Things Need to Change Sometimes

Do you hate change?  Does change scare you?  Not me.  Not that much.  Maybe a little.

Change is only really an issue if you’re not prepared.  Actually, after a long time of doing the same thing over and over, you crave it.  Especially when you think doing the same thing repeatedly is somehow going to bring new results.  It’s frustrating to live that way.  So my advice: stop.  Stop going in circles.  Change your direction a little.  At least that’s what I’m trying to do.

Are you asking yourself yet, “what the hell is she talking about?” Well, simply put, I’m talking about me, myself, and my little business, Live Peculiar.  Remember me mentioning that a while back?  Yeah, it’s been moving and growing so. very. slow.  You see, I’ve been doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  So I’m gonna change direction here.

I have been trying to work and sell my silly little products for a while.  Every once in a while I get interest.  Glitter wineglasses are cute. Reverse canvases are interesting.  Decals?  Yeah I sell a few.

…

I know. It’s not that exciting and everyone else is doing it, too.  That’s my problem! I’m doing what everyone else is doing and selling.  So I decided to take a plunge.  I bought this adorable candle making kit.  100% all natural soy candles.  I gave it a go and I made some candles.  And do you know what happened?  I ordered more wax.  I tried different fragrances.  I fell in love.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love doing and making all of my little crafts.  And I will continue to do them and make stupid little things nobody will every really want.  It brings me joy.  I love that I can do all of these different things, but I think I may have found something that speaks to me.

I enjoy the whole candle-making process.  The rising temperature of the melting wax, the constant stirring of the fragrances as it integrates with the wax, and even the waiting for the wax to cool to the perfect pouring temperature.  My candles are not perfect in look and they might not be the coolest product you’ll see out there, but candles are fabulous, delicious-smelling products.

I enjoy making candles so much that I decided to try out a different kit from the same company in hopes I’ll fall in love with that, too: soap making.  I also found a kit from another company that specializes in bath bombs.  Are you catching on here?

Personal Care! Yes!

As a “big” woman and probably on the lower spectrum of attractiveness based on popular culture (just being honest), my self-esteem is pretty low, and self care kind of falls by the wayside.  I don’t mean I am going to or have let myself go.  I still bathe and put my makeup on every morning and I generally try to look nice day to day.  What I mean, rather, is that I don’t do extras.  I don’t fill up the bathtub for a soak.  I don’t light candles just because.  And I sure as hell never buy or use fancy smelling soaps or bath bombs.

But I want to.

I want to be fancy and I want to treat myself to these things.  I want to deserve these luxuries and maybe even find a way to love myself the way I am, no matter how long that may be.  After all, we are always changing!

I know, I know.  Get to the point, already!

I don’t know if my products will be successful, but I want to try!  I want to try change out for a while.  Maybe I can make another woman that feels a similar way to how I feel about myself, or a man, child, or whoever is in the same boat, feel they can love themselves enough to light a candle and take a bath with some lovely fragrances.

This link to follow will show you my Etsy page with what I have available right now, primarily my delicious-smelling, Eco-friendly, sustainable soy candles.  There’s other stuff, too, but I’m mostly here about the candles!

https://www.Etsy.com/shop/livepeculiar

Take care!
Cassandra

I Promise, I’m Not Sleeping on the Job.

If it’s not clear yet, I love to complain.  It’s a very human thing to do and sometimes it’s refreshing to relate.  Can you relate to feeling totally exhausted at times?  I know you can.

I’m so tired.  Like, all the time.

When I really think about it, I don’t necessarily see a reason for my exhaustion and constant sleepiness.  I don’t do labor intensive work, I’m not all that physically active, and I have a 9-5 desk job.  However, I use my brain a lot and I think it needs a moment to slow down.

Like I said, I work a 9-5 desk job.  I run a debit and credit card program for a credit union and I’m the one they call when there’s a problem, whether it be a card not working, a card was misplaced, there was unauthorized activity, etc. etc.  And on top of that I handle the majority of marketing, other miscellaneous things, and I’m training for the book keeping position.  Still, just a 9-5 desk job.

