Up Before the Early Birds

Good morning! It is currently 6:20 am and I have been up for 3 hours already. I tried to go back to sleep but my Ninja kitten decided it was time for me to get up and play. So I admitted defeat and made a pot of coffee. Ninja played for about 5 minutes and was ready for a nap. So she's sound asleep and here I sit. But I put the time to good use. I got my new Zibbet store set up.  http://www.zibbet.com/TheArtistMichelle I got the banner for my Zibbet store working in the side bar over there --------> But for some reason I still can't get my ArtFire banner to work. I'll keep working on it.

Seriously though, if I don't spend several hours today taking pictures of my other finished pieces, the world is going to think I only have 7 drawings done. I have several paintings ready to go, plus crochet bags, and paper stars. I'll post some pictures here hopefully this afternoon.

I've been reading a lot about SEO and it is confusing as all heck! I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person. Even a bit of a nerd. But when I start reading about links and keywords my brain starts to turn to ooze. I mean, I get the concept easily enough. But all the info seems to contradict itself and seems a bit impossible. For instance, I read that duplicate titles are bad. But how many different ways are there to describe my drawings? Then one person says I should be using the highest searched keywords. But someone else said not to use the highest because everyone else is using those same words, so my item could get buried.   I guess the best way to figure it out is to keep changing things up and testing different things. But even then I'm not sure I'll be able to figure out why one listing has many views and another has no views.

My job hunt is progressing slowly. But to be honest, I'm not really trying very hard. My silly ex-job paid me my vacation time and sick time, so I have a couple more weeks before I need to be worried. I did find a possible job that doesn't sound too horrible. lol I should be getting a call back on Monday so I'll keep you updated. The original job I applied for didn't work out. Which is probably good since it was a full time position. The fewer hours, the better as far as I'm concerned. :-)

It's starting to get light outside so I need to go start setting up to take pics of my stuff. Have a great day everyone!

ArtFire Up and Running!

So I got the scanner working on Eric's computer and figured out the max resolution I can use for images. I have 7 pieces listed so far. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it gave me the opportunity to practice with the listing tools and figuring out images. I still need to read through all the help guides so I can understand how SEO works. I think I have good titles, but I also remember something about duplicate listings. I don't know how different they have to be in order to be found by search engines. And how different can I really make them while still getting all the keywords in the titles? It's a tad confusing, lol. And I can't figure out how to get the banner link to work on here. I guess I need to read some more. Have a happy day!  :-)

I can't figure out the banners but I think I can get a link to my studio page to work. Cross your fingers and click:

http://www.artfire.com/users/TheArtistMichelle

What day is it?

I find that being unemployed creates a type of temporal displacement when it comes to remembering what day of the week it is. I have absolutely no need to know what day it is. Well, I need to know when it's Sunday because that's the day my ebay auctions end. But other than that...I really don't have an overwhelming desire to know what day it is. And you know what? It feels great! I haven't worn my watch for a week. I have no place to be. No conference calls, schedules to write, feedback to deliver....this is the best!

Of course, there's the bit of irony that greeted me when I went to check my auctions this morning. I started a few new accounts in order to keep things like art and random items separate. Even though I followed all the rules and connected them to my primary account, they have limited my selling because I have multiple accounts. Ebay even has a page on their site talking about how having multiple accounts can be beneficial. Yet they seem to punish you for having them. Weird. So I thought ok, no big deal, I'll just cancel the new accounts and be done with it. It's not like I sell that much on my primary account anyway. Except it takes 180 days to cancel an account. LOL. I know they do that in order to prevent fraud. But it seems like there should be an easier way to deal with these things.

I had also decided to start selling my art seriously on Artfire. Full blown listing and promoting. I chose ArtFire because you don't pay anything to list with a basic account. Well this morning I read on the site that they are doing away with the basic accounts for selling. August 16th all basic accounts will be buying only accounts. So I'm going to spend the next month listing everything and setting up as much as possible. Then on the 15th I can upgrade to pro and receive a 30 day free trial. This will give me almost 2 free months to get started. At that point if my business can't afford 10 dollars a month, I think I'm in big trouble. At the very least my ebay sales should cover the 10 dollars until my ArtFire sales pick up.

Ok folks, I'm off to the races. I'm filling out lots of online applications today. I'm applying for all kinds of jobs and letting the Universe decide which one is the right one. I really wanted my last job and that didn't turn out so well. As my friend Laura always says, you can't be dependent on the outcome. In other words, let go and trust the Universe to show you the way.

