There are moments in our lives where things change, from one moment to the other. Yesterday was such a moment. I was sitting on the balcony, under the most bright September sun imaginable, painting a still live of red wine leaves  and rose hips, picked in the garden the day before, when I got a mail. Today’s blog picture shows you the result no. 2. The first one was too bright. The second one worked out better, also because I used a larger brush and knew the motif better. Get to know your motif! The same is true for perfumes, by the way. Every rose that I do, sort of, gets easier and I can draw the lines without having to look too closely. Instead, I am can work more on the picture’s/perfume’s composition, the tone, the dynamic.

For reasons that are unclear to me I get a lot of spam mails since  a couple of weeks. On the ipad they get through; the outlook on the PC is configured to make them disappear. Almost all of them.

But first things first. I had done what needed to be done this Sunday; I had cleaned desk no. 2, making room in order to prepare the pictures for the upcoming newsletter; I got all pictures ready by now, still undecided when to send the newsletter, with what kind of text, though. The text is a bit tricky this time as I need to say that I have a goodie that are US and Switzerland only, for the time being, for logistics reasons, and because it is easier for me to ship to the US than to xyz (pick your favorite EU country here). When I am done with this post here, I need to continue there, on mailchimp, my newsletter online tool. I could filter for US only newsletter recipients, but won’t do so. Sometimes, I feel that talking about perfumes with words is more difficult than creating them.

I also did my Sunday jog, 101 minutes which is very good, makes me super proud but which is also completely irrelevant here, my regular round in the woods and hills around Zurich. Thinking about many things, like Pitti, the fragrance show in Florence, and who was visiting and who didn’t and for what reasons. I talked to many, many perfumers there. It is THE place where we niche in a niche in a niche perfumers meet. One discussion was particularly remarkable. We both agreed that things are changing, and that everybody seems to get tired, and that it is time to change. And maybe do a niche in a niche in a niche fair/show/exhibit/meeting place. Where it is us and not the others. While jogging, the world is simple and everything makes sense.

I also the orders that came in over the weekend. Thank you to all who ordered from my site! Thank you. Your orders make all the difference. They really do, from a money point of view: We get the margin, the whole margin. And from a psychological point of view. Orders make me happy because… well, because I often think that someone over there, for instance in Colorado, spends 33$US to discover fragrances, shipped from Switzerland, flying over the ocean, and the guy who orders has maybe worked for an hour in order to be able to spend his/her $$. That makes me grateful. And then, I feel that the whole process is a little miracle. Technology that feels like magic. It really does.

And then, orders make me happy because the order confirmation mail that I get is a welcome change to the daily email noise; free samples here, production advice there (no, no advice given). But some noisy mails make a difference. Like yesterday. I was offered “affordable burial services”. Wow. Is it time already?

And now, what’s next? I need to get the newsletter out. Planting another tree. Subito.