When I get home after work, I change my focus to one of the regular items on my everyday list: dinner, cleaning, entertaining, and so on.  Don’t get me wrong, I have a husband that is very helpful at home, but nobody likes to do dishes everyday.  If and when I finish those items, it’s on to other projects.

I’m working on growing and expanding http://www.LivePeculiarShop.com and attempting to create new things each week.  I’m also a full-time student trying so hard to get a Master’s Degree in Accounting.  Have you ever heard of a class called Advanced Auditing and Data Mining Technologies?  Neither have I until now.  But it’s still not advanced personal tax.  That class was interesting, but no thanks.

In addition to my daily work, I also have a family.  I’ve mentioned my lovely husband.  He reduces a ton of my daily work-load but also comes with his own as he develops and grows his own business at http://www.facebook.com/SuitablyAwesome/.  We also have two beautiful boxers and a part-time boxer.  They are cute.  But they are tiresome.

I wish the two on the right were still that small.  They’re not.

All things considered, I can see where my exhaustion lies.  However, I also assume the holidays got me feeling extra tired on top of this cold that I can’t seem to shake.  I had a handful of orders for the holidays and a lot of hand-made things for family and friends, as well.  I think I just really need to put my feet up, but just as soon as we get ourselves into the new year and expectations are lower.  They’re lower, right?

Now, here’s some cool stuff I made for Christmas gifts and/or orders!

Really this is all just a humble brag.  But at least you get to look at pictures.

Tipsy mermaid is a 15 oz stemless wineglass hand glittered and sealed with glittery scales and etched with inspiration from our favorite Disney Mermaid.

Hand-layered decal done with three colors of permanent adhesive vinyl, about 11″ long. This went on a 28 oz ceramic mug for secret Santa.

24″x24″ hand-painted and weathered scripture sign.

Back side of a custom requested Texas A&M shirt.

Custom-made shirt for my classy brother-in-law. Lettering and symbol is in gold heat transfer vinyl. The lighting is washing it out, but looked real nice on the BIL on Christmas Day.

A couple Etsy orders for personalized Galvanized tubs. I thickened the letters from what I usually do. It came out real nice.

Goose and Maverick, Top Gun inspired custom order. Father and son set.

Family tree done in a reverse canvas style. Frame is approximately 16″x20″. Frame was stained with an Ikea paint stain. This was done no a jersey blanket throw, as well.

Hand-painted scripture sign, approximately 7.5″ by 17″.

Custom-made Disney inspired shirts. Heat transfer vinyl on a cotton shirt.

Front side of a custom requested Texas A&M shirt.

Coloring shirt made for my niece. Heat transfer vinyl on cotton paired with ultra washable crayola markers. Color and wash, then color again!

Made a last minute shirt for my family Christmas party. Zentangle style deer with glitter ornaments hanging form his antlers. Heat transfer vinyl on cotton shirt.

Ladies version of the custom-made Disney inspired shirts. Heat transfer vinyl on a cotton shirt and glitter red for the bow.

Coloring shirt made for my niece. Heat transfer vinyl on cotton paired with ultra washable crayola markers. Color and wash, then color again!

Custom order for a family of ornaments. Inside is painted and names applied on the outside in glitter permanent vinyl.

Holographic permanent vinyl saying “baby it’s cold outside.” Where’d that pesky dot above the “i” go? This is on a 28 oz mug.

12×12 reverse canvas style wall art. Frame was stained using Ikea paint stain and the canvas is printed with glitter heat transfer vinyl.

Custom made t-shirt with purple heat transfer vinyl for the sister-in-law.

If you happened to make it to the very end, here, thank you.  I meant it when I said my brag is humble.  For every opportunity I have to hand-create something for another, it means a lot to me and to my little business.  I hope everybody’s Christmas or holiday season was wonderful and I wish everyone the happiest of New Year.

Ellipsis: What it is and how it’s used.

A huge pet-peeve of mine is the overuse of Ellipsis.  Especially because most of those that use it are not aware of what it is and how it’s used. 

