Sticks and Stones and Lazy Bones

Little Koi1 art print by arinfish available for sale at arinfish.etsy.com

I'm seriously considering changing the name of the card portion of my business to Off the Wall Greetings. I came up with it about an hour ago while I was making dinner. It covers both my WALLpaper envelope stuff and my general snarky/offbeat stuff, and that's pretty much what I do. I was a little surprised it doesn't already exist, but there's no offthewallgreetings.com yet or anything I could find by googling it (except the descriptive phrase referring to cards). I already created the gmail account and offthewallgreetings.etsy.com, but now I have to convince myself it's really worth it to move everything to the new name and make new business cards and all that. Possible logo: wallpaper background with a bent nail? Still just thoughts. I'd love to hear your opinions, though.

And why am I doing this on New Years Eve? Because I decided that while my cold is getting better and I'm finally off the nasal sprays and things ending in "-quil," it wasn't worth forcing myself out in less clothing than the weather would logically call for to some semi-awkward uber-social function full of people I don't know or barely know and sneeze on the one or two people I actually want to see for a few minutes and drink things I shouldn't and spend money I shouldn't and wander home frozen to a pair of dogs that will want to go out and play having already pooped in my kitchen and wake up tomorrow as sick as I was five days ago, all just to have a "proper" New Years.

Hot Cocoa card by winemakerssister for sale at winemakerssister.etsy.com

Instead, I'm curling up with two warm (and appropriately emptied) dogs, a hot drink, and as many movies as I can stand. I'll probably call a few important people to wish them a happy 2009. I might stick my head out the 13th floor fire escape at the countdown to watch the fireworks, since my apartment building has one hell of a view, but that's it. And I'm looking forward to it like crazy.

What a NERD!

1:30 in, that's me. I just found out yesterday the thing was on television because we ran into family friends at the movies (after which we went for Chinese, just to be good stereotypical Jews on Christmas) and they asked me about it. Crazy!

Move Over, Stephen Colbert

"Merry Squidmas" by AngDavidson.

Thanks to Fenris Lorsrai and her LiveJournal for showing me the online Build A Squid. After naming my first Squiddy creation Chester and discovering three other Chesters in the virtual US squid waters, I decided I needed to name the next squid after myself and my shop (which is conveniently named after, well, myself). Now you can make your own squid and check on the progress of mine by clicking "FIND YOUR SQUID" and then "ENTER SQUID'S NAME" and typing in JillHannah as the squid name. I'm pleased with it. I thought about trying to make it look like me, but other than picking the smallest of everything, that wasn't so possible.

This is a very Stephen Colbert thing of me to do, since he's had all kinds of crazy random crap named after himself, like a Hungarian bridge, an ice cream flavor, and his adopted bald eagle Stephen Jr. Well, he certainly has no virtual squid. Who's awesome now, motherfucker?

does not compute, Chappy Chanukah

My computer monitor died. This would be less of a big deal if my computer wasn't a laptop. Oy. I am heavily reliant on my computer. I use it for both of my jobs (Etsy and my other one). I don't get TV because I can watch anything I really want to see on my computer (Daily Show and Colbert Report mostly, plus lots of Netflix stuff). It makes me feel connected to people I don't get to see and people I don't even know through email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. And all these days without it (almost a week now) are enough to make me go GRRRRRRRRAWWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!

Chanukah starts tonight. As Jewish holidays go, it's far less important than Shavuot, but when faced with the question, "Daddy, where's our Christmas Tree," menorahs blaze strong.
Ok, that's totally not fair. It's cold and dark out. Chanukah is a holiday of light and family and fried foods and games, and that's quite positive and appealing, even if you stick Christmas in August. Purim (my favorite holiday ever) gets more attention than Shavuot, too, and it's nowhere near anything competing for the hearts of Jewish children on the calendar. Purim is another holiday not from the Torah about "they tried to kill us, they didn't kill us, we ate," but this time in then Persia, a woman (Esther) saves the day, and everybody dresses up in costumes and gets drunk. So maybe Shavuot just needs a better marketing department and something shiny, and I need to get my tuchas to my parents' house for love and food and presents. My brother and I are hunting through Etsy for a new wallet (billfold, lots of pockets, leather is good but not required, if you want to help us find something hint hint hint) for my mother. Go handmade.

Chag sameach. Let's eat.

Computer Chip Menorah by DebbyAremDesigns, $65 on Etsy

Yes, I am just now posting these photos

This is the hoodie I made for the male one-eyed hairless cat named Lucius. It's been a rough few weeks, so you just get to see the pictures now. I'm hoping the kitty-mama will send me some modeled photos as well, but that's totally up to his camera-readiness and her initiative.

Yarn: Lion Brand Microspun in fuchsia
Zipper hand-stitched during two movies, then partially re-done because I'm anal to (I believe) to Tolstoy's Childhood courtesy of Librivox.org (free downloadable iPod-able public domain audiobooks AKA best thing ever).
Hoodie ties ended with jingle bells that were way harder to get on than they should have been but totally made this a cat sweater instead of a generic-four-legged-creature sweater.

