"hot sweaty dudes with their shirts off"

I'm in the middle of another trade event over at Etsy. My inventory has been depleted considerably, particularly the inventory that's selling right now (i.e.--not hats or sweaters).

So, I'm heading to the couch to crochet for two hours and ten minutes.

New Moon came via Netflix today.

(The title of this post comes to you courtesy of Eric, who has not yet seen the film.)


(I'm not a rabid fan of the Twilight Series, but I'm definitely not above watching it from time to time.)


(Of course, I'll take Matt Damon or Ben Affleck over Taylor L. and Cedric Diggory (Robert? Is his acting name Robert?) any day.)


That's enough random for the moment.

Off to the couch!

Dishcloths, Dishcloths, Dishcloths

So, this isn't really par for the course for a Sunday post, but I've had an awesome Etsy weekend, and I'm going to exult a little bit.

First, I've decided that I want to be better about acknowledging the birthdays of my friends & family again. To that end, Friday and Saturday I sent messages to several Etsy card shops that I knew were open to trading, and asked them if they wanted to trade with me. Four shop owners replied in the affirmative, and so within the next week or so, I should have a fun little collection of handmade birthday cards to begin my quest. Wa-hoo!

Second, I finished up some more dishcloth sets and listed them in my shop in Friday evening. They had not been listed for more than twelve hours when I got an actual cash sale (not a trade mind you, but a sale for eighteen dollars of cold hard paypal cash) for two sets, from a brand new customer! How fun!

Third, yesterday I received notice that one of my dishcloth sets was featured in an curated collection (a/k/a Etsy Treasury). Today I got notice that yet another set was featured in another curated collection. Yippee! If you want to see those collections, you can click on this link and this link. The collections both expire Tuesday morning though, so if you're reading this after then, the links won't go anywhere.

And then fourth, and perhaps the most exciting of all, I just received word that this woman named Ruby hast featured my brand new bright and colorful quirky over-the-top rastafarian fiesta dishcloths on her blog. What a fun surprise!



Yup, things are good in salutations land today. Here's hoping your weekend was fabulous as well.

Green, Green, Green

In honor of the beginning of March, and St. Patrick's Day, and the hope of imminent spring . . .

I changed our bathroom decor.


Welcome to my favorite month of the year.
(Happy (early) Birthday, Dad)



(only a few shopping days left until Charlotta-Day 2010)

Other people of note with March Birthdays:
President Spencer W. Kimball
My Mom
CJane
My Cousin Jeff Scott

And, I think that's definitely enough randomness and font size changes and alignment changes for one day. 

I have a confession:

THIS is what our bathroom looks like right now.

This week I discovered the joy of buying inexpensive wool sweaters at the thrift store, taking them apart, washing the skeins and re-claiming nice expensive yarn at bargain basement prices.

Hooray!

It's actually a pretty time-intensive process, but at the moment, it's a process I enjoy. So, we'll see how long it lasts.

We only have one full bathroom, so the fact that Eric is completely fine with having skeins of sopping wet yarn dripping into our only bathtub is something worthy of report.

(What it really means is that the next time I see a man-sock, or a computer book, or a glass of diet Pepsi sitting around in a place where it doesn't belong, I'm going to bite my tongue. In fact, I'd probably better bite my tongue for at least a month.)

( I might have to stock up on soothing lozenges.)

Button, Button, who's got the Button?

Have you noticed this new addition to my sidebar?

Yeah, my graphic designing husband made it for me.

I'd asked him to make me a button so that I could use it for advertising (should I ever decide to branch out into that). He said he would, and then, less than a week later, he did.

It used to say "Charlotte's Etsy Shop", but I wanted it to have the name of the store in the title, rather than my name.

I also originally wanted to have the star be a ball of yarn with a crochet hook sticking out of it, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that would probably look stupid, and the more I liked the star there.

Eric thought up the idea for the retro-ish feel as he was lying in bed, trying to go to sleep.

He got thinking about crocheting, and how it reminded him of the 70s.

I hate hate hate 70s decor. Avacado Green and Sunset Orange? No thank you.

So, I'm not exactly thrilled that Eric thinks of my hobby and the primary provider of our daughter's college fund in that light.

All the same, I do like the button.

In fact, I think it's pretty groovy.

[image]

(If you want a button for your blog or whatever, just paste this mysterious code into your HTML/java script. Just don't ask me what it means. Enrique tried to explain it to me, but it was a little too complicated, and I was a little too sleepy.)

