One Third of the Way There! Day Ten of NaBloPoMo

Honestly, I am pretty surprised I've made it this far. I've made attempts at 101 in 1001 lists two separate times, and never gotten very far into them. Maybe because this isn't as long, and doesn't involve as many goals? I don't know, but I'm really happy that I'm still sticking with this. I'm just about a day behind in word count, but I'm sure I can make that up in the next few days.

I woke up around 9:30 today, and hopped on the computer pretty much immediately. My queues for my I Love Etsy! blog and my personal tumblr were getting dangerously low, so I had to stock them up again. I try to have at least three or four days of posts ready to go at any time. Both of them had reached one day or less. I added a whole bunch of posts to the YarnYarnYarnYarn queue as well. I really enjoy sharing the cool things I find on these tumblrs. I really enjoy the tumblr blogging platform as a whole. The social aspect of it is really cool.

Yesterday, I posted the photo of all the bracelets I'd made. Since then, I've finished a couple more. These bracelets whip up so quickly, it's great. I'm sure I'll reach, if not surpass, my new goal of 16 bracelets. The only ones I have left to do are the shorter, three wrap ones, so they go even faster. I'm thinking about making one up that is either or more wraps, just to show people what it looks like, so they can possibly order one in the colour of their choice at a long length like that. What colour bracelets would you like to see? I'm trying to get as much variety as possible.

In addition to the Made in Windsor show I have coming up next Friday and Saturday, I've signed up for a show on the Sunday. It will be at Sprucewood Shores Estate Winery. They're doing a show every Sunday between November 18 and December 30, from 12:00-5:00 each day. I'm going to do the first one, and see how it goes. If I do well, I will sign up for as many as I possibly can. It will be nice to have something weekly (or close to it) to look forward to. Plus, since I don't work most Sundays anyway, I'll hopefully be making some money, too!

The other night, I was on Tophatter, in the Supplies auction room, which is always trouble for me. I've purchased a lot of my earring supplies through there, and I may have... accidentally... yeah, let's go with accidentally, bought a whole bunch more. One of my favourite suppliers had a few auctions in the Standby area, with a pretty low starting bid. I decided to place that bid on a few of her lots, and I hoped to win one of them at that price. The first one came to auction, and the price went more than double the starting bid. Fine, okay, I still have bids on a couple more. I expected the same to happen with all of them, so I just left the auction, and continued writing my blog post for the night. When you bid on an item in Standby, that bid is automatically applied, whether you're present at the auction or not. I checked my email a couple hours later, almost having forgotten about the auction, and to my surprise, I won three of the six auctions I bid on! I was ecstatic! I really wanted to get more earring supplies so that I could bring more finished pairs to stores that are selling my stuff, but I just didn't feel like I had enough made to do so. I now have enough for probably 350 pairs! I have plenty of posts and backs that I ordered a while back, so once I get these, I will likely spend a few days assembling them, another couple packaging, and then we're off to the races! I love making earrings, and they sell well, so it's a win-win for me!


I worked six hours this evening. It wasn't super busy, but busy enough that the time still passed at a reasonable speed. There were a few issues with our tills suddenly deciding to stop working, which caused some problems. Then, they started working, and our debit machines went down. We couldn't win! This happens far too often. We're supposed to be getting a whole new computer and POS system (NOT piece of shit, it's point of sale) in the new year, and that can't come soon enough. At least the guys I was working with were having fun. It really drags on if people are miserable. Any time I go into work in a grumpy mood, I try to get out of my funk, before I bum out anyone else. I really hate going into work in a good mood, and then some turd ball spoiling it for me. And I don't want to be that kind of turd ball.

Here are today's fun facts.

32. I'm incredibly clumsy. The most recent example of this is that this past Wednesday, when Rick and I stopped at the antiques store, I left, and was looking around, rather than where I was going, and I fell off the raised sidewalk, and twisted my ankle. It still hurts today. I've also stubbed my toes multiple times, and broken them a few times. A couple weeks ago, I fell UP the stairs, and I think I broke my toe. It still hurts now, nearly a month later. Tripped over a door once, and broke my arm. Yes, tripped over a door. It's unbelievable, until you meet me.

