The New Sharon's Compendium Website is Now the Place

While this blog isn't going away, at least not for a very long time, I will not be updating it anymore because I have a new blog, called Observations, on my (new) website, SharonsCompendium.com.  Please hop on over there to see what's new with me, and sign up for my monthly email newsletter, if you are so inclined. 

Meanwhile, this blog will serve as an archive for more than 10 year's worth of all the things that I have observed, experienced, and written about (here, that is). 

Thanks for visiting! See you across the way!

—Sharon

April 2025

A Little Progress Report

 

Hello there!

I've been ignoring this blog as I've been working on assorted things: pre-preparing our taxes (that is, getting my records updated and gathering the info to send to the guy who actually does the proper tax prep work);  thinking about garden plans and seed starting (more on that later); and working on getting my own website up and running, which will eventually replace both this blog and my Etsy shop. 

I'm finding the website-creating to be rather slow going (the tax stuff too), so I thought I'd drop back in over here with an update.

The domain SharonsCompendium.com, which currently redirects here, will lead you there when it's ready. It will include a blog and a store, plus the usual "about" and "contact" pages and that sort of thing. When it's live, I'll write one more post here alerting any visitors to my new web home, and then will let this sit as an archive of my previous postings — going all the way back to 2006! 

Replacing the Etsy shop will take a bit longer. I've come to realize that many things that seemed to make sense for Etsy are really just desperate attempts to get noticed in what has become a very crowded and noisy market place. I don't actually expect to get more buyers once my website is fully stocked, but I do look forward to providing a calm and pleasant experience for both myself and my visitors. 

What that means, as far as progress on the website goes, is that simply importing my product listings from Etsy isn't going to do it, although it does save some time to start there (which I've done). I am rewriting titles and in many cases needing to take new photos or edit existing ones to better fit the requirements of the Squarespace platform. It's all good, though, and I do feel that the product pages will be much nicer and more attractive than on Etsy. 

So when the website goes live, it will have a small number of products, and I will keep the Etsy shop open until the new place is fully stocked.

Meanwhile, I still need to plan this year's garden — and get some seeds started. I did plant some clover at the end of January, which is now sitting pretty in a couple of teacups on the buffet for St. Patrick's Day (today, as it happens), and I'll keep that going through Easter as a kind of pseudo Adonis garden, after which it'll go into the compost. 

Planting seeds — I guess that's a fitting metaphor for my work on my website, too. And so I'm going to get back to it. 

It's the Year of the Snake

Happy Lunar New Year! The Year of the Snake began on January 29, 2025.

I've been making the Useful Calendar featuring the Lunar New Year animal for long enough that I'm now in the process of having a second go at each animal—since 2023, the Year of the Rabbit. It's kind of fun to look back on my earlier illustrations, when I can find them, as in this case. This is the San Francisco garter snake, listed as endangered, and generally declared to be the most beautiful snake in North America, at least according to the judgment of a lot of random people on the Internet.

Originally, I made one illustration for the top of the poster calendar, which I also featured on the cover card of my desk calendar. Now I make 12 illustrations, choosing from among those for the cover card of the desk calendar and another to top the poster. I also do a lot of research about the featured animal (since 2019), its natural history and the myths and folklore about it, which informs my illustrations and the captions I write for them. Occasionally, I even spin off a zine loaded with information and additional illustrations related to the animal of the year. But those take a lot of time (I'm persnickety: I fact check myself and cite sources), so it's not a thing I do every year. 

This year's poster calendar actually comes in two versions, because I was afraid that people would be turned off by seeing a snake at the top of their calendar, so one version has the San Francisco garter snake and the other features Saint Patrick banishing a sassy Irish snake from the emerald isle. A footnote at the bottom explains that there never were any snakes in Ireland. 

This year, for the first time, I had the calendars printed at a local printer—Smart Set—instead of printing them myself as needed. They turned out great and I really like this printer for their friendly and patient customer service (they work with a lot of local artists, so they're used to us, if you know what I mean), quality of their work, and eco-friendliness. 

But I did a terrible job of estimating the number I would need, which means I still have a lot of calendars, available for half price in my Etsy shop, here.  

The calendar minizine, new this year, is printed, assembled and sewn by me, so even though there's no overstock of that one, it is also discounted. That's grouped with the calendars. My other zines are in this section.

Thanks for looking.