Social media

It is amazing how many people think that Facebook is a place where someone else will help them with everything, especially if they are in a group.

I belong to a number of groups on Facebook and have seen some very interesting questions that people have asked. Here are some of the questions that I have seen and some of my thoughts about them:

1. I’m in desperate need of a new project, haven’t crocheted in months! What’s everyone working on?

I immediately see this and think you belong to a group that shows projects that people are working on so why do you have to ask to see things, just scroll down the page, and you will see a lot of projects that are just finished or are being worked on currently.

2. Are there any patterns that would be considered beachy? I searched the site and didn’t see any.

What site are you looking at because this is a Facebook group, but you really didn’t give us enough information? This is something that I have seen very often when someone mentions that they have checked the site, but they don’t say the site they have looked at.

3. Where can I find free patterns?

Now this question is from the Crochet Crowd Social Facebook page, and it does make me laugh because it is a group for people that crochet and know about the Crochet Crowd website. There is an entire Crochet Crowd website, which is identified in the group, that has patterns and a lot of other information provided, so why not check there. My other reply might have been have you googled “free crochet patterns” and what you want to make, or are we supposed to guess what you are looking for.

4. Where can I find tutorials on learning how to crochet?

Now this question is from the Crochet Crowd Social Facebook page, and it does make me laugh because it is a group for people that crochet and know about the Crochet Crowd website. There is an entire website (The Crochet Crowd) that has access to tutorials and a lot of other information provided, so why not check there. Again, the website is identified in the group.

5. Where can I find a pattern to make a shawl for myself?

My immediate answer to this question would have you tried googling for ideas, or have you checked out Ravelry, which is quite often found through the various Google searches? Of course, there are times that I just scroll by these questions because I think it is best, otherwise my answer wouldn’t be very friendly. I understand that when you are in a group, you can get help from other members of the group, but the idea is also not to use the group as your personal Google.

As you can see, there can be some very interesting questions asked within social media and especially Facebook. I understand that not everyone knows how to use Google extremely well, but at least trying to find things and then asking for help is better. I have seen some questions in one group, and they are very clear, and it makes you feel good.

Here is one of those questions:

1. I'm looking for a chart, but I can't remember the name of it or who the artist was. The chart had an owl flying a key to a lock in the ground. It was a relatively recent release. I remember it being a very beautiful chart with lots of soft colours. I've put every keyword I can think of into the search bar, and I am coming up with nothing (though my wish list keeps getting bigger every time I try to find this thing). Can anyone help me out in identifying the chart that doesn't want to be found?

This question was on the Heaven and Earth Design Facebook group and of course the person provided enough information that someone was very quickly able to tell them the name of the patter as well as the designer. This is the type of question that I enjoy seeing because at least it gives enough information so that people know you have done some looking and just need a little bit of help.

Social media is something that a lot of us understand and are part of, but knowing when not to reply to a question that is posted is something that I have learned to do. If you are part of a group and have a question, make sure that you are asking the right type of question and also try and show that you have done some of your own research before asking your question. You will probably be surprised at the type of answer you will get, and it will probably help you a lot more than just asking a general question.

The other thing that really bothers me about some groups is when people ask what is on your hook tonight or spam me with ideas for a baby girl afghan. Both aren’t great for the group because it just means that one thread ends up with a lot of pictures but no descriptions, and they really aren’t very useful. Think before you ask this type of questions because remember with all the various groups there are it can get overwhelming to see all of this type of chatter.

If you are working on something or have finished something, and you think the group would like to see it, go ahead and post it and remember you will probably be asked a few questions about it so if you have to answer them in your original post it makes things a lot easier for everyone.

Social media is something that can be very helpful when you are looking for things, but that is after you have done your own searches. Remember Facebook isn’t a replacement for Google so try that first and then when all else fails ask a question in a group but make sure the question is clear.

Blogging and life

As you can see, the blogging that I was doing every week hasn’t been happening for the last little while. It has been a challenge for me to think of the various topics and get the words down on paper. Yes, life has decided to get in the way of me doing a lot of the writing that I like doing, and now to see if I can get back to doing the writing that I love.

