Today Will Be a Busy One, So I'm Finishing and Posting This Quickly

Today was one of those days when I had to force myself to get my full 2-14 miles on the treadmill. But, as the saying goes, "I Persevered" and managed to push through it. I'm running late today, though. I spent most of yesterday working on the email I send out to my customers and contacts about our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sale. We have different items on sale each of the two days, and usually it's good for bringing in customers from throughout the Twin Cities. I sometimes get people who will come both days, but there's not a lot of overlap. 

Chickie did catch a couple of small things that I had 
missed, but also one larger item that will need to 
be finalized (two different discount amounts for the 
same item). I'll have her and DH look through their 
respective copies today, and they can decide when to 
release it to our email list. 

I had Chickie read through a copy of it yesterday and I'll have both her and DH read through it today before they come up with a final rendition. I'll probably send it out on Monday - I had hoped to send it earlier but got shot down by both of them, thinking my day-to-day business would be too seriously impacted. I don't think it would make a huge difference at all. We don't have a large mailing list, and since we only send out two emails a year (I'm really bad with marketing), people can change their contact information without ever notifying us. It's far from uncommon. Still, this is a sale that our customers love, and I'm still hoping it will be well attended with good sales. 

I used to love Black Friday. I'd be at the shops at 5:00 am, 
buying gifts for friends and family, then I'd pack everything 
into the trunk of the car, and head to the shop for our own 
Black Friday sale. These days, it's not as fun. Shopping 
on-line doesn't have the same thrill, and I'm tired of being 
on the inside of retail. 

Of course that also means that I will be working on Friday next week. I'll also be working on three Sundays during December - only four hours on those days, but still, working on a "day off". This is one more reason why I try to have my holiday cards ready to mail within the next two weeks (ideally). 

I use a pop-up tent and directed spotlights for 
my product photography. It's not the absolute 
BEST set-up in the universe, but it's actually 
pretty good. After the photos are downloaded 
to my computer, it's time to work with 
Photoshop to make the images clear and 
properly color-balanced. 

Today I'll be shopping and housecleaning and I hope to also get some photography done for Etsy. It's a lot to do and not a lot of time in which to do it, so I'm going to boogie and head to the grocery store. I'm adding a quick stop at Kowalski's Market today, and that's actually across the street from my Orthodontist. Too bad I can't combine errands, but I don't see him again until the New Year. Have an excellent Friday, enjoy your day to the fullest, and Slava Ukraini. 

Second Call-Out for Cards and a Busy "Day Off"

This is the SECOND CALL OUT FOR CARDS for this year's Holiday Card. If you haven't chimed in that you want one, and haven't given me your address, get going on that! I have them 1/2 finished now, and the next stage is starting the envelopes. That means I'll need addresses very soon. Chime in. Remember, I don't require anything in return, my joy is in the sending them out to friends and relatives and giving a bit back to people I care for - many of whom I've never met in person.  

We don't have the snow yet, but it's coming. 
This year we'll have one of the warmest 
Halloweens on record. It'll be a nice change 
of pace. Maybe we'll have a mild winter too. 
That would be awesome, except it wouldn't 
help our drought conditions, which are 
severe (despite the fact that I live in a 
state with lots of green trees and 11,000+ 
lakes). 

Today's "day off" will be mostly spent in the kitchen. I want to make a batch of chili, and I might make another batch of that roasted peppers and tomato soup. I have three tomatoes that need to be used up, and the rest of the ingredients are pretty minimal. I might even have a small onion in my counter-top storage bowl. I'll have to check. But, as usual, my "day off" will be a very busy one and my blender will once again get a workout. I do love making a fine piece of equipment perform to its' best. 

I love my Wolf blender. I've been 
putting it through its' paces over the 
past few months and it's been up to 
every task I've asked it to do. The soups 
have been a new challenge for it, and 
it came through with flying colors. I'll 
be using it again today for Ogre Juice and 
maybe another soup. It's a purchase I'm 
quite pleased with. 

I want to take my clothes to Goodwill this afternoon. I think I'll rescue one blouse from the mix - it's a blouse I've had since 1992 - a gift from one of my Mall of America employees. The color on it, a burnished gold, is amazing and I adore it. It's way too big (size 14 and I'm wearing size 6 or under now), but I'll see if my tailor can perform some miracles and take it in A LOT. I'm trying to eliminate clothes from my closet that are too large. It's too easy to fall back into bad habits, and having clothes that fit properly instead of just grabbing a larger size is one thing that can help me stick to my weight and to WildFit. 

