't have regular new items to post
- I am not getting the creative outlet I so desperately need!
I keep waiting (and waiting) for my life to slow down or my schedule to ease up but it hasn't happened yet!
In any event, I did make a few new pieces on Sunday evening. Here is one of them for you to look at:

It is a nice, long necklace made with ceramic beads, silver plate discs and quartz nuggets. I truly an happy with how this one turned out!

Sun and Sand

Another fabulous summer weekend for us! We went to Sherkston Shores and we had a great time. Piper loves the lake which is awesome because so do I!
We had a great visit with family and now we are home relaxing and doing some laundry.
I am also happy to report that I have completed my current custom jewellery orders and will ship everything first thing. I am thrilled to get orders of any type but the only issue I have with so many custom ones is that I don't have a lot of time left to just make whatever pops into my head. I am not complaining about the sales though. So far, so good this month.
In other news, I finally got my hands on an iPhone 4 for Bob. I can't believe how crazy people are about these phones. Rogers will get 5 in and 50 people will line up and wait for hours to get them. It's nuts. In any event, Bob is thrilled to have it and I think I am in the running for a wife of the week award.

Floating Houses

I first laid eyes on a floating house when I was in Victoria BC a few years ago. I was instantly attracted to them and have never forgotten about them since. I guess in my mind I have it decided that living in a floating home means being creative all day, relaxing, enjoying the water and generally a stress free lifestyle. I am sure that in reality it is nothing like that. I am sure people who live in these gorgeous little funny homes have problems just like the rest of us but for me, I would still love to live in one!
In my mind's eye, I am living here today:

Holy Emotions Batman!

I am so very emotional today and I don't know why. I woke up this morning and I felt well-rested. Before I got the baby up though I was sitting downstairs on the couch and thinking about how nice it would be to have the day off and do NOTHING. I even felt a little like I couldn't function today if I wanted to. Low and behold though, I got my act together and got on with things.
Then, while driving to the daycare I just got feeling soooo tired. I stopped at a four way stop and waited, and waited and waited. Then I realized that the stop sign was never going to turn green!
Now I am at work and am surprisingly functioning (and even putting on a happy face while doing it) but I just took a browse through my pictures of Piper (because I am missing her today like crazy) when she was in hospital and strguggling to survive and I ended up in tears in my office.
I am not normally emotional but lately I really have been. Not sure if something's wrong with me or I am just tired or what.
I would just really like to get back to normal.

Dare I say it...

I am somewhat organized for the new shops this weekend! I just have to do a few more things for the display items but apart from that I am packed, tagged and even have the inventory done for both!
It feels good:)
I even managed to make two new pieces last night. The first one is a super long glittering necklace of graduiated irredescent glass and silver discs. It measures 43 inches! It can be worn long or doubled (even tripled?) up!

The second is a simply but lovely necklace of silver circles and a crystal drop in the palest of citrine. So cute!

New Shops

As usual, another busy weekend coming up. It makes me re-visit the age old question of should I keep my full time job and continue working my butt off through most of my spare time to run the business, should I quit my full time job, learn to live with less and work the business full time or should I pack the business in (or severly scale it back), enjoy my regular steady pay and some free time on top of it all.
I would love to have the ka-ho-neys (cajones?) to take what is behind door two but I worry way too much about money for that I think. So it is door one or three and so far door one is winning. Although I have to admit that I am sick of being tired.
Anyway, this weekend involves moving into two shops. One is Inkwell in Paris Ontario and the other is the Purple Thumb in Toronto.
I am half ready for these moves and plan on finishing the prep work this evening after work.
I can breath a sigh of relief after as all I will have to do in the next three weeks is submit my PST which is overdue, catch up on my books (which is well past due as well and make new items. I definitely need more stock but the good news is that I have loads of beads and loads of ideas.

Price Tagging

I soon realized, shortly after going into business for myself, that outside of making the jewellery and sourcing great beads...I am not great! I really struggled with the photography aspect of it but now, while not perfect, I feel like that is okay.
My next big struggle is with tagging items. I make them, take their pictures, post them and then I don't tag them until right before a show when it is panic time! Then, once they are tagged the tags either look second rate or fall off immediately.
So I have been doing some investigating and taking a nosy little peak while in boutiques and shops to see what they are doing for tags. I doscovered what I think is great last week. A clothing barb that is used to afix the tag and is applied with a tagging gun. Today I ordered the gun, extra needles and the barbs. I am now in the process of ordering custom tags that I will add my price and description to and....voila! I am confident that my tags will look ridiculously fabulous.
While tackling the price tag issues I also had an inkling to investigate earring card options. I am also ordering those for my shop now! They will be on quality card stock and will be white with black chandaliers printed on them and it will look like the earrings are hanging from the chandaliers! Cute, no? My website address will be printed across the bottom.
I feel like I am well on my way to tackling the price tag issues in my life!

Skunked!

Well, the long weekend was great. Saturday we caught up with some friends we had not seen in ages (but no iPhone luck). Sunday we had a family BBQ which went well (although I had a few extra glasses of wine). Yesterday was a day of relaxation and jewellery making. So far sounding good right? Well we had a bit of a stinky situation in the wee hours of the morning.
Opal (the dog pictured below, that we refer to as the other white meat) is a little curious. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body but she also has no idea about personal space and privacy bubbles for people, or apparently for skunks. So, she was sprayed and needed the famous skunk bath at 230am and now our house really, really stinks. I actually looked forward to coming to work today to escape the smell.
Mercy me.

By the way, the other white meat also enjoys coffee. She is stealing some in this picture.