Sitting In The Sunshine – Musings on a Challenging Weekend

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‘The Nightmare of Being Technologically Challenged’   I typed the title for my new post and settled in for a bit of a gripe.  It was a challenging weekend trying to sort out all the glitches that had surfaced in my Etsy shop – I thought it was all going way too smoothly!

Luckily for us all, I immediately got interrupted – and leaving my computer, went off to take coffee in my tiny courtyard garden with YD.

The coffee was hot and strong – a bit like the early summer heat – and the remnants of my grumpy mood evaporated like drops of water on a hot stone as we inhaled the scent of jasmine and lavender

Courtyard Garden

Can you see Sidd?  His head and cap are just visible under a drooping raceme of jasmine.

[I know it’s not really a raceme, but it’s a good word and needs using!]

And yes, though are weeds in the foreground. [Hangs head in shame]

YD had lots to share from her week and we chatted and laughed and let the sun warm us until the coffee was gone and then we headed off to the post office to send Elaine her prize, the limited edition print of ‘Be a Butterfly’, and also to have a look through a shop selling local artisans work.

We heard a sad story there – the owner will close at Christmas as business is too slow to keep going.  Her stock is stunning, she keeps her prices at an affordable level [which means she isn’t adding a huge mark-up] but she can’t compete with on-line sellers.

I felt guilty.  I had spent last week cat-sitting and making sure my shop was stocked with pictures and cards………   

The shop opened on Thursday and my first day was one of great happiness!  Maybe what happened next was karma for being part of the movement that is sending real stores out of business….

Because on day two it all went wrong – there were glitches and problems galore until I was tearing my hair out and found myself on Sunday raising my voice to an automated customer service robot over the phone demanding to speak to a real person.

And blow me over and away, I got a real person and we began to solve the issues!  🙂

Take note dear readers, when you are stuck with a virtual customer service person, get hot under the collar and demand ‘a real person’  and you will maybe get one.  I guess they must be programmed now to respond to irate customers by handing us on!

Anyway the issues are solved and all is well again in my world.

Yesterday, with YD returned from her travels and Stanley once more settled in with his mum and Orlando no longer having to sniff out where I’d been going constantly [coming back smelling of another kitty doesn’t really go down that well with spoilt, over-indulged chappies] I was free to try and find my creative mojo again.

I’m still obsessed with faces and seem to have combined that and my obsession with the ocean into one place:

Listen1

Painted on A4 160 gsm water colour paper, she is definitely mixed media – acrylics, modelling paste, paper, pencils, charcoal and pens.

The legend reads ‘Listen, how the wild sea calls to me’  She is heavily textured with all the paste and needs to be in a frame to really look her best.

There is much about this piece that is successful or interesting, but my personal feeling is that her stare is too challenging to be marketable – I think she is maybe channelling my weekend mood….. 🙂

Tomorrow I shall start again.  It will be a new day and the sun will still be shining.  The scent of jasmine will still waft in through open windows and with no distractions maybe my paint brush will make something beautiful.

Thanks for stopping by today, I love that you did 🙂

24 thoughts on “Sitting In The Sunshine – Musings on a Challenging Weekend”

  1. Well thank you so much Pauline for linking me here to see Sidd and your sea inspired painted lady. I think she is beautiful and her hair is especially amazing! See you again soon!

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    • And I apologise for sending you on a wild goose chase! You can hardly see Sidd at all in that photo – I was intending to include one of him – changed my mind and promptly forgot I’d changed my mind……. [shakes head in sad dismay at self!] Wee, I’m glad you enjoyed the wild sea lady any way………. Apologetically xoxo

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  2. Oh no! Pauline, I wrote a long comment and I lost it! If it comes through as a duplicate, please delete. Let me see if I can recapture some of my thoughts.

    I am excited about receiving my prize:-) I love how your words always flow so beautifully. “The coffee was hot and strong – a bit like the early summer heat – and the remnants of my grumpy mood evaporated like drops of water on a hot stone as we inhaled the scent of jasmine and lavender”. You painted a picture with your words!

