I'm waiting for my laptop to arrive.  I've followed the tracking information.  It is on the truck to be delivered today.  I will not leave here until I've seen the UPS man.  I really hope it is SOON!  Soooo impatient!

I have to decide on whether to use the vista that came with it, use my copy of XP Professional or load a unix product.  Choices, choices!   And then there is the software that is available...   Hmmm... 

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My blue dell laptop

I'm getting a Dell. 

Oh Boy!

Yeah, saw a package deal for a decent price.  Did some research and figured out it was a good buy.  So I bought.  Just now.  Just hung up my phone.  (I hate phones!)  I hate spending money on things like this.  I really do.  But I'm going to be delighted when the box comes and I pull out my laptop with the pretty blue cover.  At least I hope so.  It is coming with Vista on it, and I've heard nightmare stories about that.  But I'm hoping that my existing addition of XP Pro will work on the new machine.  Or maybe I'll see if I can figure out where to download the Unix or Linix or whatever it is.  The good news is that I have 30 day to like it or hate it and I can return it if I need to.  Urgh!  I hate decisions like this one.  I want to do the right thing but I have no clue what the best choice is on this sort of thing.

I just looked at the price for the comparable I Book – the one piece of research I did not do before buying the Dell… and for $141.75 more I could have the I Book.  No Vista.

Uh...

I no feel so good

I have no clue what I'm doing.

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We’ll, time for a little update I suppose.

Tonight we enjoyed watching a stage production of Peter Pan.  A friend of ours played “Mr. Darling” and it was very cute.  This is not a story I grew up with and I knew it only in a peripheral sort of way.  I was surprised with how chauvinistic the roles were, the girl being a mom to all the boys, making the meal, and doing the annual Spring cleaning.  Peter Pan pretending to be the father with his chair and pipe.  And I was also surprised with how the Indian characters were coreographed in the most stereotypical way possible.  I know I’m an uncommon woman, but as I child I never pretended I was a mother or that I was cooking or spring cleaning for anyone – ever!  It wouldn’t have occurred to me.  Now I did pretend I was on stage singing or playing piano for thousands, hosting a cooking show or designing doll clothing or designing the interior of a shoe box with blocks for furniture.  You know, all the normal stuff.  J  (for an artist.)

I’ve started making my own mineral makeup.  It’s an interesting process and I’m learning a lot as I go along.  I managed to get a really good match to my own skin tone, that was surprisingly easy.  Most mineral makeup is far too yellow for my skin but I was able to work it out by adding pigments and then using the back of my hand to match the color.  I’ve got a good eye for color so it wasn’t that hard to get it right.  It seems to me that I should be able to get pretty close for other people’s coloring as well.  And now that I’ve got all the stuff, I might as well make it available to my friends.  I’ve worn the product a couple days and it covers more than any other mineral makeup I’ve worn and that’s kind of interesting.  I guess this formula is a bit more like a concealor than a foundation.  So I’ll keep messing around with the formula for the light coverage and good for your skin qualities that are so cool about mineral makeup.  I refuse to use that Bismuth stuff that is in cheap mineral makeup that is actually an “inorganic” (not a mineral at all) that is just cheap filler and actually known to cause issues for some people.  So I’m fascinated by this for the moment.  We’ll see where it takes me.

I’m laptop computer shopping.  Yeah, it’s time to purchase a computer that will be able to handle the next round of software I’m going to try to get for my business.  I’d love Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver, we’ll see if I can pull together that kind of cash.  It’s a big investment and I’m not a professional designer (well, I used to draw logos for a marketing firm but I haven’t done that for a while) so it’s a bit difficult to justify.  However, buying Dreamweaver is certainly cheaper than hiring a web designer who knows dhtml so as long as I can continue to put together all my own websites, then that’s good for me.  I wish I could figure out a way to learn how to code dynamic html websites without having to put out the big bucks!  I’ll keep researching it, it is still possible that some of the features I need are already in the Frontpage software that I already have.  I don’t think Frontpage uses CSS though, so I’ll keep researching that.  I’ve also put in some time researching shopping carts and setting up a website to sell products using PayPal.com.  I’ve giving some thought to a commerce website and exploring some of the other options with that as well.  The wheels, they are a-turning!  If you've been there, done that - pass along any pointers!  (I had a yahoo store for a while and that just isn't what I want.)

I’ve made lots of different kinds of soap lately.  Some of it really turned out beautifully.  (And some of it had to be completely melted down and rebatched.)  I’ve got about ten different kinds now and I’m especially happy with the colors and fragrances and my favorite of the moment is a Milk and Honey bar that I think is especially cute.  I’ll try to take photos and post them one of these days.  I’m really happy with how that adventure is going.  And my soap has been accepted in a local gallery, so that’s kind of cool.  I have tentative word that my alphabet photography has also been accepted there.  So I just need to pack up a bunch of stuff and take it to them and see what happens.

