Crafting with Cats

A few months ago, I signed up for a fall craft show. At the time, it seemed like no big deal. Fast forward a few months and now I'm like, what was I thinking?!?! (Yep, again..) Let me say that at the time I decided to go, I figured I had plenty of time to get stuff made and would make money off of the crafts I like to make.

Now, as I keep working on my crafts and finishing as much as I can in the coming weeks, I wonder why I thought I could single-handedly finish a bunch of time-intensive projects. Aside from my non-existent spare time, I also have some rather unhelpful help in the house: cats! Some of the cats have been more than helpful in their own ways. Currently, the most helpful one is Smokey. She has to sit on me, lay on my shoulder, lay on the supplies I need, or hunker down right in front of the sewing machine while I'm trying to use it. Not exactly the most helpful; in fact, it slows me down a lot. I end up spending time trying to coax her to sit somewhere else (clearly not as comfortable as what I'm working on), moving her out of the way only for her to come back in less than a minute to claim her spot once again. Ultimately, I get frustrated, give up on trying to work on anything, and end up holding and cuddling her. It's a lose-win situation - with me losing!

The other helpful cat - Dobby. She is by far less intrusive than Smokey. Dobby's main concern is what I am working on, what all the supplies are, and do they meet her standards? (I have yet to figure out her standards) She's most happy to walk around sniffing and rubbing on everything, doling out some chirps and meows as she sees fit. She's not much of a cuddler or lap cat, so she doesn't look for an in-the-way spot to nap. Dobby would prefer to play with all the loose ends or pieces I drop.

Hazel and Ash prefer it when I crochet or work on the loom knitting. Each of them thinks it's their job to help the yarn unroll, touch, and pull it as I work. Occasionally, they will just watch the yarn move as I work. They are definitely low-key helpers and tend to not be as helpful (or create too much chaos). The end game for them is to get the ball of yarn and play. Working with yarn can be tricky with cats. They are all drawn to it for some reason. One time, I didn't tuck away my crocheting very well and came home to the entire downstairs and basement booby-trapped. I'm sure most of the cats helped as they chased, pulled, and followed the ball of yarn all around the house. Sadly, that project was not salvageable.

For now, the other cats are less interested in my crafting, which works well for me! They will be happy if I can sell some of these things I've been working on so that I can get them new toys and treats. I just want to make enough to help cover the ever-growing expense of medications and vet visits for the #purrfectdozen.

Be sure to check the shopping section of the blog to purchase handcrafted items (with assistance from the cats!) in the coming weeks.

Till our tails cross again,

Mel

What was I thinking?

I find myself saying a lot, "What was I thinking?" this time around, in relation to starting a blog. What was I thinking, truly? I wanted to start a blog site. I dug a tiny bit into that, what would I write about - cats and my day-to-day life. It seemed simple enough. Somewhere deep in my brain, I thought I can write about my cats, my experiences, give advice as I find things that work for a multipet house, etc., and potentially make money on the blog. At no point did I think beyond just HOW you make money on the blog.

So here I am, more than 6 months in, a blog a week with very few readers, no money coming in from the blog. It got me thinking, what was I thinking when I started this blog?! I wanted to try my hand at it, sure, I wanted to write about my experiences; blogging seemed so simple. Granted, it's simple enough, you just have to sit down and type away. Sometimes I have no idea what to write about, and when I find something, I feel I don't have anything to make people keep reading.

Content plays a big part in the blog world. If you aren't putting out content people want to read or hear about, you'll never make it. I'm not quite sure I have the content perfected yet...but there's hope. While I was wondering what I was doing writing a blog, I started to look into how to make money on my blog. It's got potential for sure. But it's going to take a lot more work and dedication than I originally thought it would. (No surprise here...)

I have learned that one thing you have to do to be successful with any type of social media is lots of promotion, lots of posting, and lots of marketing. That's harder than I expected. Not only do I have to make sure I take the time to write the blog and schedule the posts, but I also need to go on various platforms and push that a new blog post is up. This includes using my handy phone to text people who aren't on Facebook or Instagram. While each piece is only a few minutes, it's a few minutes that I have to dedicate each time a blog goes live. I'm slowly getting better at using the various "scheduler" features on multiple platforms - I just have to make time to sit down and schedule those posts!

Just a quick search made me realize that it could take more than a year or two to make $1,000 a month. Now, that would mean writing more than one blog post a week, having exceptional content, and a big following of blog readers. None of which is happening yet for me... My content is so-so, I have about 5 people who read my blog daily, and that's it. So, am I really going to make money on it? Probably not. Do I want to? Yes... but I'm okay if I don't.

