It’s been a long few weeks

As some of you probably know, I am a Penn State graduate. I take enormous amounts of pride in that, or I used to anyway. I just wanted to write a short note and let you know that I have not fallen off the face of the earth. But this has been a rough few weeks for me, and all of my Penn State family. I’ll write more later, but it’s 12:37am and I start my second job in 8 hours. Please pray for us; the Paterno family, all current, former, and future Penn Staters, that we all make it through such a difficult time. Thank you.

Tags: paterno, Penn State, rip joepa

A list of crafts that I need to do

This is more for me than for anyone else, so I’m not posting it on facebook/twitter or anything. This is a basic list of things I’m going to try my hand at/try to sell on Etsy this year. It’s also a list of things that I can make without having to go to the store, because I have all the items already.

1) Coasters
These will be made with wall tiles from Lowes, scrapbook paper from ACMoore, and a variety of adhesives and sealents. I want to do these soon, so maybe I’ll have to put down the knitting for a while and just start.

2) Microwavable rice bags
I’ve made one of these before, and it’s fantastic! I’m keeping the first one, but since they are so simple to make, I may make more to sell. Not quite sure how much to charge for them.

3) Magnets
I have two different sized flattened marbles, large and small. I just have to figure out what to put on the back of them. And how to package them. I’ll probably make a set of 8 for myself, and then sell the rest. Maybe pages from old magazines?

4) Wallets
I’ve also made one of these for myself. They are super cute, and I only stopped using it because I am a silly woman who went out and spent $25 on a new Vera Bradley wallet. Again, I have all the stuff for them. Just need to get motivated to use my sewing machine.

I hope these things will give me shop the increased variety that it needs. If anyone happens to run across this posting, could you maybe visit my shop and let me know what else I should be doing? I’d appreciate it!

(PS: I’ve been looking into SEO and keywords, but none of it makes any sense to me, so if anyone knows anything about it and wants to share, I’d be ever so grateful)

Tags: crafts, etsy

New Year’s Resolutions – Month 1 Update

Ok, so I know that January isn’t over yet. It seems like this month will never end! Anyway, I’ve been doing extraordinarily well on my new years resolutions, and I wanted to share my progress with you all.

Resolution 1: Volunteer at least once a month, every month.
This one was easy, and I got it out of the way pretty early. I ran the canteen at a Red Cross blood drive last week. Basically another excuse to knit in public, as that’s all I do, but still.

Resolution 2: Spend less time on Etsy and more time actually making stuff for my shop.
This one has gone, meh, ok. I’m not picking up the computer every 5 minutes anymore, which is good. But I do notice I lose whole big chunks of time to the internet. Last night I looked up and an hour had gone by, and it didn’t feel like more than a couple minutes. Still need to improve on this one.

Resolution 3: Go to the gym at least 3 days a week, every week.
The end result of this one would be that I’d lose the rest of the weight before the family beach vacation at the end of June. I’ve done so well with this one, it kind of surprises me. It’s only Wednesday, and I’m already about to meet the goal for this week! And I’ve lost 2 more pounds, bringing me to only 21 pounds away from my goal. For anyone who’s paying attention, that would make 63 total pounds lost. That’s a small child!

Anyway, I’m off to the gym, and then I’m going to finish the most recent pair of yoga socks if it kills me. I’ll post that and the scarf I made yesterday sometime today hopefully, if the lighting in this house cooperates. Who knew I lived in such a dreary dungeon!!

Tags: gym, knitting, resolutions

About freaking time!

So I’ve had these yoga/pedicure socks done since the ride out to Michigan on Monday, and I just now got around to posting them. Hope you like them as much as I do!

As Promised

So here are my “before” pics. These were taken yesterday (1/11/12) before I had gone to the gym, at 147 pounds. Hopefully, when I take more pics in a month, I’ll be able to see some difference! It’s super embarassing to have my fat pics up on the internet, but maybe it’ll give me some motivation.

Anyway, so here are the treasuries that I’ve been featured in during the last two days.

Aquamation, by Crystal.

Blue Skies and Brown Earth, by Sharon.

Something Old, New, Borrowed, Blue; With a Twist, by gclasergraphics.

The Road to Success, by Rebecca.

Purple Passion, by Ellen.

With Deepest Sympathy, by Mandee.

That’s it for now. Maybe there will be more, who knows!! These are all made by people from the Advertising and Promotion team on Etsy. Go check them all out, and don’t forget to vote on the one you like best at our blog!!

Tags: AP team, before and after, etsy, fatass, treasuries

Tomorrow…

I will go back to the gym. I’m going to BU for my interview at 9am, then probably coming back here to change, then hitting the gym.

And then, it’s treasury-mania. I think I’ve been featured in 4 (or maybe 5) treasuries since I left for work alone, so it’s gonna be a lot of linking, but I figured I’d share them with whoever is reading this (HI!!). Get ready!!

Oh… and I’m going to post pictures of my fat ass in my gym clothes. I figure it will give me some motivation and a good comparison, before and after kind of stuff. But right now, I need to go to sleep.