    I’m sorry about all your glitches. I’m glad you got a real person to help you sort things through. Nowadays, I have resorted to taking copious notes whenever I speak with customer service because they don’t often get their stories straight.

    My PC has been sitting at a major office supply/technology store since November 11th. I called and called. I dropped off a letter. I called again. Finally, my patience ran out this evening. I told the manager on duty that if I don’t hear from him by 10 PM this evening, I will forward my letter to the CEO of the company. He called back. We are now working on a somewhat favorable solution.

    Congrats again on your store. You will iron out all the kinks soon.

    I love “the wild sea calls to me”. Your talent just keeps on shining through:-)

    Have a great balance of the week!

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    • Arrrgghh!! Isn’t it something that we have to get cross before movement happens….. it makes me quite cross! 🙂 And then he probably only responded to you to cover his butt!! Bad service is bad service and not to be tolerated! Oooh I’m getting so irascible in my old age!! Good on you for standing up to him!

      Thank you for your good wishes re the store – the kinks are ironed out now, I suspect they might have been ironed out quicker if I hadn’t lost my cool – I’m supposed to be practising going with what is and knowing that everything will be alright and then I blow it over a bit of red tape and some miscommunication!

      I admit to be somewhat amazed at how everyone seems to like the wild sea girl – I think she’s a bit scary….If I was the sea I don’t think I’d take her on 🙂

      You enjoy your week too – I look forward to hearing your print has arrived safely sometime next week.

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  3. Good Morning lovely lady, perhaps you’re currently enjoying that ‘o-so-goregeous’ garden or even at your paints and such. Hope you’re enjoying, sounds like your weekend was misery. As it goes, ‘all’s well….yadda-yadda’. I’ve had a busy time of things and no chance to blog or be artful 😦 though I promised myself that today is the day. That’s right after I go pay a speeding ticket 😦 which is totally laughable since I am most certainly the slowest driver out there and always being tale gated and cut off. I guess I was doing 65 in what I thought was a 60 (which most major traffic areas are here). But it’s a 50 km area…..ugg, Crumb, where were the signs???? I obviously missed them. I’m hoping to get a discount if I pay quickly in person. It’s a bite to the pocket book..fooey!!!

    I do fancy the colours in your latest creation, I wish I had those eyes 😀 I had not really known too much about Bobby Darren until I saw Kevin Spacey play him in the movie, did you happen to catch that one? If you’re a fan, you may want to, he’ll blow you away. Of and running, TTFN

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    • Good morning Boomdee! It’s a bit too early today – not quite 4 am…. I got up about an hour ago as it is just too hot to sleep and I have a painting going round and round in my head……

      I did see that Kevin spacey movie, I looked forward to seeing it because when I was a little kid I liked Bobby Darren songs – and loved ‘Beyond the Sea’ I hated the movie though, simply because it wasn’t what I was expecting to see and it was in the same genre of ‘American Beauty’ which I also disliked – not a fan of these dark and twisty psychologies, I like my movies to be fun and uplifting. [‘Hated’ is a bit strong – ‘did not enjoy’ would be closer to the truth of it]

      The events of the weekend have taught me that I still get agitated when things go wrong – so much for my calm and serene state of being 🙂

      So much still to learn…..

      Sorry about the speeding ticket – they are a pain in the wallet!

      For me, I find they come when I’m in that not quite present, rushing around, over stretched mode of being and are a sign that I need to slow down! Is it the same for you?

      Have a good week, big hug!!

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  4. Hi Pauline, your garden and artwork are both beautiful. I often muse on the thought that when computers were first introduced it was going make all our lives so much easier. They have certainly made our lives different, but easier, I’m not sure. However congratulations for persevering and sorting out your Etsy shop. Big love AJ 🙂

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  6. Oh my goodness: Jasmin and lavender and a lovely cat statuette. I love the way it blends together, one into the next. My favorite.

