Teenage children, flying the nest and travelling.

There's nothing I can do about it, I have just got to accept my girls are growing up fast. One minute they are babies needing you for everything and before you know it.... Bam they are mini adults.

It all started a couple of years ago for me. I always try to take time off work when they are off school. As a self employed chiropodist this is relatively easy to organise. Anyway, one day I found myself alone at home, both girls off with their friends, thinking "why have I taken time off? I am not needed here!" This become a more and more common recurrence which resulted in me taking up crafting as a hobby so that I could be there if needed but still had plenty to do.

This "growing up" has continued at a rapid pace and now we are approaching the inevitable time when they will be leaving to go to university (I have got 4 trips to open days booked over the next few weeks from Cornwall to North Wales!).

Perhaps more nerve racking for me will occur before that. Both girls were left a small amount of money to them and have decided they wish to travel. The youngest is joining an organised expedition for a 3 week trek in the Himalayas, scary but well supervised (I hope) and will certainly be a life changing experience. The older one, Miss Independent, has opted for the following: an exchange trip to America, Seattle no less, involving a 12 hour travelling time with a flight change at Newark airport; a school trip to Japan (at least she'll be with others!); and a two week stay in a wildlife park in Namibia to help with animal conservation (cheetahs included)! I think she wants me to be in a state of permenant stress!

Well I suppose they have to go sometime, but its true they are always your babies and you never stop worrying about them. I just hope I can survive the stress of what for them will be life changing experiences.

Membership winners

As promised here are the winners of free membership to The Craft Seeker

Congratulations to kinscraft, kimonokraft and laceynevesgifts who all get free lifetime membership.

Also congratulations to AmarettoCrafts, BforBeautiful, Gracey, fox1975 and FairyFeltsandFrills who all receive 1 years free membership in addition to the initial free period available to all.

Remember that for this site to be a success we need lots of people to sign up both as sellers and buyers so tell your friends and keep sharing. I really think this could be incredibly successful at bringing buyers and sellers together. Imagine all the sales we could make if we could get it well populated by Christmas time.

I apologise if anyone tried to sign into the website last night or this morning. The server was down after a catastrophic failure that took the hosters 12 hours to fix! I am hoping we have seen the end of that problem and that it won't reappear.

Grrr....technology

Well, all was going well. I've had a very hectic day, shopping, washing, cooking, cleaning, dog walking, visiting the mother in law (in hospital following a knee replacement) and in between times managing to keep an eye on my new website!

I've had some positive feedback and a few have joined up today. I am meant to be announcing the winners of the membership giveaway on this blog but you will have to be patient. Just when I thought it was all going so well the server has decided to misbehave and I keep being told the page can not be found. I am in touch with the company hosting the website so hopefully it will be resolved soon.

Meanwhile a good nights sleep I think and maybe a bit of crafting tomorrow. :)

Going Live!

So excited. At last all is done - as much as possible - and I am ready to release the website on the world! It all came together rather quickly in the end! I expect there are probably a few bugs remaining but nothing too serious I hope. Lots of free offers are going to be available over the next few days so keep your eyes peeled!

On a completely different subject, my husband and daughter ventured out to a reptile show today taking along our bearded dragon "Spike" and our reverse striped Californian king snake "Pete". I was shocked and delighted when they returned with a rosette for best snake!

Fingers crossed all goes well tomorrow!

Cyber bullying and suicide

I felt compelled to write something after I read of a recent case of bullying and bad mouthing on Facebook that drove a small business owner to attempted suicide. I do not know the exact circumstances of the bullying or why it occurred but its consequences could have been even more tragic than they were.

I have to admit when I first stumbled across the story I briefly thought to myself  "oh, that's a bit extreme" but on reflection and following a couple of events in my own life recently I can see how these things can escalate.

I don't know about anyone else but I really hate it if I upset people or inadvertently provide a bad service. I strive to be as polite, kind and helpful as possible but no matter how hard we try sometimes things go wrong. I know when this has happened to me it has caused a great deal of distress, something as simple as goods not arriving at their destination on time (which is out of my control) can cause me endless worry and sleepless nights. I know some people can turn their backs on such issues and ignore them but I am not one of these!

So imagine how this can escalate. Something goes wrong, the customers not happy and has a little rant. You worry that others will think badly of you, you try to appease the customer which makes it appear you accept you are at fault. You worry some more and......before you know it its out of control.

I really feel for the person in question and I think we should perhaps all step back and think hard about the possible consequences of things we write.  Comments posted on Internet sites are often taken out of context and more is read into them than intended. I'm sure there are times when we don't recieve  the service we expect but complaints can be made in a polite and private way.

Have a good day.

Sunny days....and progress

Another sunny day dawns. Such a long time since we've had any sun that it almost seems unreal! Long may it continue.

Well, yesterday was a relatively successful day for The Craft Seeker with the pre release version going live and apparently getting quite a lot of views. I am struggling however to work out a strategy to get the site known about, some networking pages on Facebook are reluctant to let me use them as they see me as competition. I suppose I can understand that although at the end of the day we are all trying to provide a service.

Today is going to be a day of bits and pieces. First off I have to take my daughter to school for an exam (she doesn't like to take the bus on exam days!). That will be followed by a few hours doing my main job of looking after feet. Then back to school to collect daughter before taking her horse riding. Somewhere along the line I have got to fit in a dog walk and a trip to the supermarket to get dinner. Maybe this evening I will find time for a bit of networking! Does anyone else lead disjointed lives or am I just disorganised?

Well I am hoping to get the live version of The Craft Seeker up over the weekend or early next week and there will be lots of free membership deals on offer so keep your eyes open!

Pre release version now live!

Well things seem to be moving ahead of schedule and I have now launched a pre release version of my website.

This version allows viewing of the website and all its features but users are not yet able to sign up and post comments although this will be happening very soon.

Pop over and have a look at http://www.thecraftseeker.com