Are You My Target Audience?

When I first started selling my jewelry I didn't really think it would ever be something that I did full time. Even after completing my degree, it took a while for the reality to sink in. Jewelry. It's what I do. Somehow in five years it just crept up and became an all-encompassing part of my life.

The problem with starting a business so loosely is that there comes a time when you need to take a major step in order to optimize your time and energy spent branding, marketing, creating, and networking. The difficulty comes when you're not sure what that step is. Because my business has grown so organically over the past 5 years, it's hard to decipher exactly what I need to do next. I'm too close to it.

A friend of mine is starting up a new business (Stellar Sunshine Hoops) and I have a blast troubleshooting and coming up with ideas for her, but I can't always do that for myself. I really miss being at that stage where every step was a big one.

I mentioned earlier this week that one major project I have going on is my new website. It's finally much more in line with how I've always envisioned it but the research and development of it has led me to wonder about my focus. Up until now I've been sort of "throwing mud at a wall". Spread my work around and see who likes it, what sticks. This year has been especially experimental because I have so many new events going on and a lot of them have been complete failures.

What it comes down to is this. I have to finally ask the question "who is my target audience?" Who do I have something to say to? Who's life can I improve? Who's questions can I answer?

I need your help!

Why do you read my blog (or tweets, or facebook updates)?

What is it about me that interests you?

If you're a fan of my jewelry, why?

You can e-mail me your answers (robinmsills [@] gmail [.] com), or leave them in the comments. I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a minute to get back to me on this.

SA Sunday: Packing up, moving out

Packing up, moving out, originally uploaded by Soasa Designs.

I was going to show you a photo of my packed backpack for our trip, but all of my laundry is still wet, so my bag isn't packed. It's causing me a good deal of stress. Instead I'm going to spend the afternoon reading through some travel guides and packing up my suitcases to put in storage!

I've decided that I can't bear to leave my second BsAs hoop behind. It's my Project Spectrum hoop and it's perfect. I've doubled it up and hopefully it will travel home safely in my suitcase. Cross your fingers for me!

We are in the midst of refining our travel plans, and I have to admit I'm feeling some anxiety. I just feel like we don't have enough time! Maybe I set my heart on accomplishing too much. We're off bright and early Tuesday morning, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to take a deep breath and just let things roll forward. We'll get to what we get to, I suppose. It's going to fly by so fast! I'll try and keep you updated as things change!

On Getting Robbed in Argentina

Apparently it's a rite of passage. Apparently you have not lived in Argentina until you've been robbed. In that case, consider me initiated.

I was saving the first part of this story for a rainy day, so to speak, but after tonight's events I think I'll just spill. About a month ago I was bird watching with my South American Birds class, and we were sitting in a field on a nature reserve drinking mate when two young guys walked up to us, pulled out a gun, and robbed all 12 of us sitting there in the grass. I was pissed. It's a horrible feeling, to watch someone take something from you and know there's nothing you can do about it. We were by all logic absolutely safe. A large group of people, daylight, not carrying much, dressed in our grubs because we were sludging through mud. We were not flashy, we were not making a scene, but we still got robbed.

When someone puts a gun to your face your body sort of takes over (and if it doesn't, you should let it.) While in your head you obviously don't want this person taking your stuff, the fact that there's a gun in your face makes you give it up because honestly, it's probably not loaded and it might not even be real, but you've only got one brain, and you can buy another pair of binoculars. Until now I was able to find humor in the irony of our getting robbed, while in a nature reserve watching birds. It's humorous. It doesn't erase the fact that I'm jumpy as all hell as a result.

I have hardly left the house since then. Yes, I've been sick, but mostly I've been tired and afraid. I'm tired of jumping out of my skin every time someone looks at me funny or approaches me too quickly. I'm tired of clinging to my backpack, of leaving my camera at home, of exiting the ATM with my heart in my throat and my money in my bra.

