crafty 2 Comments

Etsy (or, Who Knew I’d Buy Homemade Crafts?)

I first learned about Etsy from Dooce.com. Heather buys lots of interesting and kitschy prints and bags and whatnot, and posts about them on her site. Honestly, a lot of the things she posts about are a little too cute for me, so I didn’t really go check out Etsy just on her recommendation.

Later on, Aaron pointed out some video game related items that were posted on Etsy: earrings, specifically, I believe. It was at that point that I realized that there are all kinds of crafty people that make all kinds of crafty things, and I started looking for things that would suit my own style.

While I’ve found some interesting items that I haven’t actually bought, I have purchased an etched Buddha pendant, and I have some more purchases on the way this week, including a hand-thrown bowl (for burning incense on my Zen altar) and a cup/mug, and a triptych of Zen-inspired gicleé prints.

Maybe I’ll pull a Dooce and photograph my finds and post accolades as appropriate. We’ll see…

P.S. – I can’t deny the fact that I’ve considered making things to sell on Etsy myself — specifically, my soy candles, and maybe prints of my photographs. Honestly, though, I’m not sure they’d sell very well. I’d have to come up with some sort of gimmick to make them more saleable — holiday gift sets, or unique packaging, or something like that. I haven’t ruled it out, but I have plenty of other projects to keep me busy right now.

P.P.S. – Along those lines… If I were to start offering a weekly candle sale on my blog, to liquidate my current inventory (and actually make some off-peak income to keep funding my hobby), would I have any takers? Or would it really depend on the price? Leave feedback in the comments…

weight loss 4 Comments

A Red-Letter Day in Weight Loss

Today, I weighed in at the lowest weight I’ve been in over five years.

When I started logging my weight back in November of 2002, I was about six months away from getting married, and I was obese. I thought that by being more conscious of what I was eating and by documenting my weight, I would manage to somehow lose weight before the wedding. Unfortunately, my wedding pictures ended up being my “before” pictures, as I weighed somewhere between 245 and 250 pounds on my wedding day.

In September of 2003, one week after I’d broken myself of my Mountain Dew addiction and was beginning a pasta-free week, Aaron decided to go on the Atkins Diet; I decided to join him. I lost 33 pounds in four months, and continued to lose for the next six months after that, eventually coming to a stop after having lost 50 pounds total. At that point, in July 2004, Aaron had reached the upper end of his normal weight range, and decided to go on Maintenance. After a year of dieting, I was glad to “take a break” myself, even though I still had thirty pounds to go.

For the next few years, we still ate low-carb, but weren’t in active weight-loss mode. I slowly put on ten pounds over the next two years (“Chinese won’t hurt me, just this once…”), then slowly took that ten pounds back off with the help of my friend Sheryl and a diet plan she e-mailed me. Actually, I took off more than ten pounds with that plan; it took me a whole year, but I got all the way down to 195, which was lower than my Atkins all-time low.

My next major hurdle came when I found out I would be losing my job of five years. My entire building was being eliminated due to a merger, so we all tried to make the best of it by having lots of parties on work time and organizing potlucks and generally trying to keep chipper with food and games. My weight loss had already stalled by then, but my lack of willpower — or, rather, my desire to join in and eat all the yummy consolation food — helped my weight start to creep back up. I’d gained a few back by the time I became unemployed, but I then proceeded to gain ten pounds in under six weeks of unemployment.

The past seven months or so have seen me succeed in losing ten pounds, gain five of it back, then lose another ten on Weight Watchers. I’m now down to a weight I haven’t seen for probably ten years or more.

And this is just the beginning.

After the jump: weights and measures…
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