Want one? Maybe if you're nice to me.

Medical Overshare

Bad week for my guts. Lots of discomfort and then some of the worst pain of my life turned out to be an ovarian cyst that then ruptured. Fun fun fun. It's almost nice to be back to the familiar pain of my head.

Thank you to those who were VERY helpful while I was writhing around and then trying to find out why.

personal pricing logic of the undead

Doing a bit better as of fairly late last night. I got all of my packages ready for shipping and was perhaps a bit overzealous with the goodies and general package decorating (I'll post a photo if my friend lets me steal his camera before we head to the post office this morning), but I feel a lot better just knowing I could do what had to get done. Being useless is frustrating.

As a result of Mr. Migraine I'd left up my Black Friday-Cyber Monday sale an extra four days with the quick note at the top of my Etsy shop that I was in Migraineland and shipping might be delayed but that meant the sale got extended because I was too dead to take it down. Today, I was going through to bump all of my prices back up and remove the "25 PERCENT OFF" from my titles when I decided perhaps I'm better off leaving most of my cards at $3. I know I personally am more likely to buy from a shop with $3 cards, since I don't like to buy just one at a time and almost $10 when you figure in postage is much more daunting than $8. In fact, I might even buy three cards at $3 each when I would be loathe to buy any from the shop that's selling for $4. Hopefully I'm not the only one thinking like this right now. Also hopefully I have cards that people want and find. That's the huge first part of it. The price just seals the deal. So pretty pretty please if you have a friend you think would like my shop, send them the link, and hopefully this afternoon I'll still feel better enough to work on general whoring (AKA marketing).

Migraine, shiny happy things

Coming soon to JillHannah.etsy.com:

Looks like I'm doing "B" as my "Merry This & Happy That" card with recycled wallpaper envelopes...just as soon as I can get home and be productive without this stupid effing migraine ruling my life. I've was stuck at my parents' house from Monday through Wednesday because I was completely dead and couldn't drive, and now I'm at a friend's house for the same reason. Even being on the computer hurts my eyeballs and stabs my brain a bit, but I can only spend so many hours laying around dead with the dogs (thank goodness for dogs). I don't know how long I'll be stuck here now. Here is much closer to my own apartment and if I go really nuts and am well enough to do a big walk but not a drive I can walk home with my dog in the lovely 21° F (9° with wind chill) weather. But until then, I put a note up on my shop that I'm migraining and my shipping may be delayed. Fun. Good way to get sales. Wasn't the migraine thing why I started the shop in the first place? Well, this is my life and I have to deal with each piece of it as it comes.

A friend of mine from camp back in junior high also came down with a life-changing medical problem around the same time I did, but hers is much worse and had the potential to kill her. Now, she's getting sicker and sicker and she's been in the ICU for weeks and prayers and hope may be the only medicine left right now. My thoughts are with her, and I remember my own pain is quite managable by comparison.

Happy post!

vote vote vote vote vote

I want to make one version of my "Merry This and Happy That" card. Right now I have three finalists for the layout. The people in my family all like different ones, so I'm putting it to a vote. The winner of the vote is the one I will print. That simple. Your vote is way more influential than in any presidential election. You should feel special. Please judge each version on its own merits and not the lighting/photography since I'm still at my parents' and had to use my sister's camera with its complete unfamiliarity and lack of manual settings.

Thanks!

Cast Your Vote

Free Vote Casters by Bravenet.com

Merry This, Lacking That

Today, December 1, was supposed to be the big Coming Out Party for my "Merry This and Happy That" cards. Listing them on Etsy, photos up on Flickr, Twittering my brains out, and then dolling myself up in business cute (not to be confused with business casual) and hopping around to appropriate-seeming salons, coffee shops, and boutiques in the Andersonville, Lakeview, and Lincoln Park neighborhoods of Chicago (time and other life-factors to determine where and how many such places I'd hit before the day's end).

Today, December 1, I was still not quite happy with the cards when the cleaning people got to my apartment and I had to leave with the dog so he wouldn't eat them (the people, not the cards), and after digging my car out of the snow and heading off to run an errand or two, I rolled down the driver side window to help finish clearing the snow when CACHUNK the whole window fell off its track and down into the door where it stuck, jutting up slightly and uselessly. And it was cold. And wet. And I had the dog with me. And I don't have a garage or any indoor safe place to keep my car for any length of time other than my parents' house 45 minutes away.

So my car is in the shop and my dog and I are both back at my parents' where I'm trying to get work done. I brought a suitcase full of paper and tools and my computer and such and I'm hoping to be at least somewhat productive and double hoping that they can finish my car tomorrow (a maybe at best from the mechanic).

This is the kind of thing that is far from tragic or terrible. It's not a big deal and only a temporary annoyance, but it's still frustrating. As they say in Yiddish, "A mench tracht und Got lacht" (please note it rhymes), or, "A person plans and God laughs."

Cards may be up later tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. But there should be cards.