This one is intended for my side biz, for my jewelry.  Actually I already have a link to it here, except it used to be my e-commerce site.  I switched things around over the weekend, moved the e-commerce pages to a different folder (essentially making it invisible unless I give a direct link), and put the new blog on the main directory.

I created both an Artfire Studio (basic for now) and an Etsy shop, where I’ll eventually start posting items for sale – jewelry, polymer clay beads, etc..  The links to both are at the top of the page on that blog.  I am also going to try out a plug-in I found for wordpress which allows one to host an e-commerce solution straight from the WP blog.

Technically I could re-list some of the stuff I had up previously at my e-commerce site, but I’d like to re-take the photos of a bunch of them with better lighting and backdrop and whatnot, before I do that.   Plus I’m also trying to work on some polymer clay stuff to be able to sell as well.   Once that is all ready I’ll put up another post here, as well as at the new blog, letting anyone who still drifts by here, know about it.

I know I’ve lost a lot of readers (geeze, do I even still have any at all? LOL) due to my extremely sporadic posting and even less frequent visitation and commenting at other blogs… And that’s ok with me, to be honest. It’s nothing less than I deserve for slacking like that.  I’ll just have to work on posting more often, either here or at the other blog, and trying to visit other blogs.  Unfortunately with the micromanagement at work looking over my shoulder for claims of excessive slacking there, i.e. surfing too much, it’s become even more difficult to do much of what I used to do from work – which was read others’ blogs and such.  And because I’d rather work on things like, you know, building up a stock of jewelry and whatnot when I’m at home, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for blog surfing and posting on my own blog… Except when I’m in a creative funk, of course.

Talk about being spread thin. 

I rarely keep up around here on my ol’ blog (gee, as if that wasn’t obvious), and my other blog is even more neglected.

I guess it’s in part due to how busy it has been at work, and there are no plans to hire anyone new to help with the workload.  So we’re all burdened with a never-ending pile of orders to work, with no end in sight.

Then when I get home, I either just want to sit and surf, or more recently, kill Zombies in a new Popcap game that my husband suggested, “Plants vs. Zombies”.  I think I played that game for nearly four hours straight the other day.

Meh.

The garden is still going well.  Several ears of corn are on the stalks, although I have a bit of an issue with damn aphids on the flower stalks on those, though.  My beast of a tomato plant seems to make orange tomatoes (rather than red), so I’m not exactly sure what type it is.  My cherry tomato plant seems to be struggling, the stems & leaves are dying off from the bottom out, yet it continues to grow up and out like it’s trying to outrun whatever is killing off the lower stems.  And now the beast tomato plant is having the same issue, so I am wondering if it’s either A) something contagious, or B) a nutrient deficiency.

My peas are about done, they fell over before we went on vacation and didn’t take to being tied up very well, so I think they’ve got one foot in the grave and will probably be pulling most of those up before too long.  My poor beans haven’t been doing great whilst being dominated by the beast tomato plant, so I may pull those up too.

I never did get any sweet potatoes like I planned, so those will have to wait for another year I think.

Aside from the mystery issue with the tomatoes, the biggest problem I’ve been having is the damn birds getting to the tomatoes before I do, sometimes before the tomatoes are even ripe, despite the bird netting I put up around most of them.  Ugh.  Stupid birds, leave my mater’s alone!!

So anyway.  Just a quick update, now it’s time for the long drive home from work.  Yay.

Still clinging to our jobs (thankfully) amidst some minor (major for some) changes going on within, but so far no lay offs (yay!).  Though they do have us taking five unpaid days off before June.  I’ll take it though; better than anyone losing their jobs here.

Still working a bit with polymer clay but not being overly productive (quantity wise, anyway).

Still looking around our house at the clutter wanting to pull my hair out over it, but not feeling the energy to get up and do much about it.  The “I’d rather do’s” overtake the “I *need* to do’s” all the time… Then when I seem to get just a teeny bit of headway, more stuff just takes its place.  Gah!

Oh well.  Maybe if I just start using like two hours a weekend to pick up and declutter I’ll maybe start seeing some changes.  We’ll see.  Bleh.

So, despite the fact that I’d rather laze around and enjoy my weekend, I will probably participate and shoot for that magic number, because, honstly – a full week without having to drive 45 miles one way to work??  It’s quite tempting.

I’ve also debated whether to take the five unpaid days off all in one week since I’m salaried and it’ll be broken up over my next ten paychecks anyway… but the first day I picked was Feb 16 because the daycare is closed that day for teacher training, and if I take that entire week off that means one less person working with the group to get our numbers down by the first of the next month.  So… I’ll save the other four days for different dates.  My husband and I may be going out of town at the end of the month for our anniversary so I may use one or two days for that depending on how long we’re out of town.

But it sure would be nice to take a full week off of work, though, without it impacting my personal vacation & sick time.  Ah well.  Not in the carts this time.

I think I may try to hit the hay a little earlier than “usual” tonight.  If I’m as tired later as I am now that won’t be a problem.  But we’ll see, if it’s a typical night I’ll probably get engrossed in something and end up staying up later than I intended…  I’m shooting for no later than 10pm.  Ha.  We’ll see.

It felt so real, I was extremely disappointed when I woke up and realized it had never happened.

I don’t always remember what I dream about, and this is one instance where ultimately I would have prefered to not have remembered.  That’s just cruel teasing.