Blogging is something that I really enjoy doing but when life gets busy, and it is a challenge to get thoughts down on paper that is something that I need to think about. I have found that the last few months it has been a challenge for me to get thoughts out of my head and into the various blog posts. I hope that once life slows down just a little bit, I will be able to get back to writing like I have been writing.

I have a list of ideas that I would like to write about, so now I just need to find the focus where I can sit and get all the different ideas written up. Sure, I know that I have been able to continue to blog at least once each month, and I should be happy with that. Now I am going to try and see if I can get back to writing a little more. I don’t think I will be seeing a big improvement in November, but I hope that once 2019 rolls around that I will be able to get back to seeing the blog a little more active.

Hotel experiences

For a lot of people, staying at a hotel is a pleasure event and normally is part of a vacation away from home. For me, I have stayed in a number of hotels both for pleasure and also for work as I have done quite a bit of travelling for work.

A hotel experience can really have a negative or positive experience, and lately I am finding that a number of hotels are resulting in a negative experience, which isn’t good. I recently was staying at a hotel for work and had asked for no feather in the room. This is a simple request, or so I thought because it means that housekeeping has a note about the room for when they are doing the cleaning the morning of my arrival. Upon arriving at the hotel and checking in the room, I discovered that two of the four pillows on the bed were duck feathers, which wasn’t supposed to be there. As there were two of us in the room, we walked down to the front desk and reported the issue and sure it was resolved quickly, but again it shouldn’t have happened.

So, the frustrating part of the pillow experience was the answer that we received from one of the staff at the front desk, his comment was “We were fully booked the night before, so the staff was busy, so it was missed”. A fully booked hotel should have meant that the pillows would have been addressed because someone would have had to clean the room the morning/early afternoon of our arrival. Also, there is a minimum 4-hour time between last check out and first check in, so if there have the right number of housekeeping people on staff, getting everything done would have been no problem.

Now I thought that was going to be the only issue at the hotel, but it continued with some lights in the room not working. So, one lamp was actually unplugged and couldn’t be plugged in because the plug was all bend. Two other lights one over the desk and one that lite an area of the room were also not working so that meant another report to the front desk of the issues. Maintenance did come and fix all three of these issues, but again another excuse was given “Oh, these two lights probably have a loose connection”. If there are loose connections that need fixing, say thanks for letting us know, and I will get it fixed.

how can I reach the pots and pans?

Hotels make their money ensuring that the guests are enjoying their stay and not having to deal with all of these issues. The other thing that made me laugh was where the pots and pans are, as this room has a small kitchenette included. The fridge is a normal size fridge, and the pots and pans are in a cupboard above that. Now is someone suppose to get these things out easier without having to stand on a chair. Thank goodness there is a stool in the room with a hard top on that can be used to get the items out of the cupboard if needed.

The hotel seems nice and clean which is one main thing and the staff in general are friendly, so now to see what the rest of the stay is like. I hope it is going to be better than this part, otherwise I am not going to be very happy.

IT Security Conferences

Going to various IT conferences you get to hear a lot of different talks and also get to meet a lot of different people which is nice. Recently we were at an IT Security Conference in Toronto and had a chance to help out at a booth for the two days of the event.

Now, working at a booth can be challenging because you can be extremely busy one minute and have no one around the next minute. This year it seemed so different because we were extremely busy on Tuesday, which is the first day of the show, but we were also busy on the second day, which was nice. Sure, we had sometimes where there weren’t a lot of people walking by, but I have to admit that it was great to see the number of people that stopped and chatted with us.

The booth was manned by four of us and yes, I was the female at the table, but that didn’t bother me at all. We were talking about a Security community called TASK (Toronto Area Security Klatch) and it was a great couple of days doing just that. Trying to show people that there is a strong community within the IT Security industry is always a lot of fun.

