crafty 6 Comments

Business May Soon Be Booming

Remember when Rob asked me to make him a manly candle? Well, that jump-started me back into candlemaking, and I made a batch of Amaretto and Coke candles last night. I ended up taking one of them to work with me, and quizzing my co-workers about what alcoholic beverage they thought it smelled like. Now I suddenly have major interest in my little enterprise — well, four potential buyers, anyway, and at least one person who might just buy a crapload of candles from me as Christmas gifts. Considering I’ve only ever sold one pack of tealights and one candle, that’s major interest.

Now I have to decide: do I gear up for a big run, and potentially have a bunch of candles and containers and scents and packaging material that might just end up taking up space; or do I keep my operation on the down-low, and only make custom candles as requested, keeping my inventory of premade candles at a minimum?

I’ve already decided that I want to SQL-ify my candle website, making it more easily updateable as I sell candles and as I get new fragrance and container inventory. Not redoing the design, just managing the content.

I guess the big question is, do I ramp up my production, at least of sample tealights? I’m saying that’s a yes. On the samples, I mean. Samples are good. Also, do I wait and see which of my current scents sell, and just focus on those, or do I branch out and get even more scents for diversity’s sake?

I don’t really expect answers from the peanut gallery — I’m just asking them to give myself something to think about, I guess. If you have any pearls of wisdom, though, I’ll gladly take them.

I do have a request, though. Name me off some mixed drinks that would smell good as a candle. Ones that I’ve already thought of:

  • Amaretto Sour
  • Amaretto and Coke
  • Cosmopolitan (Cranberry, Orange & Lime)
  • Sex on the Beach (Cranberry, Orange, Pineapple & Peach)
  • B-52 (Kahlua & Bailey’s Irish Cream)

Any other ideas?

Update, 10/22/06: Additional ideas from my friends/readers:

I have on order Lime, Kahlua, Bailey’s Irish Creme, and Bay Rum fragrances. I already have Amaretto and Cranberry and Coffee and Spearmint on hand. If I can come up with a way to make a White Russian (Mary) or a Jäger Monster (Fries), I’d definitely be up for those. For now, I think I’m going to focus on drinks that are a.) fruity or b.) include Kahlua.

Damn — now I’m going to have to do some “field research” to discover new candle scents… 😉

randomness

Estrogen Overload

I challenge any card-carrying, estrogen-toting woman to make it through a viewing of Steel Magnolias without crying. Or at least misting up. Especially the end (SPOILER WARNING… if you can spoil an 18-year-old movie):

M’Lynn (after her daughter’s funeral): I don’t think I can take this! I just wanna *hit* somebody ’til they feel as bad as I do! I just wanna *hit* something! I wanna *hit it hard*!
Clairee (pushing her grumpy buddy Ouiser forward): Here! Hit this! Go on, M’Lynn, slap her!

I don’t make a habit of watching Steel Magnolias. But when I surf past Lifetime and find that it’s playing, I either find it absolutely repelling or impossible to resist, depending on my mood. My estrogen level must’ve been elevated tonight after being all crafty; I cooked *and* made candles in the same night. 🙂

Cooking, crafts, and crying at a movie. I think I’ve had my fill of girlie stuff for a while. Makes up for joining in last week’s football pool at work, I guess.

writing

Grammar Geek

James: Which is right: “you or I” or “you or me”?
Me: In what context?
James: “Let me know if it is you or I.”
Me: *pauses* “You or I” is right.
James: OK. It sounded right, but I wasn’t sure.
Me: Yeah, it’s “you or I,” because it would be “me” if it were an object, but “is” is a linking verb, so the object would take the same…

*pause*

Me: I just totally geeked out on you, didn’t I?
James: Yeah.

the ongoing saga of my job 1 Comment

Lethargy and Employment Status

I don’t give a crap lately. I’m not motivated to do much of anything. I can’t get excited about recording my podcast, or exercising, or harvesting and storing my meager herb supply, or getting up in the morning and getting to work on time.

I think it’s because of my job.

