Spirit of Bees

I looked over Broadway and what did I see?
Comin’ for to carry me home.

I wondered at the possibility that an Our God, and Our God 1-6 already existed before this person got their vanity license. Then it dawned on me that this owner must have been a Creationist.

Swng low the chariot’s coming.
Comin’ for to carry me home.

We’re having new windows installed in our apartment tomorrow morning. I hope we won’t have an unexpected snowstorm.

The back story is that we have had crappy windows ever since we moved in here, and the landlord has never been too keen on replacing them. Because the rent is very reasonable – in fact it has never been raised since we moved in about 9 years ago– we have just learned to live with the inadequate windows.

We get by during the winter by jamming wacky foam insulation strips around the edges and taping them up around the perimeter with clear packing tape. I know that sounds beyond tacky, but it really didn’t look like the Beverly hillbillies lived here because all that was hidden by the blinds.

Anyhow, the windows finally gave out. In September, we noticed that one of the windows was dangerously close to falling completely out of the casement when we tried to open it. In another one, only the storm window was separating us from the elements, as the top part had fallen to the bottom and we could not raise it at all. So there was really no way the landlord could deny reality any longer. It took some time to get around to getting things all in place so he could get it taken care of, and so now window installation in December in Chicago it is.

It is now 11:00 at night. We have done nothing at all about moving the furniture and stuff away from the windows. You would think we could plan ahead for something like this, but that would tarnish our reputation as the ultimate procrastinators. So now we have to wedge ourselves out of our chairs and begin the midnight furniture moving.

Sometimes I just can’t stand us.

It’s been a long day for me. I spent most of it making jewelry to fill the orders I got in the last couple of days on my Etsy site, so I can’t really complain.

Last year around this time I decided to list some items on Etsy to see if it could become a viable market place for me. The short answer is that I’m pretty happy so far. Despite it’s problems, I like selling on Etsy. There is definite potential for Etsy to become a good alternative to the art fair venues for retail sales.

Sales have picked up steadily over the year, and the holiday season has brought a real surge in orders. I’m selling enough in two of my Etsy shops to supplement my income quite nicely, enough to encourage me to be more serious in my efforts to upload new items and to promote myself a little more. I definitely won’t be quitting my day job, but, then, my day job is making large quantities of my jewelry to sell to the accounts which I’ve built up over the last 30 years.

A nice little bonus has been that my interest in making jewelry is being re-kindled, and I have even been designing new things. That’s a big deal because I have gone through a really long period of hating jewelry production work.

And I also find that I like the interaction and feedback that comes with having retail customers. Hearing or reading that someone is happy with their purchase or that someone loves my jewelry really goes a long way to make my day. Skinner sure had it right about that positive reinforcement.

The only downside is that all this new busy-ness sure cuts into the time I have to waste on the internet.

I’m planning on having a very good Sunday with my family. My younger son from Seattle is in town for 4 days, and yesterday he and my older son helped us make some major changes at the studio, which included moving a huge movable wall, and then transferring a huge workshop area from one place to another and reorganizing same. Exhausting, but very satisfying. I was so grateful for their help.

Today we are all going to older son’s to attend my oldest grand daughter’s last piano recital. She graduates from high school this year. Afterwards, a big family dinner. All three of my kids, two of their spouses and other two grand daughters, one 16 and one almost 2, will gather to celebrate my older son’s birthday and everything else.

Good food and good company. Even though it is rainy and gray, it will definitely be a good day.

I was lying in bed awake due to insomnia very early this morning when I felt the bed shaking. I was kind of groggy, and I thought it must be the cat scratching and making the bed shake. But I realized she’s too small to make the bed shake like that. Then I thought it might be my husband having nightmares. He was sound asleep, not moving at all. It went away, and then started again, and I got up and walked around the bed to see if I could figure out what was happening. I was stumped and got back in bed, and then noticed that it felt like it might be coming from under the bed. In my dazed stupor, I idly wondered if this could possibly be what an earthquake feels like, not thinking for a minute that it really was one.

Woke up to the news of the quake, realized instantly what all that shaking was about.

Never been in an earthquake which I felt before. Glad it was only a mild one.