I need to spend a little time with the jewelry again.  I have a wholesale order waiting on enough money to be able to click the “checkout” button.  But I think I’m going to give that some serious thought and maybe go in a different direction altogether.  There are just so many different options with jewelry design that keeping it fresh is really not that hard to do – it’s just a matter of deciding what to explore.  So many ideas, so little time.

The good folks at the Library have invited me to come and do a cake demonstration for them.  They’ve given me an hour and I’m supposed to carve, ice and decorate a cake into the shape of a book and talk to them as I do it.  Then they’ll all eat the cake and that will be that.  It sounds like it could be fun.  Boss Lady told me to think about jokes to tell and ways to make it fun and interesting.  I’ve never really thought about cake decorating as a performance art, so this will be interesting indeed.  Anything for a change of pace I suppose.  Who knows, I may decide that I really like pretending to host a cake decorating show.  J

Well, it’s getting late and the morning has a way of coming round on a regular basis.  So I shall curl up next to my snoring hubby and see where the Dream Giver takes me.

Goodnight foxy voxers

And sweet dreams

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Well, the Hack is back.  She came in as I was winding up work today.  And we ignored each other as scripted.  But I was standing beside Boss Lady when she came over and complimented me on how the cakes in the case looked.  Wow!  Could have knocked me right on over.  I was so used to her being grumpy that I wasn’t quite sure how to react to her being nice.  I’m trying really hard not to think evil thoughts about it only being about being nice to me in front of Boss Lady, but I’m choosing to take it at face value.  My instinct is that seeing my work is helping her to let go some.  I’m not sure.  I guess we’ll take it as it comes.  Very nice though, I hope I was suitably gracious and that my surprise didn’t show too terribly much.

I’m working on getting some stuff listed in my Etsy store.  It was disheartening that it took me most of the day to get so few items listed on my one day off.  I don’t know how quickly things will start to move on there, or if they ever will.  I’ve got so much inventory from the shop just sitting here.  My money is tied up and I feel like I can’t move on to the next thing because I don’t have the money.  Yet, liquidating what I have at it’s value is going to take some serious work.  I’ve tried Ebay in the past and pretty well got soaked.  In a few cases I basically paid people for the opportunity to ship my stuff to them.  Expensive mistakes.  I hope this Etsy.com thing works a lot better.  And now that I’m working for someone else, well, time is the one thing I don’t have.  I’m not sure how to promote the blasted thing or if this is an exercise in futility.  I don’t know.  This work did so well in my gallery but I’m sick of looking back on the good old days when the money was easy and the work was a delight.  I can’t just put it out on the table and sell it tomorrow like I usta.  Because I don’t have a shop anymore, selling stuff is much more work.  I don’t like it.  I need another shop!

Which brings up another point.  I asked to get paid today.  And either she forgot on accident or on purpose.  Not sure which.  And they have done payroll but somehow they do this thing where they stagger the release of the checks so that everyone doesn’t cash their paycheck at the same time.  Ok, that’s the kind of thing that businesses do when they are almost down for the count.  Um…  It’s just such an inefficient and disorganized business, and when I see things like this it concerns me.  I have to keep telling myself that this is not my business.  Not my problem.  Let it go.  I’ve been the small business owner, I want to help because I know it’s stressful to run a company like this.  Still not my problem.  Let it go.

I’m so frustrated.  I overdrew my bank account this week and didn’t even know it.  We bought paint for the roof and a few other things.  I was thinking things were fine but didn’t have a balance in my head.  Turns out I was off – not by much – but enough.  And our bank will cover the checks and then charge me $30 for the privilege.  So in between the first overdraft and now – I’ve been charged the $30 nsf fee FOUR TIMES!  Nothing bounced, no checks were returned or anything.  I stopped and picked up Benadryl for the dog’s allergies and paid less than $4 for it.  Well, now with that overdraft charge it was actually $34 for Benadryl!  I want to hurl!  I get so frustrated over stuff like this.  None of those purchases were big but when you throw in $120 in fees, suddenly it looks so much uglier on paper.  I can cover it if Boss Lady will ever remember to pay me, but I hate wasting money and when I saw how much the fees were I about had a cow.

I need to replace my computer.  It’s so slow it isn’t even funny.  And I’m constantly generating information for it to store.  I photographed ten Etsy.com items Monday, four or five photographs for each item.  They are great big files.  And by the time I was done with those, my computer was really acting bogged down.  I need to either invest in some more memory or storage or something, but with an old slow processor, I’m not sure if there is any point.  How many hours at the cake place is that going to take me?  Oy!

I’m giving some consideration to talking to the Pizza place people about working some evenings for a while.  I think I can do both the cake thing and the pizza thing for a while at least.  And maybe I could earn enough to buy a new computer or something.  Or else beads.  LOL!  There are always good causes for good money.

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