remember me?
It seems like I am always saying “I’m back”. Once again I am.
Most of the new accounts we thought Keith’s business had have evaporated. People promise him the work and then never let him schedule it.
He calls & calls and gets evasions and double talk. We have no idea why, maybe it is that what they really want is to have on call for emergencies, not to use the active condition monitoring and analysis he offers.
We can’t afford to sit around waiting for a failure, we need the analysis contracts. So, his decision to shut down VineSmith is probably correct but also heartbreaking.
Keith has been offered 3 jobs in different parts of the country.
1 in Doutham (sp?) Alabama (please NO)
1 in Kentucky bordering on Cincinnati (AWK)
1 in PA, near Lancaster (please).
Even if the local municipal water departments don’t want to commit, he is “wanted”. (there really was never enough heavy industry in this area, really).
Keith took the PA job, he starts July 6, 2010 (Major AWK)
We move again.
I have 3 weeks to list this house for sale, stage it for the internet pictures, fill & touch up all the nail holes, including the gazillion blue anchors put in my walls by my tenants.
Find a mover
get 2 cars up there and move Jack The Cat who hates car trips with a passions (angry non-stop meow, meow, meow)
We have to find a place to live there, set up utilities et al. I have to pack and move, Keith will already be gone. GAWK AWK
Plus have my hair color touched up before I go.
Poor me, I so don’t want to. This time I do not have the time for packing it up myself. I have these 2 excellent ladies who clean for me every other week. We are more like grilfriends, we gossip & giggle together. They are the best cleaners I have ever had, I have never seen anybody do such through cleaning as they do (not even me).
Anyway, work is slow for them right now (many of their clients go north for the summer) so they are going to help me pack. I would MUCH rather pay them to do this than some mover who will bring in day labor (common FL practice) to pack (badly) my things.
4 moves ago I threw the packers out after I found a day laborer guy wedging my original oil paintings into a cardboard box, with no wrapping or anything. Those were the same movers who shoved many of my clothes, on hangers, down in the bottom of the wardrobe boxes and then hung clothes above them.
At the time I could not figure out why they used so few wardrobe boxes, now I know why ( I had to dry clean or iron almost every piece of clothing we both owned after that move).
So, here we go again.
NewNeedlepoint.com is making sporadic sales. A book here, a canvas or kit there.
The only kits that are selling are the deeply discounted ones. Although I am way way below the 100% markup point which is where most retail is priced, it is still judged as too expensive.
Oh well.
Sadly, I still have some new and some interesting used books to list. The chances of me getting to this before I move are non-existant.
Ok ladies, I need some advice. As a new pierced ear earring wearer (remember, had them done for my 60th birthday) I have no idea what I am doing.
I let them heal for 5 weeks. All is good that way but it seems that the person who did the piercing messed up my right ear. The hole goes from the front of my ear to the back at a strange angle. It can be difficult to put the right earring in.
I thought I was supposed to keep earrings in all the time, so I did. I slept in earrings once I took the “starters” out. I woke up yesterday with a small hard bump around the hole on my right ear.
I always sleep on my right side, always.
The ear lobe is swollen and I can’t get an earring through it.
What do I do? Anybody know?
I am afraid the holes will close up, they are only 5 weeks old.
Reading? I am still reading Victoria Holt broken up with Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton Family series.
I find the mix works. The Victoria Holt’s can be very involved mysteries full of potent characters and situations. Often quite absorbing and pleasantly free of graphic sex.
I am not at all opposed to written sex scenes, graphic or otherwise, but I do not want them in my romantic mysteries or romantic comedies.
The Julia Quinn stuff is frothy and readable. I had no idea that all and every bride back then (in the Regency era) had sex with her intended husband before the marriage. I had foolishly though virginity was a biggie in those days.
I suppose if you do it with your husband to be, you were a virgin bride, really. Who knew?
So, poor me with a lumpy swollen right ear has to pack & move again dragging poor Jack The Cat with her.
(I wanted to put an very appealing picture of Jack here but my blog thingie won’t let me, go figure)
Sympathy accepted in any and all forms.
p.s. I do not own a pair of shoes that are not sandals
a change, small but still a change
This blog is actually going to talk about my web store NewNeedlepoint.com. I have made a fairly large change in how I sell and deliver the things I list there.
