Simply Shiny Life

It’s been an uneventful summer so far. Lovely. Busy. Nappable (is that a word?) Full of warm and funny visitors. No drama.

As you know, I work a corporate gig to pay the bills. Lots of hours. Much stress. Endless juggling . I do my best to leave the work at work and enjoy the un-eventfulness at home. Life is short, right? And while I need the day gig to pay bills and put a bit back for the Short Smith’s college, work isn’t all for me. I try to do my best to put it out of mind once I enter the doors of the homestead. So far so good this summer.

My shop and jewelry related creativity has been on the back burner for oh so long. And you know what? I don’t feel guilty a bit. I’ve been buying a bit more created by others and not been creating myself. I know my work space will be there waiting for me when I’m ready to hit it full throttle again.

I saw posts from school pals celebrating the fact we managed to graduate 27 years ago. 27 years! How did that happen? It doesn’t seem that long, although the crow’s feet by my eyes tell another story. LOL I don’t feel like I’ve wasted any of that time, and I certainly wouldn’t change anything, but it’s definitely one more reason to stop and smell the proverbial roses.

In the meantime, there are Angry Bird challenges to face with the Short Smith, yards that need new landscaping, new recipes from my in house, on staff chef of nearly 25 years, photos that need categorized and sent off to be digitized, curtains to finish and rooms that still need furnished. And more warm and funny moments to enjoy.

Please enjoy yours. I’ll bet you know where you can find some roses.

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This made me smile. Enjoy.

Don’t miss a single post.
Follow this blog: Click here
Follow via email: Click here
To receive subscriber only sale announcements once or twice a year, subscribe to my Newsletter.

My friend Brandi, from Catie’s Blue, is sponsoring another Color Palette Blog Walk, from February 28th through March 4th. Participants will be  blogging and creating new color palettes around things that inspire each of us. If you are like me, and love color too, you can follow along with the fun, as well as discover some new fabulous artisan blogs.

You can find more info at Brandi’s blog here

I’ll be blogging next Friday. Stay tuned.

I discovered this blog over the weekend. It is indeed lovely, in both word and image.

Pretty Things

Spring is coming lufflies.  Each day brings it a bit closer. And for that I am very, very grateful.
Happy Valentines Day everyone,

I did.. or more accurately, they found me on Twitter.

Their site profile says “Fresh Finds, True Stories. We’re a daily product discovery site featuring products of great utility, style or invention that haven’t hit the bigtime yet.”

Sounds kind of interesting.

Note: If you finding this in your reader, there is a widget in this post above this sentence you should be able to see. If you can’t, you can see it on the blog post on my blog.

You can check them out at Daily Grommet

During a rather contentious thread on the Artfire forum, the ‘rights’ card was thrown.

You know what the ‘rights card’ is,  well,                     right?

The exasperated post from the angry seller that states in no uncertain terms to the eye rolling reader  ‘I have the right to say blah blah blah’ , ‘I have the right to do this or that’

Well, no.

You don’t.

Shortly thereafter, an intrepid fellow Studio owner came along and posted this nugget:

“Take back my rights” Exercise my rights” “I have a right to….” Those are always the last arguments of people who are trying to find an acceptable way of saying “I’m gonna do what I want and I shouldn’t have to follow the rules that everyone else in the world has decided to abide by!!!”

So what “right” are you going to exercise here? The right to purchase a service and follow the rules set forth by that service? Or the right to take your money elsewhere and not purchase that service? Cuz those are the only two “rights” you have here.

In the colloquial sentiment of my former Maine neighbors:

Ayup.

I’ve been scarce of late.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  I’ve just not been here. Posting. Writing. Passing along stuff that might interest you, my lovely readers.

I’ve been performing a bit of soul searching; trying to figure out what makes a good balance. Where should I spend my time? Where should I spend my efforts? What activities actually contribute to my joie de vivre. Which activities do not? Probably a similar query to yours every now and again, right?

I’m an economic thinker at heart. Probably assimilated by my day gig. I tend to look at my personal activities and related things with an eye toward opportunity cost. Does the benefit outweigh the spend for me? And during the looking, more often than not, I tend to drop everything. And in this case, my online case, my blog life, my jewelry life, my online relationships, I did just that. Pretty much just bowed out of most everything online over the last month or so. I set things down to get a better look at what was around me. A sort of trees for the forest you might say.

And you know what I discovered? That I miss posting to my blog. Writing about things that interest me. Publishing a bit of data that might help other folks who are online just like me, that like to create, just like me. But I also discovered that I’m not very good on a deadline. And I’m not very good with publishing on a schedule without feeling like the clock is constantly ticking.

And you know what else? I’m not going to.

Blogging and interacting started out fun for me. I’m lucky enough to have a day gig, so I don’t have to rely on everything else to pay the bills. My time spent online equates to stress relief and fun. Or it should.

So I won’t be posting regularly. But I will be posting. I’ve no idea what I’ll be posting about. Once I start making jewelry again, I suppose it will find its way here again. I also expect I’ll be posting about stuff that makes me happy as well as stuff that irritates me. Stuff that’s fun. Stuff that’s interesting to me.

I hope it ends up fun or interesting reading for you too. And the opportunity cost is less than your alternatives. That would be my hope. And thanks for sticking with me.

Happy new year everyone…

My friend Vicki from Orion Designs wrote a thoughtful post about selling online and whether or not it was truly efficient.

http://vickiorion.blogspot.com/2010/12/rethinking-selling-online.html

Good stuff!

I haven’t shared a post about some of my favorite blogs in a while, so thought it was about time again. Today’s post will feature links to artist blogs that I love and follow. Enjoy!

A Girl and Her Brush

Alice Istanbul Designs

Beads in the Belfry

Katinka Pinka

Crafting in Chaos

Jealousy is a purse

Sunny Risings Leather

Care to share any of your favorites in the comments below?

Have you checked out all the shops hosting Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales? There are a lot of great deals to be had, and you won’t have to face the crowds at your local mall.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sale Announcements
from Etsy and Artfire sellers

Happy shopping everyone!

and don’t forget to tweet and share with your friends using the widgets below