it's balticon weekend

This weekend I'll be selling Anapurna jewelry in the dealers' room at Balticon. If you're local, stop by! Balticon is geeky bliss.

still here, plus one wall

Uh, did I forget to post here for almost two weeks? Whoops. My bad, internet. I've been really busy with the new Anapurna advertising campaign, designing and placing ads and monitoring progress with my new favorite thing, Google Analytics. (PS, if you want to see one of our ads in action, check out TheTorchOnline, a fantasy website that's gaining popularity. Then go buy some jewelry.)

In any case, a significant step has actually been made in the house progress, and it was made almost two weeks ago, so I should probably post about it before Don's head explodes. We built a wall!


Don and I actually built this wall ourselves, just the two of us. I used a miter saw and everything. And yes, I still have all my fingers. This wall is actually the wall that separates the master bedroom (and master closet) from the middle bedroom. It stops where the entrance to the master suite will be; on the other side of the entrance will be the shower in the master bath, approximately where the two-by-four on the ground and circular saw are sitting.

The next step is to clean up from the construction and move our stuff over into the master bedroom. We can't build the other walls yet because they're too long -- they cross over into the area of the subfloor that isn't finished yet. So we'll make do with this one, move our stuff over both upstairs and downstairs (the office will go back into the living room), and make a push to get the rest of the upstairs subfloor done. Both Don and his dad have had a lot of exams for school for the last week and a half, so we've been waiting for a free moment to get the moving done. I'm not actually sure if any work will be done this weekend or not -- if it is, you can be sure I'll probably forget to write about it.

a plan of sorts

So I had a fairly incredible weekend -- the con report is up over at the Anapurna Girls blog, if you're interested in the small business side of my life. While I was gone, Don mostly sat around and watched movies instead of doing schoolwork. He did take a few minutes out to do some mapping out upstairs, though, and has figured out where various walls and fixtures are going to go. In the spirit of fair play, he even measured out my bathroom idea. Alas for fair play and my ideas, it doesn't work; the bathroom isn't long enough. Oh well. He did come up with a solution to make the shower less cave-like; once the measuring was done he found six or eight extra inches to put in there, to make it wider. We'll use those inches as a little bench with shelves over it, which will keep everything out of the shower proper and leave lots of extra room. I'm mostly resigned to it now, and the extra space does help. And there's always the fact that we're not staying in this house forever to reassure me.

In any case, Don discovered that the only wall that he can put up right now is the one in between the master bedroom and the middle bedroom; the rest are all too long and cross over into the part of the subfloor that isn't finished. So this weekend he and his dad will put up that wall, and we'll start moving our stuff over to the front side of the house.

an anapurna sneak peek

I'm occupied in getting ready for this weekend's con adventure -- namely, our second year selling Anapurna jewelry at Farpoint in Hunt Valley. I thought I'd give you all a little sneak peek at some of the new stuff that'll be on our table this weekend, things that aren't on our Etsy site yet. If you're free this weekend, you should definitely stop by. Those of you who read Ancestral Pile in a feed might not know that there's a little Etsy widget in the sidebar of the site that takes you directly to the Anapurna store, with a few images of featured items. We have a lot more available than what goes up on Etsy, though -- the best way to get a look at our whole inventory is to come check us out at a convention.

I don't want to annoy you all with too much salesmaneering, but since I'm out of house pictures for now, and Lindley's product shots are amazing, I pulled a few things from the Anapurna Flickr page to show you a few cool new pieces, since it's on my mind.


This brass dragonfly necklace is delicious; the body of the focal is made of a really pretty smoky quartz cabochon.


This one is iolite with a shell focal hand-wrapped in sterling silver. The necklace ties with organza ribbons the exact color of the iolite (which means it's adjustable!).


Our clockwork pendants are huge hits; one of our famous author clients snapped up the first one we made before it even got out on the table at our last con. This is a new design, more ornate than the first, and I love it. Here's hoping somebody else loves it too!

busy busy

I don't generally talk about work here -- nobody wants to get dooced, after all -- but I feel compelled to post a note that I've just gotten my third proposal assignment in since we got back from the holidays. This means I've got two proposals due on February 8th and one on the 11th, plus getting ready to sell jewelry at Farpoint on the weekend of the 15th. We're expecting at least one more RFP to come in, a major one, sometime quite soon. So, uh, I'm busy. No guarantees on posting here.

