The winter of 2010 is almost over! I can't wait for Spring. I have already been buying seed for our veggie garden. I am very excited to try satisfying our veggie and fruit needs mostly through gardening. Even contemplating getting some goats and sheep for milk for cheese and weed control on the farm!
Still working on R & D. Finally getting out fused glass jewelry with cat motifs. Now that my kittens are getting big I am understanding cats more ... there is no understanding! They are from a different planet! They are so different than dogs. The opposite really. But I love them and am glad to add cats to my icon themes fused in glass.
I have been also adding new designs to my magnetic jewelry line at Vital Wonders. Some great new magnetic chokers and necklaces along with new styles of magnetic bracelets.
Any guesses about 2010? It is up in the air! The holiday season that just passed was a bust for me. But business has picked up a bit since turning 2010. I know I would love to buy something personally. But the credit card companies are in full tilt on cheating more money out of us. They are getting more and more creative! No one will spend money if they feel it is real bad ahead. Whenever things let up a bit, people start spending again.
In 2009 the thing I spent the most money on was fines. The second thing I spent my money on was being ripped off by other people or businesses financial failings. It is like a mad joke. There is no way to recover. You can't win a fixed game. It is almost impossible to get by. You can't help others or even care when you are sinking yourself. Where has humanity gone? Good luck to everyone in 2010.
My thoughts: stop buying Chinese, start a garden, buy organic, drink lots of clean water, eat fruit, stay away from fast food; find the love in cooking that has kept people involved and challenged since we discovered fire. You are what you eat. You also are mostly what you drink. Buy green. Buy American.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Who Shot the American Dream?
I don't think that much of this recovery has hit anybody's pocketbook yet. I believe this down marketplace might rebound this Holiday Season somewhat for the big retailers where people can get the most for their money. It would be out of necessity to shop that way to be able to even have a Holiday for the family.
The discount stores should do well. I was in a busy Ross Store yesterday and noticed many people shopping that were in a higher financial bracket than usual. I love Ross Stores. I spend hours in the back with the housewares collections. If it is hand carved and beaded and I don't know WHAT it is; I have to buy it. Ross Stores has what Pier One has but cheap, but better than Hobby Lobby's great collection of imported stuff.
And I like to buy imports from under deveolped countries with workmanship. I just like the choice. Prices are high and the quality of Chinese imports isn't just very low, they are poisoning us daily. There is no amount of saving cash worth bringing in leaded, melamined, drug laced goods from China. Hasn't anyone thought about their rabbit fur trims, so stylish and cheap. Looks just like my angora kittie to me. We send our chicken to China to be cut-up? To a country with contagious bird disease? How do we know what we are getting back? What is chicken nowadays? I think we send them our chickens but are getting back some sick kind of replacement flesh. There is something very wrong here.
I do not feel that the small merchant in general will be doing well this Holiday season. People will spend to hide from the fact that everyone isn't only worried about their futures but many are losing hope for any kind of future to be proud of. Driven to swallowing our pride and shopping discount and generic. Not much room for the small independent merchant and artist/crafters. Meanwhile after receiving all that bailout monies the banks/credit card companies took our credit from us, after hooking us with their constant begging us to borrow, now basically calling in loans and constantly changing their agreements. Don't you love 'we are changing our policy...' That is why shopping is down, the credit card companies want their money now, before any real crackdowns are initiated to curb them. Beefing up their personal accounts - I want to be king of the world! What is the rush all of a sudden? Am I the only one feeling the heavy breath of the credit card shylocks?
Plus forcing people to repay loans quickly and hitting everyone with their fines at the bottom of the economic swing forces people to sell themselves short of everything it took a lifetime to accumulate; sell during a down market, lose their special holdings: metals and coins, jewelry, collector cars, personal belongings, memories. What a fantastic plan to destroy hope and recovery for all but the corporate leeches. Attack of the Giant Leeches - a great B movie but a bad economic prediction. Hath they no shame?
