Virginia Cheeseman Blog

One week until my prize winning cruise to the Caribbean. There will be no blog for a while, this time next week we will be on our way! Entering competitions is my hobby and I have won some amazing prizes over the years. Just this year I have won a television, tickets to see Beyonce, a computer, gift cards, meal vouchers, dvds, books, trip to Switzerland, the cruise and plenty more. I never get bored with all the animals to care for and competitions to enter. It is very difficult and stressful trying to organise everything to look after itself for my two week break but I'm getting there. My daughter, son, mother in-law etc will do their best to cope but I suspect the furry pets will fare better than the six and eight legged ones! Thanks to the new website I have sold a lot of stock in the last few weeks and I am on track to have everything cleaned and fed ready for next week. Due to the planned postal strikes Tuesday will have to be my last posting day before our holiday. I know t...

Everything has changed forever. I think you have still got a few more weeks of me being obsessed by the new website! Orders have actually doubled and it's changing how I view my work as well as the day to day running. The system is much easier but I am still getting used to it and of course I am rushed off my feet trying to organise the bugs for my two weeks away. Lots of things have sold out but my bug house still looks full, I really did have too much stock. I now spend each morning Monday - Thursday packing and sending off orders and then when I return from the Post Office I start the feeding and cleaning regime. Somehow I seem to have less time than ever but I'm sure things will settle down soon. All the bugs are doing fine, I have a beautiful Chile Beauty spider with an egg sac and I am still in the process of mating several of my tarantula species. So far so good, none of the males have been eaten (thank goodness). It is such a shame when I have obscure adult males and no...

What a week, the new website is amazing. I think my orders have quadrupled since the site went live. I am absolutely delighted. I know people joke about doing less work for more money but I really needed to do something about the little that I earn for working often seven days a week. I am slightly concerned that most of the orders have come from new customers. I must find time this week to email some of my regular customers. If you are finding any problems using the site please do call me. It is proving incredibly easy, if I can do it anyone can. The stock counter is a godsend but I have found a couple of problems, hopefully (with hubby's help) I will sort them this weekend. We have already deleted the 'Tarantula Gallery', it wasn't possible to have spiders listed in two places if I only had the one spider. Once the spider was sold on a page it automatically went out of stock but the spider still appeared on the other page and therefore unless I noticed and removed ...

I have joined the 21st century! Wow, this is the biggest shake up of my business ever. When things have changed in the past it has always been a gradual progression. When I gave up making cages it was because of a decline in profit, when I cut down on stick insects it was due to lack of sales, when I stopped visiting schools it was that I had less and less time for them but this was an explosion! My new site went live yesterday and my work changed instantly. Don't get me wrong it's brilliant but it will certainly take some time to get used to, everything is different and orders suddenly started flooding in. I think the site is great and judging by all the emails that I have received - so do you. I'm sure there will be initial hiccups and I really do appreciate those people who have pointed out mistakes, such as a couple of the spider photos being wrong yesterday. Please keep letting me know if something it not right, the site is so easy to manage that I can rectify things s...

New web site is on it's way! My poor hubby has spent every bit of his spare time adding products to the site this week. He had a day off work yesterday and spent most of the day adding a multitude of spiders, it's a laborious job but it is certainly coming along. I have tried to help but I'm just so busy with all the animals at the moment, work has gone mad. I was thinking the other day 'where have all the bug sellers gone?' There seem to be very few people still going other than me! I'm struggling along though, lots of work for little pay (hey, I wouldn't be me if I wasn't moaning). It is only a few short weeks until our two week cruise so I am getting everything prepared as much as I can. I have lots of special offers running (hubby took one look at the offers page yesterday and groaned at the prospect of adding it all to my new site). There are bargains to be had but I must also say that lots of animals are selling out and won't be replaced until...

Busy, busy, both work and home seem to have gone mad at the moment! My husband has started a new job and is working ten hour days, plus travelling time. My daughter has returned from her holiday in Cyprus, along with a suitcase full of dirty clothes. She has her theory driving test today so fingers crossed! If she passes she can put in for her practical driving test, then perhaps she will drive me around instead of vice versa. It is 'the' birthday week in our family, niece and my best friend today, brother tomorrow, son on Monday, it is going to be a long weekend. Then work - my parcel of spiderlings arrived from Germany exactly a week after they were posted! I was getting more worried as each day passed, parcels usually take two, perhaps three days. I was expecting them last Friday and they finally turned up on Tuesday. It was a nightmare as it was my husband's day off and we were just on our way to visit my aunty in hospital down in Sussex. It really was all hands on deck...

September now and it's looking and feeling like Autumn. At least I've got my holiday to look forward to next month! I have a large number of tarantulas coming in from a breeder in Europe, hopefully today but possibly tomorrow and then I have decided that I cannot buy in any new stock until I return from holiday. I really need to sell as much as possible over the next few weeks as the bug house is bursting at the seams right now. I cannot leave my family to cope with all these bugs! That doesn't mean that I won't have any new stock as things are breeding all the time but I must cut down. I have lots of bugs on special offer but some will sell out and then not be replaced. If you specifically want something, now is the time to buy. I have been introducing some of my male tarantulas to my females and all has gone well so far. I'm pleased to say I've had no fatalities but only time will tell if they have mated successfully or not. I have praying mantids in abundanc...

A busy week, catching up on everything. I haven't had anything new in this week but I have several new species of tarantula spiders coming in next week. I received my weekly delivery of crickets yesterday so I will be spending most of today feeding spiders and scorpions. I fed my multitude of praying mantids yesterday. Many are maturing into beautiful adults, the African are a stunning lime green. I have an adult male/female pair and several yet to mature. The first of the Taiwan Flower mantids has matured, he now has long, delicate wings. Hopefully a female will moult into an adult soon. It's all go with my new web site! I spoke to the web designer yesterday and he is getting started today. I am very nervous about a whole new site, it will keep track of everything and I'm sure it will be fantastic in the end but I don't like change. People expect to be able to place orders online now and bringing my business into the 21 st century is clearly long over due. I think it...

Well what an emotional week, the bugs are all fine but everything else seems to have gone wrong. I have spent so much time sorting out family problems and pets that I am very behind with the bugs. I have only just come in from feeding the mantids and it's gone 8pm. I am writing my blog this evening rather than Friday morning as usual because my dog has to go in early tomorrow for tests at the vets. I have way too many praying mantids, they are amazing creatures but keeping them is time consuming and very disheartening when I sell so few. I don't know why mantids are such slow sellers because they are brilliant 'bug pets' and at this time of year they are easy to keep because they will feed on any suitable sized creatures from the garden. The Taiwan Flower mantids are looking great now, they still don't look much like flowers but they are moulting and several are turning green. I haven't seen them as adults so it is quite exciting. I thought I had found somethi...

A busy week as usual. I haven't had too many new animals in but I have been re-housing and re-arranging quite a lot in my bug house. I have also had a lot of paperwork to catch up on. I spent most of Wednesday at my desk and expect to do the same today. It's amazing how the smallest of tasks can take ages. I was on the phone for 30 minutes yesterday trying to get an engaged tone put on my mobile. It drives me nuts that when I am talking on the phone, people calling get a ringing tone rather than an engaged signal. I very often finish a call only to find that I have one or two messages left for me. I then have to call these people back. If they heard an engaged tone, people would know I was using the phone and call back in a while, simple! But no it isn't, Vodafone set up an engaged tone before but when I went to Switzerland recently I switched off my answer machine and everything reset. Nobody seems to be able to help with this problem now. I have the instruction book and b...