Getting back into the swing just in time for spring!

I am SO READY for this winter to be over. I wanted it gone sometime after I had to work through the second snowstorm. And...if you live in New England, that was a few months ago. HA.

Anyway, on Wednesday I got a phone call from the store I had some of my clock hand earrings in consignment in. They're going out of business, and they wanted me to come down and pick up what I had left. Come to find out, the two pairs I sold in August were the ONLY pairs I ever sold in that shop. I'm glad to have the remaining eight pairs back home and just finished editing the photos of them so I can get them up in my Artfire Studio. Here's a little tease of what's going up once I measure them and get them listed sometime this weekend:

Number 94


Number 104

Well, since I was heading out to Rhode Island to pick up the remaining earrings, I couldn't pass up a trip down to my favorite sea glass beach! I found two items I've never found on a beach before, a blue glass bead and the stem from a clay pipe!

And now for something a little old, but got missed because I was so incredibly sick. On my birthday, I went a little crazy and drove all the way out to the tip of Cape Cod. I was on a strict schedule, so as soon as I got there, I had to turn right around and come back home. Leave it to me to NOT realize that I had embarked on a 320-mile round trip that was entirely pointless, but an amusing adventure.

I also got the Lowepro Slingshot 100 camera backpack for my birthday. Having two different camera cases, one for the camera, and one for the lenses, was a huge pain...and I couldn't have actually afforded this for myself so thankfully my birthday was right around the corner from when I got the Canon! I don't really know how I would ever get along without it, and I've thought that ever since I realized I can utilize it as almost a portable workspace. So here it is next to my new purse and some new orange shoes that cost $5 and some really cute socks that I got some months ago that just match this whole hot mess really well. lol.

The socks really don't make any sense (cloud & crossbones?) , but they're so cute!

Ugly new messenger bag!

I'll spare you the rest of the stuff for the next update, but I've been having a lot of fun with the Canon experimenting with night shots and the rest. :)

Anyway, over the past couple of days I've been hard at work listing new things on ebay and getting my artfire shop up to speed. Surprisingly, I had a sale on Etsy today...first time since Feb. 1! I still haven't really decided where I'm going to list the whole truckload of fabric I picked up at auction just about a month ago. I can't believe how fast time flew this month, especially after I got sick. Now my mom is sick too, but it's with something different. Hopefully it will pass soon, and we'll all be enjoying spring and not getting sick, and all that fun stuff.

Now...off to Google Analytics to see if I can actually learn anything. lol

Getting settled in on Artfire

I haven't had a post about my shops lately either on Artfire or on Etsy. Both aren't selling well at all but I'll blame that on working as much as I can at the post office, and the economy. Ebay has always required less effort to sell if all you care about is sales numbers and not profit, and even ebay is doing poorly for me at the moment. (Look ma, no listings!)

Anyway! I moved all my steampunk jewelry over to my Artfire studio, and got kicked out of the Steamteam on Etsy, but that's okay. I'm part of the new Steampunk Guild on Artfire which is not so high-maintenance. I was never one of those high-maintenance girlfriends and wasn't interested in people who were high-maintenance either. If I faked interest, it was because he owed me money. (And still does! At least he finally took down that picture of him sitting in the driver's seat of my Grand Am on Myspace, because he was such a dirtbag he wanted to look good but he could never afford a car as hot looking as my Grand Am from HELL. That picture was still up long after the car got totaled, too. LOL) Sorry about that. Just had to rant for a bit because I'm so glad that picture is down. hahaha. SAAAAAAAAAB. Much better.

My etsy shop is looking rather bare-bones. I just don't know what to do with it. I deleted a bunch of listings because as Etsy is now, they will never sell and I just don't care. I made my money so I won't feel so bad sending some boxes of stuff off to Salvation Army, but first I'm going to have a big yardsale in the spring. SPRING IS COMING! YARDSALES! My business cards still point to Etsy, which I need to fix pronto because I'm focusing more on the affordable and efficient Artfire. Etsy had its chance, and they will never care about their sellers. My sales were awesome last year until September 1, and then tanked. Artfire hasn't picked up yet, but I didn't jump all in like I did with Etsy at this time last year.

Hell, I haven't even made any jewelry since October 30, and that's SAD.

Recipe! and deciding to go mostly vegetarian.

I'm feeling much better now, and my birthday is tomorrow. (25!) So here's a recipe of something I made last night.

Edamame and Corn salad

You'll need
1 pkg. frozen edamame (can be found in the frozen vegetarian section).
1 can Mexican style corn
1 can whole kernel sweet corn
1 can black beans
1/2 jar mixed vegetable bruschetta
some olive oil, to make the bruschetta stretch since it's quite expensive.

Prepare frozen edamame according to the package directions in the biggest pot you own, since you're just going to mix all the rest of the stuff in with it once the edamame is ready. Can be served cold or warm. Makes like 8 servings, or 4 if you like to eat. The bruschetta costs like $7 but it you make it stretch, it's really not that bad. Total cost for all 8 servings is not much, especially if you get the edamame on sale. Some weeks you can get 2 packages for $5, so buy a lot then and leave it in your freezer.

Eating on a budget...weeeeee!

I have decided to go mostly vegetarian. Of course I still have meat in the house but once that's gone I've pretty much decided not to buy it anymore. It's so darn expensive! Having food poisoning 4 times in the past year really makes you re-think what you eat. Even I am cutting down on pasta, since I have a sinking suspicion that my stomach really can't digest it and it's doing more harm than good.

So here's to getting sick LESS in 2009!

My stomach hates me

I was sick, again, with gastroenteritis. All I know was that there was a lot of throwing up involved with a fever too. And I had to work yesterday, which was hell on earth, but I did it anyway. As many of you have heard, the Postmaster General has gone before Congress to propose eliminating one delivery day. Well, what does that mean for me? It means I'll be out of a job when it happens, because I'm a sub. It seems many people of the public actually think their carriers work 6 days a week. Are you kidding? They're union! lol. So I work on the 6th day, and any day I'm needed. Currently I usually work two days a week--Saturdays I work on a route with a mail truck and Monday's I work on a route with my own jeep. That's just how the relief days work. I usually work more than 2 days per week, too. But...if I'm not guaranteed at least one day per week, well who knows how long it would be when I'm working! Yikes!

So I picked up an entire truckload of fabric to sell on artfire/ebay/etsy. And some bottles too. But getting sick this weekend put all my projects on the back burner.

Anyway, about a week or so ago I finally made it to the beach.

and again!And here's a picture of the ice at Indian Leap in Norwich, CT.

Meanwhile, I'm still not really over that awful bug I had this weekend and can't figure out what I should tackle first...bottles or fabric? My etsy to artfire shop conversion is still coming along. I'm also cleaning out shop and donating some things that aren't selling and are taking too much space to Salvation Army, mainly craft magazines and vintage decor that doesn't fit in flat rate boxes, or worthless plain bottles that aren't worth the effort on ebay.

NOTE: I totally forgot to mention that I got an ID on that green piece of sea glass I love. It's the Lacy Medallion pattern which dates from 1898-1920 or so. Check it out!