Social Media Manic

A year ago I had no understanding of social networking nor would I have ever imaged I would become so involved in it. Selling online has opened up a whole new world to me. Over the last few months I have overloaded myself with all the outlets available to me. I have made some new twitter buddies, have more blog followers and within a period of two weeks can boast 50 Fan page followers. I have discovered that the internet is a treasure trove of opportunities to get my little shop noticed. It's a beautiful thing and easy to do. So, I certainly wouldn't want to complain. However, I am having an awful time keeping up with it all. Between, the three Etsy teams, twitter, FB, LinkedIn, blogging and who knows how many handmade sites I've joined, it's been difficult responding and posting to all of them. Especially since I have, what I like to call, "menopause retardation", definition: the inability to concentrate, multitask or walk and chew gum simultaneously. (Some days I have trouble with just the walking part.)


So, this week my computer decided it was also overloaded and started making a noise like a jet engine ready to take flight! Turns out it just needed a new fan, but it still took a couple days to get it fixed. Needless to say, I totally missed my follow friday posts and couldn't list my new creations in the shop! I get a bit paranoid that if I am missing from my social network for more than a few hours, I will be forgotten and all my efforts would have been for nothing. You wouldn't forget me, right?

After going through days of withdrawal, (Hello, my name is Jodi, I am a twitter addict!) I finally am back up and running. Imagine my horror when I discovered I had no new shop hearts, no sales, and only five new twitter followers! Bitches didn't even notice I was gone! I did however, have at least 35 emails from team members replying to forum posts. I have to figure out how to fix that, so I don't get every single person's response to a post, oh my!

Anyway, I am now done stressing and realize that I cannot twitter and Facebook 24/7. I have calmed down and accepted that I will post when I can (I refuse to use a twitterbot) and hope for the best. I am also—and this is advice to anyone starting in social media, keeping a notebook with websites, user names and passwords which alleviates some confusion and helps me on my way to internet organization and success. Could be a long road, but I'm giving it my best effort, even if it is accomplished through a menopause fog!

Thank you to all my followers, fans and wonderful customers—you are greatly appreciated!

Much Love—Jodi

I'm Not Crazy ... Really!

I started thinking about fears and phobias the other day and I thought well, I'm afraid of a few things, but everyone is, right? After giving it some more thought and adding up all my strange aversions, I realize perhaps I have a few more than everyone else. The first one, which a lot of people have, is the fear of snakes. I hate snakes! I really can't even look at them in photos. They're just slimy and creepy crawly and just skeeve me out. I went to the zoo one time and they had a reptile center. I knew it was a bad idea for me to go in that little building but I thought I would brave it out. I was on a date and didn't want him to know I was afraid. I walked unknowingly right into the snake room! As soon as I realized all the aquariums were filled with snakes I literally ran out of the room, shaking and screaming like I was having a seizure or something. My date and everyone else around, thought that was just hysterical. Yeah funny, ha, ha!

I also have a fear of tight spaces and heights. When hubby and I were in Vegas, we stayed at the Stratosphere—it's the tallest building in Vegas. Up at the top, they have windows that you lean over and look down at the city. I could not look out over. I was inching towards it like I was on a tightrope. Hubby kept laughing saying "you're not gonna fall out" But all I kept imagining was the glass would break as I was leaning on it and I would fall 1149ft to my death. (that's how tall the building is, I looked it up) Hey, I don't know if they have those windows secure enough to hold a big girl like me!

I went to a picnic a couple of weeks ago, and was so happy to discover that a friend of mine has a phobia just like me. We hate feet! I can deal with baby feet, but adult feet are disgusting. Hubby knows his tootsies better stay on HIS side of the bed. God forbid he should actually touch me with those things, uh, so gross! He tries to do it sometimes to tease me—first I start screaming like a little girl and then I get mad. I think I have this aversion to feet because when I was a kid my mother always wanted us to rub her feet (she was a needy woman) and the thought of it would make me sick to my stomach. I won't go into detail on the "mother" issue—that will just bring up a whole new array of neurotic behaviors. I'll save that for another post—perhaps there's a book in my future.

