Setting up, sorting out, moving on

This has been a very busy week. Events are in motion in more ways than one!

First off, yes, the shop is finally up and running. Sometimes you have to get fed up with your procrastination before doing something you'd thought about for...too long. Something just clicked quietly into place in my head and I dived in, making sure to shut up the nagging voice that complains about how much work it takes to do all the set up needed.

So, following on from last week - the image issue has all been sorted. Found a brilliant site called resizepixel.com which does exactly that. I can crop my images into squares for thumbnails and it shows the pixel size as you edit, then I can resize the square to the minimum width of 642 pixels for the other images. Fabulous! That’s made things so much easier.

I had already loaded up all my descriptions but then found some Folksy videos on how to do it all so much better. I've gone back and tweaked a few things, added tags that I'd missed, corrected size and price for a couple of items (oops) and added a couple more pieces at the weekend. All the grunt work has been done now so it's been a case of checking over remaining pieces for any little things I'd only notice the minute I wanted to sell them, and finishing off some of the new pieces then I'll upload those too, bit by bit.

Got a tip from my sister in law who makes beaded jewellery (trying to persuade her to sell online too). My images have shadows and she has a ring light that sorts out that problem and gives much better photos. That'll do me then - ordered one right away (see? I can shift when I want). The light in every room I've ever rented is awful and lamp cords only stretch so far, so the shadows from poor background lighting isn't something I could do much about. It actually arrived in two days so hopefully this gadget will mean an improvement in image quality.

I've also ordered a new dumb phone in what I hope is a fetching shade of blue. Yes, I know. Dumb. But it's cheap to use and the charge lasts for ever. And I did find a cheaper PAYG SIM for the posh one. Still haven't ordered it though. Dang, how much action do I have to take in one week?! I'm pacing myself, okay?

One more thing, and it's key to why I've taken action. I've been dreaming of returning to Devon for a while now and finally decided this is something I have to do. Time for a change. I've got my eye on Torquay since it's right by the sea (my fave place to be) and has everything I need in the town, which is good when you don't have a car. Rooms and even studio flats are so much cheaper than here. Now I just have to keep my eyes peeled for the right place to come up. I've let work and the place I live know of my plans and started a ruthless clearing out of my stuff.

These things can take a while then it all happens suddenly leaving your head spinning. But one things for sure, it’s cleared some mind space and given me a positive focus for my life that’s been missing for way too long. Like so many before me, I'm saying I should’ve done this sooner but this is a lesson we each have to learn in our own time isn't it?