A bit of business:

If you happen to click on this link right here, you will be taken to "Trapped Between a Scream and a Hug", a blog put together and maintained by Rachel Sue. She writes about all kinds of things, from gardening, to her four kids and the funny things they say and do, to being sick, to books, to buying Frosty Floats and eating them in the car so you don't get caught and have to share.

But, TODAY she is writing about yours truly.

(This picture was taken back in the days when I used to let my little girl play with my yarn. Let's just say that experience is a brutal teacher and those days are long long gone.)

Well, okay, if you must know, she's mainly writing about crocheted hats made by yours truly.

In addition to writing about my little hat-and-other-crocheted-things venture, she's hosting a giveaway. And it's not just any giveaway either. Basically, if you win, you can get any one item in my shop priced $40 or less for absolutely free. To give you an idea of what that means, basically right now I have 49 things in my shop. Only three of them cost more than $40. So, it's a pretty good deal, don't you think?

It's also my first time being "plugged" by an outside source. So, I'm more than a little curious to see what happens.

Ya know?


*************************
*************************

A bit of fun:

I had a glorious Saturday. The little one, Eric and I all slept in until 8:30. Life was good. I didn't get out of my pajamas until 10:30. After that I did a little cleaning (with peppy tunes of course), did a little organizing, and did a lot of playing (with my daughter).

When I finally did get dressed, I chose to wear my favorite turtleneck that I bought at a thrift store at least ten years ago. It's olive green, ribbed, Eddie Bauer, and (unfortunately) has an un-removable stain right in the front. I covered the stain up with the black obnoxious Hawaiian shirt that I bought (again at a thrift store) for Eric to wear to our friends Hawaii 5-0 birthday party last fall. (Eric wore it that night and refused to wear it again. It's mine now.) A pair of gray jeans belonging to Eric completed the outfit. Keep in mind that I am an inch or two taller than Eric.


I was looking gooood.

I went through my day, catching up on this, puttering around that. I made Christmas tamales (since I didn't get around to that at Christmastime this year). I even went to the grocery store in my Saturday finery, picking up salsa, tortillas, Diet Pepsi (caffeinated for Eric, caffeine-free for me) and a six-month supply of white flour.

When my little girl woke up from her nap, I had just gotten all the tamales in the steaming pot, and was cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. She was crabby, as is sometimes the case after a nice long nap. So, I let the dishes sit in the sink for awhile, and I picked her up, and we danced around the kitchen, into the living room, and back to the kitchen over and over and over again, all the while listening and singing along to "Beyond the Sea" by Kevin Spacey pretending to be Bobby Darin*.

Eric laughed at us, and we laughed at him, and it was one of those moments that I want to keep in my heart forever.

The best moment of a really exceptionally good day.



*Eric downloaded the whole soundtrack to "Beyond the Sea" for me for Christmas. I love it. Really. I love love love it.

frivolity

TWO THINGS THAT I WANT TO DO WHEN I SUDDENLY FIND MYSELF WITH MORE MONEY THAN I CAN POSSIBLY SPEND:

(This is of course after I've donated unheard amounts of money to worthy causes, accounted for the education of our children and grandchildren, and done enough good in the world that I feel justified in being this frivolous.)

I want to buy a yellow volkswagen bug. They are so cute, and completely useless for my needs. They don't carry much in the way of passengers or cargo, and just looking at them, I have a feeling they aren't all that safe. So, I'd have to have another car to meet all my real needs in addition to this toy. That's why this is something that will wait until the far off day when I have money to burn. Won't it be fun though?



I want to buy expensive yarn. I know, how nerdy, huh? I'm a Red Heart girl. It's $2 for 8 oz in my local market. Sometimes I splurge and buy the Caron Super Soft stuff. It's $2.65 for 6 oz. Actually, now, it's called Eco Soft. That's because every skein has over 1/2 of a 2-liter plastic bottle recycled in the mix. So, basically, my little girl's baby blanket saved three or four 2-liter bottles from the landfill. Impressive, huh?


Anyway, back to my frivolity . . .

I was recently approached by a fellow etsy-er. She liked one of the scarves in my shop, and asked me if I would make her one, using her yarn. I agreed. She mailed me the yarn, and over the weekend I started work on her scarf. How fun that has been! Her yarn is mostly 100% wool and much of it is imported from Italy or England. It is quality stuff, and having never worked with nice yarn before, I wasn't prepared for the difference it would make. The scarf is working up beautifully, and I'm really enjoying the feel of the yarn between my fingers.

Now, I'm not enjoying the feel enough to want to spend six to seven (to ten) times more on yarn than I currently do. However, If I had more money than I knew what do to with . . .

Well, you get the idea.