33. I'm very lazy. This one is kind of hard to admit, but it's very true. I don't like to clean, I don't like to work out, I don't like to do much of anything but knit, read blogs, and hang out with Rick and Winston. I'm trying to get into better habits of cleaning up after myself, and working out regularly, but it's fricken tough to start new habits. Apparently, it takes 30 days, or something like that, for a new habit to stick. I get lazy halfway through and lose all the ground I gained. I need to fix this. As soon as I am done writing this, I'm going to work out. I don't care if it's only for 15 minutes, I have to do something!

34. I moved out of my parents house when I was 20. I blogged about this when it was happening, but I'm not sure if my age was apparent. A lot of people told me that was too young to move out, but it was time. I had a good apartment, for a great price, fall into my lap, and I had a hard time saying no. I met Rick shortly after, and this relationship wouldn't have happened if I still lived with my parents, I'm sure of it. Since then, I've moved twice, which is completely bizarre, because I'd lived in the same house since I was a baby.

35. I often have the sense of humour of an eleven year old boy. Seriously... Lowbrow humour and I get along really well. In fact, I just had a conversation with two friends about farting, and laughed my ass off. I'm also a fan of the whole "That's what she said" line. I've almost ALMOST said it to customers at work, and had to bite my tongue. I don't think middle aged Mennonite men (the majority of our customers) would appreciate such humour.

36. I want to get braces. When I was younger, I went to an orthodontist at the insistence of my dentist. Orthodontist said I didn't NEED braces or anything of the sort, but if we (being my parents, who would foot the bill) wanted them, he would do them. We decided against it, because my parents would have had to pay a large percentage of it, as my mom's insurance wouldn't cover the majority. Now that I am older, I wish my teeth were straighter. They're not very crooked or crowded, but enough that I notice it. Maybe when we win the lottery, I'll get them. Hint: We very VERY rarely gamble, so that's not going to happen any time soon. I would also like to whiten my teeth. This is something I will probably be doing soon. I have whitening strips, I just have to read the directions, and get to doing it!

When I got done work tonight, I went to Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up some Red Bull for Rick and I. I drank a giant can of it while writing this post, and it made me feel like a hardcore partier. I'm kind of hyped up, and I have the energy to go work out. I spent some time chatting with some friends on Facebook, which is always nice. I don't get to see my friends that often because we live so far from the city, so it's nice to have a way to keep in touch.

This post has 1518 words.

I am at 15 384 total words for this month.

NaBloPoMo Day 3

Writing 1667 words a day is pretty tough. I only managed to surpass that number yesterday, and just by about 70 words, and the day before I was over 400 words shy of the daily goal. Like I said before, I don't want these posts to be all fluff and filler, I want them to actually be worth reading. I want at least part of each post to be about knitting. That desire is making it harder to write enough words to hit the quota. I check my word count obsessively. After every few sentences, I copy and paste the entire post into an online word count tool, and cross my fingers that I have made a significant dent. I try to keep myself from doing it so often, but I am just impatient, I guess. I think I might also feel like the words will somehow reproduce between the two pages, and add to my total. I don't know, I could just be crazy.

I woke up fairly early, for me anyway, this morning. Most days I'm in bed until 10:30, and today I was up just after 9:00. It's strange, how I sleep. It seems the later I stay up (I was up till about 2:00 when I'm usually in bed by 12:30) the earlier I can wake up. I don't understand at all. I'm going to try going to bed late again tonight to see if I can wake up at a reasonable hour. If that works, I'll be staying up late every night! I started my day off right with some scrambled eggs with mushrooms and shredded cheese on small tortillas. A nice filling breakfast that got me going. I don't often make a real breakfast, especially the past few weeks. I usually just settle for cereal and almond/soy/rice/hemp milk, if anything at all. I used to be so good at eating breakfast every day. I would make oatmeal or quinoa or toast with peanut butter, and honey or bananas.