I have four full shopping bags (43 items - 
mostly shirts and blouses) ready to go 
to Goodwill. I might pull one shirt from 
the bag and see if my tailor can work 
some miracles. I really adore the shirt 
and would prefer to keep it if it can be 
altered. 

If I get a chance, I might try to photograph some of the crystals today. I'm quite unsure whether I'll have time for that or not. I don't like leaving things on the stove without checking on them regularly, it's a safety thing. But I'd really like to get that going. 

I hsve a ring light that I've never used before, 
and should probably try out. I'd like to use 
it to get better lighting for my Swarovski 
crystals that I'll put up on Etsy. Maybe today I 
can set things up and try some things out. 

So, on that note, it's time for me to get this posted and try and catch up with messages and emails. I hope you have a fabulous Friday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

Taking A Moment To Ponder A Book - An Essay by W Scott Olsen to Share also, Drone Photography Winners

Friday was my 43rd wedding anniversary and I'm being lazy today. But I read an article yesterday that I wanted to share with all of you - my fellow readers, book lovers, and authors. It made me think, and I totally understood where the author was coming from. So, in lieu of my usual post of the day, here's 

TAKING A MOMENT TO PONDER A BOOK

W Scott Olsen

   We talk about getting lost in a book. When we say this, however, there is no fear. No frustration about the lack of a clear path toward the end of a maze. We know that getting lost is the goal. 

   I 'm old enough to remember television commercials for the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading course. Lying on the floor in our basement, somewhere between "Creature Features" and "Dark Shadows," I would see an open book on the screen and someone's fingers tracing the lines at supersonic speed. 

   As someone who already loved reading, I looked at speed as if it were a promise from heaven. A way to consume libraries. All those stories of rocket ships and sailboats in a week. Then more! I didn't know anything about the Evelyn Wood method, but to a kid it seemed a way to encompass infinity. For whatever reason, though, I never did ask to join. 

   Of course, many years later, I have a different impression. The ability to scan a text quickly is wonderful, if your goal is utilitarian. But that's not what reading is. 

   Reading is internal, a process of spirit and psychology more than aesthetics, and perhaps because of this, reading allows one type of communion that no other art form allows. It allows a pause, in process, for contemplation and sustained emotion. 

   We all know the feeling. We're reading along and we get to a moment, the end of a sentence or paragraph, and we pause. Perhaps it's the last chapter of "Ulysses." Maybe it's realizing who Antoinette Cosway Mason Rochester becomes in "Wide Sargasso Sea." Maybe it's trying to get our head around "The Things They Carried." 

   We look up and away from the book. Perhaps we gaze at the ceiling; perhaps we gaze out the window. Our gaze has no object. We are looking inward, exploring emotion or intellect or the sweet combination of the two. 

   In this moment, reading has not stopped. Unlike music, where the symphony continues, and unlike film or dance or theater, where the narrative proceeds independently of our perception of it, reading gives us the space to think and feel. In a sustained moment of otherness. We hold that moment in the mind as long as we can. 

   Reading is intimate. Perhaps it is the most intimate art form in that every bit of it exists internally. Other than an elegantly designed font or page or binding, there is no external object to literature. Because reading is internal, what we are really doing is exploring our own ability for empathy. 

   I will admit, I can read very fast, and that is often useful. It limits the pain of an institutional memo and quickly confirms my mistakes with an instruction manual. However, more often than not, I choose not to. I have made a career of reading slowly and pausing often. As a writer I have labored over sentences that I hope will be appreciated. As a reader, I understand that the sentence, the paragraph, the page, are all there to bring to light something in myself I had not known before, or at least had not known in detail. 

   When I pause and look up toward the ceiling or out the window, at either alpenglow or blizzard, I am still very much in the process of reading. An elegant space has opened for contemplation and exploration. In that moment, that time spent lingering around an idea, we approach the universe beyond what we already imagine. 

