How is it the middle of November already?!
sigh. How does the time pass so quickly? I haven't posted in weeks!
I guess I haven't been pondering too many things, just chugging along working and sometimes playing. I tend to post when I am trying to figure something out. I am still not sure entirely what the focus of this blog is or should be but I suppose in time, that will become clear by manifest.
It has always cracked me up that one of my brain care workers after my brain injury encouraged me to continue play video games. At the time I was playing Final Fantasy X. It was a misty, confusing, magic time for me, it's an incredibly beautiful game. Some of my memories of that time are tinged with the sad, beautiful, tragic nature of the game. The music is very evocative.
So I finished playing Final Fantasy XII last night. I played out the full story line but only about half of the side quests. I had played it a lot to about 80 hours then the used copy I had quit playing. The nice man at the game store tried to fix it but ended up giving me another copy (Yay for small local businesses - Game Factor). I've been playing it a lot since. I ended up with around 130 hours into it. It's been a lot of fun. The scenery is incredible. Some of the places you visit in the game are ethereally beautiful. The story is more of a political struggle than a love story, but there is a bit of that too. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the struggle, there were many bad creatures to smite, and that's what is important.
It's sad that the new ($600!!!) playstation has come out and no more games are being made for the old system. We will have to wait until used consoles start showing up to get the new one. But that's okay. I'll probably only start to get antsy when the next FF shows up. *grin*
The year is winding to a close. We have continued to get in orders to the jewelry studio, which is a blessing. It was sort of scary the end of October (not just from Halloween) as there were almost no orders in November. But the weeks have filled up, blessedly! We are looking forward to closing the studio the last two weeks of December and into the first week of January. Then our first spring show it the weekend of January 11th!
Because of the timing, I have been working on the spring designs of the necklaces I make. They have gone from being a couple sold a year to a major player in our product line. It is gratifying to know that. Someday I hope to see one of my necklaces being worn by somebody I don't know. I've had that happen a couple of times with one of our cuff bracelets. It is very cool.
I have finally understood that the wholesale buyers want to see and be able to buy the exact design they see. For a number of years I made "sample" necklaces and tried to encourage the buyers to either let me design something else or make suggestions of what they wanted. That didn't work so well. I don't know that the buyers understood or wanted to take the time to do their own designing. So now I make designs to be sold "as shown". I am going to try to bead up the designs ahead of time so that I can make the same thing over and over at the same time to speed up the process. Then if I have them in stock, I won't get so worn out making 40 necklaces a week week after week. I can just rotate making up stock pieces in bulk. Then if someone wants something more custom, I can focus on that!
It is always a balancing act in the design process. The jading nature of "been there, done that" makes me want to design more radical things in shape and color. The concept of having to make the same thing 40 times a week pushes me towards doing something that is not radically complicated. And the knowledge of what has sold well at past shows pushes me to design variations that are somewhat new, but not jarringly so. Then the most important push of what is actually available from the stone cutters! But I have griped about that before!
We are a few days away from my favorite Holiday. I have come to love Thanksgiving more and more. There are so few obligations and craziness associated with it. There is wonderful food and hopefully good company. One of the blessings of aging for me has been being more grateful. I have come to peace with not being acclaimed by the masses and am actually quite pleased with the peace of our life.
We have a wonderful extended family of friends, and wonderful birth families. We are blessed where we live and love it! Our health continues to be good, with some effort, but the challenges are blessedly manageable.
Art and science call to my soul and are answered in my work and my hobbies. It is a good life!
I guess I haven't been pondering too many things, just chugging along working and sometimes playing. I tend to post when I am trying to figure something out. I am still not sure entirely what the focus of this blog is or should be but I suppose in time, that will become clear by manifest.
It has always cracked me up that one of my brain care workers after my brain injury encouraged me to continue play video games. At the time I was playing Final Fantasy X. It was a misty, confusing, magic time for me, it's an incredibly beautiful game. Some of my memories of that time are tinged with the sad, beautiful, tragic nature of the game. The music is very evocative.
So I finished playing Final Fantasy XII last night. I played out the full story line but only about half of the side quests. I had played it a lot to about 80 hours then the used copy I had quit playing. The nice man at the game store tried to fix it but ended up giving me another copy (Yay for small local businesses - Game Factor). I've been playing it a lot since. I ended up with around 130 hours into it. It's been a lot of fun. The scenery is incredible. Some of the places you visit in the game are ethereally beautiful. The story is more of a political struggle than a love story, but there is a bit of that too. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the struggle, there were many bad creatures to smite, and that's what is important.
It's sad that the new ($600!!!) playstation has come out and no more games are being made for the old system. We will have to wait until used consoles start showing up to get the new one. But that's okay. I'll probably only start to get antsy when the next FF shows up. *grin*
The year is winding to a close. We have continued to get in orders to the jewelry studio, which is a blessing. It was sort of scary the end of October (not just from Halloween) as there were almost no orders in November. But the weeks have filled up, blessedly! We are looking forward to closing the studio the last two weeks of December and into the first week of January. Then our first spring show it the weekend of January 11th!
Because of the timing, I have been working on the spring designs of the necklaces I make. They have gone from being a couple sold a year to a major player in our product line. It is gratifying to know that. Someday I hope to see one of my necklaces being worn by somebody I don't know. I've had that happen a couple of times with one of our cuff bracelets. It is very cool.
I have finally understood that the wholesale buyers want to see and be able to buy the exact design they see. For a number of years I made "sample" necklaces and tried to encourage the buyers to either let me design something else or make suggestions of what they wanted. That didn't work so well. I don't know that the buyers understood or wanted to take the time to do their own designing. So now I make designs to be sold "as shown". I am going to try to bead up the designs ahead of time so that I can make the same thing over and over at the same time to speed up the process. Then if I have them in stock, I won't get so worn out making 40 necklaces a week week after week. I can just rotate making up stock pieces in bulk. Then if someone wants something more custom, I can focus on that!
It is always a balancing act in the design process. The jading nature of "been there, done that" makes me want to design more radical things in shape and color. The concept of having to make the same thing 40 times a week pushes me towards doing something that is not radically complicated. And the knowledge of what has sold well at past shows pushes me to design variations that are somewhat new, but not jarringly so. Then the most important push of what is actually available from the stone cutters! But I have griped about that before!
We are a few days away from my favorite Holiday. I have come to love Thanksgiving more and more. There are so few obligations and craziness associated with it. There is wonderful food and hopefully good company. One of the blessings of aging for me has been being more grateful. I have come to peace with not being acclaimed by the masses and am actually quite pleased with the peace of our life.
We have a wonderful extended family of friends, and wonderful birth families. We are blessed where we live and love it! Our health continues to be good, with some effort, but the challenges are blessedly manageable.
Art and science call to my soul and are answered in my work and my hobbies. It is a good life!
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Pamela