Great Cause

I usually don't do the blog entry for giveaways that I enter. It takes alot of time, and sometimes Its really just a hassle. Lets face it, I always feel the chances of winning are slim. I am never the "right" number. Today is a little different.

Im not so much worried if Im the right number, but It is the right cause. Today I came across Shannons blog Potamus Prefers. She is doing a great giveaway for a GREAT cause. Pink Together is a site to Inspire hope. I visited the site, and it was awesome. Just the song that they play gave me a pretty uplifting feeling.
I don't have a relative or friend Living with or who has survived Breast Cancer. I do go to the grocery store and during the month buy the "pink" items. I participate in the walk, and help out where I can. Just because it hasn't directly affected me today, doesn't mean it wont tomorrow. Please for this month, think Pink.

Jack is Back!!

Jack is not my husbands actual name, but its his nickname. Jack is short for JackASS! He's my husband, I do love him.

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He came home on Saturday, from a week away in Tunisia. Africa that is, if your geographically challenged like me. I have to say that I love when Jack goes away. Lately for the last few months Jack has been going through what I am referring to as MANopause. He is unhappy, he picks at things.. the house, the kids... me. Everything is wrong all the time, nothing is right..

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He got home Saturday afternoon, had dinner, then went to bed. Sunday morning he was woken up very nicely (if I do say so myself!) Then had to go take G to ODP tryouts (ODP = Olympic Development Program) more about that later... Only to come home about 5pm... and the MANopause was unleashed...

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Our family Infractions...

1. I didn't mail a card that had been sitting on his dresser for 4 months, and only last week was critical that it got mailed, because it was very important to him... hmmmm Seriously if it was that important you would have mailed it 4 mos ago right? And how did a distant cousin that he has never met become that important? Lack of Dedication

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2. I went over my minutes on my cellphone. I said I was sorry. Didn't realize... Lack of interest

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3. J (oldest of the boys) apparently signed up for something that was 10 dollars ring tone thing on his phone.. My fault.. Lack of supervision.. Yup I should be supervising my 14 year old son 24/7 making sure he doesn't do a stupid 14 year old thing..

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4. J left his phone in his jeans, and I washed them.. but that is my fault as I should be checking my 14 year olds clothes before I wash them... Lack of interest..

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5. G our rising star athlete.. got a bit winded at ODP .. duhhh you think? 6 hours of running with some of the top athletes in South Texas? my fault... lack of dedication of making G get out every morning and running 5 miles and drinking his protein.

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6. B our youngest, didn't get a page of his homework done last week. Lack of interest and dedication..

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7. B woke up Jack this morning while looking for me while I was on the toilet. Lack of dedication and interest.. ohhh ya .. lack of supervision.

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All of these infractions were enough to send Jack out the door in a rage, after only spending 2 hours with our family. Nothing like a bit of quality time eh? Am I crazy to think these things are just .. ohhh well things? At the end of the day.. the kids get A's and B's, they are all involved in sports, J has Aspergers and is functioning amazingly well. B is .. well its only kindergarten.. So he acts like a very spoiled 5 year old. and Im blaming Dora for that, she didn't do her job. Or maybe the 2 years of preschool we payed for that never taught him his ABC's...

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I don't know.. We have a great house, some pretty awesome kids, a smelly dog. He has a pretty decent job, bills get paid. We go on a holiday every year. This is the freaken American Dream! So what am I missing?

Weekend shopping disasters..

There really aren't very many purchases that I honestly regret. I have found one though, so brace yourself!

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The rainy season has finally hit, goodness knows we waited all summer for a few inches, and that means mosquito's. 3 nights a week I go to soccer practice with G and sit out and listen ( I don't talk because I don't speak Spanish). Usually on these nights, I pack my can of repellent, 3 bottles of water and make sure my IPhone is charged up, and watch my son drill until he is exhausted. We get home roughly around 9pm, where the only thing I can think of is having a shower and scrubbing the bug spray off every inch of my body. So when I saw this Off Clip On, I thought to myself.. very cool! It doesn't smell, It won't leave a coating of bug spray on me. So I bought it.

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I was very excited Tues night to try this out. There I was standing with the coach and a few dads, my little OFF clip on going like crazy and all I could feel were the little bugs sucking the life out of me, literally. It was like I had no repellent on at all! I got home that night, I had over 20 bites on my legs and arms. So If your thinking of buying this, don't. Use the spray, your body will thank you for it the next day!