(W Scott Olsen is a writer and professor in Moorhead, Minnesota, USA)

I also want to recommend one website to all of you for this year's Drone Photography award winners - there are some amazing photos in this, and some excellent videos also. Set aside some serious time for this wormhole - I think I got pulled into it for at least three hours. Enjoy - you can thank me later by not throwing rotten tomatoes at me - LOL. 

https://droneawards.photo/gallery/2022

- Erulisse (one L)

Dragons - Yesterday's Clean Was My Dragons, So I Photographed Them

I dearly wanted to share a video with all of you, one that I took yesterday afternoon while decompressing in my garden. This crazy hummingbird came to my feeder and flitting about and drinking, but then it actually settled down on the feeder and it stayed ... for 2-1/2 minutes! At least 30 seconds of which it was perched, like a sparrow or chickadee, just sitting there looking around at the scenery. Quite bizarre and unlike any hummer behavior I've seen up to this point. I was filming the whole thing on my phone, but because it's such a long clip, it's a huge file and it isn't transferring properly. I'll have to look into how to minimize the size of the file to get it moved over so that I can share it with you. 

Five humans have managed to capture a green dragon by the 
leg and put it in chains. But is it really captured? I have my 
doubts they'll actually be able to hold it for long. 

Yesterday I devoted myself to dragons. I was going to shampoo the carpeting, but I couldn't work up any enthusiasm for that task, so I cleaned, dusted, and photographed my dragons instead, doing a few repairs while I was going through them. I have two that I'm bringing to the shop with me today. Dragons that need my Foredom flex-shaft equipment to get adequately repaired. The UV glue seems to work well, although it took a bit of getting used to - where to put the glue and how it would best be used. Instead of sharing my hummingbird video, I'll share a few dragon photos instead. 

This dragon is an excellent example of a sea dragon. I have 
quite a few sea or water dragons in the collection, but this 
one is quite striking. DH and I used to take a dragon and 
a sketchpad and each draw it for an afternoon's activity. 
I'm pretty sure this is one that I've drawn in the past. 

I didn't have the energy to set up the larger white-box, so I used my travel box instead. It's not the best background, but at some point I'll set up the full array and take photos of all of these again. Counting them up, I have 46 McFarlane dragons, and two that need repair before they can be photographed. That makes 48 total in that series, and there are other dragons on my shelving as well. I guess I'm rather enamored of dragons. Anyone have one who is eating them out of house and home? Apparently I've got a colony - LOL. 

This frost dragon looks cold and icy. I think 
I have at least one more dragon from the 
cold reaches, but since dragons are cold-
blooded, they tend towards warmer climates. 

I'm still heartsick. I'll share some dragons with you and call this done for the day. I hope you have a good Saturday and good weekend. It's hard to believe that Renaissance Festival starts next weekend! The summer is drawing to a close. Slava Ukraini. 

Phone Apps and Minions - A Possibly Excellent Day Off

Apparently Wednesday's Samsung lessons for DH from Chickie consisted of extending the amount of time the screen would remain on before fading out, and uninstalling unwanted/unneeded apps. Today, DH said he wants to learn how to take a photograph with the phone, since what he's been trying hasn't been working. 

I know I have something similar to this that 
came with my ring light, but I'm not finding it. 
I could order something like this from Amazon 
for very little $, but I also can control my 
Google via voice control, so I might try that 
first before buying something else to lose 
and clutter up my life. I want to get going 
on photographs and I can't do that without 
a remote control shutter for my phone and 
ring light. 

In essence, I'll be doing something similar myself, since I want to try and activate my Google voice command for remote photography. Apparently I can use voice commands to activate the shutter and take the photograph, and that, plus my new ring light, might get me going on the multitude of photos I need to take for the round Swarovski crystals. At some point I need to get back to my cubes too. I missed one cube in the A/B section of the 4mm size, and need to retake three pages. I only need the splash shot (the full 3x3 cube view) for those three pages, and the detail shot for the single color. 

Happy Canada Day to any of my Canadian 
friends and readers. Enjoy your celebration 
with friends, family and good food. 

It's already July, and I "retire" in 60 days according to my countdown calendar. It's a bit frightening. I know I'll still end up working, maybe one day a week, or just for fill-in, but I have multi-day tasks that need to happen in the house and I just can't squeeze them in on my two non-contiguous days that I currently have off now. So, I'm looking forward to retirement, but I also know it's going to be a lot of work for all of us. However, if I don't stick to my guns, DH will probably putter around pushing retirement off for another decade and that, I won't tolerate. 

The lightning yesterday morning while waiting for the gym 
to open was spectacular. So beautiful. Of course it meant 
that we needed to swim indoors, but since that's where we 
swim most of the year anyway, it wasn't a huge hardship. 