Happy whatever day it is!

Life after the silly job.

Ok, so I had a first phone interview with the place I applied to the other day. It went well so I am hopeful they will call me back. It's a full time position, but even working 40 hours a week frees up about 20 to 25 hours over the silly job I had. I am still applying to other places just in case.

Yesterday we downgraded a bunch of accounts for a total savings of about $135 a month. Plus I should be saving about $200 a month in gas since I'm no longer commuting up to 2 hours a day. Yay! No more traffic jams! I'm also listing a bunch of stuff on ebay and Artfire this weekend. Hopefully I'll have a few sales. I'm selling some DVDs and video games, plus some coins I got at a garage sale a few weeks ago, and of course my art. Although the summer is usually very slow sales wise for art.

I have a list of things to do today so I guess I better wrap this up and get to work. Have a great day everyone!

Umm...so I quit my silly job today....

I know...I should have had another job lined up or else had a significant savings account before quitting my job. But seriously, it just got to be too much. My district manager showed up today and something just told me today was the day. She told me she knew I had not been engaged for a while now. So this came as no surprise to her. And here I thought I'd been hiding it so well. But I leave with a good recommendation. So I guess I can't ask for more than that.

So now what? I am looking for an hourly position, preferably part time. I need to find one soon, but I almost hope I don't. I need time to work on my business plan and get things going. But I also need to pay the rent in 2 weeks, lol.

I applied for a job and have gotten a call back from them so I might be ok. I should probably apply at a couple of different places tomorrow just in case. I'll report back tomorrow and let you know how it goes. Wish me luck! :-)

Imminent Hard Disk Failure!

So...the next hurdle in the ongoing set of challenges that is my life. Last week my computer was nice enough to give me a message stating that my hard drive was about to fail. *sigh* So I backed up my hard drive and tried to  revert back to a preset system restore point. Got another message about imminent hard disk failure. So I start searching my apartment for the recovery disk that came with my laptop. Of course I can't find it anywhere. So I use Eric's computer to search online for diagnostic info. I find the directions for resetting back to factory settings. A pain, but well worth it to fix the problem. So I spend 4 hours of my last day off attempting to wipe my hard drive. By 4:30pm I am finally restored, reconfigured, and updated. I restart the computer....and immediately receive the message that my hard drive is about to fail. *ARGH*

The rest of the day is spent moping and being frustrated.

I'm working every day until Sunday. Although I'll be home by about 5pm on Saturday. So I guess I'll spend Saturday evening trying to figure out how the warranty on my laptop works. Hopefully, I can take it somewhere local and not have to send it somewhere.

As I'm trying to be more optimistic and positive, I've been trying to look on the bright side of things. The laptop issue has forced me to be still and just think about things. I've come up with some new ideas for income streams and new project ideas. I also came up with some ideas for articles and blog posts. So all in all, my lack of computer time has not been wasted.

The next step will be to get Eric's computer set up so I can list actions on Sunday. I need to connect my camera and printer to Eric's computer so I can load pictures and scan items. I also need to list some items on Artfire and Etsy. Plus I still need to figure out how to get high resolution images for Redbubble and Zazzle. I'm going to check with Kinkos about high res scans. I've heard they can save high res scans to a disk which might work.

So that's what's happening this week in the land of worker bee turned entrepreneur. Have a happy week everyone.

Day 5 of 6...

So my silly job just keeps getting sillier. I really don't think I'm suited for this job. I'm working 6 days this week. 4 out of the 6 are 13 hour days if you add my commute time. Roughly 67 hours this week devoted to someone else's business. :-( Think what I could accomplish spending 67 hours devoted to my own business.

I took an online quiz this morning. The results showed that I need to quit my job soon. LOL! No kidding. Then I stumbled upon a website where a woman told the story about how she quit her management job to follow her dreams. Hmmm. Think the universe is trying to tell me something?

So tomorrow I actually get to leave work at a reasonable hour. I'm off Sunday and Tuesday this next week. So Sunday I will have auctions ending and new auctions listed. Tuesday will be about making and finding new items to sell and working on other business ideas. At this point I'm making more money with my random non art items than I am my art. But I'm not going to stop trying. At some point I'll figure it all out and be able to use my creativity to support myself. Until then I'll just keep trying new things. Have a happy 4th of July weekend everyone! :-)