Today…

I don’t care about my Etsy shop. I’m going to take this opportunity to take some time off. I may not even knit much.

I really want to go to the gym, but I’m not sure if I have time before I volunteer at a blood drive, or between volunteering and working.

I’m getting ready for this job interview tomorrow. I don’t really care if I get it, because I certainly don’t need it, but my parents are right. It’d be nice to be able to finish my not one but two unfinished Master’s degrees for free.

I’m really into dubstep. I feel like I’m too old to be really into dubstep. I don’t care, I love it.

I don’t know how my heart will respond to walking on the treadmill. I have everything I need; a good workout mix, grubby clothes, the will to actually drive myself there. But I’m not so sure about my health. My heart rate jumps to ridiculous numbers waiting tables, what will it do with actual exercise?

I do love dubstep. And 8 tracks. But definitely dubstep.

I weigh 147 pounds. I’m 5 feet tall. I should weigh 125, that’s the goal. I started losing weight when I started taking the thyroid meds, but since then they’ve put me on every medication imaginable, and my weight loss has kind of stopped. I’ve lost 41 pounds. I have no control over it. I know that going to the gym is not going to help; it never does. But I still feel like I should, and I actually want to. I feel every bit of 22 pounds overweight. Maybe by going to the gym I’ll be able to say “hey, at least I’m trying”, and that will make me feel better. I’m not losing anything by just sitting here and knitting. Actually, I am, that’s a lie. One of my meds makes me poop a lot, or maybe that’s the coffee, and one of them makes me lose my appetite so I’m not eating much at all. Only when I am so hungry that my stomach feels like it’s going to eat my liver. But even then I’m not really enjoying food. I just eat to survive. Sometimes the thought of food makes me want to yak. People think I have amazing willpower or some secret to losing all that weight. Nope. I just got sick and have to take a lot of pills. So at least there’s an upside.

The blood drive is at 11:30 (I think). Work is at 4. If I get to the gym by 9:30 I can get in a good walk before I have to do the blood drive. It’s 8:30 now. I can do this. I could walk on the treadmill that’s here in the house, but it’s holding my wrapping paper right now. Plus I tend to lose my motivation halfway through if I’m here. It’s wednesday; I still have time to go to the gym three days this week. I’m going to do it.

Pinterest is one of my favorite things. That and dubstep. Or listening to dubstep while browsing Pinterest. And of course drinking delicious coffee.

I feel good. And motivated. Like my life just started today and I have a real opportunity to make it a good one.

Tags: dubstep, gym, knitting, motivation, volunteering, work

How I waste my own time

I could spend my entire day on Etsy. Between participating in team threads, checking out my page views, looking at the people in my circle, etc, it’s become a huge time sink. I’m getting little to no knitting done, which probably is not helping the page views that I’m so obsessed with. So, here’s my first New Year’s resolution (or second, if you count the one in which I vowed to work out 3 days a week and then immediately forgot about, and when I say immediately I mean 5 minutes later). I will not spend more than two hours a day on Etsy. I will not check out my page views more than 10 times a day (not counting the times that I’m at work on a smoke break and I’m not doing anything else). I will be active in the teams still, but only because I’m a team leader for one of them so I kind of have to be. I will not be on Etsy for more than 10 minutes in any given hour. I’ll post in the team threads, check out my page views, and then get back to knitting. That’s it. Let’s see how it goes!

Tags: etsy, knitting, time sink

I had a dream…

That I flew to Vegas with my father for ComicCon (which, btw, I would never attend). Or maybe it was BlizzCon (which I would attend). I also dreamed that I had 3 sales on Etsy, but I only made 5 bucks. I was really excited when I woke up, flew out of bed to my computer, only to discover that it was only a dream. Poop. Sometimes my ambien dreams are just cruel.

In better news, I have over 170 views already today! I was so impressed with myself when I had over 100 yesterday, but this is way better! I added all my pages to StumbleUpon, so I’m crediting most of those views to that.

I worked on Wednesday, and it was dead all night. By 8pm I was working off with $20 in my pocket. But I had a big group, so I stuck around for another 2 and a half hours. Good thing I did! That big party (about 20+, but only 6 of them ate) tipped me $80! Talk about saving the night. Last night was not so great, had another big party but they didn’t tip quite so well. I still left with about 35% of my tippable sales, which is awesome.

Anyway, I need help deciding what to make next. Do I continue on with the latest pair of yoga socks, should I make a 7th coffee cozy, or something completely different? What do you think?

Tags: etsy, knitting, work

Wow!!

My Etsy shop had almost as bad a day as I did yesterday, at least if you look at shop views. So this morning when I woke up I logged on, not expecting much since I hadn’t done any promoting last night. Surprise!! I discovered my items were chosen for two new treasuries!! They are here and here. So that’s make four total that I’ve been featured in (the others are here and here). That’s super exciting, especially considering I still don’t have many items for sale in my shop. It actually gives me the motivation I needed to get this third pair of socks done!!

Tags: etsy, knitting, treasury