Yesterday's swim ended up being an indoor swim. It wasn't raining, but there was a LOT of lightning - beautifully lighting up the sky in a fireworks display like no other. The storm had blown over and people were in the outdoor pool by the time I finished my swim. I could have joined them, but I don't like interrupting my workout. I start swimming, and I want to continue non-stop for my mile+ before stopping. Hopefully the weather next week will be kinder for the 5:00 am group. 

I'm looking forward to seeing "Rise of Gru" today. I'll see 
it again with Chickie later in the month. I haven't been to 
a movie theatre since before Covid, and I'm a little nervous 
about it, but it's the early show and I don't think there 
will be a lot of people. I'll wear a mask (probably) and 
be careful about sanitizing. 

So, have an excellent day. I'll be doing a lot this morning, and I'm at the theatre at 11:00 am to see "The Rise of Gru". I can hardly wait! MINIONS!!! Love them so much! Have an excellent Friday, July 1st, and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

Etsy Progress and a Friend Tests Positive

We were really slow at the shop yesterday, although we did have some customers, so it wasn't a zero day. I'm grateful for that. It was hot, and most people who are not used to summer heat yet, just stayed indoors with their air conditioning instead of venturing out into the summer sunshine. It did allow me to get a lot of computer work done, though, so that was a plus. 

The revised format has nine colors per page for 
the 10 allowable photos. That allows one splash 
page and nine detail pages, one for each of the 
colors. I think that will be a better indication of 
what the person is looking at and purchasing. 

I started uploading the 4mm Swarovski cubes into Etsy. I worked on that for a couple of hours and got 2/3 of the pages entered and uploaded. They're not live yet, I want all of them entered, ready and thoroughly proofread before I click that switch. But I'm happy with where I'm at. I'll try to wrap the 4mm size up today and start the 6mm size tomorrow if all goes well. 

My old Etsy photos used a 4x4 grid and din't have 
any of the detail photos I want to put in. You couldn't 
zoom into a color to take a closer look. I think the new 
version will be an improvement, even though it will 
be more costly. 

I also found the missing photographs for my 8mm revisions. I have the photos stored in two different places, for some odd reason. I'll need to pull the 8mm photos from the one place and put them into the other, or vice versa. I'l decide on that a bit later, but I'll have everything I need to revise and repost the 8mm size when I get to that point. 

It's the little things that can kill profit on Etsy. So 
yes, it will cost me more for the revised listings. 
But I'm hopeful that the better views will also 
increase sales, and having more pages will splash 
me as a serious vendor. 

The way I'm revising it will cost me quite a bit more money. I get charged 20 cents per page, and that is charged again every time I made a sale from that page. I'll be shifting the 8mm size from two pages (40 cents) to 12 pages ($2.40), and the 4mm and 6mm are also that many pages. These will be renewed every four months no matter what. In the scheme of things, it's not a lot of money. But it's those little sums that add up on Etsy. Still, I think it will be worthwhile eventually, and eventually I'll have a LOT of stuff up there. 

My friend Aearwen has tested positive for Covid, along 
with her son. Positive thoughts would be appreciated, and 
several of you know her from her writings in the Tolkien 
fan-fiction realm. They are both vaccinated, so hopefully 
this will be mild, but it will still be uncomfortable
for a few days. 

So, I'm off to the pool. Yesterday's swim was marvelous - we were already in mid-70 degree weather when I left home, and the pool was gloriously cool and happy. I fully expect today will be as fabulous since we're at 75 degrees at 3:45 am. Have a wonderful Wednesday and I'll have a very busy "day off". Spare a kind thought for my friend Aearwen, my usual Wednesday chat person, who texted me yesterday telling me she's come down with Covid and will skip this week's chat. She's an older woman and both she and her adult son (they live together) are both down with Covid. They're vaccinated, so hopefully it will be just like an awful cold, but kind thoughts and prayers would be appreciated. I'll be back tomorrow. 

It's Going To Be a Very Busy Friday - A Day of Achievements (If I Get Everything Completed)

Yesterday, I didn't get as much done on production work for my crystal photos as I wanted. I got more than half of the photos transferred to my email, but after that they refused to transfer to my email at all. I sent a few test emails and those weren't received either. Later I tried one of my secondary emails, and that worked for a bit, but I'll have to see if I can't find a system that works a bit smoother. Basically, I take the photo - using my phone since I have a great camera in my Pixel phone. Then I attach each photo to an email that identifies exactly what it is and the P/N assigned to that bead. I then open that email, crop the photo and save it in my Etsy file. Later I pull those back out in Photoshop, resize them properly and do any massaging I need to do to the actual photo, save, and I'm ready to go. 

