Chili, Photographs and Super Bowl - I Won't Have a Boring Weekend

My chili turned out pretty good, although still not as spicy as I want. I'll have to look into spicier peppers than jalapeno for future batches, but the ground pork was an excellent idea and I'm going to enjoy bowls of it for my meals for a week or so without any difficulty. I might leave the Harissa spice out of the next batch, it might have muted the flavor a bit, but true chili always takes a day to settle into its' flavor profile, so tonight's bowl should be very tasty indeed - LOL. I'm doing ribs in the crock pot for Super Bowl Sunday. Minimal work, maximum impact. 

I have 76 colors of 8mm Swarovski cubes available. 
I got all of the photos taken and uploaded yesterday, 
but barely had the time to start working on the detail 
work (enlarging and labeling each color). After I get 
the rest of them "massaged", I'll need to figure 
out how to make a montage of the smaller photos 
into a larger panel. I'm working within the dimensions 
Etsy gives for their product photos, and I'm using two 
different Adobe Photoshop programs to get this 
done. I feel like I'm jumping through hoops - lots 
of them - LOL. 

I spent the rest of the day photographing Swarovski crystal cubes. It's a job - I have a lot of different colors available, and I need each one identified, sized appropriately, and put into a photo file. Now to figure out how to make a photo montage for them - I want to present them in a splash screen, with ordering possibilities in varied quantities per color. I have a HUGE amount of inventory money tied up in my Swarovski crystals, and the 8mm cubes are the worst category. I need to get the inventory down and the sales up, so I'm hoping adding them to my Etsy pages will help. Today, after I'm finished working with the individual pictures, I'll try to explore how to put the smaller photos together into a larger montage. 

Madison Chock and Evan Bates are one of three teams 
representing the USA in Ice Dancing at the 2022 
Winter Olympics. I'm always happy to watch some of 
the ice dancing. I love it more than the singles, because 
it was so much fun to skate that format. It's a lot 
harder and more technical than most people 
realize. 

While I write this I'm busy listening/watching the "Rhythm Dance" programs in Ice Dancing. When I was ice skating, I practiced to be an ice dancer - I never wanted to be a singles performer, but loved dancing with a partner. Since I never was able to spin well (balance issues), I had to leave that dream behind me, but I still love the sport. DH hates "ice bite" except for the top singles skaters, so it's a pleasure for me to be able to see the dancers today. I'm not seeing the top performers, at least not yet, but it's fun to see some of the less prominent couples - Germany, Finland and right now, the pair from Ukraine (who have to be horribly nervous about what's happening in their country right now). 

Two days ago Nick Baumgartner was in tears, feeling as 
though he had let his family down by not winning a 
medal in Snowcross. Then Lindsey Jacomellis asked 
him to be her partner in the Mixed Doubles Snowcross 
and they both boarded to their maximum, coming 
up with the Gold Medal win. Well done, both of them. 
Nick, at age 40, became the oldest Winter Olympian 
to win a medal, and not just a medal, a Gold medal. 

Tomorrow is a busy TV day. We'll watch the Olympics until the stations flip over to Super Bowl coverage, when we'll shift our mind set to football instead of snow and ice. Since the Super Bowl will be shown on network as well as Peacock, I'll be shelving the Olympics for the day. I'm looking forward to the game, though, and since I have an online friend from Cleveland, I'll cheer for the Browns. 

It's been a long road to the SuperBowl for both 
teams, but this should be a fun game. Both of my 
teams were out of the picture early, and the usual 
suspects - Green Bay and Kansas City - both lost 
in their playoff games. So we ended up with an 
unusual pair for tomorrow's final game of the 
season - the LA Rams vs the Cleveland Browns. 

So I'm wrapping this up and I'm going to enjoy watching more of the ice dancing. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and if you're watching the Super Bowl, I hope your team wins (as I said, I really don't have a horse in this race, so either team is OK with me ... Go Cleveland! - LOL). I'll be back on Monday.