Well, if you take away the cloud you have the moonlight swim I enjoyed last evening in Kashagawigamog Lake in Haliburton.
Long story but I went up to teach a workshop on Etsy at Flemming College in the stead of my friend Lindsey Fair who’s life had just piled up in a heap and I was honoured she asked me to help out. I’ve taught there for the past two years so I’m no stranger to the area or the school and as it was a computer course I would be in the main college with air con instead of the High School where I’ve taught machine knitting in what seems like 90 degree heat with no breeze!
Fortunately friend Susan Watson & Jeffrey Ellis was able to park me for a night in their cabin and I arrived just in time for a glass of wine and a swim before dinner. When Susan arrived home from the first day of the Muskoka Craft show in Bracebridge she, her sister and I ended up gabbing in the hot tub for waaay too long and when we finally dripped our way out I said I wanted a swim. The three of us picked out way down the lake’s edge in the dark (about 10:30pm) and slipped into the glassy lake…and above is what the Full Moon last night looked like….. only even better. The water was absolutely perfect, dreamy, delish. Three heads bobbing around for a little dip before bed.
Arriving a little late for set up (half an hour before classes instead of the planned hour) it took a while, with Dave’s help, to get my laptop (Mac) set up in a PC computer lab. Then to get the students hooked up as they arrived. Ernie, our one bloke, used his Mac laptop and a Rogers stick and worked from there and two staff who were auditing the class helped hook everyone else up. I made everyone wear name tags as it’s usually the second day that I start to remember who’s who…and we got started.
Some had already signed up to shop, some had looked around the site but all were eager to sign up. It took all morning, lots of darting about one on one, getting instructions up on the projection screen then we hit a bit of a wall…
1) Students needed to access their email to confirm their registration on Etsy….on unfamiliar computers.
2) We realized that the last stage is to input credit card info for identity confirmation.
We worked out the email but a couple had not brought credit cards with them (who knew really, even I had forgotten that you needed one for ID!) ….I quickly added that little detail to the class supply list for next time.
Another step that took time was working out the PayPal thing as it’s the greatest way to do online sales, transfer funds and shop, it’s really easy…… if you click the right buttons…but we found our way to the right forms to fill out….also you need a credit card for that too.
We had a lovely young mum who had to leave to nurse her new baby, a lady who left to get her credit card and didn’t return….she’d done quite a bit anyway and ….it was bloody freezing in that room! A couple of other young ladies who went so far as to start designing their header Banners and then they had to leave.
One of the things I stressed becoming used to is Tabs in your browser so you can open up your Etsy shop and look around it on one tab and open it up again in another tab to work on your listing. Maybe even third tab to access all the HELP on the site.
By five pm there were just Barbara and Jan left still slogging away to get every last bit they could from the class (thank you Barbara for the sheep!).
Well, with a 3 1/2 hour drive home I packed up and checked the classroom for anything that I might have brought in and spread around (you know how you do), took of my little jacket (yes it was freezing in there) and headed out into the heat and sun…reached for my sunglasses (good ones from California that fit over my glasses and a super for driving…) and @#!* they were nowhere to be found!!!!!
Got Dave to open up the classroom twice for me to search (found my pen), and tore apart my car and bags three times… result…. glasses gone. How does that happen when I wore then into class that morning? Oh well, they grew legs or I dropped them somewhere. Rats, now I know where part of my pay is going!
….But I really had a great 24 hours, love that drive, soooooo much better than the 401!
Some sites to watch, they’re very new and might not have a header or much there but hard work was done to get there today.