This photo is still raw. I'll take it, brighten it, size it 
appropriately, and save it. So many hoops to jump through 
to get things from my phone to my laptop to the website. 
These are 6mm crystal cubes, I'm working on the 6mm 
and the 4mm cubes this week. 

It's really a ridiculous amount of work for one small photo, and I'm dealing with hundreds of individual pictures, so you can see what a time sink it is. Still, I also realize that the only thing selling the product is the photo and description. I'm not there to help the customer decide which "peach" color is the perfect one, or to point out alternatives to them if I'm sold out of a product. The pictures have to do a lot, so I'm picky about them. 

I've now finished "The Shire" and am moving on from 
Bree with Aragorn. I've ordered my medal and it's 
on its' way. I can hardly wait to get this one - the 
medal for The Shire is outstanding, with the Ring 
in an envelope on the back of it. I'll share when I 
receive it next week sometime. 

In my Challenger quests, I finished walking from Hobbiton to Bree yesterday, so finished "The Shire" portion of the 5-quest LOTR pack. This morning I completed the registration for "The Fellowship" - the next stage which will bring us all together as we wander to Rivendell and onward to the doors of Moria. Moria then starts the third segment. I only do 8-12 miles in an average week, so the challenges do take a while, but it's a lovely sense of accomplishment when I finish one, and the medals are totally fabulous. I just finished the almost 200 miles of the "Great Wall of China" quest and received that medal yesterday. It's stunning, as all of them are. This newest medal has no fancy movement or hidden compartments like some of the others, but features two glorious dragons - one on each side. A worthy addition to my ever-increasing collection. I should be receiving my "The Shire" medal next week sometime. 

As a reminder, this is the gown I've been getting 
cleaned. I'll pick it up today. The head of Timeless 
Restorations was over the moon with this dress. 
She called me personally and we had a nice 
conversation about it and my Mom. I can 
hardly wait to see it back in prime condition. 

So today will be a busy "day off". One of the things I'm doing today is picking up the first of my mother's gowns from the cleaners. I can hardly wait to see it pressed and looking fabulous. I might have to set aside a little time this afternoon and actually try it on. I think I can fit into her gowns now, I've lost enough weight. It's well worth the try at any rate. I also need groceries for our weekend meals, I want to make my next batch of Ogre Juice, and of course I want to finish taking the photos of the 4mm crystal cubes so that I can start on a different shape next week. No rest today - LOL, but if I get any "down time", I'll see about spending a bit of time in the garden. 

Have an excellent Friday and I'll be back tomorrow. Be safe, be kind, and Slava Ukraini. 

Photography Progress and Friendship

 Yesterday was a busy day; but with minimal outside errands to do, I got a lot done with photography. I worked on photos of crystals for most of the day, taking a break for my 2:00 pm Zoom call and shutting down to chat with my friend Aearwen at 4:00 pm. I left most of my lighting, etc up for Friday, moving the lights out of the way and collapsing the diffusion chamber. I'll continue with this on Friday, hopefully wrapping up the cubes. 

Yesterday, DH asked why I didn't use the photos 
from the 8mm cubes for the other sizes. NO! Duh! 
Each cube is rather unique, and I have more colors 
in 6mm than 8mm, and even more colors in 4mm 
than either of the two larger sizes. People need to 
see how the cubes actually look. Like I said, Duh! LOL. 

Of course, the actual photography is only the first step. Today I'll be forwarding the photos from my phone to my email, then bringing the photos from my email into Photoshop, massaging them slightly, resizing them to the size I need for posting them, and finally, setting them up in the appropriate file. After I get all of them ready to go, I'll start uploading them into Etsy. So, I still have a week, maybe more, before I'll have everything uploaded and the bulk of the work starts today. 

I'm very fond of Google as my browser. My laptop keeps 
encouraging me to switch to Edge, but I like the 
familiar feel of Google, so I stick with it. I also have 
a Google Pixel 6 phone, so I guess I'm just in the 
Google camp. Whatever works best for you, great. but 
I'll stick with Google. 