Lately – and usually – I think it’s because since my job entails being online all day – not necessarily surfing the web, as that is not my job, but just being on the computer – by the time I get home, I may get on my computer to check email and such, or IM my husband, but blogging is the last thing on my mind otherwise.  Since I joined that Christi Friesen class for a steampunk gryphon, much of my time has been spent either looking for old watch parts, and now that I have those, I’ve been working on my gryphon.  (yes, I will post photos when its complete)

Then my daughter requested I make something for her; her first request was a puppy.  So I set about making one she could play with, but before I could put its head on, she woke up from her nap the other day, saw the splotchy spots on its body, and declared it a cow.  So a cow it became.  It has short stumpy legs and no horns (safety, you know), but it is cow-ish and she likes it.  She gets upset if she misplaces it.

She still wants her puppy, though, so instead of another play toy, I told her I’d make one for a necklace – mainly because that silly cow took a good four hours just to put together, and I wanted something simpler for her second request so I could still work on my own stuff, too. LOL  So it’s going to be a necklace bead a bit larger than the circumference of a quarter, accompanied by two doggie bone beads, two large circle beads and two smaller circle beads, with hearts on them.

Oh, and her color request for the puppy?  Pink.  Heh.  So I compromised with her and said I’d maker her a white puppy with pink ears.  So that is what I made, a white pup with pink ears and a darker pink bow, and the circle beads are the same color pink as the ears, and the hearts are white and dark pink.  Yep, I’ll post pix of those, too, when they’re cooked.  I figure later tonight I’ll cook those and part of the gryphon (or maybe the rest of him, too, depending on time).

So that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing in my off time, rather than blogging… working with polymer clay and perusing the yahoo groups for my class and Christi’s other group.

Oh, I also made a filly bead based on her style, too, that is done but I’m not done stringing the necklace for it, once that’s all done I’ll include pics of that, too.  I’m still trying to decide how to do the clasp for it, it’s a bit heavy for a necklace so I’m thinking about making another polymer clay bead to make a toggle clasp with, I figure that would offer the best support for it.  Just gotta find the time to make that one stinkin’ little bead. LOL

*click click click click click-a*  when I turn the ignition.

A coworker happened to be standing outside when I tried starting my car and was on his phone, since I drive a manual transmission, he offered to push my car so that I could hopefully start it that way.  Another coworker had stepped out (don’t know whether he was on break or leaving for the day), and also helped push the car.  No dice. 

The second coworker offered to jump start my car, since he had jumper cables.  He actually also had a portable battery jumper, so he tried that first; fortunately it worked.  I drove home, left the car running and moved the carseat to my husband’s car so he could go pick up the Kiddo from preschool, and then I drove straight over to the dealership.

My battery was nearly four years old, which is pretty darn good for a car in Arizona.  But it sure hurt my pocketbook to pay for that stupid thing.  Apparently my car’s battery is more expensive than your typical car battery because it goes in the trunk of my car rather than under the hood.  Yep, it sits back between the spare tire and the bumper of my car under the liner of the trunk.  But there is a jumper box under the hood, for just what we needed it for today.

So anyway. At least it was just the battery and not something like the ignition switch, which if it had been, would’ve been at least twice as much as the battery, if not more.  So I guess it’s the little things, eh?

And I’ve suddenly become a little bit obsessed (not completely, it doesn’t consume me or anything), with looking for other items that fit that steampunk look – “old” or aged looking chain and other findings, even if they’re actually new and just made to look old; gears and other bits and bobs from mechanical watches, etc., etc.  I am watching several ebay auctions for watch parts, won one of the auctions I bid on, and bought a large men’s analog wrist watch to take apart in hopes it still uses SOME gears in it even though it uses a battery for power rather than being wound.  It’s analog and therefore still has “hands” which are set with the winding device on the side so I’m hoping it still has a few gears inside.  Maybe not as many as a true mechanical watch but at least something, you know?  I just have to figure out how to pry the darn thing open.  The cover is pretty flush with the back of the watch so the tiny screwdriver I had didn’t even fit underneath it.  I have one other tool I have for my clay at home that I MIGHT be able to wedge underneath the cover, I’ll try that when I get home and hopefully be able to pop that thing open.

Anyway, I hope after or even during the class when I have the other supplies on hand I can come up with some neat looking things.  Even if I don’t put them up for sale it’s still nice to be doing something creative and I felt stuck without ideas before this, so signing up for that class turned out to be a good decision afterall.

My husband got me seasons 1 & 2 for Christmas.  I zipped through those and had to buy season 2 on Amazon (it was only $19.99, whereas at the stores it’s more like $40), and then once I was done with that, since it’s currently on the season 4 run so I can’t get it on DVD, I bought a season pass for that on iTunes and am already caught up and waiting for the next episode… which doesn’t air until January 15!!  Agh!  Whatever am I going to do until then??  I may replay the episodes from this season again, or maybe start over on season 3, I’m not sure yet.

I’d forgotten how much I liked that show until I started watching it again when hubby got them for me for Christmas.  We used to watch Smallville a lot too but stopped watching it around the same time as we stopped watching Supernatural, and while I do have some of the later seasons of that on HD and BluRay, I haven’t been watching them since I am feeling like that show is probably getting too hokey and probably jumped the shark once Lex & Lana left – and I haven’t even seen the episodes when that happens yet!  I’ve read here and there on the show’s website about some of the stuff going on currently, and it just seems… Meh.  I am wondering if it should have ended back when it was originally rumored to have been ending… like at the end of season 5.