Once Upon A Time, Long Ago and Far Away.......

A cottage industry is a small (in my case, very small) business that you run from your home.

When I started on eBay ,I found myself essentially alone with no transportation in a rural mountain area, seven miles from the nearest town and post office, and in bad health. But I did have a lot of "stuff".

Then I found eBay and it solved a lot of problems. I can "work" from home and never get bored.

I've seen a lot of changes on eBay and can't say that I like all of them, as most of them are geared to help the big guys. Some changes I like such as the use of PayPal to print mailing labels, and the growth of the international market. On the other hand eBay presents a constant challenge to have my listing stand out. Just the photos alone must compete with professional studio work. Writing a title and description compares to professional copy writting. Its not for the faint-hearted. And research! Every item I sell is usually unique to me so it involves a lot of research. Hopefully all this mental work will stave off some senility, although I must confess to a "senior moment" here and there.

On the whole, selling on eBay is fun, but buying here is even more fun for me. How else can you live in the middle of nowhere and have the world at your fingertips?

As far as my personal interests go, they are quite wide and varied. I am fascinated by plants and animals, enthralled to 'lose' myself in books, interested in how things work, how other cultures live, art, history, design, and anything vintage or antique, especially Iris and Silver Plated Flatwear.

Horse Nappping (thought at first she was dead)

One more thing: Please bear with me if we seem to have a communication problem. At times I have had computer problems and there are no public computers nearby. All of the time I am dealing with a very slow internet connection. There is not enough population (I think this is the second most sparsely populated county east of the Mississippi River), to get any kind of cable, No TV, no cell phone service, no high speed internet. When it rains or for other unexplainable reasons, my internet won't hold even a slow connection.

Whatever happens, I do try to get back online as soon as possible.