DH was having problems accessing something he needed, so asked me to look into it for him. I phoned Tech Services for the website he needed and we went through a couple of things yesterday. Fortunately this turned into a relatively easy fix. Clearing out the history and data cache of his Google browser did the trick and everything was back up and operational once again. Not difficult, but not necessarily something I would have thought of. I should probably think about doing something similar to my own Google browser history/cache. It's a program that I use constantly, and wiping some cyber-footsteps out of my personal forest might not be a bad idea. 

Aearwen and I have been chatting weekly for years 
now. We don't manage every single week, but in an 
average year, I'd say we're catching up for at least 
45+ of the 52 weeks. Life can sometimes get in the 
way, but we both always look forward to our chats. 
One of these days/years we'll get a chance to actually 
meet in person. That'll be a treat! 

Aearwen and I had a lovely chat yesterday. Our hour simply flew by, as it usually does. It's odd that I can be such good friends with someone for years - someone I've never met in person. But somehow, Aearwen and I clicked. We started chatting over storylines and writing, and then continued on into life in general. We don't agree on everything - life would be horribly boring if we did - but we respect each other's viewpoints and agree more often than we disagree. I consider her a close and dear friend, a sister from a different mother (even though she would NEVER want to move back to Minnesota, and I would NEVER want to live in California - LOL). I hope you're all lucky enough to have one or two excellent friends in your own lives. They enrich your life in ways that you could never imagine. 

Friends are the best things to happen to us as we live 
our lives. They shift and change over the years, but the 
best ones are the ones who stick around for the long 
term. Aearwen is one of those friends for me - a very 
special companion and someone who is almost a 
sister, although we've never met in person. 

So, on that note, I'm off to the pool. It's my final day of swimming this week and I can hardly wait to get into the water. Yesterday I swam almost 1-1/2 miles in my 50 minutes. I don't set any goal other than my mile, so it's always nice to surpass it. Have a tremendous and joy-filled day today. Accomplish things that you want to do, and push yourself to do one more thing, and more of all, be kind. The world desperately needs kindness right now. I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

Another Day in the Pool and A Day of Photography Ahead

We think that the alarm that has been going off might be the one attached to the back room and back door. DH is going to check those areas more carefully today. It's where we're had our break-in's in the past (and we've had three times we actually were broken into). It makes sense. So he'll check the door more carefully and make sure the sensor for that area is totally cleaned and primed. At least I was able to get a full night's sleep last night, so that's a good start to my Wednesday. 

I had a bit of time last night, so took advantage to get 
my photo set-up ready for today. I have large spotlights 
on each side of the light diffusing tent, and an Ott light 
that I pull into the tent to get additional light on the 
crystals. It's a set up that's working well, but I have to 
put it up for each use and then put it away again. 

I'm all set up for a day of photography, with my light box, my two spots and my Ott light all ready. I have more than 50 photos that I need to take today to finish with the 6mm cubes, and I'd like to get those completed. In the middle of everything, I have a check-in call for WildFit at 2:00 pm, and I want everything completed and put away before I have my weekly convo with Aearwen. It'll be a busy day, but all-in-all, a good one. 

I've been making and drinking my daily Alkagizer 
(Ogre Juice) for more than a year now, but mine 
certainly don't turn out this green. They are indisputably 
green, but it's not this intense. 

I already have my Ogre Juice made for the next few days, so I won't have to spend that 60-90 minutes in the kitchen with my blender. That's a real plus. It does mean I'll be making another batch on Friday, but my Fridays are a bit more open, so I'm all in favor of that small schedule shift. But if I can get the 6mm photos completed today, I can work on getting them sized and ready for uploading into Etsy tomorrow and maybe, by the end of the weekend, I can move ahead to the 4mm size next week. 

The outdoor pool opens on May 28th. The indoor pool 
will be closed and the outdoor pool will be the only 
available pool at this location. I love this pool, but I 
can't have sun on my tattoo, so I'm working out a way 
I can cover up. I also ordered a second skin suit. I'm 
really liking the one I have, and need to make sure 
I'll have a dry one for each of my three days swimming. 

The outdoor pool opens in 10 days, so in two weeks, I'll be swimming outside instead of inside (unless the weather is too dangerous to swim outside). To facilitate that, I'll have to make sure I have some sort of head covering for my tattoo. I ordered a hood from Swim Outlet, although I'm not sure how well it will work or if I'll tolerate it. I also have a few swimcaps that I can alter. The key is my sound. I need my books. So I need to make sure I can wear my bone induction headphones while I swim. If I've got my books on audio, I can swim easily. Without them, it's a hard slog. 