They say people are taking advantage of the corporations with their frivolous lawsuits. Sick lazy bad people who were stupid enough to let themselves become victims? Aren't those the victims responsible for spoiling the whole country? But who is placing the lawsuit ads for the generalized call to anonymous victims? Who is causing the 'frivolous lawsuits' to happen? Who plagues us with tv ads to sue? Well, who makes all the money from lawsuits? Not the average joes. Bottom feeding greedy assed ambulance chasing lawyers! That is who! Why are victims demonized? Who turned that around? You must beware of a society that demonizes the weak; eats and spits out the young and elderly; separating and preying upon the poor, the homeless, the uneducated as something less than human - all the meantime praising the Lord in very showy ways; for the love of money, luck of birth, hording, judging elitists - just like Jesus taught. (must be a different Jesus than I learned about)
The discount stores should do well. I was in a busy Ross Store yesterday and noticed many people shopping that were in a higher financial bracket than usual. I love Ross Stores. I spend hours in the back with the housewares collections. If it is hand carved and beaded and I don't know WHAT it is; I have to buy it. Ross Stores has what Pier One has but cheap, but better than Hobby Lobby's great collection of imported stuff.
I would like to buy American goods but I can't find any.
And I like to buy imports from under deveolped countries with workmanship. I just like the choice. Prices are high and the quality of Chinese imports isn't just very low, they are poisoning us daily. There is no amount of saving cash worth bringing in leaded, melamined, drug laced goods from China. Hasn't anyone thought about their rabbit fur trims, so stylish and cheap. Looks just like my angora kittie to me. We send our chicken to China to be cut-up? To a country with contagious bird disease? How do we know what we are getting back? What is chicken nowadays? I think we send them our chickens but are getting back some sick kind of replacement flesh. There is something very wrong here.
I do not feel that the small merchant in general will be doing well this Holiday season. People will spend to hide from the fact that everyone isn't only worried about their futures but many are losing hope for any kind of future to be proud of. Driven to swallowing our pride and shopping discount and generic. Not much room for the small independent merchant and artist/crafters. Meanwhile after receiving all that bailout monies the banks/credit card companies took our credit from us, after hooking us with their constant begging us to borrow, now basically calling in loans and constantly changing their agreements. Don't you love 'we are changing our policy...' That is why shopping is down, the credit card companies want their money now, before any real crackdowns are initiated to curb them. Beefing up their personal accounts - I want to be king of the world! What is the rush all of a sudden? Am I the only one feeling the heavy breath of the credit card shylocks?
Example: I had to cancel a wholesale order because citibank lowered my credit to my balance. (That reverberates to your credit rating, because now you owe all your balance and that don't sit well with credit ratings.) I had to write the wholesale company explaining my inability to place the order. They kindly wrote back stating they understand; amex just did it to them. Do you see the snowballing implications?
Plus forcing people to repay loans quickly and hitting everyone with their fines at the bottom of the economic swing forces people to sell themselves short of everything it took a lifetime to accumulate; sell during a down market, lose their special holdings: metals and coins, jewelry, collector cars, personal belongings, memories. What a fantastic plan to destroy hope and recovery for all but the corporate leeches. Attack of the Giant Leeches - a great B movie but a bad economic prediction. Hath they no shame?
Pychologically it is an underdeveloped immature willful child that sees only themselves, wants it all, making the rules to benefit themselves while developing a punishment conglomerate to strictly punish and financially burden unfortunates with heavy fines - necessitating the whole lawyer scam.
They say people are taking advantage of the corporations with their frivolous lawsuits. Sick lazy bad people who were stupid enough to let themselves become victims? Aren't those the victims responsible for spoiling the whole country? But who is placing the lawsuit ads for the generalized call to anonymous victims? Who is causing the 'frivolous lawsuits' to happen? Who plagues us with tv ads to sue? Well, who makes all the money from lawsuits? Not the average joes. Bottom feeding greedy assed ambulance chasing lawyers! That is who! Why are victims demonized? Who turned that around? You must beware of a society that demonizes the weak; eats and spits out the young and elderly; separating and preying upon the poor, the homeless, the uneducated as something less than human - all the meantime praising the Lord in very showy ways; for the love of money, luck of birth, hording, judging elitists - just like Jesus taught. (must be a different Jesus than I learned about)
Who shot the American Dream? Where's the buying power to keep the ball rolling with lowered credit limits, no work, salaries dropping, health costs wiping you out whether you pay for insurance or pay out-of-pocket for every problem.