This evening I went out for the first time in 5 weeks. I went to meet my friends at a jazz concert in a university. I walked 15 blocks down well lit avenues, didn't meet anyone's eye, just looked straight ahead. I had examined the map before I left so I would know where I was going. I had only a small purse, with the money I might need for the evening, a scarf, tissues and a cell phone (my new one, since the other was stolen.) I turned the final corner, off the main avenue, and I could see my friends standing outside the music hall. I walked past a young woman sitting on a step, and two steps later another woman stepped out in front of me and asked for money. I was late. I said "No, I'm sorry" and tried to pass. She stepped in front of me again and tried to grab my purse. I turned around to cross the street away from her and the other woman was behind me. They backed me into a corner and started grabbing at my purse again, yelling at me. One had her hand in her pocket. I gave them my money, $100 pesos. I gave them my Metro card with another $20 pesos in it. They tried to take my other cards but I showed them my student ID and said that was all I had. I insisted I still hadn't bought another cell phone since the last time I got robbed. I insisted I didn't have anything left. I was pissed. They were my size. I should have hit them. I should have refused to give them my money. I work hard for what I have, they don't deserve it any more than I do. Why should they have my money? Why should they be able to tell me what to do?

I crossed the street and joined my friends. I told them, through tears of embarrassment and frustration, what had happened. One told me that her profesora had been robbed on the same corner by two women, likely the same, and that when she refused to give them money they pulled knives on her. They told me I had done the right thing. They told me it was better to give up the money than to fight.

They have never been robbed. It's about dignity. It's about faith in human kind. It's about not being afraid to go to the grocery store, to cross the street, to leave the house. Why didn't I make a scene, draw attention to myself, try and scare them away? Why can't I defend myself? The fact of the matter is they have the power. It's easy to think what I might have done, now that it's over, but if you find yourself backed into a dark corner by two people desperate enough to rob someone in public, your instinct is to find the path of least resistance. If you're living in someone else's country, under someone else's laws, that means giving it up. They say getting robbed is a right of passage, that you've truly been here once you've experienced it. If this is how I'm supposed to feel living here, I want nothing of it.

My Unforgettable 21st Birthday...

(Click any photo to enlarge)


...was spent in Cabo Polonio, Uruguay, population 80 people, 90 diseased dogs, and thousands of fleas.

Above is a photo of our shack, and us waiting outside in the rain for the monster truck to come carry us away. (Little did we know that there wouldn't be another bus out for six and a half hours.)


(My bedroom)


(The shower...also the bathroom)

Cabo Polonio is first and foremost a beach town, and seeing as it was pretty much raining for the entire time, there wasn't much to do once we had visited the 6 little vendor stands and climbed the lighthouse (which is not called "casa de luz", just so you know for future reference). Below you'll find a view of the entire town...



We spent the better part of the trip sitting in the one open restaurant drinking wine and watching the waves and the rain. Really that's about all we did in the 18 hours we were there. The people (all three of them) in the restaurant were very nice, and we practiced lots of Spanish, sang some songs, and ate a couple meals there. The waiter even brought me some flan with a candle in it!



Somehow we slept in the icky beds in the icky house (it helped that there was no electricity so we could not see where we were sleeping) and the following morning (my real birthday) we woke up to a drippy roof, and that brings us back to the first photo of this post. We caught the monster truck (here's a shot of ours from when we first arrived) intending to catch the bus that should have come at 8:40am.



We got the the bus stop, it was pouring rain by then, and waited for a bit. No bus. Nikki and Alison went to ask when the bus would be coming and discovered that since it was raining there would only be one bus...at 3pm...
They asked to use the phone to call a cab to get us into a town. No minutes left on the phone...So they asked to buy a phone card from the little stand next door..."The kiosco won't be opening today because it's raining..."
Not taking no for an answer, but ready to kill someone, Alison found an old man to drive us into town in the back of his truck for UY$400 pesos. They assured us there would be more buses leaving from the terminal there in Castillos. Turns out the bus didn't leave there until 2:45...the same bus we would have caught. Fine, we say, we're in a town at least! Turns out Castillos has the highest suicide rate in Uruguay, because there's nothing to do there...
seriously.

