It’s been a very dreary day (cold, overcast, raining), but I’m not feeling down, which is great, because last week was probably the worst week of my life in the past five years, which featured employment disappointment, a compromised immune system and—as the icing on the wrecktacular cake—the untimely death of my beloved feline friend Pascal.

Yeah. It was rough.

Last night I set up a store front on Etsy (artgyrlshop.etsy.com) to sell off some of the fan art that I did this past summer. I put up four pieces initially and one has already sold, so that is very encouraging. The funny thing is that it costs money to make money, initially, at least. Once I made the sale, the reality of shipping the item in a timely matter quickly set in. I had planned on mailing it off today, but, because of the weather and the fragile quality of the paper, I did not want to risk taking it outdoors, exposing it to humidity that could cause the paper to curl and wrinkle.

I did go to Alabama Art Supply and purchase some clear plastic sleeves at 35 cents a piece—I bought 10.  So, the art is all sealed up and waiting to be mailed. Now is the task of getting a study cardboard envelope in which to mail it. I don’t have any lying around, unfortunately. Still, I consider all this as a business investment. That feels so weird to say, but it means that I’m getting serious about my craft and publicizing the services I have to offer.

I’ve been thinking about this seriously for the past few weeks, and I will be creating some art pieces specifically for cards and prints. My mother gave me some encouragement when I spoke with her today about my plans. She was helpful in pointing out that I already had a few old graphics that I could easily put on notecards. Hopefully I can start producing these in the next week.

It’s good to get these things sorted out as the new year approaches.

You may also notice some slight changes to the layout of the blog. The new header is the most obvious thing. The old one has been up for about a year now, so I figured it was due for a change. After fighting with WordPress for the better part of 2 hours I finally got the upgrade installed and every thing working properly. There were several moments when I came a hair’s breadth away from taking my frustrations out on my poor MacBook *pets*, but I’m glad it didn’t come to that.

…and then there’s that novel that needs to be finished.

Thank God, for the beautiful, sunny day. I needed it. :)