Ellipsis…

With the following definition, no wonder so many don’t understand what it is and how to use it.

el·lip·sis
/əˈlipsis/
noun
noun: ellipsis; plural noun: ellipses
the omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues.
a set of dots indicating an ellipsis

For the purpose of this post, we will be talking about the punctuation.  Believe it or not, Wikipedia defines this in a much more understandable way:

An ellipsis (plural ellipses; from the Ancient Greek: ἔλλειψις, élleipsis, “omission” or “falling short“) is a series of dots (typically three, such as “…”) that usually indicates an intentional omission of a word, sentence, or whole section from a text without altering its original meaning.

This is how I best know the purpose of ellipsis.  In fact, I often use this when I’m writing academic papers and I knowingly omit words or a section from text.  For example, say I am quoting an author directly from their work and the original text read:

“Of the traits considered in sugarcane, sucrose content, fiber content, sugar yield, fiber yield and total biomass yield along with other important desirable morphological traits have received more attention,”

I may choose to omit parts of that very dense sentence and write:

“Of the traits considered in sugarcane, sucrose content…along with other important desirable morphological traits have received more attention.”

That […] stands in for that chunk of sentence that I intentionally removed from the sentence.  Notice how it does not remove the meaning from the sentence.  That’s a very correct use of the ellipsis.

According to Grammarly, there is a much more common, non-formal and non-academic way to use ellipsis.  It can be used to show pause or a trailing off from a sentence.  Grammarly provides the following examples:

Andrew, can you, um . . . never mind, I forgot what I was saying. So, do you think we should . . . ?

This, again, is also a correct use.

How are you using it?

First of all, let me apologize to those that are very guilty of this.  Know that I mean not to offend, but to educate.  The more we learn, the smarter we’ll become.  So with that said, how are you using those three little dots?  And what do others think when you use it?

I ask because this is a particular issue when having a conversation through writing, whether it be in a chat, an email, or texting.

Punctuation replacement

Possibly one of the worst abuses of ellipsis is as a punctuation replacement.  This means rather than periods or commas, you are using […] to indicate a stop or pause.  It looks something like the following:

Hey…how are you today…I need to go to the grocery store…I’m hungry for something sweet

It’s all wrong.  But it’s amazing how often I get messages formatted this way, casual or not.  The other frequently abusive use of ellipsis is simply as a way to end a sentence.  So assume I text my husband: I Love You!  Then he responds with: I Love You Too…  Tell me that you won’t look at that and wonder what he is implying or what he isn’t saying.  I know it’s not a big deal, but it drives me absolutely crazy!

Credit

https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/maturity-classification-of-sugarcane-emsaccharum-officinarumem-l-genotypes-grown-under-different-production-environments-of-ethiop-2329-8863-1000304-95334.html

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/ellipsis/

Five Star Ratings and Why I Truly Hate Them

If you’re like me, you work hard for peoples’ happiness and satisfaction – not just in business, but also in life.  So what does that mean for you when you get any less than a full five stars?

Sheer Panic

Honestly, I’m a people-pleaser and when my efforts aren’t appropriately reflected in my star rating, whether it be Etsy, Facebook, or what-have-you, I panic.  A million questions fill my mind: What did I do wrong?  Was I not polite enough?  Should I lower my prices?  As I panic and ponder, my vision begins to fade and all I can see is the bright swirling of stars in my face.  Why did I lose a star!?!

This is an exact quote from my Etsy page.  Sounds like a five-star review, right?  Wrong.

SELLER was terrific…you can tell customer service is important to her! The personalized bags were nicely done and are just a unique and perfect way to ‘wrap’ jewelry/gift cards/and other ‘smaller’ gift items for gift giving!

I sold this very kind lady three 4×6″ organza bags with personalized, heat-pressed vinyl lettering for a total of $1.35 plus shipping.  I was very excited for her because she wanted to use them to hold Holiday gift cards.  I thought it was such a fabulous idea!  The whole transaction went smoothly.  She asked questions, I answered promptly, and she seemed so pleased.  When she received the product, she again contacted me with questions.  She wanted to know why this name, , appeared to have an “e” between the “r” and the “a.”  I understood where she was coming from and politely informed her it was the font.  Without argument or judgment, I offered to completely redo the one, sent her alternate font options, and told her it would be in the mail next day.  She seemed so pleased with my offer and politely declined.  She said she’d happily use the bag and now saw how the font added the little loop.  Yet, I got this:

I’m still cringing at the rating.  There was no reasonable explanation as to why I lost a whole star.  Especially because my Etsy account is fresh, this could make or break my start-out.  As silly as it sounds, it hurts all around and I will think about this for quite some time.