Remember back when I was all stoked because James and I were getting a promotion, and would be working on the Loan Servicing databases all the time? Well, although we did finally get a raise (though our title change still hasn’t gone into effect), our joy was short-lived. Just about the time we were halfway done with our second database (of four), the shit hit the fan in my department. Our long-time supervisor took a new position, one person went on maternity leave, then two people got different jobs within the bank and one left to pursue her medical career. That left us painfully understaffed. So, James and I agreed to go back to doing normal Loan Corrections work.

New hires were scarce. One new hire decided she changed her mind and wanted to go back to her old department. One other person left the team for a different position within the bank. Meanwhile, James and I were plodding away, Taking One For The Team™. It’s been five and a half weeks now, with two and a half weeks to go. I’m counting the days, and hoping the new hires we have now train quickly and well.

I know Aaron says, “Your job doesn’t define who you are,” but going from a cool problem-solving gig back to less-challenging loan corrections has been surprisingly depressing. When I was developing databases, I broke my tardiness habit, just from being excited to tackle a new challenge every day. Lately, though, I’ve been coming late by 10 or 15 minutes, and just taking a shorter lunch to compensate. I’ve also been much less productive than I could be, and not just because I’m having to relearn how to do loan corrections after six months away from them.

What makes things worse for me is that our original database needs some serious TLC. The main table is currently holding upwards of 70,000 records, and that’s slowing down several processes considerably. We need to archive some of the older records, to speed up the most-used functions of the database, but that’s not going to happen for almost a month yet. Part of me wants to let it go to shit and show everyone how necessary we are — but part of me knows we’ll have to fix it eventually, anyway, and if we don’t do it fast, it’ll just reflect poorly on us.

I’m chomping at the bit to get back to the job by which I was just beginning to define myself. I’m not a web designer; I’m not a photographer; I haven’t been a musician for years, nor an artist; if I’m not an Access database developer, then damned if I know who or what I am.

But that’s another entry for another day.

memories 6 Comments

Sesame Street Memories

Aaron and I were talking about how it’s so easy to spend an entire afternoon or evening on YouTube, just surfing from video to video in a particular genre.

I just spent two hours watching clips of Sesame Street, The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

I could go back and link to all my favorite stuff, but I think maybe you should just go and search on Sesame Street and see what you turn up. OK, I guess I do want to share a couple things…

  • The Sesame Street closing credits I remember best. I’d forgotten that Fridays had different closing credits than weekdays, and I’d forgotten all about Barkley.
  • I’ll Miss You, Mr. Hooper, where the grown-ups explain to Big Bird that Mr. Hooper isn’t coming back. (I’d always heard that it wasn’t long after this episode that David passed away, as well, but the cast had to explain it away, since they’d so recently had an episode about death. According to Wikipedia, though, Northern Calloway didn’t pass away until 1990.)

Everybody has their own favorite Sesame Street bits, but OMG. The King of Eight, the Ladybugs Picnic, the series on pollution (that totally freaked me out as a young child), the lost kid on the bicycle that passes all the crazy psychedelic shit, Bert doin’ the pigeon… Wow.

I am convinced that Sesame Street was and is quality television. I mean, the Electric Company clips I watched seemed kind of cheesy in that 70’s sort of way. The 3-2-1 Contact bits were actually OK, although they were initially meant for an older audience, anyway. But the Sesame Street bits pulled me in visually and with music, although some of the songs were pretty cheesy.

Oh, and did you know that a hurricane hit Sesame Street? Big Bird’s nest got all destroyed, and you can buy the DVD to see him deal with his loss and see how his friends help him rebuild his nest. Outside of the typically cheesy musical song-and-dance numbers, I think that kind of sums up one of the neatest aspects of Sesame Street: it takes real-life stuff that a kid might come across in his life, and has the grown-up characters explain it in kid terms. Death, hurricanes, holidays, the Beatles…

Buh-Buhbuh-Buh-Buhbuh, Letter B…

(Swear to god, I knew that version of the song long before I knew why it was funny.)