that rosebud girl

busy as a …

… well, you know how the old adage goes.

in the good news department, i am going to do my first craft fair/show. i’m going to be a sellout buyout here in sacto on saturday, dec. 9. woohoo!

i have other apps pending, and SOBO might not be the first show i actually do, but it’s exciting to actually be able to sell my wares somewhere in person.

kim also bought some jewelry from me. although i screwed up because she bought something from me that i actually didn’t have anymore. d’oh. me and my not keeping my inventory straight. i told her i’d make a reasonable facsimile, though. it’s always fun to sell stuff to people you actually know.

school started this week too. that’s cool. i finally finished my sampler. woot. now i am in copy machine/rotary cutter hell because i have a bunch of flyers and such i need to take care of.

back to more work before i go to actual work.

a first.

today, a girl from the UK bought a hat and scarf from my shop. woohoo.

i have officially gone international.

i have never had to send a package to great britain, either. fun.

alls the chick’s gotta do is pay for her stuff (oh, the beauty of paypal) and i’ll get that out to her.

man, i am excited by little things.

effing brilliant!

i saw this video on VH1 last night … according to ed, these guys just randomly dance in their videos. but this was brilliant!

i wish i was creative enough to think of choreography like that. though i’d probably hurt myself or something.

otherwise, nothing much going on. school starts monday. i’m still working on the sampler. and i sent applications to two craft fairs yesterday. woohoo.

(wo)man with a plan …

so i’ve been thinking about business lately.

perhaps i’ve been emboldened by my magazine entry. (well, supposed entry … i still haven’t heard from those folks yet. but it is only mid-august.)

but i’m thinking that maybe i should apply to some craft shows. you know, get my stuff out there. there are not a bunch of shows in sacto, but there is one in SF i’m interested in, and one in L.A. too that i’d probably apply to. there is also an arts and crafts fair in folsom i’ll probably try for as well.

i also compiled a list of county fairs and things. maybe i’ll try some of those down the road.

i also submitted links to some crafty sites. and found some places for free advertising. i put some business cards up on the bulletin board at butch n’ nellies today.

of course, this means a couple of things.

a) this is going to take money. you can’t be a vendor at a fair for free. but you gotta spend money to make money sometimes.

b) i’m gonna have to make a crapload of stuff. absolute crapload. damn.

i’m excited about this. if i can get into at least one show, i’ll be real happy. i still have studio stuff too.

and if this magazine thing gets me more exposure … i’ll be quite merry.

in other news, marie found me a web design client! yay! it’s for trade, though, not cash. i don’t care. this client runs a zine. i get free advertising in return. free advertising on the sampler too. rock my sock.

i’m hoping for the best.

myspace: connecting long-lost folks.

i found mark on myspace the other day. holy crap. i didn’t even know he had a computer. the boy is ridiculously difficult to get a hold of. no e-mail (or so i think/thought). i called marky mark and the funky lunch on his birthday, which was 11 days ago. still haven’t heard back. oh well.

at least i found him on an internet medium. ha!

i miss mark.

a boatload of my cousins are on the space. so is my brother (it’s really the only way i get messages to him, seeing as you know, there’s the stupid international date line separating us).

i took a look at my brother’s myspace and found some of our other cousins. like our cousin lee. he lives in idaho. and he’s fucking 18 years old.

18?

i remember when that kid was a snot-faced 5-year-old. and it’s probably been about that long since i’ve seen him. it’s not like i get to go to idaho that often. (though the rest of the fam does every year … they make it a point to visit those folks.)

but the kid is 18!!!! and he’s going to be a freshman at arizona state this fall. and he turned out hella fine. he’s all buff and stuff. (dude played some football and basketball, i think.)?Ǭ†and he’s got that mestizo thing going (my uncle in idaho is the only white branch of my family … and yes, those kids are a beautiful mix).

damn.

i feel old now. it’s weird when all these kids you grew up with and you remember as snot-faced toddlers are suddenly going to college.

when my bro goes to college i’ll feel old. it’s just him, then steven on mom’s side and jessica on dad’s side as far as the u.s.-born kids go. when jess graduates high school, i’ll be fucking ancient. (well, i’ll be?Ǭ†30. or something like that. i guess that’s not that ancient.) but relatively speaking. ?Ǭ†

it’s crazy how fast everyone around you grows up. it’s even crazier when you realize that you were the first to graduate college, get a real job and live independently of your parents.

when everyone else catches up, it’ll be cool. ’cause that means i just have more floors to sleep on and, hopefully,?Ǭ†in more cities.

it’s a mad, mad world.

“if some idiot is?Ǭ†going to blow you out of the sky, some idiot is going to blow you out of the sky.”

(a woman quoted in a story about the latest airport terror alert. she was flying from L.A. to Vancouver [or something like that] and didn’t plan on changing her plans.)

so i guess that’s the new reality. unlike five years ago, when most people were paranoid about getting on an airplane.