Does Anybody Really Care?

Well, do you care?  About the star rating, that is.  I want to say that I don’t care, but it means more than you or I think, and frankly, it’s stupid.

As you can see in this image, there is a vague understanding of the five-star rating system.  Pretty much if you have anything below four stars, you’re crap.  For online stores like Etsy, you only get full stars.  So right now I think I only have 4 reviews.  That’s how new I am at selling.  I do have an “average” rating of five stars, but if those that don’t understand what only four stars or three stars mean, I could lose my “Excellent” average and be royally screwed at selling on Etsy again.  Facebook is a little different because you have the option to hide your reviews.

So is the above correct or is the below correct?  Why is the star system so complicated!  Do you like it or not?!  Maybe the below is more likely.  At least at three stars the person “liked it.”  Also, why do you even have to give a star?  If you hate something, why does that review deserve any stars?

What Really Matters When You Shop

I only partly take Amazon star ratings into account when I’m shopping.  What I actually do when I’m deciding on Amazon purchases is to read the reviews.  Star ratings with no words mean nothing to me.  I start with the one-star reviews.  I read why they chose a one star.  Then I move on to two stars.  Why did they choose only two?  Then I move on to three stars and so on.

The things people have to say about a product is what makes the difference.  I will use the Kitchenaid Classic stand mixer on Amazon as an example.  The product has a 4.5-star rating.  So by the chart above, it is “Excellent.”  This does not mean there are no reviews at one single star.

In case you cannot see the words, it is titled “Don’t wast your money.”  It then reads:

“Mixer is 6 months old.  Used once weekly for light duty mixing (cake batter).  Mixer started making strange noises.  Kitchen Aid support said it sounded normal.  Then squeaking started.  Opened machine to find screw loose.  Apparently, this is a common problem.  I am unable to open the housing to get to the screw to tighten.  The product is junk.”

So when I read this, I like to take into account major points.  It’s six months old, it was used for light duty, called support before the squeaking started, found a loose screw, couldn’t tighten it.  Junk.

First of all, I have a Kitchenaid Mixer and I absolutely love it, so it probably wasn’t the best example.  So, in this case, I will be objective. Simply, I do not believe based on the issue it is immediately to be considered “junk.”  Therefore, I wouldn’t stop at this single review.  I would keep reading and reading and would basically end up deciding yes or no based on these types of key points.

Here’s another great example why the star rating is stupid.  This review had four stars and the author of the review had to start out and explain exactly why.

The reason my Kitchenaid did not get Five stars is not because it didn’t do a good job, but because of incomplete instructions. On my first usage so far, after washing the bowl and beaters. I proceeded to mix homemade yeast bread. Upon removing dough from bowl there was some gray streaks in the dough. At their web site after trouble shooting it stated that a polishing material is used on stainless steel and prevents no danger but to rub this material wash bowl with salt and lemon or scrub with baking soda. It would really have been nice if that had been stated in the instruction booklet.

Thank you to the author for clarifying, but, with such precious meaning to each level of star power, I would not take a star off for the included instructions being vague.  Thank goodness we are in the day and age with the internet and this shouldn’t be a real complaint anymore.  But it is.  And I do respect that.  I will, however, continue to love my espresso professional level Kitchenaid stand mixer and love it forever.  Becuase that thing will live forever.

Take Away the Stars!

I honestly would be happy not seeing stars.  I like when I go to take a survey and there’s the 1-10 and it tells you what each means.  It’s still not that great, but I like it.  In fact, I would give it four stars.  My point is, I want the stars to go away and to replace it with honesty.  Write reviews for days!  Make lazy people read for once to find out what others thought of a product.  Stop ruining good peoples’ days for stupid star averages.