…but a very busy long time.

So what have I been doing???

Getting back into photography…

But mostly, working.
I’ve been making lots of things for my Etsy shops – DanceTheMoon and JewelryObsessed. Haven’t listed any of them yet.

I have mixed feelings about Etsy, and am debating on whether to keep those shops or where to move them. Will probably stock them up for the holidays and then make some changes in the spring.

I’ve also been sorting through my tons of inventory for my eCrater stores – IncredibleClutter and CraftCottage. I’ll be getting those things cleaned up, photo’d, and listed, starting this week.

AND – I’ve been working on themes and templates and such for the web sites. Just installed a new theme on my main site: DanceTheMoon.com, which is a WordPress blog right now, with more to come. Also got a home page up on my web store site: DanceTheMoon.us. It’s still a work in progress, but really needed to get something up there. The ZenCart is on the site, but no link to it yet, as it needs lots o’ help…

WordPress themes are all over the place, but ZenCart templates are few and far between – unless you want to pay a bunch for one, which I don’t. So I’ve been digging through code and working on customization. Looks like I’ll end up having to do my own, to tie all the sites and pages together. (Yes, there’s more sites, but they’re on the proverbial back burner for now…)

Of course, living out in the middle of nowhere, there’s a lot of preparation for season changes. I’ve been busy with that, too.

Winter, it’s coming… are you ready?

Need some motivation? I found a whole mess of it on the Dale Carnegie blog. Wow.

Here’s a quote from the Carnegie blog from which I think we can all benefit:

That one’s getting printed and put on the wall.

Many thanks to Dianne Bassett, who has the link to the Carnegie site on her blog, DiBA All Things Jewelry.

Want more motivation mixed in with some inspiration? Check out Dianne’s blog, folks. Good stuff :-)

Once a month, Mr. B and I do the Gallup thing – groceries, parts & supplies for projects, etc. It’s a monthly thing because we’re rural and it’s a 150-mile round trip. It’s less costly and easier on the ol’ sanity to do it once and get it over with. Plus it usually takes a day to recover from the energy drain.

Gallup’s not the greatest for shopping. Unless you’re after Native American items, especially jewelry, the merchant selection is either very limited or non-existent. We always stop at Wal-Mart for things we can’t get at other stores or have to pay much more for at those others. It’s one of those necessary evils.

Last month, Wal-Mart was chaotic. They were in the middle of revamping the place. ack. So it was not surprising to walk in there yesterday and see a different environment which, I have to admit, was almost pleasing. It’s definitely an improvement.

But there were a few surprising changes:
Packaging on the “Great Value” products – Wal-Mart’s store brand, for you non-wallyworld people – was clean and simple, white package with very little printing and no graphics. Okay, so it’s probably cheaper for WM, but it’s got to be easier on the environment, considering how much of their product they turn over and how much ink and dye their former packaging used.

There was a price roll-back on recycled printer paper. Yes! It used to be the most expensive, now it’s cheaper than the other stuff even if you buy the other stuff by the box. Bravo! Now if they’d just offer it by the box… I’d be real happy about that. Disappointing, though, is Wal-Mart’s web site doesn’t even carry it.

There were more coolers with doors. Eggs and some of the other stuff that were in open coolers are now behind glass. This has to save energy. (This was actually in place last month, but thought I’d throw it in here.)

So is Wal-Mart seriously and conscientiously going green? This has been talked about for years now. Are they really doing it?

If this is so, then they have a bit more respect from me. Now they have to work on going back to “Made in U.S.A” and help bring industry back to our country.