On the Twelfth Month of Trading.....

Stress Level Today: 4 Grey hairs

It has happened! I sucumbed to the lurgy and have lost a whole weekend feeling sick, being stabbed behind the eyes with needles and feeling generally sorry for myself. It could have been the children I was exposed to last week when the local school visited the vets where I work. I even had my own little group of chronologically disadvantaged people to talk to. People who know me will probably be slightly confused at this point at the mention of me and children in the same sentence, but you have to face your fears when educating the pet owners of the future. Especially when your fears happen to be about 3ft tall with 2 legs. I do have to say Mr J. was the consummate professional and put up with the small sticky fingers touching him with a fair amount of dignity. He even stood at the correct moment to have his 3 legs counted and blinked knowingly as the 'look both ways before crossing the road or you'll loose a leg' message was imparted.

On the Ardent Pets front theres been some serious discussions on how we are to progress as cashflow (now renamed cash trickle) is getting quite challenging in the gap between Christmas and people getting paid again. Our little baby is getting very good at paying its own running costs but it would be nice to know the mortgage will be covered this month. We're going to have to go food shopping tomorrow as we are not yet that desperate to excavate the frozen remains of what could be food at the back of the freezer. Anyway as far as big business decisions go we have considered expanding out of the spare room into an office, partly for Karls sanity and partly because we're out of space. We also want to expand the range of products we have but this takes finances so may have to smile nicely at our lovely local bank manager (unless anyone has any spare cash from down the back of the sofa? All donations gratefully received). Stress levels likely to rise in the next few weeks!

WE'VE BEEN NOMINATED for some blogging awards! Technically I nominated both blogs for the awards you can see down the side and so far only Gill and Rob (sister and bro in law) have voted. So we're feeling pretty unpopular at the moment. It could be that technophobia has swept through all our friends and family but its unlikely. If anyone would like to click on the awards, register and vote it would make us very happy.

It is also going to be Ardent Pets first birthday on Saturday 2nd February and I've been given the task of writing a press release. I now wish I hadn't pulled Karls leg saying my blog was better than his as hes given me one night to do it in. There will be some fantastic birthday offers appearing soon to those who subscribe to the Ardent Pets blog at http://www.ardentpets.blogspot.com/

Thats all for now, over and out

In cyberspace no one can hear you scream (unless you are very loud and persistant)

Stress Level Today: 1 Grey Hair

Its been a busy week with staff shortages in my proper job as a vet nurse. I've been dodging lurgy's from all sides and so far I am still standing with no unwanted secretions from any orifice. It feels like an age since I was in Southampton last week but the unthinkable has happened and I have begun my research for the assignment. I need to produce 1000 words arguing for the use of electric shock collars and 1000 words against their use. Looking at the underlying theory it may prove to be interesting reading. Look out for the article in March on www.ardentpets.co.uk.

Readers will be glad to know the ardent pets world did not collpse whilst I was away although the spare room did look like there had been a small tornado pass through it. Unfortunately I was not quick enough with the camera to document the effect of this freak local climatic anomoly but I am reliably informed it is unlikely to happen again.

This week has also seen the start of Mr J's clicker training. (as I obviously haven't got enough to keep me occupied with work, website, diploma, house and husband). It is going well so far and we have progressed to targeting. When we can do something a little more impressive and I am having a good hair day we might get something on film so watch this space!

Other news - we are branching out in the world of blogging and have registered on Technorati.com in an attempt to spread the word and hopefully make ourselves popular. We are possibly setting ourselves up for a fall here as I was never the popular kid in school and likely to find out things in cyberspace aren't any different. If anyone would like to register, make businesswidow their favourite and mention me in their blog I would be very very excited and I'm sure you would feel all warm and fuzzy inside. If you are feeling super altruistic then go for broke with www.ardentpets.blogspot.com but I cannot guarantee further fuzziness will follow.

Come back soon to find out if we have any friends!

