Category: life in general

Time Flies

Time Flies

Posted on by Nancy Tang

Time Flies!

Where does the time go? I’ll tell you that the older I get, the faster time flies by.  I’m getting older and find I can do less in a day than I could 10 years ago. I’m trying to balance work life with home life, and spending time on my hobbies which are many!

I love to garden, make wine, bake bread, ferment things, can food, paint, read, play video games… never a reason to be bored!!

It seems like its been forever since I posted here. Honestly, I’ve let the website slip… but I’m hoping to do a makeover here over the next couple of months.  Check out my new GLOOT page! 

New work at Glass Orchids

Posted on by Nancy Tang
New work at Glass Orchids being fired in kiln.
New work at Glass Orchids being melted right before your eyes.

 

My goal for winter was to create new work at Glass Orchids, for the upcoming season.

I  have to say that I’ve failed miserably at that task this winter.  This winter I’ve been consumed by other tasks, after getting through the holidays I’ve spent my time working on websites for myself and the various arts organizations I’m a part of. I’m also the manager of two of the artisan cooperatives I’m in , and organizing for the upcoming season takes a lot of work.  I admit, I also enjoyed days of laziness which are greatly  needed to refuel for the coming year. 

I’ve got plans for new work at Glass Orchids, so many plans lol…… but first I’ve got to set up for the opening of the cooperatives, do my taxes (which no are not done yet), clean my studio, plant my garden, and then, yes then, create new works!!!

In addition to working getting this site ready for prime time, I also created a new website for one of my cooperatives: Belfast Harbor Artisans. 

 

So it's 2019....A New Year

So it’s 2019….A New Year

Posted on by Nancy Tang

A new year, a new season! January is typically the month I rest up and take a little break, but this year the new season seems to have come earlier….. working on websites for The Bangor Art Society, Belfast Harbor Artisans, converting GlassOrchids.com over to GlassOrchids.art, working on a site for my sister, and one for SouthWestHarbor Artisans…and helping River Arts with theirs.

Getting the agendas set for the coop meetings this weekend, and entering pieces for shows at River Arts and the Bangor Art society. I need to organize my studio and stock, and make new work, and do taxes… planning my garden for this spring….applying for shows……why did I ever think Jan/Feb were slow months?

This year I’ve left 2 coops, and am going to try and pare down what I make to those things that have been selling, and things I just love to make. I’m hoping to focus a bit on obtaining a few new wholesale accounts too. 20+ years doing this and I’ve still not found the Golden Mix, the formula to maximize income based on wholesale. retail, coops, consignment, online sales……. sometimes I feel like Jason of the Argonauts.

Now, just to get back to something I said above.. I’ve moved GlassOrchids.com to GlassOrchids.art.. why? Well, maybe you’ve read my saga of Google Jail? GlassOrchids.com is in google jail so I get no traffic or search engine placement. I made an innocent / but ignorant mistake and will pay for it forever apparently….. but hopefully with GlassOrchids.ART I’ll be able to recover…. time will tell….

Anyway, till next time,

Nancy

The high price of ignorance – Google Jail

Posted on by Nancy Tang

Google Jail

Back in 2013 I used a free template to create a nice look on my website. The free template included stock clip art that was also listed on free clip art websites. I had fully intended to replace the clip art with my own photos but didn’t get around to replacing one of them. It was the photo of a woman’s face. Life got busy and I really let my website drift for about 5 years. Recently I’ve ported GlassOrchids over here to wordpress, whole new host, whole new website. In trying to gain placement in the search engines I discovered that way back in 2013 the owner of that photo reported dozens of web pages/sites, that also used that photo perhaps also in free templates, for copyright infringement.

In researching I’ve discovered that I’m now in Google jail and it’s a life sentence. There is no way to remove oneself from Google jail if, in fact, you actually did have the illegal image/content on your page at any time.

Some of my pages are indexed in Google but not my home page, which is where the photo was.  I’ve spent hours researching how to fix this. I can’t believe Google has no way of re-indexing a page, i.e. removing you from google jail, but they don’t. Apparently they used to, but creeps who intentionally use copyrighted material kept getting out of jail and then adding the copyrighted material right back to their pages. So once again, the jerks in the world are why we can’t have nice things.