In the meantime, I've been making a bunch of these in different colors. I love my new Dremel tool and drill press.

not a bloggy time of year for me

The holidays are a serious danger to my blogging. This is always the time of year when things start to lapse around here, internet-wise. Last year it was a surgery -- this year it's work, work, work! We've been slammed at the office, churning out proposals as fast as we can and working a lot of overtime.

And the holiday weekend, unfortunately, was NOT a break for me!


We were vendors at Darkover 2007 all weekend -- setup started Friday at 11 AM and the show ended Sunday at about 4 PM. The picture above is of me taking down our booth on Sunday (I'm sorting rocks!). Lindley's full set is here. It was fun -- our first real convention, and successful enough to merit going back next year -- but it's definitely work to be a seller at these sorts of things, and more work after three weeks of full-tilt proposal writing plus a long Thanksgiving day over at Chez Brinkley was pretty wearing. (It didn't help that I had to be up at five AM Sunday morning to take Don to the airport in the middle of all of this!) By the end of the weekend I was ready to sleep sleep sleep. But of course I didn't get to, because my mom and I had arranged to spend Monday Christmas shopping together. Most of my list is crossed off after a successful day (and a few online orders in the evening), but I woke up on Tuesday running a fever, aching, and exhausted. My body just wanted to finally shut down. I called in and said I was staying home to rest, but not more than an hour later I got an emergency assignment from work that HAD to be done, and had to be done fast. By me. Sigh. No rest accomplished.

Then it was back to work yesterday, for another extra-long day, and more of the same for the rest of the week. I'm hoping that this weekend I can FINALLY relax a little bit -- and maybe clean up the disaster area that is my house after three weeks of coming home late with no time to clean, plus Anapurna displays and inventory strewn wherever we put them after unloading the car Sunday night, plus the detritus of family visits (in addition to my mom this past weekend, my dad and grandparents were here the weekend before that -- and my sister is coming to visit on Tuesday! Augh!) -- restaurant leftovers, empty boxes, souvenirs from Dad's trip to Greece, a box of Grandma's cookies (Don LOVES them), bags and bits from shopping trips and crafty discussions with Mom, and all the other things that build up when people come over.

So, uh, maybe not so much relaxation. Just cleaning. Lots of cleaning.

studio helper

I was trying to take some bead photos to list some stuff on our Etsy shop the other day, but I had a little unexpected help.


Also, I need a macro filter like whoa.

so crafty

Today I organized my temporary craft space. It was pretty satisfying, I feel like I can finally get some things done.

Before:


After:


Check out pics of each of the tables -- here and here -- for my notes on what everything is, if you're curious.

Administrative PS: I'm switching to a somewhat larger font from now on, so that my grandmother can read the blog a little more easily. :) I doubt most of you will notice or care, but that's why the font's bigger now.

office space

new office
Originally uploaded by jamailac

The last thing Don did this weekend before he left for his business trip was to move our office downstairs. He even took the ceiling light/fan from the upstairs back bedroom that had been serving as the temporary office and wired it into a temporary setup to give us some overhead light! He really struggled to get it all done before he left on Sunday, and I really, really appreciate it.

This photo's kind of dark, so you may want to click through to see the larger version on Flickr -- I've put some notes in there to identify everything, if you like that sort of thing.

I'm really excited to finally have some usable surface space in the house. You can see that the Anapurna stuff is currently strewn all over the two tables on the right that we set up for exactly that purpose; I'm going to try to organize it a bit so that those tables can be used as crafting space, leaving the extra table in between our desks available for us to use for more office-y purposes (right now it holds the printer, my week's to-do list, and a test setup for some photography that I was trying out, having dug my tripod out finally). And for the cat to walk on, of course. She's already indulged herself in that privilege several times since I put the table up.

make it hot, hot, hot

The heat is fixed -- HVAC guy did in fact show up, although not as promptly as we might have hoped. He installed some pipes and voila! Leak-free heat. So that's good.

As for the progress that's been made downstairs, I haven't got any pictures, as my camera battery is dead and I haven't decided what to unplug to plug the charger in. Life will be so much easier when our whole house has functioning electricity and fully-installed outlets. Anyway, what's happened is that Don has actually managed to completely line the downstairs walls with tarp. This is going to serve as makeshift insulation, creating an air barrier between us and the outside. It's not much, but it's better than nothing. He's also lined the ceilings, both to prevent hot air from rising to the soon-to-be-unused second story and to prevent plaster dust and construction debris from falling through the floor and severely damaging something, like the cat. It's all about the preparation (he was an Eagle Scout! Did you know? As far as I can tell the only thing he gained from it was a lot of experience playing Magic: The Gathering and the ability to tie seemingly complicated knots that don't actually hold things together [I'm pretty sure bungee cords were invented to save us from Eagle Scouts]).

