Entrepreneur

I had big plans for the weekend; I was going to make soap (I got my shipment of colors and scents yesterday), and I need to make new jewelry to get my Etsy inventory back up. I didn't do either of those things today, but maybe tomorrow.

Today was nice. Bob didn't go in to work until 1:00, so I worked on the computer most of the morning, working on my Second Life business. I've had a little shop selling tee-shirts that I've made, but it hasn't been terribly successful. Probably a combination of poor location, lack of advertising, and goods that no one wanted to buy. I don't have any problem accepting that. I don't have a lot of time to spend on it, but I would really like to have it perform better, at least enough to pay my expenses.

Last week I discovered a new little shopping area, an artists' colony, and rented a shop, and a few days later decided to take the plunge and rent a home there--the rental includes the home, the shop, and a "skybox" workroom. Part of the problem with making much headway is that to actually create anything--clothing, furniture, landscaping--you have to be "in world," i.e., you can't build something and then take it into the game.

You can create textures and import them into the game, but to actually create the item you have to be online. Which is really a pain, because of course you can't tell exactly what something is going to look like until you've paid the (admittedly small) upload fee and applied it to the item. Of course, once you've done it a few times it becomes easier to know what it's going to look like, but it's still a gamble.

And the other thing is that when you rent a space you have a limit of how many "prims" you can have lying around at one time. Prims are shorthand for "primitives," or the pieces that make up whatever you're building. A box is one prim. I built a bookcase today which was made up of 5 prims--a hollow box for the top, back and sides, three shelves, and a decorative bottom piece. So when I would build before, I couldn't leave anything out or I'd go over my prim limit. So, just like at home, in order to make something I'd have to drag everything out of my inventory, then, when I was finished, put it away. Now, with the big skybox, I have a big prim limit, and I can leave things lying around.

The house I'm renting is next door to a friend of mine; she also has a shop in the same market.

My skybox workshop:

The big black backdrop is for taking photos; the white sphere is a light. I have a little desk set up so I can work, and a daybed to lie down and think.

My home:

The house is tiny, a shack, really. But it's plenty. I have it set up with a couch and a couple of chairs, and chairs on the porch. It's especially pretty at night.

And I love the view from the porch.

My shop:

The area is a Mexican-themed "mercado;" I think I'm going to switch my shop over to more furniture and decorative objects rather than clothing. I think I might be more successful, and the fashion industry is so competitive that I'd just as soon not get involved in it. Anyway, I know it's quite silly, but it's entertainment and escapism for me, and I figure it's no worse than watching television for a few hours a night. I know I could be doing something a lot more productive, but I do enjoy it. Maybe someday I'll be a Second Life entrepreneur.

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Goals

One of my goals this year is to clean out my basement so I can have a studio down there. I guess it's just an excuse, but it's hard to do creative work when I have to get everything out, then put it away again (or leave it out all over the place, but that's another story). Bob has suggested the basement before, but I never really wanted to be down there, but now I think I might. I think it was when we were in Mexico with our friends that I thought of it.

One of the women that we were with is an artist, and she has the basement set up as her studio, and I guess it just struck me that I should do that, too. It's going slow, but I knew it would, I'm not going to rush anything, and it'll take a long time, but that's okay.

I usually end up down there for a few hours each weekend, and I keep unearthing interesting things that I'd forgotten about. Last weekend it was a 1996 issue of "Net" magazine that had me in it. I took it to work and showed the guys, then today I took in my copy of the "24 Hours in Cyberspace" book that I was in. It was very cool at the time of course, but as I told them, back then there were like four websites, so it wasn't that impressive.

Last week I called my insurance agent to ask about getting liability insurance so I could sell the soap that I make. My agent said that she didn't handle that kind of insurance, and forwarded me to the person in the office who does, but that person wasn't there. I left a voice mail, but they never called me back. I need to call again, hopefully I'll be able to do that this week sometime.

Bob is using the soap that I made a few weeks ago; he likes the cucumber-melon and the rosemary-mint. I sent a box of coconut-lime-verbena to Barb this week to see if she likes it, and tomorrow I'm going to take some lemon verbena fish in for Cello's son, Dominic. He's going on vacation on Friday with his grandmother, and I thought that might be a fun thing to send along with them.