I’ve had glassorchids.com for about 20 years or so. Now there is no way for me to have it re-indexed with Google so it will not come up in the search engines; most of my pages will but not the home page. That’s a high price to pay for ignorance.

I’m working on some workarounds and have registered GlassOrchidZ.com … well I do love zombies so I guess in a way this is the undead version of GlassOrchids.   It will take a lot of time as I’ll have to recreate the site from scratch…at least part of it, and figure out how to redirect a site/page. I’ll keep you posted on progress.

Let this be a lesson to all of you out there – beware of any free graphics/templates etc… the real price can be very high.

Live and learn,

~Nan

UPDATE: I think I’ve got a workaround and have implemented it. You won’t notice any difference in the site but I’ve used a 301 redirect to point the home page to a different page (basically a duplicate) with a unique name. Hopefully this will fix the issue but it will take a few weeks to see if it does as it takes time for the site to get crawled and re-indexed. I may not need GlassOrchidZ.com after all.

Spammers, hackers and phases of the moon.

Posted on by Nancy Tang

I’m getting tired of spammers, hackers and strange goings on due to phases of the moon.

Today I’ve spent a lot of time working to improve security on my site. I’ve had to disallow commenting on my site because nasty people have created bots that post spam on WordPress blogs automatically and I don’t have time to delete them all.

I’ve also blocked someone from trying to hack my ID/PW twice today. Now they are IP banned.

I’ve learned more than I want to know about all the bastards in the world who are why we can’t have nice things. I must say, I’ve had websites for over 20 years and these days it’s the worst I’ve ever seen with regard to spam/hacking etc…. all that effort just to screw with other people who are just trying to make a living. Imagine if they would all just use that effort and intellect for the benefit of mankind…

I’m going to upgrade my security system when I can and block entire countries. I’m not going to ship there anyway and the majority of crap comes from them: China, Russia, UA, Ukraine, India…… even France, yep France. Weirdly enough none of it has come from Nigeria; I guess they only use low tech scamming techniques like email… I did get one wholesale request from Nigeria this week.  I emailed back and said if they were gonna be criminals they needed to try harder. The company they said they were from does not exist and there is no building at the address they gave… yay google earth. Plus their IP was easy to trace to Nigeria. Do better folks.

There are so  many bots out in the interwebs; they are all over a post like this like flies on feces; seconds after I hit publish I see these little bots all over it…

Wth universe – The drain in my kitchen sink broke last night;  I mean BROKE.. it’s a 100 year old sink and the metal just snapped. The hard drive on my laptop is dying and now the pellet stove in my studio is dead. Come ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN….

:End Rant

Down Time - What we do in Maine when the tourists go home

Down Time – What we do in Maine when the tourists go home

Posted on by Nancy Tang

It’s Artist Down Time  here in Maine. The time of year when the tourists have fled to warmer climes and I sit looking out the window at 3′ of snow. Often customers at the cooperatives will ask us what we do all winter; we wonder this too…..

Once we close the cooperatives in late October (mostly) we do holiday shows, enjoy our families and then comes the lull in January/February. We make no money in the winter months unless we have successfully navigated the Etsy  or other online waters. There are a few shows between the new year and spring but not many, and generally not great anyway.  Mostly I plan to make a lot of stock over the winter and to get to all those house cleaning projects I’ve put off all summer, but what really happens is I collapse,  the last two winters I’ve experienced severe family illnesses, I try to enjoy the holidays, I do my taxes (OMFG) and come April I’ve created NOTHING.  I’ve spent a lot of time organizing stuff for the coops, researching new products, new galleries, applying to shows, working on the websites, ordering supplies and I’ve even finished a few paintings. I haven’t been in the studio.. except to clean .. for months. I plan to do better, but I always seem to fail.

It’s ok my taxes are done, family is ok,  and I still have April!! I have hope!! Maybe I’ll get some backstock created!! Maybe I’ll get some new products done!! I have designed a few pieces for an art gallery so hey I’m ahead already! A little down time is also good for the soul, helps us to recharge for the crazy season that is just around the corner!