It is large in terms of my web store but tiny really, hardly any universal implications except maybe to my Australian readers & customers. Oddly enough I have a number of blog readers & people who visit my web store in Australia.
I have stopped offering International Shipping on NewNeedlepoint.com. It was, to be blunt, a pain in the butt setting up the modules and then keeping it all working right.
There was one module for Needlepoint Stuff bought and another for Books.
The biggest problem was the drop down menu on my checkout page where you selected international shipping or USA shipping.
Many people were either flummoxed by that or got it wrong. I can’t tell you the number of refunds I have issued to people here in the USA who paid the international shipping fees.
I also can’t number the ones who have emailed me saying they wanted to or tried to place an order on my web store and it kept trying to charge them the International Shipping fee.
I always emailed back with step by step instructions how to do it right but none of them ever returned and bought anything. I guess “the moment” had passed.
So…..no more international shipping.
In truth, in the 16 months my store has been open I have only had 2 international orders. One to Australia that ended up costing me $19.00 instead of the $12 I charged (thus selling that book cost me money) and one to Germany.
I can’t see that I am hobbling my business by eliminating this (hardly!). It also means I get rid of the Drop Down Menu so many people could not understand or manipulate.
Now I have to take the International Shipping text off each of my listings. I got through all the book listings tonight. I will do the rest tomorrow. The books are the hardest, there are so many of them.
As I was doing this, it gave me a chance to sort of review all of the books I list for sale. I recently removed all the “borderline condition books” and the few I thought were not worth reading or using. More or less “cleaning up” the listings.
Anyway, I think I have a pretty good collection of books. I now have all the excellent little reference books self-published by Jean McKnight. I think I listed them all on an older blog.
There are some gorgeous and unusual used and sometimes hard-to-find Needlepoint Design books in that category. I think my collection of “previously owned” Needlepoint Reference books is excellent and surprisingly complete and I have every “vintage” Bargello Needlepoint Book I could find (that was worth having) in that category.
I really like these marketing words: “previously owned” or “vintage”. I would like to use the one Lexus uses for it’s used cars “pre-owned” like someone was getting it ready for you.
In the New Books categories I think I have picked through the books available and found some good ones. Many of my new book choices were directed or suggested by my very good and accomplished stitcher friends.
My whole needlepoint book experience was with the older books, which I used to teach myself Needlepoint & Bargello. I knew little about current authors and books but with their help and some research, I am learning.
I now have 144 books listed on NewNeedlepoint. I have a few on backorder and a few I have to re-order when I next do a replacement book order but still….that is a good number of books considering I only began to list book last November.
The books are still selling, slowly but selling. I am not sure how long it has been since I sold a Needlepoint Kit or a Canvas but it has been awhile.
I am ok with this, for now. I will ride out the economic slump and hope for better times.
I watched the Jeff Bridges Oscar winning movie Crazy Heart. It was not what I thought it would be and it was what I thought it would be, both at once.
I did not find his connection with Maggie Gyllenhaal plausible or believable. I too have been a single mother of a smart 4 year old boy, would I have let this out there and pretty much degenerate guy around my kid and to be alone with him? Nope.
Would you? I gave up on it during the bar scene. I assume he loses the kid while he is drinking. Then of course he finds him and there is a happy ending with him writing songs and getting another chance with a family.
I had hoped for more than that from this movie.
You would think considering my Regency Romantic reading jag of late that I would be OK with obvious plots and sappy happy endings but clearly there is a difference. I expect more from one form of entertainment than from the other.
I am finally beginning to wear some of my new earrings. I took the very small hoops that I was using to hold the holes open while I healed out. Today I am wearing danglers with a faceted onyx bead hanging from them. They are nice casual earrings. The feeling of something dangling from my ears is so new to me, it keeps surprising me.
This is going to be fun.
La Di Da
That was Diane Keaton’s tage line in Woody Allen’s movie, Annie Hall. In terms of pure entertainment, it may be his best movie.
I have nothing needlepoint going on in my poor neglected web store NewNeedlepoint.com. I have finally begun to list things there again. I added most of the new books and the 3 Amy Bunger DVDs with some more to come.
I still have new and old books and Patt & Lee canvases & kits but when those are listed, I am finished buying until I see a direction for me and my store more clearly.
