I think it has been abundantly clear that I haven’t been spending all that much time on the computer this summer, especially the past month or so. I’ve been consumed by fits of cleaning, crocheting, and writing, and what time I have spent on the computer has been short spurts of reading my on-line comics daily puntucated by short or long bouts of World of Warcraft. I haven’t had a job where I’m at a desk in front of a computer for quite some time, and as a result, I find that I just don’t spend as much time on the machine as I used to. As a result, I’ve updated sporadically and checked my e-mail even less. Yesterday leading well into today (it’s nearly six in the morning at this point and I’ve yet to sleep), however, I’ve been on my machine a lot. A LOT.

I got it into my head that if I was going to spend all this time crocheting and making new patterns and just generally spending a lot of time with yarn, that I may as well try my hand at making it into a business. A side business, mind you, but until I find a new job (which goes great when you’re not really looking, by the way), I feel the need to fill my time with something I feel is constructive. Creating things–be they drawing, several pages of writing, a blanket, or even just making an organization system for the filing cabinets–makes me feel better. Creating things that make other people happy makes me feel even better. Why not start up a storefront and try it out? After all, I’ve got a lot of good ideas that some people might be interested in.

So I spent yesterday afternoon reading up on Etsy first. Then I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to come up with what name I’d give my little company. The one I wanted (“Snail Trail Creations”) was already taken, so I toyed around with many ideas (most of them involving either lettuce or snails) until deciding on “Golden Snail Designs.” Yeah, it’s based on my snail, Buì, go figure. It was only after a while that it occured to me that it was the same basic formula as Katie’s: COLOR ANIMAL Designs. Neh, it happens.

Now that I had a name and a decent idea as to how to proceed thanks to reading a bunch of stuff on Etsy, I set out to get everything arranged. I got an e-mail addy that would be specifically for this venture. I created a Blogspot account where I can update about projects and patterns away from my main blog (this one, in case you were wondering) so my usual readers wouldn’t have to read about yarn all the time or so my customers don’t have to read about my insanity all the time. It was a logical division of sorts, or so I figured at least. Once I had the e-mail account and blog set up, I registered for an Etsy account and then spent about two hours trying to get my PayPal account back up and running in a fashion that would be useful. It has been over a year since I last logged onto the PayPal site, so I had to jump through some hoops just to get my password back. Therefore at this point, all of the computer stuff is at least started. I’ll need to set up the storefront on Etsy, figure out all the intricacies of PayPal, and get a handle on the whole shipping and handling bit before I proceed too much farther. Then it’s a matter of taking lots of pictures of the things I have already and then plan for future products. I’ve already decided I’m not limiting this to just crocheting, but it may be a while before I get to making things like dream catchers and homemade crochet hooks. But at least it’s begun.

I went to bed around uh, three? I guess, but I couldn’t sleep. My mind was racing too much about product ideas and logo ideas and all that jazz, so I finally gave up and came back to the computer around four. I’m an insomniac anyway; losing a night of sleep isn’t going to do much to me beyond the usual neurosis, or should I say, neuroses. Back at Buster, I toyed with logo ideas while watching more of the X-Files. Now that we own all the seasons, I’ve been watching them all. I’m almost halfway through season seven. I get a lot of crocheting done while watching them, actually. Once I finish them in English, I’m going to rewatch them all in French. Yeah, I’m that much of a loser. At any rate, I popped the X-files on and toyed with logos and came up with a few that I like. I’m going to have the husband clean them up for me, but I think it’s a workable design. It’s pretty childish looking, but most of my artwork is. What I wouldn’t give to be able to draw something that looked even half realistic… Meh, I prattle.

But if you’re curious, you can see my alternate blog at this site, and even though there’s nothing to be seen there yet, you can visit my Etsy storefront here. It needs a lot of work, and so does the blog. Hell, I spent a good portion of yesterday morning updating and working on this blog–trimming down links on my comics page, adding a section of links to my links page, updating my about page, etc.–so I guess you could say I’m in a webpage sort of mood. We’ll see how long this lasts before I haul the husband in on all this and make him help me make banners and the like. He enjoys working on webpages and graphic design work, so I can’t see it as twisting his arm so much as giving him something shiny to play with. Oh wait, I’m the one easily distracted by shinies. Oh well. At any rate, it is now almost a quarter after six, and I suppose I should at least try to force myself to conk out for a few hours until Ian’s alarm wakes me up. I’d really like to hit the store sometime tomorrow for more soda, though I’m leary about drving the Mom-mobile much due to the noises she has been making. Maybe if it’s not so hot, I’ll walk somewhere close, though I doubt it. It’s August in Indiana. I seem to remember that twenty-five years ago it was miserably, sweltering hot, and not much has changed about August in Indiana since. I’ll probably just take the van or wait until the husband gets off work. I mean, it’s just my caffeine addiction. Maybe I’d sleep better if I weren’t wired all the time. There’s a thought. I’ll take it to bed with me and let it keep me from sleeping for the next half hour. Good night!