There ought to be a law

In case you missed the fantabulous update about the dismal nature of the big Kohler show, you can read about it here.

The Kohler show is a hybrid of both hand made and commercial vendors. Most of the commercial vendors are nicer things, such as candy companies and better knock-off designer jewelry. There was also, however, all natural jewelry cleaner...conveniently positioned right next to me.  Who's so lucky?

Now the all natural jewelry cleaner booth consisted of a couple of tables with pepto bismal pink table coverings and 2 large signs that screamed "FREE RING CLEANING", ala QVC.

Next to the pepto pink ring cleaning lady was guy selling wooden frogs of various sizes. What's the purpose of the wooden frog you wonder? Well, the frog has a wooden pin stuck in it. If you remove the pin and stroke the wooden pin up the frogs back, it croaks. Big frogs make deep croaks. Little frogs sound like crickets.  Who's so lucky?

For three, long, painful, sales-free days my Kohler show experience was a cacophony of piped in Christmas music, the "FREE RING CLEANING" sales pitch and frog croaks.  I couldn't make this up if I tried.

"Ladies would you like a free ring cleaning"

"Croaaaaak"

"Once a week take this cream and rub it into your diamond. It's safe for all gemstones including pearls and opals"

"Jolly Old St Nicholas"

"Croaaaaaak"

"What the cream is doing is removing the sticky oxidation."

"Croaaaaaak"

"Silver Bells"

"It's all natural, with banana oil, coconut oil and grapeseed oil"

"Croaaaaak"

"Then rinse and dip in the brightener"


I wish I had blow dart gun to put us all out of our collective misery. Pfffffft.

Now, to be fair, I will say that the jewelry lady has a good pitch. I'm sure she could sell ice to Eskimos; however I am a jewelers daughter and I can tell you with 110% certainly that "oil" is about the worst thing you can put on your jewelry. What's sticks to oil? Everything.  Which is the reason we all clean our kitchens with amonia or another like product to cut through the grease.

Never let it be said the buying public had the sense God gave a lemon. Women lapped up "all natural jewelry cleaner"  for the "special show price" of $24.95.

Editors snark note: Clearly these are the same women who fall for the Arbonne skin care sales pitch because it's "naturally and botanically based". You can pick em out of a crowd as they have lines in their forhead that could hold a dime and could really benefit from a little Botox. Chemicals have their place people; both in skincare and diamond cleaning.

The frog guy sold 1/2 his inventory. Apparently Northern Wisconsin has an affinity for frog dust collectors that make a frog noise. What do you do with this thing once you get home? Seriously?

Meanwhile,  I couldn't give it away but every other lady bought an oil based product to rub into her wedding ring or a wooden frog.

Croaaaak! Cue the dart gun. Pfffft.

Painful Life Lessons - Art Show Style

At 44 (cripes, I still can't say that numbe out loud without flinching a little), one would think that I have learned all the big life lessons. I've had 44 years of the "the moral of the story is...",  I should be done. Alas. Not so.

The "big" Kohler show was a protracted, painful, 3-day lesson in the grass isn't always greener on the other side."  It's just more expensive.

I had expectations. I admit it. Big fancy, American Club, expectations. I spent months (months, I'm not kidding) prepping for this show. Buying stock. Alot of it. Dying stock. Alot of it. Configuring displays. Artfully problem solving how I was going to jam all my stuff in a too small, very expensive space.  I was prepared and ready to sell.

What's that saying? Make plans, God laughs.

What I wasn't prepared for was the staggeringly bad loction of my booth. Location is everything.  Of 101 vendors, I was 101. Stuck way in the back of the "Bay de Noc" room.   The American Club venue is truly magnificent. It's opulence and over indulgence at it's finest. The doormen wear top hats with black wool coats with red trim. It's nice. I want to live there.

All of the other rooms have 2 doorways, creating "flow". The Bay de Noc room is a conference room broom closet. One entrance, like a hallway. There is no flow. There is only the average patron taking half a dozen steps inside, craning their neck to get a lay of the land, turning and leaving.

Strike One.

I also wasn't prepared for having another artisit that sold the EXACT SAME STYLE dresses as I do, 2 booths over.

Not kidding.

Hand dyed.

Not kidding.

Althought his were painted with little birds (ok, ewww).  I am all for healthy competition but geez-oh-petes. There weren't that many childrens vendors, break it up a little. 

And the artist was a head-case. Running over to my booth ever 20 minutes, checking my price points (mine were $28 - his were $32). He actually said to me and I quote "Your stuff is pretty but mine is a better value since there is more embellishment".  What a tool.  Please leave my too small, expensive 8x10 booth.

Strike Two.

