Technology is great when it works!

Technology is great when it works! Firstly on Wednesday morning, I discovered that my website was down, this was fixed in a reasonable time by my website guy but then I went out for a couple of hours and came back to find no internet connection at all. This was a completely separate issue. Our internet provider had accidently deleted us from their records in an admin shuffle. It was a complete nightmare, we had no internet or email and I therefore had no way of getting onto my website or contacting my customers. My hubby had a day off and spent it trying to sort things out, initially we had been told that it may be a fault with our equipment. He was asked to reset our router, this took hours, not helped by the fact that we couldn't find our access codes or be sure of the password (so many to remember). We were finally reconnected on Thursday and I have been trying to catch up ever since. At the beginning of the week I was panicking about the second box of large tarantulas that I was expecting last week. The first box arrived on Thursday and the second box didn't turn up until the following Monday. Thankfully all the spiders were fine, they were very well packed but it would have helped considerably if the online tracking system for the delivery company had been working!

I really do have a huge number of spiders now and amongst this collection are some true stunners. I don't often have fully adult female spiders as they generally take years to mature and then of course people want to keep them and not pass them on. This was a unique opportunity to buy a super collection. I think I have the prices just about right now, I have adjusted several to a more realistic level but the entire collection cost me a considerable amount so clearly I cannot sell them too cheaply. If I had a shop I'm sure they would fly off the shelves but it isn't easy to convey how beautiful they are on a website. We put some photos on the site yesterday but I haven't had a chance to write proper descriptions of individual spiders yet. I'm getting there but after a busy week my desk is yet again piled high with paperwork.

I have received a lot of new animals this week, not just adult spiders but stick insects, katydids and younger spiders from various sources. I keep being offered new stock so I just need to sell some now! I certainly think the credit crunch has hit harder this year, well it certainly has for me. I seem to be working more and more but it is difficult to make sufficient money to make it a 'proper' job. The orders that I have are great but I need more of them as most of my time is taken up looking after the animals and I don't get paid for that bit! I find it very hard to prioritise, I probably should spend more time on selling than caring but I can't. I can only do things my way and there just aren't enough hours in a day. I've said it before, I need a clone. If I had another 'me', we could crack it.

Talking of 'cracking it', I have had tarantula skins all over my kitchen for the last couple of weeks. I have examined many old skins and given it my best shot but I think I have confirmed what I strongly suspected. It is not an easy task to sex tarantulas. I couldn't be sure on any of them, the species all look different so for now I have cleared everything away and given up. I haven't cracked it and probably never will. It took time, skill, good eyesight (which I no longer have) and I still ended up with 'best guess'. I do think that my pet tarantula Simon is probably Simone though.

I am seriously looking at getting a separate mobile phone for work. The vast majority of my customers call within the 9am - 4pm, Monday-Friday that I state on my website but there are a few selfish people spoiling it for everyone. Recently I have received both texts and phone calls late at night and at the crack of dawn. I don't understand these people, especially the guy who just kept rambling on when he had clearly woken me up at midnight. Calls in the evenings and weekends can be ignored if I choose but these night time calls are ridiculous. When our teenage daughter is out I always take my phone up to bed with me and even if she is in and the phone is left downstairs, I can still hear it. The trouble is that I don't want to carry two phones around with me, it isn't very practical. If I do buy a dedicated work phone I will probably have to leave it behind in my office when I go out and this means that I won't be as available as I am now. We will see how things go.

Exciting news this week (well I was happy), I actually found a Stag beetle on the path near my house. When we lived in London I often saw them, especially when I went out looking in the evenings but up here in Buckinghamshire they are rare, so I was very pleased indeed. Now that our baby birds have left the nesting box outside my office window (with a camera connected to my computer) I thought I should clean out the box in anticipation of the next inhabitants. However when I checked the camera the other day I saw that a multitude of insects are doing a good job already. It was fascinating to watch, there were ants scurrying around and flies buzzing about, nature is great.

Well as usual I had better stop chit chatting and get out to the bug house. I will do a tidy up and then get off to collect my weekly order of crickets to feed them all. I will also be collecting a couple of new spiders while I am there!