folksy

after talking about the possibility of putting my pottery online to sell, i've made great strides in doing so the past few days/ week.

Last week, i discovered that besides Etsy, there is also folksy. So then i had to make a decision as to which one to use. Etsy is widely known and based in american dollars. Folksy is not as widely known, restricted to british sellers, and deals in pounds (note: anyone can buy in or out of the UK... :) ). In the end I went with folksy.

So i registered. But i also then needed to set up a paypal account. Well, that, and first get over my aversion to paypal. So i did that.

Then i spent a good chunk of time at school creating a banner and avatar for my folksy site while waiting for my paypal verification.

And then brittany and i tried to find any sort of cloth/fabric/bedsheet/etc that could be used as a neutral background for photographing items. In the end, her gray scarf won. So yesterday afternoon i carefully ironed the creases out of that and photographed my pottery. The goal was to get some natural light, but we live in scotland and it was a proper scottish afternoon so that didn't happen too much. But the photos were still taken.

And for most of the evening, i then measured and posted 8 items on my shop's page. Very very exciting. So now it's up and running and things are for sale.

And tonight Brittany and i looked at the google analytics (because being the phd data loving nerd that i am, yes, i did set up the analytics for the page). They're not super exciting (we can account for 7 of the 9 unique people who viewed my site between yesterday and today) yet, but maybe they will be.

And i managed to get the code to add a widget to this very page (see to the right of the posts).

So check it out, spread the word, pass it along, and whatnot...

my brand new folksy page. It's exciting!

http://www.folksy.com/shops/GizmoCrafts

glentress mountain biking

11 february
saturday.

went with jane-marie and friends to mountain bike at glentress. it was a great opportunity to see a different part of scotland in a different way. i hired a bike for the day. the boys went off and did the crazy difficult trails, and we did the easy trails. i was glad there was another girl, louise, who came with jane-marie and i who hadn't done it before.

did the easiest one (green) as a warm up/introduction and then the blue trail.

it was extremely difficult. i definitely had to stop more times than i would have liked. and had to walk my bike at parts. and was really scary at points. i'm glad i did it. jane-marie is much better at it. i can't imagine what the guys must be like. i felt bad as we were going up because i felt like i was holding people back even when letting them pass.

and i learned the real purpose behind gears and shifting. suburban mountain biking as a kid doesn't truly involve gear shifting, really. maybe just a bit for fun or between a few gears. but this definitely did. and the shocks and whatever. although i do think the size of the frame they gave me was possibly too small. felt a little bmx-y at times when i was trying to be more concerned about what i was doing. interestingly, i did have the thought that something like flying through the air doing trapeze stuff didn't concern me but mountain biking did. interesting perspective on sports. i think it would be a sport to get into earlier in life to build up the confidence and skills. but i can definitely see the appeal to it.

up at the top we were definitely in the cloud cover amongst the evergreens. it was a neat atmosphere. beautiful views and nature all around. that was really cool.

the first bit going down was a bit terrifying. the middle bits were quite fun and probably my favorite. but i didn't fall even once or hurt myself, so that was a success. was a good experience all around. and i'm really glad jane-marie and ian invited me to join them.

photos: http://blogographannex.blogspot.com/2012/03/mountain-biking.html

30 january - 10 february

30 monday
-pottery. yay potter class. work, orchestra rehearsal

31 tuesday
-meeting with adrian, work

1 wednesday
-work

2 thursday
-work. tried to do a groundhog craft, but it didn't go over well

3 friday
-good meeting with adrian, went to the gym and elliptical-ed 10 km

4 saturday
-went to the weaving place and walked around town
photos: http://blogographannex.blogspot.com/2012/03/round-town.html

5 sunday
-ellipticaled 10 km. internet was down. brittany and i went to see the artist at the odeon by us. for being three blocks away, it was the first movie i saw in that theatre. great movie. took about 5 times but was able to email my application off to curtain university. went with brittany to watch the superbowl at the hard rock cafe. we had nachos. they were tasty. there was a group of people eating wings. i haven't had wings in forever. they looked so delicious (although so did the burgers). we only stayed til half time and then went home sleepy.

6 monday
- pottery. got a few pieces back from glazing. another pottery person might buy one from me. work, orchestra rehearsal

7 tuesday
-gym, short meeting with adrian (possibly the last one at hwu), work

8 wednesday
-meeting with patrick, gave some books to adrian, went to work

9 thursday
-gym, uni, work. played a great game of dogeball. although it was a scottish odd version of dodgeball. like most things, they're always somewhat different. but it felt nice to do something constructive with a group of the kids. went to the scottish chamber orchestra concert (got a free ticket). sat up in the upper balcony at usher hall which actually was a great view. they had a fancy guy playing piano. music was great. piano guy played a random, long encore.

10 friday
-posted my curtain application. read more about the visa application online and attempted to email questions to curtain. my emails to them are getting to be an obnoxious process. uni and gym. seemed to more organizational/planning work rather than productive work. but hopefully it transfers into productive work.