Finally, we need imports as much as we need foreign workers.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sponge in a soap bar anyone?
Christmas; to be or not to be. That is the question. It is anyone's guess. I think most everyone has cut back on their shopping for over a year now and maybe we are all used to spending less now. And appreciating what we have more now. Will the dam break this Holiday? Will people be sick of holding back, tired of making excuses to everyone for being tight, making this Holiday an exception or are people doing better financially than before? In one month we will see. I got a small flurry of orders lately only to find out my merchants services had shut down my payment gateway with no word to me. Protecting me from Nigerian card runners. For over a month. I fired Power Pay for their lack of any reasoning and business ethics what-so-ever. You would think that Authorize.Net would care about the companies representing them. Authorize.Net shut my gateway down for 20 minutes. They didn't forget to turn me back on! They sent me e-mails. Power Pay and Christopher Swift -by NO MEANS swift - the disappearing agent, are even crappy at being crooks. Enough said. I am now without merchant services the month before the Holidays. They are all crooks in the credit card processing merchant services and agents field. This was my 4th company? One crook after another. First American Hurst took total advantage of me for years from day one gauging the price of my out-dated machinery, billed every other month SOMETIMES; keeping it very hard to keep track of, never had me down as the right kind of merchant business and kept billing me after I TRIED to fire him over and over again. He took money for 6 months after I tried to cut business with him. If he had no answer for his mistakes he just hung up. Then the con artist Jennifer Mendoza representing Trans First in Denver. She was such a rip off they let me go with out too much hassle. She reprogrammed my credit card machine and it never worked correctly after that. They billed me at higher rates because of the machine foul up. She never hooked me up with the correct gateway for the machines and never produced promised online gateway and put my expensive machine down for good. She pulled a big amount of money out of my business account months later but the banker at WaMu had to put it back because he set me up with her and she just plum disappeared. But today I do not want to dwell on the unregulated merchant service resellers. May the government crack down on that industry soon.
I am very excited to be planning some great new fashion ideas. They are so hot I can't talk about them until they are actually released. But I am predicting garnishing will be in. Why buy a new outfit when you can add decorative accoutrements making any old outfit hip and new. Much more coming soon!
Have a wonderful shopping season but remember, it is the thought and gesture that counts - more than ever. Spend wisely.
Do check out for magnetic jewelry and great assorted gifts for the Holidays - luxury bathing soaps, sea sponges, unique soap/sponge combo bar, loofahs, body brushes and tons more; hip Over-the-Knee socks, knee highs and crews; cool unique jewelry, dichroic glass gifts and more.
For Colorado MMJ Registry card holders: come join Western Colorado's MMJ Community. Visit new website www.mmjcoloradolist.com for all the info you need for signing up and finding Care Givers and Dispensaries on the Western Slope.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Vital Wonders Online Boutique Up for the Holidays Offering
Molten Ice Dichroic & Blast Glass Jewelry
Gift Ideas Offered through new Vital Wonders Online Boutique.
Have People that are hard to buy gifts for? Someone who has most everything?
Someone you already bought everything you can think of for?
Someone who is stressful to buy for?
Check out new Vital Wonders Online Boutique.
Someone you already bought everything you can think of for?
Someone who is stressful to buy for?
Check out new Vital Wonders Online Boutique.
Vital Wonders has branched out for the Holiday season with great gift offerings including fabulous Dichroic Glass Gifts from www.iluvjewelry.com. At www.vitalwonders.com under the category GIFTS there is a great new shopping area. Vital Wonders is offering a fabulous line of luxury bathing products, hip sexy over-the-knee socks, dichroic glass belt buckles, dichroic bottle stoppers, flamework beaded key chains and zipper pulls and imaginative dichroic fused glass jewelry - perfect for gifts.
