Welcome to the Bordello of Blood

Yesterday ending up being beautiful, so we took Odie to the dog park again. His sisters are going to kill us in our sleep one of these days because we never take them anywhere fun. We made an impromptu stop at the Monocacy creek for a little walk. Odie barked at the geese and ducks and the people fishing along the creek, and generally had an awesome time.



I want to know the name of this dense ground cover - shiny little leaves that look like lily pads, the brightest emerald green! We have a rampant ivy problem in all the shady areas of the yard, and I'd much prefer this stuff!

We spent a good part of the weekend switching rooms with Dan. We will (crosses fingers) soon have all three rooms on the second floor to ourselves - the studio/office, the bedroom, and the library/gym/possible future baby's room. The bedroom is pretty much moved, though it seems a little bare to me. Last time we lived in that room we had EVERYthing crammed in there, our tv, computer desks, all my supplies, a huge wardrobe full of clothing... Now its just the bed, 3 dressers, and a clothing rack, with room to actually move and breathe and relax. Kind of a funny story about our first almost completely sleepless night in the room, but it would probably be inappropriate to share. Lets just say we'd forgotten about the joys of sharing a wall with someone who likes to stay up until 6AM entertaining. And when I say 'joys', what I mean of course is 'horrors.'

I painted a new house number sign for by the front door. I'd had enough of the old cruddy one:Purple was not high on Peter and Dan's list for the new one, but I stand by my decision. Now visitors will think they are entering a goth bordello:

The font is ExtraOrnamentalNo2 from daFont.com or some other such free fonts site, and I think it is awesome. I put the hardware on all by myself and hung it on the brick. My work is done for the day and its not even 11.

That is in fact a lie, I do have inventory and listing on my agenda for the day. I've pretty much almost positively decided on Artfire over Etsy. I want to like Etsy, I really do, I just disagree with so much of their policy, written and unwritten-yet-enforced, that I just can't justify giving up a good chunk of my profits to them month after month. So much about them makes me want to scream and pull my hair out, so why in the world should I put myself through that just for a few extra hits on my listings? I'm a Charter Artisan on Artfire for both my handmade and supply shops, meaning I snapped up the $7 a month for life deal before they sold out, so financially it just makes a tremendous amount of sense to concentrate my listing and promotional efforts there. Artfire isn't perfect, I just happen to think it is going to be better than Etsy if I stick with it. I much prefer, and sell much better at, in-person shows, but I'd like to have some kind of online venue to compliment that and give somewhere for people with my business cards and URL to go between shows.

Speaking of shows, I think they release the Artstar vendor list this week. There's also the Doylestown punk rock flea market in May and the Philly Independent Craft Market monthly shows to get in on. Hopefully I can get some things lined up in the next few weeks.

One last thought...

Dear Dan,
I love you, but when you drink the coffee and leave me two drops for my second cup, I want to cut you.
Sincerely,
Your Sister-In-Law