The four of us also get along extremely well, so it means that we work well together, and of course there is a schedule so that everyone knows where everyone else is. We also have the ability to text each other, so that makes it great so that if you are away from the booth and are needed, it is a quick message to find each other. This year what was nice was the number of times that there were three of us at the booth instead of one or two, and I have to admit that there were times that we really needed everyone to talk with the various people that came over to the booth.

During our time at the booth, a number of people asked us about the community and actually figured we worked for TASK instead of being community members. I am thinking that we need to figure out a way to show that we are community members that are at the event to explain what the community is all about. I know some people understood we were community members, but there were still a lot of people that figured it was a company that offered the community, not just a group of companies that sponsored a community.

IT Security conferences can be interesting to attend, and who you meet is also a lot of fun. You can be meeting with someone from a big business or someone that is just learning about IT Security and attending to gain an understanding. The IT Security community is a great community as most of the people are extremely friendly.

ARC from right to left

Original right handed version of my ARC

Right-handed version of the tabs

I have two to-do lists and one is rather large, and I actually call it the brain dump.  The reason for that is because there are so many little things that I would like to do that I have been trying to keep everything in my head, and that just doesn't work.  The other to-do list is smaller and something that I have with me all the time.

My main to-do list is now in a large ARC system, and I love it, or at least now I really love it.  I have been using the system for over a year now and this large binder was set up earlier this year when I figured it was time to capture everything on paper and actually get it out of my head, and it has been working.  I am now able to focus a lot better on tasks, and I am getting things done, and I don't feel as stressed as I was before.

About a week ago, I discovered that I was getting extremely frustrated when trying to write in my ARC system, and it was for a very simple reason.  The rings were getting in my way, and it was making it difficult to get my thoughts and ideas down quickly.  Now, the reason the rings were getting in my way is that I am a lefty and was writing on the right-hand page.  This is a problem that a lot of lefty's deal with, but with the ARC system there is an easy solution once you think of it.  I am not taking credit for figuring out my issue because it was my husband that suggested making my ARC a lefty version when I was sitting and complaining that it was difficult to write in the book.

Now the process I had to do did take some time, but I am happy with the outcome because now I have a book that works for me and yes confuses a lot of people.  One of the advantages of being a lefty and being proud of it is showing off the end result and getting the odd looks from people when they see that my book opens the opposite way than their book does.

Punching the new holes

So the steps that I had to do were pretty easy, but they meant taking the entire book apart and putting it all back together with some changes.

Step 1: Take all the pages and dividers out of the system.

Step 2: Punch new holes in the opposite side of each of the pages so that the pages would work easily for me, and then I could write on the left page all the time. In my planner, I only write on one side of a page so that I can see the tasks a little easier.

Cutting off the old holes

Step 3: Cut the original holes off all the pages so they wouldn't get caught on each other and make it difficult to work with the planner.

Step 4: Move all the tabs that I had set up around so that I could see them easily when I opened the book.  I am really glad that I used a version of post-it tabs because it made this task very easy.

Step 5: Start putting all the pages and dividers back into the system, making sure that it was going to work and actually be in the correct order like it was before.  This is where all the time was spent because sure you can easily take a book apart and punch holes in the paper, but it is getting it back in order that takes the time.

Finished ARC - lefty version

Yes, I have to admit that the version from the right-handed version of the ARC to the left-handed version of the ARC did take some time.  I am extremely happy with the outcome of this project and have to say that it works well. 

After doing this big version of my ARC to-do, I then decided it was time to also change the little version of my ARC to-do into a left-handed version.  Now that version went a lot quicker, and it is probably because I had figured out most of the issues with the bigger version.

Finished ARC - tabs have been moved

Sure, I have discovered a few little issues with the left-handed version and the biggest thing was that my calendar doesn't work well in my lefty version, so that is something that I will have to figure out for next year.

Now if you know someone who is a lefty and gets frustrated with planners and even notebooks like I have for years maybe you should let them know about the ARC (M by Staples) as it is something that can be customized to work for a lefty.  The ARC system is also available at Michaels as a Happy Planner, but the ARC system is either a half page or a whole page system while the Happy Planner is a size in between, so it is a little harder to make your own pages for it. 

