I think this will be a shorter entry this week - when I reflect on what happened this past week it is kind of a blur! I officially started physical therapy, Tuesday there was a lot of testing as well as some exercise and expanded homework. Thursday was additional testing but more of a focus on exercise. The first thing I did was get on the NuStep and go slowly for ten minutes. I am very familiar with the NuStep, I used it a lot when we worked out at the senior center. They do have a couple of them at the fitness center at the community college but they are sometimes occupied so I was focusing on the treadmill. I do not think I will go back to the treadmill again. I asked if I could use the NuStep at the fitness center as part of my homework and was given the go-ahead to use it for 30 minutes at a low level, two to three times per week. The NuStep at PT looks to be the latest and greatest like the one in the photo. The ones at the fitness center are a little older but still doable. Kuochun and I went to the fitness center on Friday and then again on Sunday. We knew that we could not go on Monday because we both had other appointments. I was given a resistance band at PT, which is to be used to do leg extensions. Instead of messing with the band I decided to try the leg extension machine. The machine has a minimum weight of ten pounds which is what I am supposed to be using. When I was at PT I used a 10-pound ankle weight. The next time I go, I will make sure using the machine is OK. I am excited to have gotten started and I am looking forward to feeling better as it has been holding me back for four months now.
I thought I had signed up for Tuesday-Thursday PT every week but it turns out the rest of the way it is Monday-Wednesday. Unfortunately that meant I had to cancel the Monday session because we have Ryan the handyman coming over (for ten hours!) plus a Zoom meeting with Tina the designer for a Prescott update. I actually had a haircut as well but had to postpone it because Kuochun has a cardiologist appointment. With Ryan and the girls there I felt someone should be at home the whole time so the girls do not stress out while we are gone. I really do make sure to keep stress levels down in their lives! My bangs are so long they are in my eyes and I could not get another hair appointment until the following Tuesday. But I am on a waiting list in case there is a cancellation.
I did hear from the other customer who decided to take this ring at a reduced price even though it has a crack in the bottom stone. The first customer received her ring and is over the moon happy with it. That is always a great feeling! The second customer's ring is still on the way and in the middle of a post office delay. Hopefully it will arrive soon.
I posted the necklace with the coral cameo prematurely last week, I actually did not post it until this Monday evening. I also delisted and relisted this lariat necklace. I reshot the photos and had also found out the artist's full name and added that information to the listings as well. Her name is Mary Ellen Pease, she signs her pieces Mary Ellen in script. She is the matriarch of the Willie family, I love their work! I have pieces by Ronnie, Tawney and Dakota T Willie for sale.
I also posted this vintage 1970s necklace which looks like a squash blossom but instead of a naja, it has the two-stone centerpiece. I researched the turquoise and everything points to it being Pilot Mountain. The stones are wonderful with a rustic charm. The blue is so brilliant and the brown matrix and quartz inclusions so striking.
The only other piece I was able to post was another handmade beaded necklace by Rose Martin. There are no necklaces like these online so I thought I would just post them all and see if they interest anyone. I have another more recent acquisition which is mainly saucer beads. I believe I have two more to go and they have turquoise incorporated in. I started with the most expensive and I am working my way down in price from there.
As far as sales go, I sold this amazing sandcast silver cuff bracelet with turquoise from the Number 8 mine in Nevada on Poshmark. Currently it is going through the Poshmark authentication process - pieces over a certain value must be shipped to Poshmark headquarters. They make sure the items are authentic and they repackage and send them to the customer. This means it takes a lot longer to receive the funds but it should prevent returns.
After I do not know how long, I finally sold some Federico pieces! I accepted offers on both of these earrings. The orange spiny oyster shell pair sold on eBay and the onyx and turquoise clusters sold on Poshmark. I sacrificed a bit on the cluster earrings but had more room to negotiate on the other pair since I dug through all the earrings and found it had old pricing. I have a similar pair with orange spiny oyster shell and white freshwater pearls.
I had some of the newer Mexican pieces sitting out and Kuochun kept remarking about how great they were! One piece caught his eye in particular, it is a round pendant with a 3-dimensional butterfly surrounded by flowers. He played around a bit with trying to take a 3-D photo of it. I did not see a huge difference! It did prompt me to get ready to post some of the pieces. They are perfect for Spring with their floral, heart and butterfly motifs. Some of the pieces were in my display case since 2024 and have tarnished badly. I polished and wrote descriptions for six of the pieces so all I need to do is shoot the photos. I noticed that one of the bracelets was missing the raindrop in the center of one of the flowers so I will be taking it in for repair.