I never realized that I would need to be so up-to-date with keywords (terms people use in their web searches). By using keywords, it brings my blog closer to the top of internet results. Who knew?! I guess over time I'll get the keyword thing down, but in the meantime... I'm just going to keep plugging along and doing a weekly post.

Something I recently learned - blogging is supposed to be interactive. I don't know why, but that's not my first thought when I think of a blog. But I guess, bloggers write, people read & comment. Those comments are questions or follow-ups to what they just read. Therefore, pulling the blogger into communication with their readers. As of yet, I have gotten no comments or questions. Maybe one day they will come.

Till our Tails Cross,

Mel

Is AI going to take over?

Straying away from the cats for a hot blog minute. Something that has been trending is AI - it's hard to miss that AI is a thing - it's everywhere! From AI-created images, AI-written programs, and AI-written papers.

I've never been one of the tech-savvy people who need to have the latest and greatest thing that has come out with technology. I fought getting a smartphone for the longest time - I was good with the flip phone that took 20 minutes to write a text as you had to press each key multiple times to get the letter you needed. Now I use my "smart" phone more than Gene does. I still struggle with some things on it, but overall - I use it more than I do a computer.

I always used to say that the technology we have is nowhere close to being perfect or even working correctly 99% of the time, so maybe we should slow our roll on the advancement to bigger, better things with technology and perfect what we have. But what do I know? Granted, there's more money to be made if we roll out new and improved things more often. Sadly, the way of the world is more materialistic than it should be, and people just have to have the bragging rights for the newest thing instead of fixing something; we just toss it and buy a new replacement.

Years ago, when AI was just a murmur on the tech streets, Gene was like, "This is gonna be the greatest thing ever. Robots that do all the work, body parts that are replaceable so we can live forever, what's not to like?!" I was like, you know, that's just taking away jobs - which takes away our financial ability to afford living. More importantly, if we push forward with AI, it's just going to make humans a lump of stupid, non-thinking blobs. We need to be

challenged, we need to think, we need to push our limits. Having something like AI take over is taking all of that away. People will no longer think for themselves, have an opinion, or be able to carry on an intellectual conversation. The world would quickly become a place that I don't want to live.

Now that AI is becoming more prominent in our lives (Facebook with its "Meta AI", TikTok with AI-generated captions, emails/texts with predictive sentencing, Chat GPT (both paid and unpaid), Claude) - it's everywhere and without a choice. Granted, there are some upsides to AI, depending on how you use it and what your intentions are.

I have used ChatGPT (the free version) as a tool to help me brainstorm or get ideas of what to write about, creating unique names, etc. But that's it. There's potential for some really big changes with AI taking the lead in the technical world. Some of it is happening behind the scenes already at medium and larger companies. The average person may not see it, but it's happening and it's a bit scary!

Gene works for a great company and has been there for almost 10 years. He has been on several teams during that time. Recently, he joined a new team - basically the AI division. So he is seeing firsthand how it is changing or has the potential to change things in his company. Gene was excited to be on that team - he is on the leading edge of this new technology, so it is a great experience and looks amazing on his resume. However, the big drawback is the realization that in the distant future, his field of work could be eliminated or cut back to a minimal team of a few people. This was one thing I kept saying: jobs will be taken, and it's not the low-end jobs that no one wants that will disappear. He was adamant that would never happen. Now he sees that the potential is there, and it's scary!

Like most people who have a career in a specialized field, it's terrifying to hear in your 40s that you might not have a job in 10 years. Even though you planned to work until 65, now you're in the "unhireable" group for several reasons: age, skill set, pay rate, etc. Let's also be realistic about the fact that yes, it's discriminatory to not hire based on age - but we all know it happens, and companies find a way to not use age as the reason. That's the last place anyone wants to find themselves. While it's not the end of the world, it sure makes for a stressful time.

Gene and a friend recently got together. His friend, whom we hadn't seen since our wedding, voiced his concern about AI and his job security. He is also in the tech field at a different company in a different industry. Gene is in the restaurant supply industry, while his friend is in the medical industry, but both are on the back end of computer technology. There are no real answers to how likely this is to happen or what will happen to all the people in technical fields. Are they just out of luck and have to find a new field to work in? Will they have to consider early retirement if the day comes when their jobs disappear?

Til our tails cross again,

Mel