Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff

Taika

I have a small 1 cu. ft. light box, my problem is finding cool things to drape stuff on. Like oh: there it is, it's a bracelet, it's shiny. Here's a, uh, a rock! Yes, with the bracelet. Oooh, a bracelet holder... with the same damned bracelet... And of course, I'm sure I get 'marked down' for using the same 2-3 props, but for realz, changing the prop doesn't change the product and warglebargle. If I had the cash I would just pay someone to do the photos for me and never look back, since it's all items I can make again.

Auspice

Walking is not helping me lose weight. Not visually, at least. Most days I still feel fat as ever (though I do not own a scale, so who knows).

What it has done, however, is make me stronger. Overall, I feel stronger. I'm regaining a lot of the dexterity and reflexes I used to have.

See, I played a lot of soccer as a teenager. I was incredibly active. Soccer, swim or dive teams, out biking through the woods multiple days a week. Then (thanks soccer!) I injured my knee bad enough to require surgery. It was a really long and not very thorough recovery (for reasons related to an asshole father). Then the fibro kicked in a few years later and I just... stopped, for the most part. When a single day of light activity could leave me in bed, in pain... it became 'why bother?'

Then over the last few years, my leg/ankle/foot developed the issue where overuse would fuck up my foot.

But this has been necessity. 2.2 miles a day, 5 days a week. My knee hurts less. My foot is still fucked up, but an epsom salt bath 1-2 days a week has been helping avoid anything worse than swelling and sharp pain.

It hasn't helped my hip, sadly, but I'll take improvement in one of my two arthritic joints.

The big thing has been the return of my reflexes. I'm really happy with that.

surreality

@taika I have the same problem (and light cube box thingum, it sounds like -- sort of like a solid popup hamper they charge you 20x more for?) with the website thing. I have a domain! And I am sure I could wiki the hell out of that shit to lead it over to an etsy thing!

Website has a couple hurdles, though. Workspace is BWAHAHAHA limited, so photo space means setting something up for a couple days, doing it in bulk, then repeating the process again. The photo kits take up so much more space than my room has to spare on a permanent basis since the box itself is small, but the lights with the umbrellas and whatnot actually have a notable footprint, which might mean just... waiting to store stuff up, giving none fucks about hauling boxes and furniture around in here, and taking over my mother's dining room table next door for a week or so every few months. I have thus far avoided that option since my usual shake of the mental magic 8-ball approach keeps popping up 'not advisable' on that one, due to the level of whining that ensues even if I need to spray things out on their porch outside in recent years. That, and I just fucking KNOW I would hear, "Well, while you have everything set up, you can get pro-quality shots of all of my hundreds of old pieces I don't really actually intend to try to sell much anymore anyway, too, right?" because of course I would. -.- (Note to self: "Perfect 'this is how you use these, Mom, it's super simple, just watch and you can use it yourself to get the shots you want!" evasive maneuvers over the winter. <Mission Impossible theme starts to play in the background>)

The other hurdle is... we want to set up with etsy through their whatever that does physical/online credit card processing, so we can just use their square (it's the same as an independent one, BUUUUUUUUUUUT it also tracks your inventory so if you sell something in person it removes it from the website so you don't get screwed by selling something twice; it alerts you if you sell something on the website while you're off at a show or whatever, too, so you can pull it from the table -- that is worth throwing them the paltry pennies they'd want per sale to me, for real). Guess what's really hard to do when you still have a pile of medical bills, though... (You need a constant balance of $XXX usually in whatever bank account they're using for it.)

The part I hate most though? Coming up with names for shit. No, that pair of earrings is named 2017-L110 2 of 5, and you're going to find it clever or keep mum about it!!! <cough> A couple special bits get names, but they tend not to be names one would repeat in public. We have several pieces sharing the name 'Oh, That Thing' and 'That's the Little Bastard That Took 43 Hours', 'Fussy PITA I-XVI', 'That Used Up the Last of Those Beads!', 'Oh, YOU' and similar. <shifty-eyes>

Some day, when I get off my butt and am tinkering with a game project again, it will eventually maybe even get done, but I will have forgotten to remove some random jewelry name generator object from it and people will wonder what that bizarre little code utility is that spits out crap like 'Whimsy Cloudscape' and 'Sonoran Sunset' and so on, for seemingly no reason. (My dye teacher's husband made some kind of die-roll chart or something for this for them years ago for the same reason, and I find that just hilarious and awesome. They'd pick an apt color name, then just yank two other words off a random list. It was kinda brilliant!)

It's one of those times I can't help but think 'it is only because I have been in this hobby so long that I can even keep track of all of these fussy, fiddly, WTF-laden moving parts of bureaucratic bullshit', so help me.

I should be able to get shots of the booth, though! I was admittedly happy 'cause some of my yarn is the background for one of their ad posters and mailers this year, but, er, while I'd love to share that with all and sundry, it's also plastered with, y'know, specific times and a place where I'm definitely absolutely going to be and as much as I love y'all, you never know who's lurking. I can post it after the show, though!

If folks are somewhere near northern Delaware are for some reason into craft shows, I can send you the info. It's not as great a show as it once was -- it used to attract some really big local names known nationally back when we started with it -- but they have some pretty cool stuff. Tragically, I have a feeling a better sales pitch here would be, "It's right around the corner from where Lucifer first appeared on earth in Supernatural, fellow geeks!" because it is, and that never, ever stops being funny to me.

Taika

@surreality - So much this. Naming is easy, since it's 'this weave in these colors and this size'. Or like 'Rarity Themed (weave) in (size)' with drop downs for different lengths.