I ordered some more scents from Brambleberry this week, some "ginger fish" scent which I will, of course, use to make Ginger Fish, and "Marrakesh," which is described as "what we imagine a Moroccan Spice market in the middle of a grassy grove to smell like - notes of Bamboo, Vetiver Grass, Vanilla Orchid and Myrrh mix beautifully with Tangerine, Patchouli and Clove Leaf." I also ordered a sampler pack of mica colorant. I've been wanting to make some deeper-colored soap, but the colors I had didn't really lend themselves to that. I'm looking forward to experimenting!

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Tale of a cracker

Awhile ago when I ate at Jason's Deli, I noticed that they had some interesting-looking crackers on the salad bar, and I tried them. I loved them! They were Dr. Kracker Pumpkin Cheddar crackers. They're interesting--very hard (a couple of reviewers at Amazon said they were like eating concrete), but really tasty, I thought. So I looked for them, and found that they're really hard to find.

A couple of stores in my area carry them, but not all the time, and they're very expensive. They have them at Amazon, but you have to buy a lot at one time. Which is fine, I guess, but I hate to make that big a commitment.

I remembered that they used to have some similar crackers at Target in the produce aisle, and I remember wondering if they were any good, but not willing to buy a whole package to find out. And of course, once I started looking for them again, they weren't there. So I contented myself with eating them once in awhile at Jason's, and buying a box here or there if I saw them.

Then today I was at Target, and they had them again! I gasped when I saw them! They're Target brand (Market Pantry?) and they didn't have the Pumpkin Cheddar, but they had Sunflower Spelt, and they're almost exactly the same. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to say that they're any different at all from the Dr. Kracker brand. I bought two bags, because of course I wanted to try them first and be sure they were the same. Since they are, I'll go back tomorrow and buy any that they have left. SOOOOO happy about this!

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Non-stop

Although I'm sure it isn't really true, I felt like I was just going, going, going non-stop this weekend.

• Shipped off Ebay orders
• Posted stuff on Ebay
• Posted stuff on Etsy
• Made stitch markers
• Made soap
• Finished knitting a scarf
• Did Laundry
• Cleaned out the refrigerator
• Caught up on freelance web stuff
• Worked on my Second Life shop

I had ordered some new soap molds and fragrance oils a couple of weeks ago, and finally got them out yesterday and made soap.

I made:

1. Cucumber Melon (the green)
2. Coconut Lime Verbena (white)
3. Rosemary Mint (swirled green)
4. Nag Champa (purple)
5. Herbal Orange (orange flecked)
6. Lemongrass fish (fish)

The thinner bars tend to warp slightly as they dry, so I turn them over, but I like the way the fishes' tails turn up.

I also made a few new things that I put up on my Etsy shop (and reduced prices on a few things), some of which were these space alien stitch markers:

That one at the bottom right looks like it's trying to get away . . .

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Schizophrenic

On Wednesday it was 70 degrees, and I went outside after lunch to get something from my car, and didn't even wear a jacket. Yesterday morning it was raining as I left for work, and while I was driving the rain turned to freezing rain and big sloppy snowflakes. When I got off the highway to take the last turn, I stopped at a stop sign behind a big truck and thought it was going to roll back into me. It didn't seem slick to me, but he must have hit a patch of ice. He was able to get up the hill, though, without incident.

This morning it was raining when I left for work, it turned to snow partway there, and by the time I got to the office the sun was shining.

Schizophrenic weather!

While we were in Mexico, we hired a driver and van to take us on a little siteseeing trip through some of the villages near Puerto Vallarta. One of the places we stopped was a town called Sayulita. Our driver called it a "hippie town;" it was full of funky little art galleries, bistros, and surf shops.

When I was looking for information on Sayulita on the web, I discovered that Sayulita was one of the places where Olivia Newton-John's former boyfriend Patrick McDermott had been spotted after he faked his death. According to several sources, he's been seen there, living in a "$33 per night shack" on the beach. Just a funny coincidence. I didn't see him, though.

Just a note: I thought the beach at Sayulita had a kind of old-time charm to it, kind of 60's vibe, and I post-processed the photos I took to play that up. If you click on the ones above, the full-size photos will open up.

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