I love my Shokz waterproof bone induction headphones. 
They work splendidly in the pool and on land, they're 
comfortable, and I can easily do what I need to. I also 
use a set of Oladance bone induction ear pods when 
working in the kitchen, but that's if I want to listen 
to music. I like to listen to books in the pool, so I 
pre-load an audio book onto my headphones and I'm 
good to go for days in the pool. 

So I'm out of here. I'll plug in photos and hit the road. The pool is calling my name - LOL. Have a wonderful and fabulous Wednesday and I'll be back tomorrow - maybe with a concrete idea of what to write for this week's writing challenge. *sigh* LOL. Skava Ukraini. 

It was a Good Day Off - Lots of Different Things Accomplished

I did manage to get three pages of crystals photographed, but when I was putting the 4th page pieces onto the master sheet, I realized I was missing one of the colors. Checking the other bags didn't produce it, so I texted DH to bring a pack home with him and closed up the photography area until next week. I'll work on the three pages I did until then, and there are other things I can do. I still have to upload the new 8mm sheets onto Etsy, and when I'm satisfied, I'll pull off the old 8mm sheets. It's tricky to completely change over like this, but doing it now will save headaches later. 

Changing my Etsy listings from a page of 16 to a page 
of nine will allow me to showcase the crystal more, 
and work with photographs to my advantage. Each 
crystal will have the overall shot as well as one 
close-up. I think that will be helpful, since crystals 
want to sparkle. 

Of course, I hope I'm too busy at the shop to actually get this done today, but there's no way to predict the traffic we'll get from our crafters and collectors. The Twin Cities Car Show is taking place at the State Fairgrounds over the weekend, so that might bring in some traffic, but it's a destination and we're a side trip. 

This is the second time I've made this recipe, and 
I was much happier with it. Next time I think I'll 
add a little vanilla to the batch. I think that would 
be lovely. 

Since I had some time yesterday, having stopped work on photography, I decided to make a batch of cookies. I make these nut butter and date cookies that are quite tasty, using the food processor I inherited from my mother. The first time I made the cookies, it was a bit of a disaster. I was hoping things would go more smoothly this time, and it did! I pr-soaked my dates, which made a difference, and I used a different brand of nut butter which was fantastic. They all creamed up beautifully. I got them into the oven and they rose, just like they were supposed to. I was shocked - LOL. It was still a bit messy, but SO much easier than last time. 

My local grocer had some pre-marinated chicken tenderloins 
for sale that used ingredients that were WildFit 
approved. They baked up beautifully and were very 
tasty. I'll finish them off tonight. Yummy! 

I also took advantage of a hot oven to bake some seasoned chicken tenderloins for dinner last night and tonight. that also turned out great - thank goodness for remote thermometers - I probably would have overcooked the chicken without using mine. So, on a hot day, I spent a good part of the afternoon heating up the kitchen by using the oven. Silly me - but I had a lovely dinner last night and another one planned for tonight. 

For a long time, I was the one who used the grill. I'm 
actually really good at it. I know how to use indirect 
heat and how to control the temperature. DH took 
over at some point, probably because he complained 
about something I cooked and I refused to cook any 
more (that happens a lot). He's not as good. He has 
one temperature - hot. But, he buys the steak, he 
can cook it. He usually does OK on steak, but 
not much else. 

It's looking like it will be a nice Sunday, so DH took some sirloins out of the freezer and will grill them for dinner on Sunday. It'll be my delayed birthday dinner. I'll fry up some onions and mushrooms, and maybe I'll run to the store and grab some lettuce. It should be a nice dinner and I'm looking forward to it. On that note, I'm out of here. Have an excellent weekend and I'll be back on Monday. Slava Ukraini. 

Retail - Never A Dull Moment

It's never a dull moment in retail. This morning, just after I had finished eating a lovely pear for breakfast - after I had been on the treadmill, taken my shower, and gotten dressed for the day - I received a phone call from my security company. There was an interior alarm at the shop. Knowing that getting an interior alarm without a breach of either the back or front door or another broken front window, I wasn't overly concerned, but quickly tossed on my jacket and headed over to check the place out. 

There's really no way for any interior alarm to happen 
without an exterior alarm happening first. Of course 
things can fall off walls or shelves, but that didn't 
seem to be the case. I'll have to keep an eye out - maybe 
that motion sensor is deficient. 