Seriously though, I am probably the queen of what not to buy. Everything I buy doesn't work in some way. I can go into the store and get a box of Twinkies and it will be short one. I can buy a new shirt and there will be a tiny hole in it. I can buy fabric and it will be short a 16th of a yard. Its just the way I roll. If I didn't have bad luck I would have no luck at all! I also avoid taking my kids shopping with me. It doesn't matter what kind of shopping.. just leaving the house and spending money is challenging enough, but honestly my kids compound this problem.

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So yesterday we went out to get haircuts. We do it once a month, 4 boys in the barber shop is crazy, but it has to get done. From haircuts we move on to lunch. Folks honestly Buffalo Wild Wings on the West side of Houston is awful. There are 3 of them, bad food, bad service just bad bad bad.. save your money and go to Hooters, the wings are so much better! Anyway we had our overcooked crispy wings and moved on to Best Buy. Jack likes to let the kids wander around to get an idea of what they want for their Christmas. And of course that means he can wander around to look at his toys. Whine whine whine, whinge whinge whinge. I hate Best Buy with kids. 20 Kids want to play Guitar Hero and there only is ever 1 guitar. So as I drag my children out of BB kicking and screaming "1 more song mom". I do the unthinkable.. I tell Jack that I want to go and look at a bike.

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I have been thinking about getting a bike for a while now. I know I want one in a cruiser style but besides that I was open. Several months ago when we found out that Kroger was opening around the corner I started looking into a bike like this I feel in Love.. Honestly how cool is this bike. I'm a pretty big fat cow now, so balance is an issue, also with the bad arthritis in my knees and hips, It has to be low impact, with a comfy seat. This bike is it. I will be able to take the koda on his walks without fear that he will knock me over into the road, I will be able to go to Kroger to get my little bits and pieces, ride to the post office for deliveries. Seriously this bike is the answer...

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So I went on the big bike hunt. Now I don't drag my kids shopping for me ever. To be honest I did learn my lesson. B was a nightmare, J and G got into a fight in the truck and literally drew blood on each other. My day ended with me coming home bike less, and all of my kids standing in the corner. I'm not a corner kind of mom, but I think those corners are going to be my new best friends. Ill have to research this bike again, and hopefully convince Jack of the necessity for it.

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Lesson of the weekend? No matter how desperate you are.. wait till they go back to school. At school they are someone elses problem, and you can fantasize all you want about being the skinny Martha Stewart on your new cruiser with your fresh cut flowers in the basket, instead of being Rosanne pmsing and thinking of 101 ways to strangle your children.

Diving into the Deep End

As a fledgling small business owner, It is up to me to let the world know that I have something that they must have to have! How else is someone going to come to your site to buy your stuff? At first when I started out on Etsy, it really was just luck of the draw and I stuck to some of my safe places, let a few people know that hey.. I make this and that. Ya some people would buy my stuff. As I lurked into the forums, a huge topic is how do you get people outside of your friends to come and buy your items? So of course you go and lurk in a few places and try and come up with a clever way to say come and buy my crap.. ie beautiful handcrafted one of a kind items. It is intimidating. You do a few giveaways on some other crafters blogs, and then start and OCDing over views and sales. Do some paid advertising and hope it pays off.. YA!!! gotta sale!

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So now your britches are getting bigger and you start to realize that there is a larger market out there, but how do you get those people to know that you have this crap.. ie one of a kind handcrafted beautiful item. You know they will, if they only knew about it. Congratulations you just jumped onto the Marketing Roller Coaster of the Internet.

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I am so OCD over views, sales, marketing that I really am driving myself insane. I can spend hours and hours.. OK let me be honest, the whole freaking day going back and forth between the places that I know to google myself, see if posts have views etc. I think this is why I burned out on the whole CT/publishing thing. I would spend so much time waiting for people to tell me how great my pages were, and if nobody was forth coming, I would find people, tell them how great they were, so they would come and tell me how great I was. Its a constant roller coaster of praise and refreshing, nail biting empty ego boosting.