I have been buying steadily, pretty much non-stop since I begun planning this web store venture in December 2008. Now I need to step back and see if there will ever be any response.
I bet most of you, those who do go to NewNeedlepoint.com occasionally were not aware that there has been a steady influx of stock all along.
After all I only started marketing the books last fall, November 2009, and the new books in March 2010 (or was it April?)
Anyway, as I often say “we shall see”.
I have been having a blast buying earrings. I return more then I keep but that is only an example of how very many I have bought.
I can’t wear them yet. I am still in the “healing phase” and am frustrated.
These are my latest (and I hope final for a while anyway) earring buys. Below are hand made earrings from a designer named Ed Levin working in Vermont.
Having lived in the remote Northeast Kingdom of Vermont for 4 years in my 20′s, I have a strong attachment to it (but not to the commune I lived in for a year, AWK)
I love the open teardrop shape.
Below are freshwater pearl & gold earring from Gurhan. I think these are elegant. You can’t see it but the backs are earwires similar to the teardrop earring’s backs.
Other new news. Keith’s new consulting business seem like it will be OK. He has his first 3 contracts now and is getting busy.
I am so proud of him and deeply relieved.
I am still reading, of course. I am still doing Victoria Holt but I find sometimes I need some leavening, a lighter change from her many dark & complex plots so I am mixing in the Julia Quinn Bridgerton Family series in. I have read all these before, in the order they were written. Now I am picking them at random.
They are all excellent books and Julia Quinn is a good writer with a way with words and a sense of humor. I recommend all the books in the series except the one about Francesca titled “When He Was Wicked”.
I am ashamed to admit I have had my netflix copy of Jeff Bridges Oscar winning movie “Crazy Heart” for 10 days now. I have not watched it yet but I intend to. I almost always have good intentions but in practice………oh well.
So, if you are waiting for it from netflix, it is my fault you don’t have it yet.
This part is harder to write. I know I have mentioned that the main reason we came to Florida to live was to help my parents. They are getting old now, my dad is 86, my mom almost 81.
Interesting aside, my mom who is a real hot ticket says it is all OK until 80, then it all falls apart.
They are still living in their 6000 sq foot house, a rare wooden house they had built in Boca Raton 25 years ago. Wood houses do not fare well in this climate but they have taken care of theirs and now we help.
My dad’s driving has gotten steadily worse over the last years but now……
On Monday he hit one side of the garage door opening when driving in, messing up one side of his gorgeous 12 year old Jaguar XK8.
Today he took a good friend and neighbor’s mailbox down and with it one side of my mom’s perfect 8 year old Lexus (they keep and baby their cars, as opposed to me who trades them every month or so, I drive them crazy)
He could have been really hurt in today’s accident. Keith & I went over there to make sure my dad was ok and took my mom’s car to the body shop before she could see it (she was playing Mah Jong, of course, this is Florida after all).
This is hard for him. It would be hard for anyone to lose most of their freedom.
I worry about them (and myself, and my son and the world and nn.com and Keith’s company: VibeSmith and the oil in the gulf and the stock & bond markets, shall I go on?)
So, I think I will end with happy talk. I am ok with insulin. I do not mind the shots and what I was afraid of all those years “the big bad demon insulin” is not so bad after all.
And it sunny here everyday till mid-afternoon (when it rains) and my pool is warm and sparkling, the waterfall on one side of it sounds lovely.
She’s Back
No, this does not refer to me. Remember Crazy Lady? She was the novice stitcher who wanted to buy my rug canvas and then went *off* on me?
She sent me a hysterical email accusing me of all sorts of cruelty when I did not want to exchange her handmade quilts for my rug canvas.
Then proceeded to send me orders and emails and requests as if we were the best of friends and stitching buddies.
My “antenna” are always up, ready to detect genuine crazies and she was surely one of them.
I finally sent her an email asking her to stop contacting me, that I did not want to do business with her.
I am a (little) ashamed to admit that in that email I asked her if she was crazy or had Multiple Personality Disorder. I also suggested she have her doctor up her meds.
I am not always a very nice person.
Well, to my enormous surprise she purchased something from NewNeedlepoint.com last Wednesday. (see, I even am back to doing links).