And the most important thing I wasn't prepared for, and I should know, is the market dictates everything.  Tye Dye just isn't beloved in the northern parts of Wisconsin. It's definately a Madison area type product. For good or for ill -- people associate tye dye with hippies. These weren't my people.  These people wanted chickadees painted on heathered green dresses, not bright rainbow swirls.

Strike Three.

So for three staggeringly long days, I endured barely (and I mean barely) enough sales to cover my over-priced booth fee and my hotel.  At the end of my show I took my bruised ego and my over-abundance of tye dye, packed up and went home.

Big. Heavy. Sigh.

The quest to not give up

Here’s the thing.

Straight up.

Aging sucks rocks.

Yeah. Yeah. I could be one of those women who spouts some fallacy about how age is just a number and you’re only as old as you act or feel or look…whatever that is. But here is the hard cold, right between the eyes reality.

It sucks.

Inside my brain I still “feel” 25,  but my low back, right hip and hamstring muscles think otherwise.

And there is ooze. Alot of ooze. There is muffin top where there once was none. And back fat. WTF? Seriously! Where does that come from? And why does it suddenly spring up out of no-where.

Now I fully admit, that I spent the better part of the summer licking the ice cream spoon, but all things being equal, I am an active woman. I work out. I walk. I take the stairs. Not 7 days a week, but consistently.

But the muffin top doesn’t care. It continues to rise. Things jiggle where they didn’t…and where they shouldn’t. And I’ve already lamented about the waddle. Oh yes, there is a “fund” started so I can address that little horror show in a few short years.

There is a big part of me that wants to say “screw it”, throw in the towel and start shopping in the polyester elastic pants section of the JC Penny. Mumus are fashionable paired with some sensible Hush Puppies, right?

Then there is the other part of me that screams, look at Helen Mirren for cripes sakes! She’s 65 and has a bod and half. She looks 110% mahvelous dahling! Yeah. I get she probably had some cupcake boy toy of a trainer chasing her around for 3 hours a days. And a personal chef preparing low fat, healthy tasty meals; she probably never has Ben & Jerrys Cherry Garcia Ice Cream in her freezer (which is a real shame because that flavor is the bomb and Helen doesn’t know what she is missing). But if Helen, in her 60s still has it going on – well, I can at least continue to hit the treadmill, limp through the sore hip and buy another body shaper to smooth the lumps. Right?

So I’m trying really hard not to give up. To not be one of those women who throws in the towel when the very unkind,  and frankly bitchy Mother Nature, unleashes the effects of gravity all over my body.

I’m sure there will 100+ like entries on this subject because not giving up is exhausting and wouldn’t it just be so much easier if eating Ben and Jerrys out of the carton while reading the latest Fitness Magazine was enough?

Stay tuned.

So What Exactly does a Non-Answer Cost?

I recently mourned celebrated another candle on my cake. I’ve stopped counting candles. Candle counting is depressing.

The non-depressing part about adding a candle to my cake is the birthday octave. You can read about it here.

This year’s birthday octave festivities included one GNO (girls night out for those of you not familiar with uber-cool acronyms).

Five ladies descended upon Lillianas, a very lovely restaurant with New Orleans inspired fare and a wonderful wine list. The intent of the evening was drinks and snacks; snacks of course including dessert. What’s a birthday celebration without dessert? Just sayin’.

I am the first to arrive at said restaurant, where the very nice bartender inquires about what kind of drink I would like. I order a glass of his recommended wine, that is happily 25% off due to happy hour. I can get happy.

Friend #1 arrives and inquires about my wine. Brian, the nice bartender, suggests a bottle of said wine. I inquire about the cost of the bottle of wine which I am told is a great “value” because we’ll get it for the happy hour price of 25% off. (Notice how this isn’t a real answer. ) But order it we do. Because it’s Friday. And we’re celebrating. Yay us! Aren’t we thrifty?

The entire group congregates. Wine is poured. Appetizers are ordered and consumed. More appetizers are ordered along with 2 particularly delicious sounding entrees. A second bottle of wine is ordered. Entrees and appetizers are devoured. The second bottle evaportates. Three desserts are ordered because if one is good, three is better. Then there is coffee.

And then.

The bill arrives. (Insert scary sounding horror music here.)

$278

I know.

That’s a car payment.

Or a Coach purse. Whichever your prefer.

The culprit? That damn happy hour wine at $78 a bottle. A bottle! Now I will concur that it was indeed very delicious. But $78 delicious? Hard to say. But what’s done is done. That ship has sailed and now it’s time to pay the piper for my very good (and unknowingly expensive) taste in Malbec wine.

Important life lesson – get a solid answer on the cost of the wine. Oh and always order the bananas foster for dessert, because bananas with butter, sugar and rum almost makes it worth adding another candle to my cake.

