The God of Thunder

So last year, when my foot was not operational for running, I found myself at loose ends.  Bored.  Out of sorts.  I needed something to fill the void, and it turned out what I needed was. . . a unicycle.  I've always liked the idea of them - I mean, they look fun, right?  If also a little strange.

Unicycles have been floating around in my mind for a long time, and then one day last year I just did it - walked into Second Gear and bought a starter one.  And then the fun started.  If you call crashing into things for weeks and weeks fun.  It was seriously like watching a baby learn to walk.  If the person doing the watching was a dog walker at Weaver Park, and I was the baby.  It was *weeks* of getting on and jumping off, and getting on and falling off, and getting back on.  The crucial part for learning to ride a unicycle (and anything else, I suppose):  the getting back on.  And of course I looked like a complete lunatic - a 40 year old woman in full knee and shin guards learning to ride a unicycle in a public park.  So the dog walkers started by just observing in silence, while their thoughts echoed loudly (WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OVER THERE???)  But eventually familiarity breeds contempt, or at least familiarity, so as the days wore on they started commenting as well "hey you almost made it that time!  Good job!  I think you're looking better!"  Seriously, the whole situation was comical.

But eventually I started to get a tiny glimmer that it might work.  Holy shit I made it halfway across the basketball court!  Omigod I almost made it around the baseball field!

So then, of course, I started to want a bigger, more adventuresome steed.  My starter uni had served me well (and been blessedly close to the ground when things went awry), but what I *really* wanted was not to entertain the dog walkers, but to head out into the woods.  So my bemused but supportive parents got me a mountain uni for Christmas last year.

Meet Thor:  The God of Thunder.  Here we are on Christmas Eve.

Why is he named Thor you might ask?  Because look at that tire.  It's huge. Much bigger than anything I've ever run on my mountain bike.  Thor is ready to kick some ass.

On Friday Thor and I headed out to Richmond Hill.   I still spend a fair amount of time on paved bike paths, because it's convenient and easy, but Thor and I keep venturing out a little further into the woods too.

At Richmond Hill I do a lot of riding on the old road beds, but Thor and I are starting to get our shizz together.  Yes, we're on the trail marked "beginners and kids", but I keep telling him that the important thing is that we're on a trail at all.  I mean, it's a freaking unicycle.

Although. . . roots and rocks are starting to be a little less intimidating, and I'm getting the hang of holding the seat to stay in one unit through deep mud puddles and unexpected bumps.  (my previous strategy for these obstacles - shooting through the air like a lawn dart as Thor remained at the obstacle and I remained at our previous speed.  Usually I land on my feet from these dismounts.  Usually.)

There's pretty much nothing more fun than a uni in the woods.  You're going slow enough to really see what's going on, but it's still interesting enough to be entertaining.

Here's the obligatory forest selfie from Friday.

Let's be honest though, this picture came while Thor and I were stopped and taking in the scenery.  My skills definitely do not yet extend to riding and picture taking at the same time.

A Boy and His Dog

Meet Moose.  He's a poodle in the guise of stuffed animal.  He also is apparently invertebrate, based on the way he stretches out for a nap.  Like his spine is a slinky.




So the way it works in Spotted Dog Land is that after dinner I return to my lair (aka studio) and Clark and Moose stretch out downstairs on the sofa to watch a little television.  And in order to keep our marital bond strong, we occasionally text back and forth.  (I know!  You're blown away by the romance!)

Clark's favorite topic for the nightly check-in is the Sleeping Moose Selfie   You'll notice a certain pattern in Clark and Moose's night.






After a while I commented on how serious they both are.  So the next few nights Clark added some enthusiasm to the project.  Makes all the difference.

For the love of… yarn.

A lot of times (well, sometimes) people ask me how long I've been making jewelry, and if this was what I always wanted to do,  and if I'm fulfilling my destiny, and if this feeds my soul, and and and . . . you get the idea.  And I think they're kind of getting to the point of, did I always know I wanted to do this, and did I engage in some educational activity that might have actually prepared me for it. And the answer to both of those is a resounding no.  I'm not exactly what you'd call a linear planner.  I'm more of a "sure, that seems like a good idea, I'm going for it!" kind of girl.

My actual education was in english literature and law.  Not so artistic. And my job experience before starting my Etsy shop was in mergers and acquisitions (that law degree), and growing flowers (that non-linear planning thing.)  And while growing flowers did lead to the jewelry, there was something else in the background that actually was more suggestive that I might be able to make something.  That someone would want to wear.  And that was knitting.

