What a morning!

' Sunday Morning and I Never Want to Leave '

Our flooding kitchen/laundry room/bathroom dilemma continues... When I got back from mom's last night, the plumbing still wasn't in functioning mode. We ended up having to get the septic tank pumped out (it was just put in 4 years ago) which cost mucho dollars of course (on Memorial Day? are you kidding me?). Anyway, I left to go to mom's, leaving Richard and Bones with the septic guy. Got home that night, there's still issues.

It turns out that the tank was full of water due to fill lines being done incorrectly or something like that. Plus there was an obstruction in the pipe. So we rented a 100 ft pipe snake this morning and ran it through the pipe to the septic tank. It was super disgusting lol. The downstairs was stinky ~ wow, I'm not even going to go into any further detail. TMI, I know. My daughter's boyfriend Nicky helped us tremendously. If you ever read this Nicky ~ THANK YOU.

'Curvy'

So, enough of our house issues lol. I still love my house. It's like a child that you really really love even though she misbehaves sometimes lol. Naughty house, we're just going to have to make you do better. Hopefully we won't have to deal with anything like this again for a few years.

'Shall We Dance?'

I sold some art today. Finally, I've had a long dry spell in my shop somehow. It was like I got several sales all at once and I was thinking that finally everything was coming together on Etsy but then no sales for like 15 days. EEEK. scary. But I've had calls from 2 galleries this month that want to exhibit me and a permanent spot from June to November in a Farmer's Market/Craft Market in Knoxville. The Farmer's Market thing was juried, I couldn't exhibit without prior approval. Ditto for the galleries of course. So all that's come together for me this month during the time I wasn't having any sells. That's funny how things work out like that isn't it? I think I just need to sit down and write out my progress this month and see how it all comes together in the big picture instead of focusing on my lack of sales at Etsy. Hmmm, I'm going to do that. It should be interesting to see how my art sells in the real world as opposed to the Etsy world lol. I'm looking forward to June, to seeing how it all goes.

This is what I sold today :

'Love'

Wow, I hope I didn't sound whiney in my post today. Like poor me with my plumbing problems and lack of sales. I didn't mean to if I did lol. Just a day in my life, things don't always smell like roses LOL.

Adjusting to my New Freedom :)

It seems like it's been longer than a week since I turned in my notice at work. I think I've been kind of shell shocked this past week, disorganized, generally optimistic, always grateful that I can get up after the sun rises :). I need to get focused this week, get a good schedule going and make sure I'm heading in the right direction. I think keeping a good attitude about finances and success and running my own business is going to be the key to it all. Anything can be accomplished if I believe in myself and my ability to make it happen. I've done some new art, I had a particularly creative day yesterday. My bf had the awesome idea of using canvas as a backdrop for my photos and I love how they turned out. It's opened up a whole new avenue of self expression. He also showed me a super cool photoshop trick that I'm going to have to master this week. I sold another photograph, it's one of a little robin family living on the tree next to our deck. They built a nest right there where we can watch them every day. There's 3 little baby robins in the nest :

I love being able to go outside and sit on the deck and watch. That's definitely a perk of working from home. You get to actually see your home in the daytime lol. Our yard needs mowing sooo bad. Richard tried to mow it today but neither of our lawnmowers would work. I guess we're going to have to get them fixed. I'm thinking we should just pay somebody to do it every couple of weeks since both of us hate mowing but Richard seems to be against it.

I'm getting ready to add cards to my shop, I'm just looking around for a good printer ~ I want one that uses recycled materials and I want to do my cards in like a square size. I just like square photos for some reason. I've not really found who I'm going to use to print them yet. Some of my photos would lend themselves very well to cards though. I'm going to sell some as sets and some as single cards.

I also want to add a matting service to my shop. I think a lot of people would utilize that. So those are my shop plans for this month. I'm going to start doing local craft shows also. There's a farmer's market on Saturdays at Market Square in Knoxville. I'm looking into setting up a booth there. It's just getting a tent and tables and mattes, etc etc together. It's a bit overwhelming. I need to make lists, that always helps.

I'm really trying to participate more fully with the Etsy Bloggers Street Team. Their blog carnival is tonight and I've yet to participate in it. I always remember to do it after it's passed. Tonight I am though. My understanding is that I just need to post on their thread with a link to my blog entry to show that I posted. They encourage you to do it weekly I believe is how it works. I suppose it's to keep everybody blogging :).

Here's my new art and I want to give a special thank you to Peachtree for being so supportive. Here's a link to her shop (and one of her gorgeous creations).

My new photographs are:

It would be a good idea if I blogged a little bit everyday I think, that way I could feature other artists better and it would give more variety to my blog. I already mentioned that in a earlier post didn't I? I'll get it together here sometime soon lol.