I HAVE AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

As of today, I will no longer be crafting anything (to sell) except my handpainted vintage ceramics.  I will still be taking commissions for other items — such as wallets, camera cases, greeting cards, t-shirts and quilts —  however, I will no longer be producing them on a regular basis.

What does that mean for you lovely people in Des Moines? It means that you have TWO more chances to obtain my fantastic wallets and camera cases. I’m selling today (RIGHT NOW actually) at Market Day from 9-2 and next Saturday at Craft Saturday from noon-6.

It also means that not only do you have two chances to get these things, but I am selling my camera cases at a reduced price — 2 for $10 or $7 each! Camera cases make fabulous stocking stuffers, and the holidays are less than 2 months away.

Anyway — sorry for the shameless plug, but I wanted to let you know that I’ll be focusing on dishware from here on out and that the rest of my lovelies have to sell like hotcakes.

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… I was on vacation in Chicago last week … but I managed to sweatshop some lovely camera/iPod/electronic cozies. They’re not quite finished, but here they are in the  making.

I decided that before I went to Chicago and to The Needle Shop (the highlight of my trip of course) that I had to work through the scraps I acquired last time I was there. So, enter, easy peasy camera/iPod cozies.

Of course, these will have button closures, but this is how far I’ve gotten for now, so I thought I’d share!

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Since I’m too lazy to walk over and run on a treadmill in this below 0° weather… I’m taking a 10 minute break to blog it up over lunch.

Nothing too exciting is going on this week other than the fact that it’s ridiculously cold out. Temperature in Anchorage, Alaska is 41° today. Temperature here: -8°.  Awesome.  Anchorage isn’t in the cold part of Alaska, but still, -8°.

Several of my friends cars wouldn’t start today. One of my friends saw some jackass out running (yes, I do have a limit. I don’t go out if it’s below -10° or if the windchill is below -15°).

My apartment is frigid.  Both my main heating unit and space heater are running at my apartment, which brings the temperature up to a whopping 55° according to the awesome refrigerator magnet thermometer I got for Christmas from my friend Meredith (not the best way to guage temp, I’m sure, but still).

So I’m cranking the heat here, much to the protest of my coworker who’s always too hot.  Oh well… go outside for 5 minutes, then tell me it’s hot in here.

Also, on an unrelated side note, my iPod 30GB classic is dying.  Sad day.  I had it in my purse the other day and I took it out to put some music/movies on it and it needed to be restored. So I restored it and it went right back to the “connect to a computer and use iTunes to restore” window.  I repeated the process about 5 times.  I realized it could be doing this because I don’t have internet.  I took it to work and repeated the process a couple times before realizing it was probably iTunes 8. I downgraded to 7.0, and it randomly restored.

I thought that was the end of the problems, but I tried to add music/movies to it today and it started making a weird grinding/cranking/squeaking noise and wouldn’t let me put much on it. Fabulous.  So I went to apple.com and checked to see if it was under warranty. Of course not. It expired last August.

Then I selected “shuffle songs” as an experiment to see how far it would get before freezing up (when it was just setting on my desk).  5 songs.  Exciting.

Here’s what I think: I’ve been working out with it…but have been putting it on the machines so it wouldn’t jostle around so much.  I think the vibrations screwed it up enough to kill the hard drive.  Which totally rocks, by the way, since I’ve been wanting an iPhone and finally decided that “no, I’m just going to get a Blackberry on USCellular because I can afford the plan that goes with it and not go over the minutes.”  So NOW I will either have to get a new iPod OR a smartphone. Granted, I can live without both. I’ve got an iPod nano and I can deal with a regular phone.  The Nano ONLY has my running music on it, and I’ve got very specific music that I listen to when I run.  So if I want to listen to it aside from running, I’d need to put different music on it all the time, which is a hassle.  Also, if I listen to the music I run with on a non-running basis, it won’t be as effective when I’m running. GRR.

Anyway, the boyfriend had gotten this iPod for me as a gift when he got his iMac in August of 2007.  He informed me that he ALMOST got me an iPod touch for Christmas (which would have been about $200 over our agreed upon budget), but didn’t because he knew I was thinking of getting an iPhone. So now I’ve got to set a strict budget for Valentine’s Day so he doesn’t break it because I can’t afford to buy him something that costs that much $$… argh.  Not that I don’t appreciate the gift…but still.

Anyway, my 10 minutes are up.

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