I started knitting right after my son was born.  Well, actually I sort of started in college.  My junior year in college my mom taught me to knit and purl and I decided to make a scarf for my then-boyfriend (now husband.)  I started on tiny needles and it took for. ev. er.  Because making a plain scarf with teeny stitches was so boring that I kept stopping for months (years) at a time. It took me 7 years to finish that scarf.  But eventually I did finish it, and gave it to my husband triumphantly, and he wore it proudly for several years, until he accidentally got it stuck in the escalator at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, and broke the entire three story escalator before ripping a chunk of the scarf loose so he could make a quick getaway.  True story.  So I like to think my first knitting project has a memorable place in our nation's capitol.

But back to my knitting reboot after my son was born eleven years ago.  I had a little more time on my hands than usual,  and I wanted to do more than knit and purl back and forth, so I bought a book.  And then I read every single page of it and made an exhaustive list of what I might need to make a sweater and what I needed answers to, and headed out to a yarn store.  The people in the store thought I was crazy - they clearly weren't used to a newbie with such an affinity for research.  But I like the details of things, so I was pretty thorough.  This time the knitting idea took - in a big way.  I loved it.  It turns out that the eye for detail that helps a transaction attorney is also a major asset for complicated knitting projects, but this time I could team it up with some creativity.  Score!

The warmest coat.  Ever.  You are basically wearing three sheep strapped to your person.

And so I embarked on lots of knitting, and dabbled in designing my own patterns.  Nowadays I don't knit nearly as much as I'd like, since I spend a lot of time making jewelry, but it's still my first love and what I go back to when the opportunity presents itself.  I'm 1.5 mittens into a project right now, and you'll rarely find me on vacation or at a family gathering without knitting needles in my hands.

Hey, dogs are people too.  And Great Danes get cold!  She always loved this sweater, and it always made me laugh to see people's reactions to a giant dog in a hand knit sweater.

So here's some photographic proof of my other favorite creative endeavor.  For a while I sold my knitting, but these days I concentrate on the fun of it.  Any other knitters out there?  I feel like my jewelry tribe might have a few knitters lurking among it. :)

Shorts.  Maybe a strange knitting project, but very comfy.

Oops I forgot to mention crochet.  I also like crochet - a lot.  And once made a memorable crochet bikini.  I'll spare you the pictures of that one.

A little color work knitting.  I think this was the project when I learned to knit from both hands at the same time.  Efficient!

Fear the dragon!

A little fake fur never hurt anybody.

Mittens!  Still a favorite project.

Under Construction

In the midst of the holiday season, and all of the fun and excitement and other commitments (and if you're in the business of selling jewelry, all of the holiday orders), the one thing that would make it all more fun would be. . . a complete overhaul of one's Etsy shop.  Am I right?

Right.  You're probably thinking maybe that wasn't the first thing that came to mind.

But here's the thing.  The shop had gotten kind our of control.  Like an octopus that kept growing more arms.  Because every time I made a new design that I liked I took a picture and added it to the options.  But then eventually it occurred to me that making everything to order was fun and all (and allowed for a LOT of options), but it wasn't terrifically practical for gift givers.  And since LOTS of the people who shop on Etsy are looking for gifts, that meant my shop was of no use to a lot of buyers.  So then I started a "Ready to Ship" section and kept a few pieces around for people in a hurry.  But then I got a little more serious and started keeping a lot of Ready to Ship pieces in stock.  Which meant I had a jumble of over 100 bracelets and necklaces and earrings and rings all in one section.  And all of which were duplicates of the made to order listings.  Frankly I don't know how anyone was finding anything to order. (But people did, and for that I am grateful!)

This is what my Etsy shop felt like - a giant jumble of fun in the middle of studio.  Fun, but not so efficient.

So when I hit the end of the ordering period for made-to-order Christmas gifts I decided something had to give.  And that something was all of these insane duplicate listings, and also possibly the whole "made to order" concept.  Especially for the rest of December.  So  I spent all day Saturday (literally, all day), revamping things.  I took down all of Ready to Ship stuff, because now everything in my shop was going to be ready to ship.  Clever, right?  And then I redid all of the regular listings to reflect what I actually have in stock.  Which is surprisingly a lot of stuff - I've been a lot more disciplined this fall about staying on top of production when things aren't frantically busy, rather than just riding my mountain bike more, which had been my past practice.  In fact I've kind of gotten my shit together in general on the the organizational and business front, which would probably be a good topic for another post.

