I have had more than my share of blog tech troubles, but I’ve reinstalled, updated, etc etc and I should be back in the game now :) So rather than recap the past, I’m just going to start fresh.
I worked my shift at the gallery today, and while it was a quiet Sunday morning, I pulled my trusty travel watercolors out of my purse and played around. Of course a weed grew on my page… I’m still in that kick, so I decided to have fun with it and use all kinds of colors on the leaves.
I love the change of seasons. Here in Florence, we don’t have huge temperature changes, but moving from winter to spring means buds on on the rhody bushes are getting bigger and brighter, daffodils are popping up, and the misty rain is full swing, turning everything a luscious green. These two little birds were hard at work getting their birdhouse ready for a new year, and took a rest on my balcony for a few minutes.
I’ve been having a ball in Rebecca Ottensmann’s cooking classes, Sundays at her bakery. We’ve covered low fat recipes, cooking in a wok, a million things to do with ramen, breakfast dishes and the latest one… pies.
The first pie I made as homework was a free-form, rustic apple. It was delicious, but I cracked my pastry without realizing it and the juices oozed out. It was still ultra yummy, but I’ll make another for a photo.
Tonight Patrick and I made another she showed us… a french custard tart. She makes hers with rhubarb and strawberries, but I had apples so ours was a rhubarb apple. My tart pans were also small, 9 inch ones, so the recipe made 2 (she baked hers in a glorious ceramic one that was huge).
The house smells incredible, which is soothing me because there are clouds covering the super moon, so far. I see stars out there too, so I’m hoping the clouds pass by so I can photo the moon. In the mean time, here are the twins out of the oven :)
If you live in the Florence area – sign up for some classes – it’s so fun!
I want to say thank you to all who hung in with me, on Facebook, as I went through the most surreal experience. (video/slide show can be seen here)
A usual evening of watching some tivo’d shows when my son Tyler calls to alert me of the earthquake in Japan. We switched to CNN and hoped onto Facebook to find the most horrible live images of a tsunami overtaking Japan. It was hard to believe that these images were real. Burning building being carried along by the water. A fast and steady roll of buildings, ships, cars and debris rolling over the farms. It was terrifying and tears were streaming down my face.I had to turn it off because I couldn’t take anymore…. my stomach was hurting with sadness and worry.
That Japanese earthquake means a chance of tsumani here in Florence. We have been on tsunami watch before, but we watch the internet status sites and they go away without incident. This time was different. I watched the status indicator go from green, to yellow, to orange, to red. By now I’m searching online for any info of what to expect and I’m reading that by the time it hits us, it will have dissapted and be ok. It should be arriving by 7:13 to 7:30am, so I set my alarm for 5am and head to bed with my blackberry. I didn’t get any sleep because I kept in touch with my fabulous facebook peeps on my blackberry, so I decided to get up and check the status on my computer again.
That’s when it went downhill. The phone rang with the emergency evacuation message. Oh – we have never had that before. Then an instant later the tsunami sirens sounded. These sirens go off for testing once a month, on the last Friday of the month, at precicely 11am. Then they quickly followed by the ‘all clear’ siren song. Not this time. It was 3am and they sirens just kept going. I woke up my husband and said “holy crap Pat, we just got a call to evacuate.” We turned on the local news as we dressed and it confirmed the expected time and said our area might get a 3 foot rush of water. Our coastal town has a river that runs through it, so 3 feet, along with the high tide could mess up our cute shops in old town. After seeing a steady stream of cars leaving, and our neighbors heading out too, we decided it was time.
We drove up the coast to where it climbs to cliffs overlooking the ocean and sand dunes that our town is built upon. It was pitch black as we snuggled under blankets in the car, waiting for the tsunami to come.
Finally the sun rose and as it did, the cars starting pulling in beside. Even the news truck pulled in behind the car. I wasn’t sure what I was going to see, but my eyes were fixed on the ocean. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, as time ticked on from 7am to 7:30 to finally 8:30. I shot video of the sand, the surf, and the Coast Guard helicopter that flew back and forth, reading the situation. After freezing our butts of, we decided to come home, as it looked all is going to stay well, thank God.
This was such a HUGE wake-up call of where we live. Right smack in the middle of a tsunami zone. The signs are posted everywhere and it’s something that I guess I have become desensitized to it (after my initial obsession with it years back ago). Well this morning’s evacuation really put it in my front of my mind again. Time to rebuild our emergency kit that we had dismantled over time, and never replenished.
I would have never been able to get through this ordeal without the connection to my Facebook friends who stuck with me through the whole thing via my wall, messages, texts, etc. We’ve connected through our love for art or those damn addicting Zynga games, but there you were – holding my hand through the whole thing. Now I’m holding you all dear in my heart. And thanks to my Mom who hung on by the phone with me, like a trooper.