Kohler is Upon Me

If you’ve been following along then you know that in a few short days I will make my pilgrimage up to The American Club in Kohler, Wi for the Kohler Holiday Mart.

Three days of what I am hoping will be stellar crowds and stellar sales.

And thankfully the Verona show as respectable. I have broken the bad luck streak.

A full debrief to follow…

The Pet Life Cycle

My least favorite part of having pets is the end of the pet life cycle…or the dying part. It’s probably their least favorite part too.

With most pets, the life cycle is long. Most cats live upwards of 15+ years. I can tell you that having had a pet from infancy to death, 15 years isn’t long enough.

Hamsters, unlike cats, live about 2 years. Hamsters have a little internal egg timer, once they hit the elusive 2 year mark they are usually toes up in the bottom in the cage. Now a hamster isn’t a cat, he won’t purr and is most of the time afraid of the people who feed him. He spends most of his time burrowing in his cage or running on his plastic wheel. But he’s still cute and furry and has a sweet face. Finding your hammy dead is indeed a buzz kill. Let’s face it. Dead hammys are no fun.

As was the case Monday night, say oh, 9pm, when my son was in the feeding and watering phase of hammy care for the night. Only the hammy no longer needed feeding and watering as he had followed the white light to the green hammy wheel in the sky.

We found his little body curled up in his straw hanging thingy in his cage…the hammy version of a straw tire swing. My son tried to get him out of said straw hanging thingy, but hammy must have crossed the rainbow bridge quite a number of hours earlier. His body was a little, uh, stiff. There was no budging his body from that swing. Poor ham.

So we wrapped the whole tire swing/hammy combo in an old dishtowel and proceeded to commence burial at 9:00 at night. I was quite the site dressed in my blue doggie flannel jammies, holding a flashlight in one hand and towel wrapped dead hamster in the other while my son dug a grave along the back end of our lot line near the green space.

I feel bad. I do genuinely feel bad. He wasn’t the type of pet that gave unconditional love, but he was unconditionally cute and if he had lived 15 years, I would have taken care of him. Hammys don’t need much in terms of care. On the pet scale – they are pretty low maintenance.

Rest in peace little ham. He really did have the cutest little hamster face.

Not as simple as it looks

Just in case you haven't been paying attention. The big "Kohler" show is a  few weeks away.

You can read about it here and here.

As previously mentioned Kohler booth space is at a premium. My overpriced 8x10 booth will be "cozy" and because clothing takes up some space, so I've been brainstorming about how to maximize my space opportinity. I can't have any "stock" visible (no boxes or tubs) so I needed to figure out how to have extra stock artfully displayed.

I found some fun litte black wire cubes from http://www.robertham.com/. Supposedly they assemble and disassemble with ease.   Ease is apparently a subjective word.

2 hours and one rubber mallet later I was still assembling, along with a few choice curse words all while thinking there is no (insert choice curseword here) way I am taking these apart and putting them back together again.  My car is already going to be packed full but I'll make it work with assembled cubes if it kills me.

Two weeks and counting. Tick tock.

Updates to follow...

Stuff I like – Reinvented vinyl

If you are as old as me, ahem, then you remember records.

You know, albums.

Vinyl.

Those big monstrous looking black discs that played music on your parent’s stereo console with a diamond tipped record needle while you are your besties learned to disco dance in the rec room. The rec room that probably had shag carpet and wood paneling.

It’s all coming back now isn’t it?

I wish I could say that I still owned my albums. Thriller, Styx, Madonna, Saturday Night Fever, Journey, Fleetwood Mac and so on. But I am a purger by nature and my albums were long since purged at garage sales,  where they were probably acquired by someone like this artist  who does nifty things with old records. Upcycling I think they call it now…although it’s cooler than that. Trust me.

Reinvented Vinyl is my new favorite etsy shop. Hand to god. This artist takes old albums and magically reinvents them (hence the shop name) into fabulous purses. I know! So cool. You can also send her your favorite album and she will turn it into an fabulous purse.

So I did what any good girl would do. I bought four.  Three for Christmas gifts and one for me (because I deserve a present for doing all the Christmas shopping. You can read about my thoughts on Christmas here).

You might think the best part about shopping for these four purses was sending a check to the artist and receiving a big box of purses several weeks later on my front porch. Close.

But the real fun was the tripping down memory lane part of the purchase. The part where I covertly grilled my besties about their favorite record albums in hopes it could be created into some awesome piece of fashion nostalgia that doesn’t have “Made in China” stamped on the bottom. The part where I am renounced best gift giver ever come Christmas.

Win-win for everyone!

Buy unique. Buy handmade.