So anyway, after a whole day at the computer (urp), and way-too-many episodes of The Closer (which I love, but have now memorized due to repetition), I present to you. . . the new and improved Spotted Dog Asheville on Etsy.  In which everything is ready to ship.  And my life not nearly so crazy.  And hopefully your experience in the shop is much less like fighting a 14-legged octopus.  And with my new, streamlined shopping experience (and my new shipping intern!  Also known as my husband!)  I'm also going to be shipping right up until December 20 for orders in the USA.  So all in all I think spending Saturday on the overhaul was a good idea.  But if you find yourself looking for something that is no longer to be found, just send me a convo and I'll help you track it down.

Ahhh.  Tranquility.

Turkey Day Turkey Trot

We decided to carry on a family tradition - the Thanksgiving Morning Turkey Trot.  One, two or all of us have run it every year for the last 10 years.  This year I was pretty sure I was going to be honest-to-God runnable for the first time in a long time.  The torn plantar fascia of 2011 hung on for a really long time (pro-tip:  when your foot REALLY hurts, don't just keep running on it.)  But finally I'm over that hurdle, and everything was actually going quite swimmingly, until I was doing a track workout a few weeks ago and my left calf cramped up.  REALLY cramped up.  And ever since I've been doing the dance with it - a few days off, a few days on, a few days off, a few days on.  Which leads us to the Turkey Trot.

We woke up and it was 20 degrees.  Perfect for a cranky calf, right?  But  I was feeling really committed to making this happen so I could run with Sam.  So I got up early, took a hot bath to heat up the leg, slathered it in stinky Chinese-medicine liniment, and then stuck a hand warmer inside a compression sleeve just to make sure it got the message that I was paying *very careful attention* to it.  Never say I leave a stone unturned.

So here we are at the start.  It was freaking freezing.

But still really fun. The gun went off, and Sam took off.  I love kids.  We watched him disappear into the crowd, and Clark and I leisurely jogged along.  I thought the calf might cooperate enough to cover the 3 miles, but I had no illusions that it was going to do so quickly.  And Clark generally couldn't care less if he runs fast or slow, so he was happy to jog along with me.

After a mile or so we spotted Sam again - still running quite strong, despite the fact that the sum total of his athletic endeavors for the past several months involves hitting a baseball.  Now he hits a baseball a LOT, but it still doesn't seem like great 5K prep.  By 2 miles he was starting to come back to us a bit so we all settled in companionably together.  At the top of Hillside we turned left onto Liberty and still kept going uphill - at which point Sam finally admitted that a small walk might not be a bad idea.  But he picked it back up again after a couple of minutes and off we went.  By the time we hit mile 3 back at the start, I could tell the calf was beginning to feel unhappy at being expected to function in 20 degree weather, so I walked off to the side and ambled my way through the parking deck to get to the finish line at Pack Square Park.  I was a little disappointed not to run through the finish with Sam and Clark, but figured adding a 32 minute 5K to my resume wasn't going to make much difference - and really effing up this leg would make a big difference, so a casual walk to the finish was probably the best idea.

Among the other frozen participants were several members of Team Prestige Subaru/Asheville Women's Cycling Team.  Was super fun to see them out there, and fun to finally wear my team singlet - even if mine has not so far experienced actual race pace.

Somebody Else's Jewelry

So usually I talk about my own jewelry on this blog.  Because, let's face it, that's the jewelry I'm usually thinking about.  But earlier this week I met up with a friend, Sarah-Lambert, who makes amazing jewelry.  It's amazing both because it's unique - I've never really seen anything else like it - and because it's so beautifully crafted.  I still can't exactly figure out how she does it - I'm pretty sure transmogrification and/or Harry Potter's wand must be involved, because surely no one could paint such beautiful, clever, personal watercolors on such a tiny surface.  So, you can tell I'm smitten.

The thing is, she doesn't just make great jewelry, she also runs a  great Etsy shop - called Tuckoo & MooCow (which, for those of you as literarily-challenged as I am, is a reference to James Joyce.)  As most of you know, I decided to put some energy into my Etsy shop this fall, and it totally worked!  People bought things!  I shipped things!  Joy ruled throughout the holiday season!  And now. . . I want to keep the joy going.   So when I met Sarah-Lambert I asked her if she'd mind giving me some shop advice - critique the good and the bad and the (hopefully not much) ugly.

