Think I'll buy me a football team

Long time no post, because I was running around like a crazed woman trying to finish custom jewelry orders for Christmas, and also get ready for the craft show I did at REI headquarters yesterday. Super-busy week!

We also got some sad news from TJ's family last week, so it didn't seem right to post a light-hearted post right at that time. Please send happy thoughts their way.

Anyway, back to less weighty topics. (Pretty much everything here is a less weighty topic, isn't it?) I got 5 of my 6 custom orders done last week, and have 3 currently on my plate, though one of those isn't for Christmas and I still need to order supplies for it.

On deck today is just 2 pairs of earrings. One is a custom order from a friend, as a Christmas present for someone else, and the other is from a woman at yesterday's craft show. The awesome part is that she already paid for them!

I made a pair of earrings and a matching bracelet on Thursday to beef up my inventory for the show and they are some of my favorites. Unfortunately, I was so rushed I didn't take a picture, so I'll just have to recreate them sometime from my imagination. They had bright orange carnelian, tiny brown freshwater pearls, and just some sparkly silver accents - very small and delicate.

The earrings got snapped up pretty early in the craft fair, and the lady who bought the bracelet also wanted the earrings, so I told her I'd make her another pair. Hope I remember what they looked like!

Anyway, the show was pretty good for me. I sold many of my magnets, though not the water molecule GeekMagnets. I was smart to bring BeagleMagnets and NatureMagnets, both of which were a big hit with the employees. It also helped that I offered them individually at $2 so I had a few people buy just one magnet. I also sold 2 bracelets and 2 or 3 pairs of earrings so it was a pretty successful day for me. A nice way to end the season. I'd do this one again if Wendi asks me (you have to be sponsored by an employee).

But in general, I'm down on craft shows. It's a lot of sitting around, hoping someone will buy stuff. There's always a ton of jewelry vendors. And it usually eats up a whole weekend day, not to mention all the prep time beforehand. So I might stick to the Internet and custom orders for friends. Or be more choosy about the shows I do participate in. This year, as a learning experience, I did anything that was less than $20 for the booth. Two shows were pretty good and two were *really* bad. You never can tell up front, but I did learn that I don't really like sitting around all day and it just imposes way too much deadline stress on me. So maybe one or two a year will be enough.

After the show yesterday, Wendi and I went to Nordstrom Rack. I love the Rack, and Wendi is a marathon shopper like me. I can tell we're going to be good friends :) If only she didn't live so far away! I bought three black dresses. Really, they are all different!

Actually, I will probably return one of them today. I bought it to wear for our New Year's Eve dinner at Canlis, but it needed some slight alterations and my usual seamstress is out of town until then. I also didn't *love* it. I could wear it as-is, though it's a little big. So I'm going to see if there are other options for me today, at Macy's and the Factoria Nordstrom Rack. If I don't find something else, I'll wear the one I bought. It's black, and sparkly, and nice, but just not *the* dress.

Though currently I'm pretty unhappy with how clothes are fitting these days :( I need a good kick in the (extra large) pants to start eating right again. And make sure I'm getting my 10000 steps in each day (at the very least). Shopping with Wendi, who's a size 6 and several inches taller than me, underscored this fact. She's that person who can wear the cute little Audrey Hepburn straight-cut black dresses. I remember the (brief) time when most things I tried on would fit, and I'd just have to decide which ones I liked best. Instead of now, where if it fits at all, it automatically gets tossed in the "maybe" pile, just for that reason. Sad.

And quite honestly, what it comes down to is how bad I really want to lose weight because it ain't gonna come easy this time. I'm still kidding myself that walking more and just eating less crap is really going to effect a drastic change. But I'm also not mentally ready to make a wholesale change. I love going out to eat in Belltown at lunch. I'm still in a very anti-green-leafy-vegetable phase. I hate salad. But I'm not getting any younger. Yuck.

Grumble, grumble.

And find me there

More GeekMagnets posted today. The new square ones, which are a little harder to do because they need to be very, very, neat under the clear acrylic square. But I love these guys, especially because they're biochemically geeky.

And I shouldn't have had that diet Coke with dinner. Now it's 11:30pm and I'm wide awake. You'd think I would learn. But today was especially stressful at work, and I got a haircut and had to ride the bus home at 7:30pm. None of which made me especially happy, really.

My haircut is fine. I love my salon, which is across the street from where I work and sufficiently hip for my taste. But I've gone to the same stylist twice now and haven't been thrilled with the results, so I think I'll switch next time.

Don't get me wrong, she does a fine job with the cutting, but when she blowdries it straight, it doesn't look much better than when I do it. It's got that fuzzy, dry look, which I hate. I think it's because she doesn't totally *get* the texture of my hair, which is kind of coarse and wavy and needs some extra round-brushing to lay perfectly flat. But I got it trimmed and didn't lose much length, so really, that's all I needed. A utilitarian haircut experience, rather than a "hey, don't you love my hair", basking-in-new-haircut-glory experience.

We watched Project Runway tonight. They're obviously keeping some of the annoying people around for television value. It was ok, nothing stunning. I've got to catch up on last week's episode, which I missed, probably because I was doing something crafty.