I've been plugging away at the YarnYarnYarnYarn blog for a while today. It's easy work, just repetitive. Because I use Tumblr as a blogging platform, I can add tons of items to a queue, and have them post as frequently as I choose. I have it set so there are 11 new posts a day, which I think is a good amount. Lots of new stuff, but not so many that followers miss out on some of them. I have about two weeks worth of posts ready to go, and another month and a half worth that are saved as drafts to be posted at much later dates. It's going really well overall, I just want to find more yarn related Etsy shops to share, as well as cool patterns on Ravelry. Those seem to be the most popular posts so far. That's most of what I have been posting, but I have shared photos from Instagram, blogs, and Facebook pages. I went through some tumblrs that follow Y4, and reblogged a few photos from some of them. I also have some ad space through PassionFruit Ads available. It would be awesome if I could fill some of those, but I'm not holding my breath for it. I need to build up the audience before the sponsors come, that I already know. Once I've been posting for a month or more, I will be able to improve the ad description with the number of visitors and followers and what not.

I spent most of the time working on the Y4 blog knitting as well. I continued the teal shawl I posted yesterday, and got almost to the end of the first skein. I kind of got tired of the plain worsted weight, so I switched it up. I put in quite a few rows on a purple and white vertically striped shawl. Both yarns are from the huge stash I purchased from the older lady last winter. They're a sport weight 70/15/15 blend of acrylic, wool and mohair. Super soft, and slightly fuzzy. I really like the way this one is turning out. It's a looser knit than the other shawls I've done like this, but I'm sure it will still be cozy and warm due to the wool/mohair content.

If you've been eyeing something in my Etsy shop, now is the time to buy! You can get 25% off your entire purchase with the code Blog25. I want to get some older stock cleared out this season, so that in the spring and summer, I can really go at it, and knit lots of new things. Some of my stock has been floating around for a couple years, and that's what I really want to sell. Of course, selling anything would be great, but the older stuff is definitely higher on the priority list.
I'm going to be honest, and say that I haven't had any sales in a while. I don't want to complain on here, but it's getting discouraging that I can't seem to sell anything. I promote quite a bit, I have a mailing list, I do giveaways, I have a Facebook page, I comment on other blogs with a link to my shop, I have lots of "hearts" on Etsy, I just can't seem to get people to put stuff in their shopping cart! Do you have any suggestions for what else to do? I'll do just about anything!

Yesterday, I mentioned the Made In Windsor Show. It's coming up in just two short weeks, and I wish it could come sooner! There are going to be over 30 amazing vendors, some of whom have dome a MiW event before, and some that have not. It is a show that is 100% handmade, there is not ONE vendor who is a "consultant" or whatever for a big national company. I love this about these shows. It's a true craft show, and not a vendor market, which is often, in my experience anyway, synonymous with yard sale. If Facebook is any indication on how good this show will be, it's going to be great. There are already about 250 confirmed as going, and another 100 saying maybe. I know this won't necessarily be accurate, but it will hopefully be close. There will certainly be other people who haven't confirmed on Facebook who are out and about for the Walkerville Holiday Walk. This is an annual event where most of the businesses in the Walkerville BIA team together and have fun things going on for all the customers/visitors to the area. The craft show itself is going to be in Walkerville Brewery, and I can't wait to check out that place. It's going to be awesome! I've had a sample of one of their beers recently, and I liked it. I have a feeling I'll be spending some of my profit there! You can see a quick recap of last years show Here. I'll try to get more, and better, pictures this year.

My 365 photo for the day is just a simple close up of a Ferrero Rocher chocolate. These have always been one of my favourite types of chocolate, or really any sweet in general. I got quite a few a little while back, so I've been stashing them away and having one every now and again. I had a couple this afternoon when I was writing this post.

I haven't done much of anything today, other than knit, read blogs, chat on Facebook, and work on this. I'm worried that on the days I have to work eight hours, I'll come up short for words. I'll just have to get into a rhythm for writing, and then  hopefully the words will come more easily. I was also thinking about trying some of the word/theme prompts every few days, and write some sort of anecdote relating to it. Maybe I'll take suggestions for themes or answer questions you guys have. There are lots of options for stuff to write about, just nothing that can help me in the present moment.

I didn't really think this NaBloPoMo thing through very well. Normally, I try to at least plan out a little bit in advance. I'm not the most organized person, but I don't usually jump without a safety net. I am absolutely determined to make it to at least 25k words by the 15th. I will count that as a personal victory if I do. If I can actually make the full month, and 50k words I'll probably faint. I can yammer on about just about anything, but to have it be all coherent and organized is a whole other matter. Hopefully, I can make it!