So, there is in fact a possibility that by the time he flies out for his business trip on Sunday (still no idea how I'm going to entertain myself for a WHOLE WEEK without somebody to bicker with), we could in fact have at least the bed downstairs. And maybe the desks. This is complicated by the fact that I'm going to the Bead Society of Greater Washington's Bead Bazaar with Lindley tomorrow, and we still have to do a lot of laundry, but still! Heat! Not having to huddle in bed under the down blanket at 7 PM because it's the only place to be moderately warm! Very exciting.

we'll be there, will you?

I'm dumb and forgot to upload my pictures from this weekend again. Hopefully I'll remember tonight, although I've got to go to the grocery, make a salad for a potluck, find a certain pair of earrings from the Big Box of Inventory (of doooooom!), take care of a migrainey fiance, deal with dinner, and make sure the proposal I'm writing is ready for printing tomorrow. So, you know, no promises.

But! There is one promise I can make, and that is that both the elusive Don and I will be at this Friday's Blogger Happy Hour at Holy Frijoles! I'm going for the people, he's going for the margaritas. If you're local, come out! (And if you're not local, drive here and THEN come out!) The Baltimore bloggers are, without fail, fabulous and awesome and seriously friendly.

(PS don't forget to do like Danielle did and check out the new stuff on Etsy, if you see something you love I can just bring it to the happy hour!)

productivity without participation on my part is totally the best kind

I am exceedingly meh today. I was incapacitated most of the weekend with Girl Troubles, which made for a less than restful time. We did get out to our friends' house to play D&D like the dorks we are (it doesn't hurt that they have three extremely cute cats, all of whom are moderately snuggly). Sunday was our official Work On The House day. We discovered that our new heating system works marvelously well -- on the first floor. This hastened our approach to moving downstairs, as you can probably imagine. So Don spent the day running wire and installing outlets in the dining room and living room so that we'll have power for our temporary living quarters. The outlets are just temporary; they aren't even installed in the wall or anything, just tucked away on the floor in corners so they're out of the way. I'll post pictures tomorrow; I did take a few, I just haven't transferred them over to the computer yet.

My job during the wiring process was to occasionally go and pull wires through the floor whenever Don poked them up at me, and hold them while he ran up and down the stairs making sure of whatever he was making sure of. This left a lot of time for other things, so I spent most of the day working on the Anapurna Etsy site, and uploading new inventory. Very exciting! Go look.

news of note

Don got a job; he starts work on October 15th in a development position with one of the Big Two -- a major defense contractor. It's full time, so it puts our original plan into total disarray. But we're used to that sort of thing by now. So the money situation will be mostly resolved in about a month, when he starts getting his paychecks.

The Anapurna Girls will be at the Darkover convention over Thanksgiving weekend; if you haven't made plans and are interested in fantasy and science fiction, consider going. And, you know, buying stuff from us.

The HVAC is still not done. The guy came on Friday and spent some time downstairs doing SOMETHING, although I'm not sure what, since nothing appears to have changed. We thought he was supposed to come back Monday; needless to say, he didn't. We finally got hold of him yesterday and he said he'd call us back today. Sure thing. [For those counting, we started this whole nonsense on JULY NINTH. This has been THREE WHOLE MONTHS of nonsense for a job that should have taken a week.]

The holidays are coming up, and with them a slew of family visits. Don's whole family lives relatively nearby -- the furthest away is his brother in Norfolk -- but mine is strewn about all over the country. So getting to see them is often a treat. My father and grandparents will be coming down from New Jersey the weekend before Thanksgiving; my mother will be flying out from Washington for Thanksgiving proper; and my sister is coming to visit for a whole week in December. Very exciting!

things of note

There was a water main break on our street this weekend. We got up late Sunday morning and discovered that none of the water in the house was working. After a flurry of "did you pay the water bill" "of course I paid the water bill" "are you sure you paid the water bill" "dammit I paid the water bill"-type conversation, we called the number on our water bill to find out what was going on and were told that not only was there a water main break, it was specifically on our street. That would be the problem, then.