The lightbox I have I paid like 6 bucks for on Ebay. It's flexible plastic and uses magnets to hold it together, otherwise, it folds flat. I have the same issue with space, because toddler (plus babysitting 2 more, cause I'm not nuts enough!), and my entire workspace is a 2'x6' folding table stuffed in my bedroom and, thus, collects all the other crap that tends to pile up on flat surfaces.

I have trouble talking a piece up, too. I'm like: it's shiny, and sturdy, and shiny, guys, buy it! I feel SO WEIRD trying to tell people this thing is amazing and perfect.

Even my booth is really simple, flat surface, couple little boxes to plop hacky sacks and flask on, two bracelet bars, and a turny thing with faerie bottle necklaces my oldest makes (trying to teach her about money early).

I just don't have a head, at all, for what is attractive. I look at etsy shops and scoff. I don't care about the background or the driftwood, I want to see the piece, not fancy things for, effectively, curb-appeal. XD

surreality

@taika ...I should probably not tell you about the 'omg I finally fulfilled a decade-long dream and got an anodizer! ...that I have not even had the chance to set up and use yet. :|' thing. <cough> (Damn almost dying thing reallllllllllly kinda screwed up this year's plans and schedule!)

Taika

@surreality - I've been eyeing an anodizer and a jewelry welder. Just too far out of reach. I'd love to custom anodize some titanium and niobium scales and rings. I saw a dice bag someone did that was anodized as one piece, so the color fade was just gorgeous. So much envy for being able to do that.

surreality

@taika That's kinda what I'm looking at. I don't do traditional maille at all but I do a lot of linked stuff and the color (and the matte on the titanium) is incredible with the kinds of colors and combinations I like to use. (I patina the shit out of raw brass and copper chain a lot, too, for similar reasons, so it was the next step.) And I lurve lurve lurve the 'anodized' hematite beads, and it all just blends in super neat ways.

I did a bunch of stitch markers designed to go on those 'add a bead' bracelets, so I was looking into doing some byzantine or box chains that'd be small enough to hold the beads (and the markers), but in the teensywee titanium and niobium links, for rainbow effects (or even just color) like you're describing. Even doing it not as a single dip but doing each 'step' along the dial in a small batch to make a gradient seemed like it'd be worth doing, and while it'd be a $$$ product in the end, well... so are the mass-produced ones, so.

Taika

@surreality Go check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NazOQsPlyOE These are something that have been huge on the fb groups I follow, and they are -gorgeous-. Google images has a ton of them. They make my color loving heart pitter-patter.

surreality

@taika Oooh. There's a brand of paint that works, too -- and some colored patinas. (Check sculpt.com for the vista patinas, we them. They work on stuff that's been painted with the metal coating paints, so it's nicely matchy.)

Ganymede

@auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Walking is not helping me lose weight. Not visually, at least. Most days I still feel fat as ever (though I do not own a scale, so who knows).

Stress isn't helping. Cortisol is your enemy.

Auspice

@ganymede said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Walking is not helping me lose weight. Not visually, at least. Most days I still feel fat as ever (though I do not own a scale, so who knows).

Stress isn't helping. Cortisol is your enemy.

All the stress forever.

Zz

@auspice I hate haaaate to be this person but as I've had to bite my own tongue on this - gentle yoga and meditation can help stress. Also apparently diet but I haven't really done that one and cannot eat, pray, vouch.

Auspice

@zz said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@auspice I hate haaaate to be this person but as I've had to bite my own tongue on this - gentle yoga and meditation can help stress. Also apparently diet but I haven't really done that one and cannot eat, pray, vouch.

I am terribad at meditation. And yoga- I'm bad about doing it at home (plus cats). If I could afford going to a yoga studio, I totally would.

Zz

@auspice I am also godawful at it. There are a couple of great apps like headspace and calm that help you focus. Mainly I do breathing exercises which help my system chill out - more healthy oxygen and less stress. So far no floaty Zen state.

Auspice

@zz said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@auspice I am also godawful at it. There are a couple of great apps like headspace and calm that help you focus. Mainly I do breathing exercises which help my system chill out - more healthy oxygen and less stress. So far no floaty Zen state.

I haven't tried any of the apps. I've tried websites before. My brain (thanks anxiety + ADD) is just always FULL STEAM AHEAD.

What I am doing is this book on stoicism and it's sort of a 'book of meditations.' Every day has a lesson/reflection, so it's a minute or two of reading and reflecting on it.

Aria

ixokai

Thank god for buspar.

I haven't had a panic attack in two years.

GangOfDolls

My penchant for running has earned me a floating kneecap. My doctor has advised that I maybe not with the running for a few weeks and to get a brace that contains one's kneecap when it wants to track out of place.

There are a lot of such devices out there, all of which look... fine? I'd prefer the band over the brace but I'm not sure the ban is necessarily going to work as well. Anyone have experience with this and have recommendations?

Auspice

@gangofdolls said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Anyone have experience with this and have recommendations?

My experience is about 17 years old, but... I had to wear a knee brace after surgery on my knee. And part of the issue was the knee cap going out of place.

I have a lot of issues with wearing braces, bandages, etc... but the one that I was able to wear for the longest periods of time was a full 'sleeve' style that also had an inflatable section around the knee cap for added support. Being nearly 2 decades later, they probably have improved upon the design/style.

Ganymede

@gangofdolls said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

There are a lot of such devices out there, all of which look... fine? I'd prefer the band over the brace but I'm not sure the ban is necessarily going to work as well. Anyone have experience with this and have recommendations?

Have you looked into a copper sleeve?