Highlights:
Florida's deluxe sea sponges; 90% of the world's sea sponges come from off the Florida keys in the Gulf of Mexico. The sheep's wool and yellow sea sponges harvested here are the most sought after sponges in the world. We have the premium Rock Island sheep's wool sponges, the best sheep's wool sponges anywhere, soft, silky durable-can last over 10 years; high quality yellow sea sponges, for a more vigorous exfoliation, can last over 5 years; small soft silk sponges for cosmetic uses; and cut-ups of sheep's wool and yellow sponges for personal use and great for hobbies and painting projects.
Soapylicious - Vital Wonders own line of natural soaps, the highest quality ingredients with incredibly seductive scents; Alchemy Soap line from Simply Soap, soap bars using ancient formulas for soaps with incredible qualities; and the must-have unique Sponge-in-a- Soap, natural goat's milk soap bar with a sea sponge inside in fabulously refreshing scents. Total Luxury. Also highlighting Men's high quality German Boar Bristle Shaving Brushes, Nail brushes, facial brushes, wooden soap dishes and loofahs.
Rockn'Socks, a hip green company using regenerated cloth, has a great line of crew, knee and the over-the-knee socks in stripes and patterns. We are offering these great socks at Vital Wonders Online Boutique.
Dichroic glass gifts are also for sale from Molten Ice Dichroic and Blast Glass Jewelry; featuring dichroic glass wine bottle stoppers, keychains, zipper pulls, belt buckles and jewelry. Great gift for someone who has everything.
Vital Wonders Online Boutique is also offering handmade HIP purses, sweet purse bags which hang on the hips leaving your hands free.
Italian Sterling Silver chains, wire chokers, leather cords, silk ties, ribbons and more are here for your selection for whatever needs you have.
Lastly Vital Wonders has a Online Bazaar featuring great buys on imported beaded bracelets, necklaces, medicine bags and more for sale at low low prices - great for stocking gifts. Many gifts under $10.00.
Please come check out Vital Wonders NEW Online Boutique for all your shopping and Holiday needs.
New information site for Western Colorado Patients: MMJ card holders - check out new MMJ info site for all questions - www.mmjcoloradolist.com - discover and join the MMJ Community Forum.
Please have safe and wonderful Holidays.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Jewelry Design Dos and SEO Don'ts
The crop is off and time to close everything down for the winter; the long last watering to fill the soil profile, draining all tanks and irrigation lines, getting all the netting off and stored away. Then it is time for the farm to rest.
What a great time for thinking of new ideas, rethinking old ideas and developing breakthrough methods. I plan on studying the fashion crazes and vow to keep up! I plan on getting my sterling/fine silver pieces online and showing off my great hoop earrings and chandelier earrings. I have some great surprises coming in rings and barrettes and things. I am working on jeweled bibs that will be both stunning showstoppers, one-of-a-kind must haves.
My web sites are moving up in the search engines and I am hoping for a good holiday season. The SEO work has been challenging especially walking the tightrope of optimizing without ever crossing the line of no return. It is frightening!
Vital Wonders Magnetic Jewelry has a great new navigational design that is consumer friendly. I added a new top section grid of pictured categories on my Storefront/Home page and a new page Product List of pictured listed products. My dichroic glass jewelry site www.iluvjewelry.com has many new pieces I have been making during August and September 2009. I have been experimenting with melting in the wire bails in the dichroic glass pieces and will be trying fine silver wire and sterling silver bezels. I have a Cats & Kittens Line coming in 22K gold decals melted into my glass pieces which will be celebrating the summer '09 of finding our 4 feral kittens my son and I raised.
The summer of 2009 was different; I started my boutique and enjoyed developing it until the leading organization folded and took our whole mall down; finding and raising the very young kittens; starting up chickens again and even trying cornish hens; learning html and building my sites; harvesting late season wine grapes and eating my son John's homemade pizzas.