I have invested in a number of the rings for my ARC system as well as covers because it means that I can set up a lot of different books for the various projects, and they will work for me and if a right-handed person has a problem with my book that's ok because it is for me to work with and not for them.

ETSY

So many people when I mention ETSY look at me funny and the first question they ask is “What is ETSY?” Well, ETSY is a site where crafters are able to list and sell their craft items to a wide audience. It is something that can be a bit of a challenge sometimes but if you understand and do a bit of homework before even setting up your shop you could have success on this platform. I have an ETSY shop and it has been just under a year now that we have had it and with some work it has started to get sales.

Things that I have learned from having an ETSY shop:

1. Do not list all your items are once because that doesn’t help you be seen when you are first starting out. Sure, you want to have lots of items in your shop when you start but remember that each day you list an item is another day that you can be seen listed with a new item. Also, when you list all your items are once, all the renewals will happen at the same time as well. The renewals happen at the same time if you don’t have sales, so remember that. A renewal moves each time it is sold, so that does help.
2. When you are listing items and if you have more than one of the specific item,, add the quantity to the listing so that you don’t have to remember to relist the item after each sale. This will help in the management of the site.
3. Understand that there are fees when you list an item (not very much at all currently only $.20 per item) If you add the quantity, it doesn’t impact the fee for the listing as it will only be charged after one item is sold, and the new listing is automatically done for you. There are also transaction fees on the sale of an item, so remember that as well. ETSY takes a % of the sales price, so also consider that when you are pricing your items.
4. Shipping to other countries. Here is one thing that you have to think about before you even start to think about shipping costs. When you get up your shop, will you be shipping your items to other countries and what could the cost be. For me, I decided to ship to Canada and the United States only, and that was a decision that I made even before thinking about shipping costs or any of that.
5. Shipping costs, now this is something that you can handle two different ways. You can include the shipping cost in the price of the item, or you can charge shipping costs separately. I add shipping costs separately to the items and have one price for the first item and then a reduced price when you add items to your order.
6. Consider if you are willing to do custom orders. Custom orders can vary, and it is something that you have to think about. Custom orders can be maybe a different size compared to what you make, or even a different colour. For me, I have added custom order to some of the items where I have fabric remaining after I have made the first lot of items.
7. Shipping items out. The other thing you need to figure out is how you are going to handle the shipping the items out once an item is sold. A lot of people have either 3-5 business days or 1-3 business days depending on how often they want to go to the post office to mail the items. Remember, you are going to need to package up each of the items when they are sold and get them ready to be shipped. The packaging does cost, so remember to add that into your pricing of either shipping or the cost of the item.
8. Have fun. For a lot of people, ETSY is a little side business that can be a lot of fun and something that you do when time allows. ETSY can also be a full-time business, and it is another decision that you need to think about and figure out. The items that you are selling in your shop can you continue to make them or versions of them or are then one off and once they are gone, they are gone. Look at the amount of time you are willing to put into your shop because that will also impact how it goes.

ETSY can be a lot of fun if you handle it correctly. Knowing the answers to a lot of the questions before you start setting up your shop will help a lot. I know that I did some research and asked questions before reopening my ETSY shop, and I am now glad I reopened it. The first ETSY shop I had didn’t work, and I learned some lessons from it, and it helped the newly reopened shop.

Remember there are quite a few people that have ETSY shops that are doing it for the fun of it and if you have questions don’t be afraid to ask someone your questions. I know that I am always willing to assist someone who would like to open an ETSY shop because I have learned from having one and if I can help someone else that would be great as well. My ETSY shop is DLKsCrafts, and I am enjoying it and will continue to have the shop as long as I have fun with it.

Audio-books, Podcasts and YouTube

Now these are all different ways of listening and watching things and sure they have been around for years some of them but until the last year I really wasn’t into any of them, but now I have figured out what works best for me and have started to love all of them in different ways. Each of them meets a different need for me, and that is what I am going to try and explain here.