My last and final fear, (at least the last one I'm willing to reveal) is those damn barriers on the highway. I guess they call them cattleshoots. OMG, they scare the crap out of me! Actually they only scare me when someone else is driving. I'm fine when I'm doing the driving—I'm guessing it's a control thing. All I can think of the whole time is that we are going to hit the barrier and FLY up in the air and flip the car and end up on the other side of the highway! It's ridiculous, I know, but as soon as I see the construction signs that say narrowing lanes, I start to feel the panic rise up in my chest and I literally stop breathing and get hysterical until we get through it. If the construction goes on for miles, I will go from laughing to almost crying to any emotion in between. Hubby, of course, just laughs at me the entire time—no compassion at all.

So, when I started to write this post, I thought I would be sharing normal fears. I'm thinking maybe a trip to the doctor might be in order here. Can anyone say "Prozac"

Much Love—Jodi

It Happened in Vegas ...

The last few weeks my posts have been interesting, but in my opinion, not very entertaining. So I thought I would change it up a bit and relay a story from a few years back. Back to a time when Hubby and I were fortunate enough to be able to go on a vacation. So this is one of the stories from our Vegas vacation about six years ago. Now we are not the type of vacationers that go to the regular places everyone else does. We like to venture out on our own and find interesting and different things to see. On one of these adventurous days we traveled out to the desert and saw really cool rock formations, visited out-of-the-way casinos, and ventured up the hills to take snapshots of the sunset. Needless to say, we didn't stop to eat all day, and by the time we headed back we were starving.

Up to this point we were driving everywhere, so hubby was keeping his alcohol consumption to a minimum. On the way back he decides he is going to buy a bottle of alcohol and tonight we will be taking the bus down the strip instead of driving. He can then drink on the bus and not have to buy drinks in the casino's. So, he buys a bottle of Captain Morgan, Coke and one of those water bottles with the straw in it. (that should have been my first clue) We head back to the room to shower and get ready, catch the bus, eat and walk the strip. By the time we get to the bus stop it is now probably 10:00 pm. We still have not eaten. We get on the bus, he's gulping his Gallon 'O Captain the entire bus ride. Finally we decide to get off outside of Caesar's. Everything looks within walking distance from here, right? If you have ever been to Vegas you realize very quickly that everything looks like it is only about a block away, in actuality it's more like miles!! So we head into the first casino looking for a place to eat. I thought Vegas was open 24/7. Apparently that's just the Casino's and strip clubs because the restaurants were not! As we venture down the strip, and by the way, hubby is getting drunker by the mile—we can't find any place to eat. There's a Subway, a McDonald's, but I wanted to sit down and relax and eat something decent! So we continue to walk.

Up and down the strip there are little Mexican dudes handing out cards with photos of half naked women and 1-900 numbers to call. Hubby starts collecting them. He now has a fistful of these damn cards and proceeds to ask the unsuspecting crowd of people walking along side of us, if they would like to trade. "I'll give you a Tammy for a Jennifer, oh no, I only have one Jennifer, how about a Nikki instead, I have a couple of her". Everyone had a sense of humor about this, but I was getting irritated. If I haven't eaten for a while, I get a tremendous migraine. We FINALLY—after miles of walking and what felt like hours of time—are in front of the MGM grand which is more or less at the beginning of the strip and I am having a conniption! I now have a whopper of a headache! Hubby, of course is now plastered and no longer hungry, so he could care less about eating. I'm bitching about needing something to eat and this dumbass says, in his best slurry voice "Why are you getting so upset, I don't understand what the big deal is?" Now imagine two fat people standing in the middle of the strip (we were crossing the street when he decided to open his big mouth) and I screamed "CAUSE I'M FUCKING HUNGRY, THAT'S THE BIG FUCKING DEAL!!!!" I looked like the girl in the exorcist. If I could have spun my head or spewed green gunk at his face, I'm sure I would have! I totally expected someone riding by to holler out "Honey, I think you could miss a meal"

After his laughter and more of my ranting, we managed to find a place to eat at New York, New York. Since that trip, hubby now knows that when I say I'm hungry, I sure as hell mean it!!

Much Love to you—Jodi