What a great summer in all!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Harvest is done! Best Cabernet Sauvignon ever.
Well, harvest went with the usual quirks, glitches and I can't believe its! This was the longest I ever let the grapes hang, but the buyer wanted them sweet [to sweeten up his other sour grapes everyone else reaps] and they went through a frost and -wow- what a treat. I think there are gold metal prizes in the future for Woody Creek Cellars; remember - 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon. It should be special.
The cabs were gorgeous. Slightly wained bringing out the sweetness and complexities. After cold nights and hot days; after an early frost. They were very special this year. I had almost no Merlot this year and very little Cabernet Franc. There was no Chardonnay, Gamay and the Zin went too far and were pretty shot. Letting the grapes hang past 24 brix is harder than it sounds. It is up to the buyer what their needs are, but hanging past their apex is great for sugar but plays havoc with the ph and acid levels. But DiJulio vineyard never has had sugar problems, so I can see the need to sweeten the sour grapes coming in behind us. No offense other local growers, but I am seeing many incredible breaches of growing; watering late, spraying late, struggling with low sugars, pushing young vines with nitrogen, pushing for early crops instead of root growth. My vines have the maturity of over 35 years and I have been tending them for over 25 years now. I think experience speaks and so do the varieties I luckily have.
Well we will see what Woody Creek Cellars develops from my grapes; it is too bad they can no longer make wine from just my grapes, but I can understand upping the quality of the local harvests and the need to blend mine in with the others. My harvests have been too small lately, dealing with frost damage and die backs. Next year should be great if nature allows. My Merlot will be in and I will be dong a new pruning technique since my beautiful vines died to the ground a few years ago from a hard frost. But new growth is always positive and it gives a chance to reflect and try new ideas. Here's to resting this Winter and starting fresh in the Spring with new ideas to sow. Happy hibernation everyone.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Wine Grape Harvest | Woody Creek Cellars | Stylehive | Page ONE in Google
Harvest is almost here for my vineyard, DiJulio Vineyard in Palisade, CO. I am glad Woody Creek Cellars is buying my grapes this year as I feel Kevin Doyle is making some of the finest wines in Colorado, if not the country. His winery is in picturesque Cedaredge, CO. in an old packing huge shed; big enough for all the wine barrels, equipment, stock, tasting room and best of all, a great bocce ball court - inside! I had Kevin's cabernet sauvignon and merlot last Christmas and the wine was fabulous; clearly fruity, rich yet refreshing with a good dry self-pleasing end adding to the innate ability to let you easily finish the whole bottle. My wine-loving daughter and I were very impressed with how Kevin's wine-making abilities keep developing and producing great results. Call (970) 835-3714.
I joined Stylehive! Stylehive is a sweetly self-loving site for connecting fashion aficionados. Anyone can join and start a 'hive' and start collecting looks, designers, companies and other hivers. It is a great way to keep current with the fashion trends and the absolute beauty of haute couture clothes, photography, modeling, shoes, accessories, clothes, night wear and underwear, purses, and shoes again,and more purses and more shoes... and tons of fun stuff about discovering interesting vibrant people and businesses. My hope is to collect classic, retro, and fashion-forward looks to cross reference to my jewelry lines and how my individual pieces fit in. As I learn what's hot I will be continually redesigning and developing my jewelry designs. I am thrilled about all the excitement at Stylehive and invite all fashion lovers to join into the fray.
Winter is coming and I am looking forward to spending the R & D time developing new out-of-the-box ideas in designing and learning more and more html so I can keep jazzing up my sites www.vitalwonders.com for therapeutic magnetic jewelry and www.iluvjewelry.com for my dichroic and sterling silver jewelry lines.
I am running a contest with my myself to get it right in the SEO department for my sites. I am shooting for page one in Google by the end of the year, on the organic left side of listings - for both sites; but will celebrate either one's success - big time. I believe it will be Beef Wellington for two, for myself if I am alone, when that day comes.
I am starting a review section in my blog reviewing Grand Junction area businesses.
Keep tuned. It won't be pretty.
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