(for the record, i was not one of those paranoid folks. i flew less than two weeks after 9/11. cross-country. i’ve never seen a plane more empty in my life. i didn’t care — i got to sleep across an entire row of seats the whole way. yeeeeah.)

i don’t know if i’m as blasé about being blown out of the sky like that woman, but flying is still an intergral part of people’s lives, and i’ll still fly. it’s just becoming more of a pain in the ass to do it.

now you can’t bring gel or liquid as carryon? crap! i guess i’m going to have to borrow shampoo and toothpaste and all that crap from edgar when i fly to L.A. for the nebraska game. ’cause i sure as hell am not going to check in one measly backpack. i think checking in such a small bag is a total hassle.

oh, the inconvenience.

right about now, i think ed is glad he no longer flies on a regular basis so he doesn’t have to deal with all those hassles. three hours early for a 7 a.m. flight? no thank you. if we were in delaware still and he was covering the phillies, i’d be the one who had to get out of bed at 4 a.m. and take him to the airport. and i would be cranky. i’d probably get home from work at 2 a.m. and not bother to sleep in that case. so there.

my condolences to all those boys in philly who are covering the phillies. ’cause things suck for them. they’re at the end of yet another miserable season, and then they get this inconvenience thrown on top of it. and with those crazy people … i smell an airport meltdown in mid-september.

baseball writers have to have it the shittiest. they’re flying something like 60 flights a year. sometimes every week. and those two-week, four city trips blow.

i like flying, but not that much.

super-exciting news!

one of my products is going to be featured in a magazine!

(well, i haven’t gotten the official announcement, but my source is extremely reliable.)

so, yeah, i’m waiting for the official word. i had sent a press kit to a trade magazine called Flowers& a few weeks ago. the magazine had gotten one of my notecards in the Summer Sampler and requested a kit. so i sent one. and another card sample. and i guess they liked my stuff.

the magazine caters to florists and such. i think i’m going to be in the “new products” section. i don’t know what cards are going to be featured and what’s going to be said exactly, but i do know that i am super stoked!

if i get even one wholesale order out of this, i will consider it a smashing success.

more later when i get the official word. i might even get a pdf of the spread.

this, of course, is only one of the 10,000 other projects i need to do. i do know i need to step up some of my advertising. i need to make an insert for the dance studio so i can advertise my dance bags. i need to finish making stuff for the Sampler in september. i need more crafty Sampler ideas. oh, and school starts in a few weeks.

but at least i have something exciting to look forward to!

back to real work and trying to sit in my chair with a sore back. stupid back. this is what happens when you haven’t danced in four weeks and you decide to take four half-hour classes in a row during the studio’s dance jubilee.?Ǭ†?Ǭ†

owwwww.

at least my knees don’t hurt like they did last night. they hurt like the dickens.

i heart fall.

because fall?Ǭ†means football.

and football means …

• watching usc kick ass. and tailgating. and general fun with the krew.
• waking up on sunday at 10 a.m. and watching all the NFL games. bless sunday ticket, satellite tv, and the pacific time zone.
• lots of betting pools and betting in general.
• it’s time for another fantasy football season and all sorts of shit-talking.

the latter is probably my favorite thing. we’ve barely set everything for our league and we haven’t even had our draft yet, and there is already all sorts of trash-talking. i had a smackdown with austria already early in the season.

the latest involves tim, who had the misfortune of being a notre dame grad …. playing in a league full of usc grads.

edgar and i are so brutal … we’re probably the best trash-talking tag team known to man.

yeah, the fall’s gonna be wicked sweet.

(wicked busy, too, but that’s another matter.)

money sucks.

i hate money. we don’t really get along. it’s like a bad relationship … you try to leave, but the other half is so powerful and overwhelming that you keep crawling back.

dammit.

and now, i have to take one of my cats to the vet for an, ahem,?Ǭ†squirmy gastrointestinal problem. and that means more money i need to spend.

i need to pose as a rich person’s heir so i can come into ridiculous amounts of money.

(rant over.)

to do or not to do?

that is the question.

i am thinking about taking tax preparation courses. as in, to be a real, certified tax preparer. why? ’cause — believe it or not — i actually like doing taxes. i wait eagerly for all my w-2s and interest forms and 1099s so i can do my taxes as early as possible. sounds geeky, i know. i do other people’s taxes.

for a gal who hates math and wasn’t too good at it (i almost failed pre-calculus in high school … and i didn’t take a single math class at usc) — i love doing taxes. and i think i’m pretty good at them.

i figure a tax prep class will help me in the long run. i’ll be able to do my taxes better. and if i ever get my whole business thing into gear, i’ll know how to do small-scale business taxes. and maybe i can latch on with h&r or something and make a little extra cash doing other people’s taxes at tax time. (’cause money is always needed.)

problem is, these courses are in the fall. there are a couple tuesday-thursday ones, but they conflict with the spanish class i am currently enrolled in at sac city.

i could drop the spanish class, which could also prove advantageous for a few reasons: 1) i could take it in the spring with a teacher i really like, ’cause i’m pretty sure she teaches that spanish 3 class in the spring. 2) if ed takes spanish 2 this fall, i would have someone to take spanish 3 with in the spring.

it’s not like i would just lose all my spanish, though i guess i’d have to make more of an effort to try and use it and do more online language exchange, etc. but if ed takes spanish, then i can just yell at him.

so, i don’t know. still thinking about it. i’ll let it swirl around in my brain more.

it cracks me up that i always feel this need to fill up free time.