Audiobooks

Now, until the beginning of this year I had heard people talk about audiobooks, but I had never really given them a try. I think before this I may have listened to one book, but other than that I didn’t think it would be something that I would enjoy. Yes, I like reading books, but as I am also a crafter and use my hands for the various crafts I have let the reading of books sort of drop off because my evenings are normally spent crafting. I did read a lot during commutes to and from work, but now that I am a co-owner of a business and most of the work is done remotely, there aren’t a lot of commutes.

Earlier this year, I decided to try audiobooks as a means of getting through some of the books that I wanted to read. I went to the library to renew my library card and while there looked at some of the cd audiobooks and immediately saw titles that were of interest to me. Seeing that there are a lot of titles that sounded interesting made me want to really give this idea a try, and that is when it started. After renewing my library card, I came home and decided to see what audiobooks were available through the library but online, and it opened up something that I have to admit that I have really enjoyed.

For me, audiobooks are something that I can listen to while crafting or even just when I am getting ready for bed. It has helped me get through some of the books that I have wanted to read, and now I have a wish list on the library website as well as another list on a piece of paper of the books that I want to listen to. Sure, I may encounter some wait lists for some of the books but that doesn’t bother me as I have a lot of other things to listen to now.

Podcasts

Podcasts aren’t as new to me as audiobooks, but they were normally something that my husband and I listened to on a long drive as a means of making the trip feel a little shorter. We started with one series of podcasts, and we are still working through that series as they are now recording their 13^th season and there are now around 52 episodes a year for them. Most of this series recording are only around 15 – 20 minutes, so that isn’t bad, but other podcasts can be a lot longer than that.

This year I decided to find out about some of the other people that I had heard that did podcasts, and now I have a rather long list of podcasts that I want to listen to as well. My first really good exposure to podcasts was earlier this year when I needed to do a commute that was going to take me almost 2 hours to complete. I downloaded some of the podcasts that I wanted to listen to onto my phone and off I went. The actual commute sure didn’t feel as long as it really was, and I was able to get through a few of the podcasts that I had downloaded.

I now have 5 different podcasts that I follow, so that means that I have lots of listening to do, but again these are things that I can listen to while crafting or before going to bed in the evenings. I am enjoying the experience and am happy that I now can download them onto my phone and have them with me all the time.

YouTube

YouTube can be a major distraction if you let it, but then if you are able to just watch what you subscribe to, it doesn’t feel so bad. I have tried to develop a discipline where I go into YouTube and check my subscriptions. Sure, it can still mean that I have a lot of videos to watch, but I can manage those putting them into my watch later library and I watch the various videos when I have the time. Sure, the watch later library can get rather large sometimes, but again these are videos that I can normally watch when I am crafting.

I have been watching YouTube videos for the last year, and basically the ones that I have been watching are a group of videos with the title FlossTube. These are videos done by cross-stitchers and individuals that may even have a store, but they are ones that I enjoy watching, and I have tried to keep my subscription list short so that I don’t feel overwhelmed when all the different people post all at one. The individuals post at different times, so I have some that post most days, some weekly, some monthly and then there are some that don’t post very often but at least by subscribing to them, I can see when they post a new video.

The different medias have given me a different experience, and I am loving all three of them. Audiobooks are great when you know you are going to have the time to listen to something that could take between 10 and 25 hours in three weeks, as that is how long some books are. Podcasts can vary in length between 15 minutes and 1.5 hours, but at least these are things that I can manage based on the time that I have available. YouTube is something that I watch either on my computer or tablet, and which video I watch will depend on the time that I have available as well as the mood I am in.

Knowing what works for you can open up a lot of different things and for me just having these different tools available means that I can’t say that I have nothing to watch or listen to because each of them gives me enough to keep me happy. If you haven’t tried these, give at least one of them a shot and see what you think. You may be surprised at how much you enjoy at least one of these methods, especially if you do something with your hands that doesn’t require a lot of thinking. A lot of crafters have found all of these work for them, and I am one of those crafters who now enjoys listening to things while I craft.