So the list of custom orders grows. I just got another one, so I've got 4 to finish relatively soon, given it's already Dec 5. Plus I have to really beef up my inventory for the REI headquarters company craft fair next Friday. Since I'm not sharing a table with anyone, I've got a whole 6 foot table I need to fill. I'm *really* hoping to have around 50 items to sell, but that's going to be a long shot. I currently only have about 30.

And work is kicking my butt so there's no sneaking out early to come home and make stuff. Wish me luck, peeps and don't feel bad if I don't call you or send you a Christmas card for a few weeks!

Be careful what you wish for

Wow, so I am totally thrilled! My new set of GeekMagnets sold this morning, to a customer in the UK. At least my little creations will get out and see places I'd like to visit! I've just finished packing them up to be mailed. My random guess at postage costs was a little less than the actual cost, so now I know better to increase it for next time. That's why these are an experiment, right?

Well, off to make more magnets! Each set takes a few days, by the time the glue dries on the different components and I can actually clean them up and photograph them. I'm honestly surprised at their popularity. Of course, *I* love them, but that doesn't mean other people will.

And the jewelry custom orders keep coming in - yay! I've got 3 to work on now. Woot!

I'm sleeping my day away

As usual, my afternoon nap has made me completely not ready to go to bed early.

Shipwreck Beads was amazing. I can't even describe effectively how huge it is. It's like a whole Target store, but full of beads. Crazy. It's even marked as a tourist attraction on the freeway, and I understand why. Of course, I couldn't resist and spent way too much on more beads than I'll ever need, but I rationalized it by saying I'd probably only make the trip down there once a year at most. Here's a picture:


Wendi and I had a good time, and we went to dinner at a lovely sushi place in Bonney Lake, Sushi Town, which coincidentally is right next to a store called Smoke Town. I find that really funny. Then again, I'm a dork.

The drive home was not so much fun. The weird thing is that at Wendi's house, there was some rain, then as I drove north, more rain, and when I hit King County, a LOT of rain, then as I got close to Bellevue, freezing rain, snow flurries, and when I got to Redmond, actual snow on the ground. Crazy. I actually was more worried about the last mile home than the other 43 miles to get there. I ended up having to leave Otto at the bottom of our hill, because, as I expected, he was completely useless in the snow. This morning we retrieved him and put him back in the warm garage.

Today was a Productive Day, with a capital P. I finished the laundry, finished the second of my four Christmas custom jewelry orders, made another pair of earrings for my etsy shop, posted my new meterology GeekMagnets to my shop, went to the grocery store and made some yummy corn-potato chowder that I found on this blog. Like most soup recipes, it makes way more than you'd expect, so measure carefully if you decide to try it.

I took the day off from the morning walk due to the bad weather, but Allison and I will resume tomorrow at 7:15am. We've been doing great with it, and it's been awesome for the dogs. They seem to have more energy and Peanut especially seems in better shape than he was.

Well, time to get ready for tomorrow and try to get some sleep. Happy December everyone!

Here to stay is a new bird

Why is there snow on the ground?? I appreciate that it waited until December to snow here but seriously? I have things to do today, places to go. And you know that Otto hates snow. Just a refresher - Otto is my car, the Audi A3 that becomes useless in the snow due to its "performance" tires. Part of the appeal of living in Seattle is that it doesn't get too cold during the winter.

But just last weekend, TJ and I had to order multiple pairs of woolies from REI. Which, incidentally, are available for store pickup today. And now I digress to discuss how much I *LOVE* the store pickup option. I don't have to pay for shipping, and I just drive over to the local store and my package is waiting. Totally awesome.

And speaking of shipping, my beads showed up in the mail. I have a whole box of semi-precious beads that are just waiting to be made into something awesome. Citrine, garnet, aventurine, onyx, yum!

I finished the custom order for Trista and got it mailed to her. I also sold my very first set of GeekMagnets on etsy. Yay! This series was "Molecules and Cells". The person who bought them is planning to give them as a gift to a friend studying chemistry. Awesome! I will make more this weekend.

So, just a little recap on "the business". I have sold 13 things in my etsy shop so far, which is great. I've sold about the same number just to friends and family in that time as well, so I'm way ahead of my "1 sale per week through the end of the year" goal I set back in September!

Today, if the weather permits (melt, snow!!) I am driving down South to an unknown part of Washington called Bonney Lake to pick up my friend Wendi and we're going to what is apparently the biggest bead store in the WORLD, Shipwreck Beads. Someone recently called it the "Costco of Beads". Should be awesome, even just to see it. They're so huge they even have billboards on the freeway. I can't wait!

And speaking of my friend Wendi, I've only actually met her in person once! No, this isn't some weird Internet situation where I'm making friends with strangers. I actually work with Wendi at my (sort of new) job. She's my contact at one of our major clients, and we talk several times a week about her project, and then got to talking about other stuff, like her pet ducks and why guys don't usually include a salutation or any pleasantries in their email. So it should be fun to actually hang out with her.

Projects on deck for this weekend: custom necklace which is a Christmas present for a friend, custom order for necklace and bracelet for a little girl, re-do a bracelet I don't love into a necklace I like much better, and make some magnets! Sounds busy for 2 days, huh?