Fortuitously enough, she also was in need of something, and a trade was arranged.  What she needed didn't require nearly as much expertise as what I needed - she just needed someone to wear her jewelry so she could take some action shots of the jewelry in its native habitat - that is, on a person.

So we met one day this week, and she gave me a *ton* of good advice (which I'm going to go into in a lot more detail in a later post), and then I made faces at the camera and hopped around and tried to pretend like I knew what I was doing while she took pictures.  I'll admit I wasn't expecting a whole lot - so when she put them on the Tuckoo & MooCow Facebook page I couldn't believe it.  I kind of look like I know what I'm doing.  She must have gotten rid of the super-awkward and dorky shots.  My hair  is big (my hair is always big), but not exactly finger-in-a-light-socket big. And I'm pretty sure that if there's anything Sarah-Lambert is better at than making jewelry, it must be Photoshop, because my skin didn't look that dewy when I actually *was* in my 20s!  But, more to the point,  her jewelry looks great.  Here's a sneak peek of her shots - and you can head on over to Facebook for the real deal.

Ok, wait, speaking of dorky though - this one makes me laugh:

She did her usual great photography job, and her compact (which, it turns out, is actually quite useful if one is applying lipstick in public, or more likely for me, trying to do a quick check of whether there's something in their teeth) looks great.  But I almost never wear lipstick, and if I do I'm definitely not organized enough to have an actual compact to use to apply it.  And, plus, I've just never really seen a picture of myself like that, which makes me laugh. I look so intent on making sure that lipstick is really on properly.

But - now here's the truly tragic part.  It turns out, after she processed these pics and put them up on Facebook, her computer crashed and ate them all.  Before she had a chance to put most of them up in her Etsy shop, or back them up, or do anything else useful with them.  I got these for the blog off of Facebook - but that's not exactly adequate for using them as product photography.  So, I volunteered to go do it again.

 But here's the thing - there's no way my hair's going to cooperate, or I'm going to remember how to look like I'm happy-but-not-manic, or she's going to be as successful at recapturing my youth.  It's just not possible.  So instead,  these next ones will reveal me in the dorky, blotchy, crazy-haired true light of day.  And I'll figure that's just the universe evening things out  - some days you're the Louisville slugger, some days you're the ball. *


*I might have been reliving the 90s this week by listening to the CD collection I rediscovered during the studio overhaul.  And that collection might include Mary Chapin Carpenter. 

Those Molds, and What the Etsy Front Page Will Do For You

Remember my molds?  So they turned out rather well, but a couple did require a little bit of first aid.  What is that you say?  How does one apply first aid for silicone?  No doubt there's tons of demand for this tip (is there *any* demand for this tip?), so here you go:

First unwrap the mold.  Congratulate yourself - success!

Look closer.  Curse under your breath (not out loud only because your son is in the other room.)  See a thin spot on the inside that means the mold will definitely break when you try to use it.

That dark spot in the middle?  That's actually the bracelet itself showing through the mold.  Not good.

Remember the cure-all of mold problems - silicone putty!

  Roll some silicone putty up like you're playing with play-doh, patch it over the mold, and voila!  Problem solved!  I won't tell you how long it took me to figure that out.

In other news, something somewhat interesting happened the other night.  (Although, come to think of it, this post is mainly interesting only if you either make silicone molds or sell something on Etsy.  Or have an odd, latent curiosity about either topic.  I promise, back to the mainstream next post.)

So, anyway, I'm sitting around quasi-watching American Idol the other night (don't judge, ok?  It was totally Clark's idea), and answering Etsy convos on the iPad, and something unusual happened.  When you're looking at your Etsy shop the activity for the shop shows up in a little box at the top.  And being that January is kind of slow, and I was refreshing pretty often as I went through the convos, the number was 5, or 8, or 13 to show activity from the last time I refreshed.  And then all of the sudden the number was 248.  And I thought - huh?  And then I figured out that something must have shown up on Etsy's front page.  Indeed it had, this ring to be exact:

And here's what happens to the views for your shop when an item is featured on the front page:

Yep, traffic increases by some exponential number.  While the graph looks like no one had looked at my shop before 9pm, actually it had been holding steady around 50 or 100 views every hour.  Which is not so bad for a slow January day, unless you compare it to this:

Yes, that would be 2,532 total views in a one hour period.  Nice.