Anyhow, we eventually made our way back to Montevideo, hooked up with the rest of our travel group and some new friends found in Punta del Diablo, and the new friends took us out for a fabulous Asado! It was a grand old party and we went out later and they sang me happy birthday in 6 languages!



Back to our familiar and comfortable hostel for the evening, and then we caught the Buquebus ferry home in the AM. Can you see how happy we are to be going home? It was a great trip, and I'd do it all again, but it certainly got a bit tense at times! For 9 people to head of on an adventure like that when half had only known one another for 24 hours is pretty crazy, but the fact that we all came home fabulous friends is a gift!

Argentina

Yes, so I realize that I've been mentioning this from time to time for several months now, but never formally introduced the big news!
ETA: Actually, I just read back through my posts and it looks like I never really did mention this, even though it's been consuming my life.

I will be studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina from the end of February through the end of July. It's an interruption from my regular course of study, but I'm going to take the opportunity to complete some credits towards a Spanish minor, as all of my courses will be taught in Spanish while I'm there. This is a wonderful (albeit terrifying) opportunity for me and I have to admit I'm freaked out. This is definitely bigger than anything I have ever done in my life!

Because I'm going to be away during the festival season, I am having a sale right now in order to give people a chance to do any shopping they might have wanted to do over the summer. From now until February 15th I will take 20% off of any order of two items or more, and shipping is free for all purchases! 11:59 on February 15th I will close my shop in order to prepare for my departure on 2/20.

This is a sneak peak, before I completely finish my uploads, and send out an e-mail to my mailing list, so if you see something you like you may want to snap it up now, because I won't be making more until next fall, and when I run out I run out!

The Burn Out

I feel a little bit like this. (This being my very first car, which spontaneously burst into flames one day on my way home from work.)

I HATE this time of year. I hate it because it is the most beautiful time to live in New England, and yet I spend so much time in a melted puddle of anxiety and fatigue that I can't appreciate it like everyone else can. I hate that I feel so disconnected, even though I know there are people who love my and think of me. I'm sleeping 8-10 hours a night, and I fell asleep for an hour in the library today. All I want to do is go home and sleep, even though I know that on top of my regular course reading and jewelry shows I have three tests and three papers and Salt and Pepper shakers to complete in the next two weeks. I think that all my determination to ignore this problem is going to have to bend, because I'm sick of being so unproductive and listless. I think it's time to go sit on a sofa and have a chat with someone.

Do other people struggle with seasonal depression (because I suspect that's what you'd call this)? Is anyone willing to share their experience, or what has worked for them?

It isn't stress....

And this post is not professional, it's just honest. Really this blog isn't professional, because if it was I'd never write in it because I'm a human being, not a corporation.

I'm extremely busy. Unforgivably so, I think, though there's no one to forgive but myself. I've taken on the roll of Fundraising Chair for the New Paltz chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and we've just purchased 15 spring break plane tickets to New Orleans. The total was a bit over $5000, which really isn't bad until you realize that I've just signed myself up to figure out how to fundraise some $6000 total by early February or else we're all going to get stuck with the bill. And 14 other people are depending on it.

This on top of a whole lot of school work that came up quite suddenly. (None of us, professors and students alike, quite realized it was midterm)

I love projects, and generally I'm thrilled to be busy and not have time to think about my emotions but this week they're creeping in when there's nothing I can do to stop them. I'd forgotten how it felt to be lonely, and now, surrounded by people ending relationships (seriously, 5 in the last week and a half) the reality of it is coming back pretty quick. On one hand I'm wishing I could lock myself away and not face it, cry a lot and mope about, but on the other I know that I'm too devoted to my life to stop doing what I love, and I would only hate myself more if I neglected myself.

What's getting me is the anxiety. Am I capable of another relationship any time in the near future? Will I ever stop being anxious about being capable of another relationship? Will my anxiety about being anxious about being capable of another relationship prevent me from being capable of another relationship and thus will I forever be anxious about my abilities? Is Caleb okay? Will I always be scared of men? Why do I care if Caleb's okay? Realistically I know that it will all be okay, but anxiety doesn't work that way, it doesn't follow logic, nor does it respond to it.