I have a few ideas for the next couple days, but I doubt any of them will translate to 1667 words or more, no matter how overly flowery I get with my adjectives and adverbs. Some of the ideas are: 100 things I like, which would be split into groupings of 10 things posted every day for 10 days, 50 things I dislike (I don't want to do 100, because I don't want to get too negative and complain-y!) 100 facts about me, which would also be split up into groupings of 10 or 20, why I started eating meat again after 8 years of being vegetarian, simple knitting pseudo patterns I have in my head, and of course, more about the knitting projects I currently have on the go.

Now, this is where you folks come in! I want questions, word prompts or topic suggestions, or anything else you would really like to see. Want me to do a tutorial? Post pictures of specific things? Talk about Winston? Knit using a particular colour? Pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time, while whistling twinkle twinkle little star? Okay, I've run out of crazy suggestions. I hope you get the idea. I want YOU to tell ME what you want to see! Just leave a comment on here, send me a message on Facebook, or send me an email with anything you would like to see. If you want to be anonymous, you can send me a message on Tumblr here.

I hope you found something of interest in this post! Please come back tomorrow to see what else I have to say in an overly verbose fashion.

This post has 1716 words.

I am at 4686 total words for this month.

A New Blog, and A Finished Item!

It's the start of another work week! My weekend was pretty good, I had yesterday off, so I spent the entire afternoon knitting, reading blogs, and working on my newest blog project.
I love Tumblr. It's an incredibly simple blogging platform, and is easily customizable. I have Several Blogs on there, and I created a new one a couple days ago.

YarnYarnYarnYarn is the newest tumblog added to my arsenal. It's (obviously) about yarn, and yarn related crafts. Knitting, crochet, felting, dying and spinning are some of the themes I share. I worked at it for a few hours on Friday and Saturday, and launched it yesterday. So far, I've gotten a really good response. Many of the artists I've featured have shared it with their followers, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Please follow it and share for some great yarn-y inspiration.

In other exciting news, I finished yet another triangle shawl. I've lost track of how many of these I've made lately, I know it's a lot. This one is made from the red and grey mill ends I bought recently. Grey goes good with anything, but it really makes this Christmas red pop. It's another elongated triangle shape, but different than the ones I've made before. It's knit side to side, rather than top to bottom. I love the way the vertical stripes look. I'm toying with the idea of putting a mixed red and grey tassel on each point. What do you think?

I Love Etsy!

I don't sell on Etsy, yet, but I do love the whole idea of it. I am hoping to open a shop in the new year!
I have mentioned my I Love Etsy blog on here a few times before, but never really explained what it's about.
I use Tumblr as a blogging platform. Rick got me into it a few months back, and it is an addiction. I have it set to update every 3 hours. I occasionally post more often, but the minimum is every 3 hours. I am hoping to get that to every 2 hours by the new year, and every hour by the 1 year mark.
I often use the search feature on Etsy to look up random words that pop in my head. I will pick an item or two with that word to put on the blog. I also post a topic in the Promotions forum almost every day. I ask people to post ONLY the URL of their shop, or an other shop they think should be promoted. I get quite a few comments every time I post.
This has become a slight problem.
It seems that the majority of people promoting their shop in the forums are people with an inferior product, or inferior photographs. I have seen some amazing items for sale that I would have loved to promote if it weren't for the terrible photos. I have also seen some terrible products with fantastic photographs. Only a few have been able to reach both of those.
I am not pointing fingers here. I am a terrible photographer, one of the reasons there are next to no pictures on this blog that I have taken. Etsy sellers really should follow the advice of so many others. Take better photographs! Sometimes, it's as simple as using a different background. Other times, a tripod should be used (I have seen a few blurry photos floating around Etsy lately)

All this being said, I want to help out as many sellers as possible. If you sell on Etsy, leave your shop URL in the comments on this post. I also welcome the URLs of any of your favourite shops. Please keep in mind that I try to get a variety of sellers and items on there.
Thanks!

Still knitting the scarf!

But still no pictures. I think I may just wait until it's finished, with ends woven in, to show you all what it looks like. Just imagine the last picture, only a million times longer.

I am still working on hats on the Knifty Knitter. I haven't made much progress, though, since I've been so busy with everything else. I have been trying to find other interesting colour combinations from the yarn that I already have.

Otherwise, I have been working on my other blogs, DistillingWater and I Love Etsy. If you use tumblr, please follow!