Sure enough, everything looked fine - no intruders, no breach of any entrances, and no mice (that I could see - LOL). I cleared the alarm, reset it, and returned home. Once here, I directed DH to get the motion detectors dusted today, provided him with an extendable duster, and returned to what I had been doing - writing my daily blog. The only disadvantage I could see for my quick back-and-forth run ... my tea is tepid. *sigh* LOL

The only disadvantage of this quick trip was my tea 
getting cold. I could reheat it in the microwave, but 
that's just ick. I'll just drink tepid tea and look forward 
to a second cup that's nice and hot. 

Yesterday, I spent the entire day transferring Wednesday's photos of Swarovski crystal cubes into the laptop, then bringing them up one at a time, cropping them, resizing them, and renaming them so that I can use them for my Etsy listings. I had fifty photos I had taken on Wednesday to process and it took me most of the day to get them pulled over, revised, and ready for use. 

I still need to upload the revised 8mm crystal cubes pages, 
but I'm working on the photography of the 6mm cubes 
right now. I have a lot more 6mm cubes than I do 
8mm (and even more 4mm cubes). I need to do this 
regularly to get that category fully up and running. Then 
I can start on the next shape - I have a LOT of 
crystals that I want to get listed. 

Today's goal is to finish the photography on the 6mm crystals. I got a bit less than half of them done on Wednesday in three hours. I want to push to finish this size today, but I also need to get to the grocery store, and I'd like to make another four Alkagizers so that I won't be in a time crunch next week. I'll have to see what I can do, but I'll do whatever I can. The photos simply won't take themselves, and I have it down to a formula now. 

Let's jump right into the day. It's going to be a good 
one, I'm just focused on that - LOL. 

So, that's my excitement for the day - a false alarm, a drive out and back on what proved to be a lovely morning after the storms, and a day to be spent indoors doing fussy work. Oh joy! I hope your day is a bit more exciting than mine - although mine started out with a bang. I'll be back tomorrow. 

Product Photos - Normally They're Not A Problem but Swarovski Must Shine

So here we are - another weekend upon us, another week in the past. My LJIdol prompt is still grinding on my nerves. What I wrote yesterday was better, but still not where I wanted to be. I'm going to try and wrangle some more over the weekend, but the deadline is looming. It's rare for me to have difficulty with a prompt - I love writing to prompts and have done so for years. But this one is clear as mud to me - I'm drowning in minutiae. 

I'm drowning in the details. The quote is too broad 
and I can't narrow it down to be something 
succinct. I'm going to have to take a hedge shears 
to it and really cull. I'll play with different formats 
and see if maybe choosing a different structure 
might help me climb out from this hole. 

My friend from Montana is off on her Great Adventure - a trip to Germany and the Netherlands. I know she'll have a wonderful time and come back home inspired to create beautiful things. She had originally planned this trip for last year, but postponed it because of Covid, finally committing to take it this Spring. I'm very happy for her, she's going to have a lot of fun. 

When photos are taken properly, Swarovski crystals 
are mesmerizing. When the lighting isn't right, though, 
they look dull and uninspiring. Wednesday's photos 
were awful. I'm hoping, when I look carefully at 
Friday's photos, they'll be a vast improvement. 
If not, I'll have to redo all of them once more. *sigh*

I spent more than five hours yesterday retaking all of the photographs I had taken on Wednesday. I think these turned out better, but it was still a PITA. I'll pull them over to the laptop today and take a closer look on the much larger screen. If necessary, I'll start it a third time next Wednesday, and I'll probably dump the diffuser box completely. The whole idea is to get sparkle - these are Swarovski crystals. They have to shine. I was missing the shine on Wednesday's photo run. I'm grateful I only took three pages worth of photos on Wednesday rather than the full run. But, yesterday I took group and individual photographs for the entire selection of the 8mm cube size. I'm crossing my fingers that these photos will look great, but if not, I'll do them once more. 

This is similar to my current set-up - a light 
diffuser with spotlights to each side. I don't 
have the top light, but work with a third light 
that helps spotlight the refractive angles. If 
these photos don't work, I'll have to drop 
the diffuser box completely and photograph 
bare. In a lot of ways, that would be easier, 
but it's not a perfect solution. 

Since it's going to take me a long time to get the photos sent from my phone to my email, I'm cutting this short today. We'll have a beautiful, if windy, day today for DH to work in the garden, but tomorrow it will rain, so no grilling. No matter - we have plenty of food in the house that doesn't require cooking outside. I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back on Monday. Slava Ukraini.