Where do you find energy in a time like this? How does one overcome anxiety without the meds? That's the point of this post. Not to angst and whine, I just genuinely need some advice.

My apologies, I have been remiss

But I have excuses!

Actually, just one really. I haven't posted in nearly a month because that's how long it's been since Musefest. Every time I think "I want to blog about this" I realize that I have not yet addressed Musefest, and as it was a big event for me I can't simply neglect it. But oh how I wish I would. In order to continue blogging I must simply clench my teeth and bear the pain for the moments it takes to write this.


Musefest. Absolutely disastrous, in my worst nightmares it couldn't have gone much worse. It started out fine, we arrived way earlier than necessary on Thursday, had the booth set up by about 5pm, and a ton of time to kill. No biggy, I made a ton of jewelry and the kids went exploring. The people were pleasant, the site was nice, and the rain we'd seen on our way in cleared away. I had high hopes, and we all went to bed with pleasant anticipation for what was to come.

We awoke to find that the electricity still wasn't hooked up, and we would be eating chips and salsa for breakfast. We were assured that the food vendors we were so counting on (as it turned out the site was much, much further from town than expected) would be electrically wired and cooking by 10. No problem. 2pm rolled around, no food, tummy's grumbling, and no fest folk had arrived. Music wouldn't be starting until 5pm, and everyone on site was hungry and grouchy. 5pm rolled around, the band went up, not so hot, and a few people trickled in. Drunk people.

After a long slow evening I began to realize my mistake. This was not a family fun festival as I'd been lead to believe, this was a chance for all the druggy kids of Ithaca to network, get high, and act like morons. There was no money to be made, and no ATM on site to facilitate spending. I resigned myself to a really slow weekend, hoping for $500 to cover my expenses and maybe enough profit to put towards another booth fee somewhere else. It was not to be. We stuck it out as long as we could Friday night, then went to sleep, arising relatively late in the morning to find there were still very few people around, and even less with any money. We were reassured that Saturday night would be a great night for vending because there would be more people, more families.

This too was not to be. It had been off and on cloudy and scorchingly hot all weekend, and around 8:30 that evening the clouds rolled in in earnest. The sky turned black, and beyond it was a pink glow I initially believed was the sunset, as the clouds were moving incredibly fast and I thought perhaps they were blowing right over. As that pink expanded and began to turn a muddy brown I reconsidered. Instantly the wind came up and I grabbed my tent, trying desperately to zip up the walls, screaming my head off for the kids. the rain hit like an anvil, coupled with the wind, ripping the walls from my hands. The kids ran up to help and we got three sides zipped, but couldn't see enough through the buckets of rain in our eyes to get the forth. I clung desperately, trying to hold the sides together as the sky turned a brilliant chartreuse green, and wind whipped through the tent, knocking all my carefully laid out displays to the muddy ground. Somehow in the hubbub my thumb had been sliced open, and as I fought with the wind, soaked to the bone, bleeding all over my nice white tent, all I could do was hope to got that a tornado didn't come ripping through. I didn't know what I'd do if the kids got hurt.



The storm died almost as quickly as it came up, and at 9:20 we stood calm, looking around at what was left of my jewelry. Not much. Earrings lay trampled in the mud, bent, broken, or simply gone. Everything was soaked through and we were all shaking with exhaustion and freezing cold. I have honestly never been more miserable. I called home and told them we were on our way, and we crammed all our stuff into my car, amazed we fit it all, and limped the four hours home, freezing cold and defeated.

Musefest was an incredible loss for me. Literally hundreds of dollars. I missed classes for it, spent all my free time preparing for it, and didn't make back my booth fee. One good thing did come from it and that is that the few things I did sell were designs I'd created specifically for the festival crowed, so at least I know those were spot on. There simply weren't enough people.



That is my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.