handmade is the way to go!

First of all, I want to thank everyone who left me such nice, caring comments about my dad. He's home from the hospital now and doing alright. I took some of the advice from the doctor for him - to have an hour of aerobic exercise every day and went running for the first time in over a year this evening. I'll probably be terribly sore tomorrow, but nothing a couple aspirins can't take care of. I wanted to get it in my habits before school started and I wouldn't have the inspiration to exercise. 

Also today I got some crafting done for the shop. I've added a couple of pairs of new slippers including the pair pictured to the right - Sea Splash Mary Janes. My goal this summer has to been to get the etsy shop stocked for the upcoming Christmas season. I've been happy with what I've been able to accomplish and I think things are already beginning to pink up in the shop. I've had a couple of sales in the past couple of days and even found some success in posting a listing for my items on craigslist. I hope everyone else is experiencing a pick up in sales and will have a very profitable holiday season. Buying handmade for the holidays is a great way to support creativity and artistic ability (as well as crafters like me trying to make their way through school!). I hope everyone out there will take advantage of the great products that can be found on handmade websites such as etsy and dawanda. 

And I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend. See you tomorrow for the theme of the week!

the calm before the storm.

Life has been, well, hectic. Monday I found out that my dad had been in the hospital all weekend. My parents hadn't told me about it because they wanted me to do well on my GRE Monday morning. Apparently my dad had been having some chest pains and when he went to the doctor for an EKG they didn't like how it looked so he ended up having more tests done until they determined that some of his arteries that supply the heart with blood were closed and he had to have three stints put into place. As if that wasn't enough bad news, apparently the cause of the problem is completely genetic. So now I need to go get my cholesterol tested to see if the levels are elevated so I can be put on medication to hopefully prevent the same thing happening to me when I get older. I'm not too excited about having to find a doctor here and getting my blood drawn. I do not have an affinity for needles. But it's better to be safe than sorry later on down the road. 

My new roommate has also been moving in which has been an experience. There's still many things unpacked around the apartment, but we're getting it together I think. And to top it all off school starts on Monday so it'll be back to the grind soon. I've been trying to squeeze in all the last minute things I want to do before I won't have the time any more so I've been crafting, baking, creating, and watching a lot of tv in any spare time I've found. I guess it doesn't sound very relaxing, but for the most part it's been good.

I've also seen my sales in the etsy shop pick up, which I'm very excited about. Hopefully this is just the trickle before the Christmas flood.