Fortunately we were heading over to Don's sister's house for the afternoon, so no lack-of-bathroom-related disasters could happen. (Don't worry, Tina, we don't just love you for your functioning bathrooms. [The pool is pretty nice, too.])

The water was, of course, eventually fixed. Not much else going on -- I've been really busy getting ready for Anapurna's show on Saturday, and Don is gearing up for rush week, so we mostly just exchange harried glances and add things to each other's to-do lists these days. Things will be a little more calm next week, and calmer still after the end of the month when I've turned in the project I'm working on for work. But autumn tends to be the busy season for me, no matter what I'm doing. At least the weather is improving!

i have made weirder requests

Does anybody have a wooden coat rack they're willing to part with? I need one that's not particularly heavy, and it's got to be wood or something else cuttable, since I really only need the top half.

Doesn't it sound like I'm preparing to do something really strange? Actually I need it to display handbags at craft shows; my mom makes these fabulous handbags and we'll be selling them along with our jewelry and accessories at several craft shows this season (I've added them to the calendar on the website, check it out). So I'm looking for something to hang them from, and a coat rack seems like the best option. Anyway. Let me know if you have one.

Nothing is going on with the house; we're waiting for HVAC Boss Guy to call and let us know when he can come out and finish up. Don's changing the locks this week, as No-Longer-Installation Guy still had our keys when he up and quit. I'm trying to use up all the stuff in the fridge before we leave for the beach without going to the grocery store, which may result in us eating peanut butter and pickle sandwiches or something later in the week.

the saga continues

Why is it that it's always on Wednesdays that I forget to post? Normally I post every weekday, generally in the morning. But for the last several Wednesdays, I have been either uninspired or forgetful, and have either not posted or posted later than normal. Hump day indeed.

So, today's news:

The bad: Unsurprisingly, we still don't have air conditioning. Don got a call from the again mysteriously-absent Installation Guy, who informed him that they'd JUST ordered our units and thus were waiting for them to arrive, and he'd be back on Thursday with the units and ready to go. Why they only just now ordered the units when they've been working on our house for like two weeks is beyond me. Whatever.

The good: I've spent a whole lot of time in the last couple of days working on Anapurna stuff, and I've finally got our Etsy shop up and running. With some judicious forum posting and self-promotion, it seems to be generating at least some interest. Hopefully people will start buying things in droves. Including you people. Go on, buy something.

all kinds of news

The biggest news is that the new and improved Anapurna website is up. And, unlike the old site, you can actually successfully use it to buy things from us! Yay! Go check it out.

Other stuff going on, that I thought I'd get down before it drifted away in the massive cloud of to-do lists and scheduling I often find myself in:

Don got a call from the HVAC guy (who, incidentally, has the pointiest shoulder blades I have ever seen on a human being). Said guy is going to come over tomorrow night with a contract for us to sign -- with the original price they quoted us (yay!). He's really truly officially going to start work on Monday. It's like a dream come true! Air conditioning!

We're getting our nearly-full dumpster switched out for an empty one on the 13th. Benjer must love us, we rent so many damn dumpsters. This will be the third this year.

Demolition day, as you all know, is on July 21st. Don't forget to tell me if you want to come.

Windows will be installed sometime after that, hopefully in early August. All the paperwork has been signed for the financial stuff on that one, now we're just waiting through their lead time. Plus, we're getting the demolition done, which will make things easier for them (since they're doing all the framing for us -- they don't have to worry about the demo part).

At some point -- I am guessing next weekend -- we will officially Move Downstairs. I haven't made a lot of progress on cleaning out the office. This must change.

Don says that he'd like to have the upstairs subfloors done and all the final framing in place by the time school starts (August 29th). Considering that we're going on vacation for a week within that timeframe, it's a tight schedule. We'll see how it goes. I'm a little concerned about the plumbing for the new master bathroom, but Don seems to think it's "NBD".

business cards

If you're curious about some of the process that goes into designing products for businesses, you should hop over and check out the Anapurna Girls blog -- I've just put up a post detailing the design process I went through putting together our business cards.

new anapurna blog

Most of you probably already know this, but I have this jewelry business. It's pretty cool. We're working on some brand identity things right now, and as part of that, we've put together a behind-the-scenes blog. We're going to share everything we do and learn about growing a business, marketing, designing jewelry, etcetera. It should be pretty fun. Feel free to add us to your blogroll and come along for the ride.