I was flummoxed. Who is this person? How on earth can she be buying things from me and sending me chatty emails after what I “said” to her.
Then I wondered what it would take to get her to stop.
Well, I did not fill her order. I refunded her payment and again emailed her telling her I would not do business with her.
Clearly, I have a real aversion to her, she was only my 3rd order this past month and I refused it.
Want to hear something else odd, she is a woman in her 50′s and she does not know her correct zip code. This was the second order she got it wrong on
(the first time I stood at the automatic teller machine at the post office with a line of grumbling people behind me while I spelled out her entire address, letter by letter for the machine which had rejected my attempt to buy the postage for an incorrect zip code)
Oh well. I guess my pseudo-vacation from NewNeedlepoint.com is over. I find I do not look well in Miss Havisham’s (from Great Expectations, of course) tawdry wedding gown and with a Florida tan it just does not work.
I have new books and Amy Bunger DVDs to lists
I have, I believe, the complete list of the very good June McKnight Needlepoint books: (in no particular order)
Architectural Stitches for Needlepoint
Needlepoint Wisdom
Colorful Stitches for Over-Dyed Threads
Decorative Backgrounds for Needlepoint
More Backgrounds for Needlepoint
Shading and Thread Blending Techniques for Needlepoint
Needlepoint for Kids
Holiday Stitches for Needlepoint
Christmas Stitching for Needlepoint
Christmas Bargello Medallions and Twinkling Backgrounds
The Best Bargello Book
I have Shay Pendray’s Needlworkers Guide, Creating Contemporary Bargello by Iona P. Dettelbach & The Royal School of Needlework Book (and more).
I have a few very interesting used books, all of them sitting here gathering (clean) dust.
I have new, new Patt & Lee canvases and kits.
Patt has some new designs this summer:
There are a few I have not photographed yet.
I also have, after 6 months on backorder, this nifty Rosewood laying tool.
Keith used to have a wood lathe, he says this tool is very well done and it is lovely wood. At 6 inches long, it is a nice size to work with and not too easy to lose. (I kept one for my-self).
I am still reading, reading. Still Victoria Holt with dashes of Patricia Veryan and Julia Quinn. It is very nice here in marianneland, now it is time to get back to work.
Oh yes, for those who might be interested. I am on Insulin now and my numbers are coming down. I do feel better and thank you for caring.
YooHoo
Hello. I am still here. Still status quo. The days slide by comfortably. I am doing zero NewNeedlepoint.com work.
Really, if you think about it, this is the first “vacation” I have had from it since 1/1/2009 when I began planning and building the web site in it’s first incarnation, Needlepoint Chromatics.
Needlepoint Chromatics is a wonderful name, it is about the colors I hoped to use and the changes to the standard colors used in most needlepoint designs I wanted to make.
The problem with Needlepoint Chromatics is no one could spell it. Even my web designers were sending me emails telling me the web site design was ready to a misspelled email address.
Of course I never got the emails and no one there thought to pick up the phone and call me (The Phone??).
I never got most emails sent to m@needlepointchromatics.com. So I changed the name to NewNeedlepoint.com.
When I searched the web site domain names available and found *newneedlepoint.com* I was thrilled and bought it 30 seconds after I found it.
In fact, this is something you do not know (and do not need to know). My legal business name is Needlepoint Chromatics LLC D/B/A NewNeedlepoint.com.
There, now you know everything.
I think I mentioned I was not feeling well, health wise. Well, yesterday my new doctor with much clucking and disapproving put me on Insulin for the first time.
I did my first shot of it this morning. I felt very odd afterwards and I still do.
I have been a diabetic for 10 years but up until last year my “numbers’ were good. No more.
He wants me to have all the tests I have been busily avoiding…you know all the 60 year old woman tests plus eye, stomach cat scan, yadda yadda.
I can think of no lower form of reality than time spent in waiting rooms and clinics waiting for this stuff to be done, never mind going to the places where they do these things.
AWK< AWK< AGH
Meanwhile all my new items to be listed on NewNeedlepoint.com continue to molder like the wedding party for "Miss Havisham". I think I need to put a wedding cake in the center of the table and change into my white linen dress and get a veil.
What do you think?
So, I know this is close to, if not the worst blog ever. That, in itself, is something.