I did send a medium size flat rate box to the office on Saturday evening and it is scheduled to arrive next Thursday. I decided to send all of the non-Native rings, including the big collection of about 80 sparklers in all different colors. This style of ring is the most popular I offer! I also sent back the two lock boxes I was using to lock up the U-Boxes which were in storage. It was kind of a last-minute decision so the box is not totally packed. I am still fluctuating a bit about which jewelry I would like to keep where. In the end, I would like the Arizona jewelry to be curated and the rest to go to the caravan so I just need to stick with that philosophy.
Mark and I tried to have another Whatnot show from the office on Thursday night but we only sold three pieces for $32 to the same person who happens to live in Mount Prospect. At least I did not have to worry about shipping. One of the pieces was a pair of earrings that we made, featuring strawberry-shaped glass beads. I have not been trying to sell our jewelry so that was the first piece we sold in years! I have come to the conclusion though that the office shows will have to wait until we gain more of a following on Whatnot. We are participating in the raid train for Illinois sellers next Friday. We will be live at our Park Ridge sale so I hope this will give us some more followers.
I spent some time "talking" with ChatGPT to see what its take would be on how I should approach Whatnot going forward. I have been hearing about sellers who have been invited to the platform and have also been given representatives to work with. I feel we are totally in the position to deserve a representative and once the pop-up shop is finished I will have the ammunition to back that up. ChatGPT fully agreed! I sent it some photos of a jewelry display I had made here in Scottsdale for new Native American jewelry and it went on and on about how wonderful it was. I could be in an endless loop of discussion with it but I stopped after a couple of hours. Some of the information started repeating but overall it was so helpful, it really backed up what I was thinking. One interesting departure was that I can take a different direction - I do not have to be TikTok famous or have 10,000 Instagram followers. I need to focus on my story and why I am the only Whatnot seller who has my unique experience and skill set and that once Prescott is ready it will be a game-changer. It was a productive "conversation!" I probably will stop following the Whatnot reseller groups on Facebook. They were helpful in the beginning when I was learning the platform but most of them source clothing from the Goodwill bins or are looking for trendy items like Lululemon which is different than what I am doing. They also complain a lot about receiving poor reviews on giveaways, which I understand but after a while it just becomes brain clutter.
Next Wednesday-Friday we are supposed to be in for record-setting high temperatures - two days at 106 and one day at 104. Times like this will be perfect to have a place in the mountains to escape to. Prescott will be getting up to the high 80s but that is way better than the alternative. It is like we are on a different planet with our weather so different than the Midwest.
This coming Monday I will find out from Tina when we can finally clear out the garage in Scottsdale and move the rest of the Prescott items up there. The pop-up shop is not quite ready but thankfully it is ready enough to move the major furniture in there. There is a bit of carpet tile that still needs to be put down and the correct size cabinet is in the order process. Tina is going to look for a countertop remnant and I need to ask her about using my leftover breezeway tile as a backsplash for that area. The remaining work is all happening on the opposite side of the room and I am really glad that I will not to need to have movers a third time to put the first round of furniture in place. It has been a long journey of moving things around these past two years from Mother to us and it will be a happy day when we are finally settled.
There were three estate sale packages to do this week - I was able to get two of them done on Sunday but the third will have to be Monday. I will then have one more to do next week, then two weeks off from paperwork. I would like to take that time to come up with a schedule so I feel like I can make progress with the jewelry. Here and there I continue to tackle the pieces on my desks. Once that is complete I can work on the various boxes, containers etc. with jewelry inside and prepare it all for sale, wherever that may be. I will be sending my jewelry to another estate sale but I will not be present because the location is far for me and the starting time early. Melinda will watch over the jewelry for me. I will focus on budget-friendly silver and costume jewelry pieces for the sale. I am coming across more costume jewelry that I imagined that I had but at least it is a faster process because it does not need to be polished. I have also been setting aside materials for the new jewelry project I would like to work on this summer. I will balance this with the need to keep polishing and pricing silver and to post at least three items online per day. But I also need to work on my taxes, it is always something!
That is all the news for now, see you next time!