I’m getting a lot more success with my Etsy store since puting some Etsy tools to work for me. What are your favorites? Here are mine:
TONS of great stuff for the ‘admin’ part of your etsy store. You need to use firefox for it, and install greese monkey. It’s easy to set up and all the directions are on the Etsy Hacks site. My faves are: copy listing and fast tagger, but all of them are terrific.
You need import your Etsy and your Google Analytics to get the most from Craftopolis. When you do, you will love the detailed info that you can get about your shop. It’s set up calendar page style, so you can see exactly day of the month was busy for hits, favorites, sales, etc. Getting deeper into it on the Tag Report page/tab you can see how your tags are working, what people typed in to find you, what page in the search you are on, etc. This is especially good because you see what tags are working for your and what aren’t. Edit express is also handy because you can adjust your prices on one page rather than having to edit one listing at a time.
I just found Etsy on Sale and LOVE it! You can put stuff on sale in your shop, rather than just change the price – which is a really nice touch.
Heart-o-matic is fun. You can see your shop activity on this site too, and see you if you have made it onto the front page, etc.
I wish I had an iphone/ipad for the cool etsy store apps to stay on top of my shop, but since I don’t I kick it old school with Etsy Text. I get a text every time I get a sale – what could be funner?
Finally, etsy has enabled coupons. (on the ‘your store’ page) The only drawback is that it’s on the whole shop. I would love to be able to choose what items the coupons can be used on. That will probably come. But don’t forget, if you don’t want to use coupons, you can use the Etsy on Sale.
There are lots more Etsy Apps and more to come for sure.
My wishlist is to have one that sent a note to everyone you have featured in a treasury when you make one, rather than convo-ing each artist one at a time.
What are your favorite tools/apps???
For the holidays, I’m offering 20% off, along with some other of the Mixed Media Art etsy team.
Use coupon code MMA20 to get 20% off my whole shop. Coupon does not apply to new custom work, or any previous orders, and the coupon code must be used in order to get the discount. http://artwerx.etsy.com
I’ll be adding new holiday items each week so subscribe to my shop’s feed to stay on top of it :)
It’s 5am and I have woken up to… well the daintiest way I can say it is ‘piddle’. Out of habit I look out the bedroom window as I walk out, exciting to see nothing but a streetlight and tree-tops aglow with the orange hue cast by the light. But this morning was different. All I saw was white. White roof tops, tree tops, and big fluffy flakes that were falling like well choreographed ballet. OMG – I ran to the front door and opened it, half expecting the cold air to wake me from a dream, but there it was…. snow all over everything and the flakes were still falling.
I jumped up and down like a girl on a game show. Squealing with delight I ran into our room to wake my husband with the news. “Oh cool” he said as he pulled the covers tightly around him. I threw on a sweatshirt, my hello kitty slippers and went outside the door to take it all in. In my world, there is nothing more magical than snow. It symbolizes the magic of the season for me. Remembering back to days of tobogganing till I ran out of dry clothes, 5, 6, and 7 changes of clothes later. To the times I remember walking up to my Mama & Papa’s house with the huge Christmas lights making the snow glow so it looked like a gingerbread house slathered in frosting and candy.
Down the block is an ugly, empty lot – half sand – half paved. This morning it was beautiful, with it’s soft white cover. There were no ugly sharp edges, just soft rounded shapes that begged for a horse drawn carraige to ride over it.
I ran back to our room and gave Pat the heads up that as soon as dawn was breaking, we going to head out and explore. He knows how much snow means to me, so being a good sport, he sleepily got out of bed and looked for a scarf. With coffee and camera in hand, we were out the door. The world was silent. We headed over the bridge and out to the local lakes. We were the only ones there – making the morning even better.
3 hours and 164 pictures later, we came home. I was high as a kite all day. It lifted me up, it filled me with so much joy (words can not describe), happy memories, new memories and wonderful photos. For this I am grateful. I didn’t think I would see snow this year, because I won’t be able to go home for Christmas. I hope you enjoy these photos. They truly are a piece of my heart and happiness.
I’m having a blast making sure that art is the forefront of my mind, and that I’m making time every day – instead of fitting it in here and there. My time management is getting marginaly better ; ) The problem is recording it all in pics. That’s where I’m having troubles making the time for editing, posting etc.
I’ll catch my progress up very soon :)
I came home from work today and had a message on the machine. I saw the light blinking, but didn’t check it cuz I was on my way out for a girlie manicure.
Cute, clean little white nails….. till I checked the message.
I sold a bunch of art today so this is the pic now, lol. 
New paintings in the works :)
Snug as a bug and safely in his new car seat... The chew man is ready for the road.