    I don’t see a single weed. It looks like the best place to enjoy a hot bevy with your daughter…or friends. I’m glad you’re back to creating and so relieved that your shop is now in working order again. I must have slipped in just in time (or missed the whole debacle). Oh, how I feel your frustration.

    I love the colors in the piece, above. Please don’t sell her short just yet.

    Thanks for sharing your garden.

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    • Bless you hon – are you pretending you can’t see those weeds – I’ve forgotten the name – pesky things that have tiny bulbs that multiply faster than rabbits……… I let them stay because they cover the soil and I spent all my money on art supplies instead of seedlings 🙂 [Slightly abashed smiley face]

      I’m glad you missed all the debacle – I had quite lost my sense of humour and adventure by the time we got to Sunday. But it’s all over now……… for some reason I started singing Bobby Darrin’s ‘Beyond the Sea’ first thing that morning – that seemed to fix everything. Perhaps they just wanted me to stop singing!!

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      • Oh dear…where to start.

        I love that you sing. No one would want you to stop. It’s so freeing. I sing in the car all the time.

        I’m happy to have missed the debacle, as I seem to invite plenty of my own to keep me busy. Today was round two with the credit card company. They can’t seem to straighten out the online payment options. So annoying.

        Buying art supplies is a good thing. And if your weeds don’t look like weeds and they don’t overtake the rest of the garden, then so be it. Win-win!

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        • ….Oxalis – they are called oxalis – do you have them. They actually look quite pretty in the photo, but are the bane of every NZ gardener!

          Sorry to hear about your credit card woes – Isn’t it amazing how all these corporations screw around with us – I am so tempted to just go bush, live off the land, eschew modern life completely – sit in my rickety old chair on my rickety old porch, chewing on bark strips and such like – but I’d miss blogging too much 🙂

          Try getting indignantly cross/yelling at them and threatening to call the CEO [I yelled, another bloggie friend did the threatening] The moral of the story is we got what we wanted…. Good luck with it!

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          • Oh yes, I am quite familiar with oxalis. I’m pretty sure I once blogged about it in a post about weeds. It’s pretty, like clover, but it takes over if unchecked.

            It is tempting to eschew technology when it is getting on your last nerve. It seems that things move along and then ‘break’ and once broken, require inordinate amounts of time to fix. I would miss blogging terribly so…what to do but put up with it?

            I’m glad your situation resolved. Sorry yelling and threatening were required. That is a lot of stress.

            Here’s to better technological days ahead.

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  7. I am the same with the net / technology Pauline…blogging was a surprise to me as I didn’t even know I would get followers. I just wanted a visual diary for myself lol. Good things are sorted now for you.
    I like the ladies eyes, they drink you in, it’s a lovely painting. I would give her a go!

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  8. Congrats for overcoming all the computer frustrations.. heehee
    Thanks for sharing your story and your beautiful garden.
    About your latest creations, I see what you are saying, but you never know what people like or dislike. You will find, with time, that what you think will sell fast, it is sometimes the opposite. It has happened to me so many times, that I know dwell on it anymore. I just upload the piece and hope that the “one” buyer will appear to purchase that piece. Sometimes it takes more than I want to, but eventually it happens.

    Best wishes! 😀

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    • Dear Pati, you are ever my guru on how to proceed! Thank you for those thoughts – I value your opinion and experience! And of course, I know we all like different things, as my dear old aunt used to say: there’s no accounting for taste is there 🙂 So, take a deep breath and load her up it is then…… oxox

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  9. Bravo, Pauline! I went to your Etsy shop and am very impressed. Looks perfect to me. And your garden is an inspiration and a balm to us here in the north. Glad you are over the tech tsunami and can now settle into your wild sea lady creations. I like her wild eyes, btw. 🙂

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    • Aw bless Christi! Thanks for taking the time to visit the shop and report back – it is so important to know what people think of it. I’m pleased you like my garden – that really is pretty much it, it is so tiny!! I like your phrase ‘Wild Sea Lady Creations’ it has a ring to it don’t you think…. a blog name or a shop perhaps? 🙂

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