Never enough time

Never enough time

Posted on by Nancy Tang

Sure I said I’d be posting my SnapDragons(tm) on the site in a week; that was two weeks ago. There isn’t enough time in a day is there?  I’ve launched my art site NancyDaviesTang.com ,  moved and mocked up my supply website at UGotGlass.com, which is inactive at the moment because again.. there is just NO time. I’ve also launched a sit for my lavender & market garden farm WinterRose.farm.  I’ve entered two shows one with the Bangor Arts Society and the other with river arts. The former won 2nd place and the latter saw one piece featured in the local paper. Ye ha… I am moving along,  just not getting everything on the list done! Ah well, we do what we can…..

~Nan

It’s not all cake and wine! Relaunch of Glass Orchids!

Posted on by Nancy Tang
Banner image for relaunch of Glass Orchids.
Relaunch of Glass Orchids – dichroic glass jewelry made by Maine Glass Artist, Nancy Tang

 

The Relaunch of Glass Orchids 

….has been and ongoing task for about a year now, and I’m getting closer to really having GlassOrchids.Art up and running smoothly.  Recently I’ve noticed a lot of new subscribers to my website. So many that it seemed suspicious. That’s the world we live in now isn’t it? But you know what? I was right. Checked out several of them and they were known spammers. So I’ve disabled subscriptions on the site, deleted them all and removed 100 spam comments that were waiting for me to review.

It is no small task to relaunch Glass Orchids, I’ve had to back up and migrate the entire site to a new host and then deal with all the little glitches that occur when plugins think it’s the old site.  Having run GlassOrchids.com for over 20 years, I now have to try and regain search engine placement, and that’s a whole job unto itself! Learning all the SEO changes and how to  make that work in WordPress vs. an HTML site is another whole ball of wax too. I’ve learned a whole lot though, and I do enjoy working on the site.  I highly recommend a plug in called Wordfence. (and no I don’t get paid to say that, I just find the plugin really helpful.) Watching the live feed of website activity is both fascinating and terrifying; so many bots trying to login and take over!!

Now I can get back to working in the studio creating dichroic glass jewelry and art pieces. I’ve got a Bangor Art Society show coming up in a few weeks and need to make a fused glass wave artwork for it. I’ll post images when it’s complete!

Stay warm folks!
~Nancy

If you’ve arrived  here from outside the site, please visit my home page at: GlassOrchids.Art

Sooooooo today....

Sooooooo today….

Posted on by Nancy Tang

I got the blog to show my posts : ) sure sure you think it’s easy…. no no it’s not lol. Anywho, the website she is up and running. Now I’m waiting for my host to add the SSL certificate so you can shop without worry.  That should take a day or so. In the meantime, I’ll be adding more items and trying to get some inventory on here for you to buy.

IDK how anyone gets anything done. Today I amended the soil in my garden beds, searched each leaf of cukes and squashes like the backs of a child’s ear for squash bug eggs and removed them all, killed cucumber bugs with my bare fingers (yes it’s war), sprayed all those plants with an organic insecticide. I dealt with some issues at the artist coop I am shop manager for,  drove my husband over a friends house to go fishing, took a friend to lunch for her bday and to the lake to go swimming, did some grocery shopping, worked on this site and purchased the SSL, did the dishes, fed the cats, fed the chickens,  and am going to fry up the fish my husband caught today, after which I must do laundry for the week.  It doesn’t seem like that should take all the hours in a day but, believe me, it does.  How the time flies…..

It was a glorious day, the weather was perfect and I spent it doing great things with people I love.  It goes fast folks, enjoy every minute…..

~Nan

It’s not all fun and games that’s for sure….

Posted on by Nancy Tang

I’ve been trying to find the time to port my website over from it’s existing host to this  new one for about a year. People think, oh you’re an artist, that must be so much fun! Well, yeah it is.. but honestly, it’s about 1/5th creating art and 4/5’s doing paperwork, marketing, ordering supplies, and trying to sell our work via FB, Etsy, Ebay, Shows, Shops and yes…. having a functioning website. So folks, bear with me. I’m hoping to have this puppy  up and running  over the next few months…. and now I have to figure out how to make the DNS point to this new place instead of my old site… sheesh.

Anywayyyyyyyyyyyy,

~Nan