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Yesterday was especially bad. My obsessive compulsive neurotic tendency got the best of me. Yesterday was the feature at PropInsanity. So of course I was back and forth between the site looking at comments, after all I am giving away 2 $20 GC to my store, going to Momdot and asking for their help to tweet me, logging into my sisters facebook because she has hundreds of friends and announcing this great giveaway. But that really wasn't good enough, because there were no sales, and not the large amount of comments about how great my crap.. ie beautiful handcrafted one of kind items .. how great they were and how they would just die if they didn't win.So of course, I needed to rectify that, If the world is not going to twitter about me, I will tweet myself! I just had to figure out how to do it! Yes I did feel like a complete and utter TWIT!. The blog wasn't getting enough views so of course I went and signed up for The Secret is in the Sauce, a blog networking site, by 6pm I only had about 8 twitter followers and thought.. If I go and join some more twitter groups then I can get more people to know about me. If you follow me I will follow you etc.. My head was pounding, I was on caffeine overload with no food, G was digging dirty clothes out of the laundry for soccer practice, but I was determined ...
Finally I thought to myself.. one last refresh and just finish up.. You have done what you can do, you have gone one foot into the asylum. Drink a glass of wine and just relax, spend some time with the kids (that you ignored all day being a TWIT) and watch some Greys. but that's not exactly what I did... Because somewhere in my brain.. just one more look, one more tweet one last refresh... So there I was laying in bed with B. and while he was drifting off to sleep, I was checking forums, comments, views, tweets, replies, email back and forth over and over on my Iphone. Gotta love technology, It allows me to be OCD from anytime, anyplace. It feeds into my Obsession. I was able to shut off my computer and within 30 seconds get back online and look thru a little tiny screen (which is probably what added to my headache) and feed into this complete unhealthy behavior. All the while still thinking... I just haven't done enough to get the word out..

Yes .. social networking is a must, how else will I get the word out? I will probably spend my day coming back to this blog to see if anyone new is following, checking my views, and posting in numerous forums and tweeting to the world at large, about the fact that I did blog and drive myself crazy for another day doing it. I will do the 4:30 tidy up, maybe get dressed by 5, drink alot of ice tea, forget to eat, and all the time fretting over is anyone anywhere going to buy my crap.. ie wonderful awesome one of a kind handcrafted items. I have dived into the deep end of social networking, and Im struggling to treadwater, but isn't that how most swimmers start out? Its not a perfect life.. but for today it is my life.

To Blog or not to Blog

That is really an issue I have been debating for a while. I have really neglected this part of my site. Originally this blog was to be set up for new products and some more little crafty things that are coming out of my studio. But seriously that's boring. If you want to know whats new, you can just go to my shop and click on the new products link. Easy enough.

I also get very intimidated by other blogs, they have perfect little families, with perfectly edited photos, and very clever things to say. Their kids say the funniest things. Moms have great hair, and are wearing the latest designer jeans. Well lets be honest that's not me either. My kids talk back, they exhaust me, they have acne, forget to shower, and don't ever listen until I'm screaming like a banshee.. I'm also overweight, I have a bad haircut, and I hardly ever get dressed before 4:30 when my husband gets home. My house is a mess, I do a quick tidy up before Jack gets home to make it look like I have been productive.

So with all of that in mind I have decided to give this blog another go. I feel I will be more successful as a blogger If I blog about what really happens in a real house. Not sugar coated, and beautiful. Your not going to find Martha Stewart in the living room, but you will find honesty.

I'm a struggling small business owner, I make wrong decisions all the time, I fret, I obsess over views, but sometimes.. my research pays off, or I create something pretty darned awesome and someone buys it. I type as I speak, it is what it is. So I will just get on with it.

I want to talk a little bit about the swine flue today. This has been a long debate in our house recently. Jack (the husband jack is short for jackass) is pretty big on having all the kids vaccinated, they got the flu mist. They are scheduled to get the Swine vaccine as soon as its available. I'm refusing. I don't like needles... Lets be honest I'm absolutely petrified of them. I hate the doctor, I don't mind dragging my kids to them, but every time I go they tell me something is wrong. Your fat, your cholesterol is high, you drink to much, you have a mass in your uterus. Something is always wrong. Yes I live in my little bubble of health, but let there not be a doubt when I step into that Dr Office my bubble is always burst. Well yesterday the Swine got just a little bit closer to home and it really hit that maybe I need to take some steps to try and protect myself.

I found out yesterday that at PropInsanity A blog that I LOVE and participate as a vendor, one of the other vendors there, her son Nathan Stone died this week and tested positive for H1N1.

My thoughts go out to this family. I do know what its like to lose a child and would never wish anyone to go thru this. It really made me think. I cant lose another child, but what if it was me? Who would take care of my kids? Jack (the husband)? Ummm maybe.. My sister? She has enough on her plate. So its time to put my big girl panties on and make an appointment to get the stupid jab. Seriously and I guess while I'm there I will get the other appointment done for the hysteroscopy to make sure that the little mass thingies haven't come back. If your on the fence about the vaccine, do what is in your heart. For me, I want to be able to look in the mirror and say that I took advantage of everything I could to keep my family safe. I may forget to help with homework, or send them to bed early because they are aggravating the piss out of me, and go hmm hmmm hmmm when they are talking about another thing that I'm not interested in, but who will do those things If I'm not here?

So today I'm being featured at PropInsanity. I am giving away 2 $20 gift certificates to my shop. Any orders that I get within the next 7 days I am going to donate 10% to the Stone Family. You can read more about it here.