Theres no place like home

Stress Level Today: 1 Grey Root

Its the end of my week here in Southampton on my Post Grad Diploma away from my real life. As far as I know things haven't collapsed without me at home. I shall find out tomorrow when I return. I did introduce a treat ball for our cats before I left and am slightly concerned that they will have taught Karl how to empty it for them while they sit and watch.
I have learnt lots of fascinating information this week my favorite fact being dogs are red green colour blind. Next week I plan to make sure red is not our colour of choice for dog toys as they will have no hope of finding red toy on green grass.
Look out for lots of new articles (as soon as I finish my assignments!) at www.ardentpets.co.uk

Fat Cat, Forums and Falling Sales

Stress Level Today: 5 grey hairs



Well Christmas has come and gone with enough socks to last me for the next year. Work has been the usual increase in vomiting and diarrhoea after many pets overindulging at Christmas. Mr J. not to be left out took part in Christmas dinner (see above) and thoroughly enjoyed his prawn cocktail starter and turkey dinner. Having a smaller stomach than the rest of us he did need to go and have the obligatory christmas nap in front of the TV much earlier than everyone else. Now the New Year has arrived it is time to start his diet as he is definately 'looking well' as Nan Osborne would have said. If he can shed those few extra grams it will take some of the strain off his 3 little legs and hopefully reduce the chance of his lower urinary tract disease reoccuring. (Yes I am the proverbial overprotective pushy mum!). He is also supposed to be visiting children at a local school in the next few months and really wouldn't set a good example if he doesn't fit into the cat box.
As far as Christmas sales are going my psychic prediction of 2 sales on Christmas day was correct. We've just got to wait for people to stop being selfish and spending money on themselves, pay off the credit card bill and then they might think about buying poor little Bob the Hamster a new harness and lead or even a deluxe cage ( in our dreams). Stress levels are simmering nicely in the post holiday sales lull.
The new year has got off to a good start in some respects as I've finally finished the assignment for my post graduate diploma due in next week. I intend on spending the rest of the day relaxing after I've caught up on the cleaning and washing and ironing that I've been ignoring whilst writing the damn thing.
The new year also sees the birth of the Ardent Pets Forum (http://ardentpets.freeforum.me.uk/index.htm) where anyone can drop by to chat or read the supposedly funny comments posted by some of our family members (You know who you are). At the moment Karl has links and Feeds coming out of his ears and can only speak in html so watch this space for more exciting developments.

Christmas time, Pet supplies and wine

Stress level today: 4 grey hairs

Its been a busy week even without Christmas rearing its glittery bonce. We're holding our breath for the sudden slump in sales as the last posting date goes whooshing by. So far people still seem keen on spending even though theres no hope of getting anything until after Christmas. I'm definately not one to stand in the way of peoples festive fiscal frivolity. We are having a sweep stake on the number of orders we will recieve on Christmas day. I'm going for an optomistic 2.
On the home front stress levels are definately rising despite frequent dampening down with alcoholic beverages. Several christmas presents have still not arrived despite being ordered a week and a half ago from a well known Brazillian river named website. I hope our service isn't that bad when we get that big! Oh well theres still Christmas Eve for them to arrive, be wrapped and distributed. It will give Karl something to do when the Post Office shuts.
If Christmas isn't stressfull enough I still haven't written the essay for my Post graduate diploma due in on the 6th January. The ignoring it and hope it will go away tactic so far hasn't worked but I have started carrying the thing around with me hoping that it will guilt me into action so some words may appear soon on a page near here!
Happier news - we've decided on a christmas present for our baby (www.ardentpets.co.uk). We are having our first big New Year sale starting on Christmas day so lots of new people can be introduced to the Ardent Pets experience. Come back next week to see how we get on!

One small blog for me, One giant blog for mankind

This is my first ever blog so here it goes

Stress level today: 2 grey hairs

In February we took a big life changing decision and decided to set up our own internet petshop. My husband, Karl handed in his notice for his reasonably paid office job and started working from home (Well from our very small spare room to be exact). So it is left to me to be the main breadwinner with my not very well paid job as a veterinary nurse.So www.ArdentPets.co.uk was born. It looks very impressive considering it is just one man in a poky spare room on the edge of nuneaton. It was lots of fun to start with, I wrote some fantastically informative pet advice pages in the hope they may educate the world, I then woke up and wrote some nice articles on pet care in the hope that someone might read them before the information goes out of date. It was my job to source the products which I had great fun doing.Finding items from the everyday to the bizarre. Where else could you buy decoy herons and hamster harnesses with this level of service?Then the excitement waned and we realised what we hade done. I decided to ignore the potential to lose everything we have and set about helping Karl write the 500 plus descriptions for all the exciting pet items I had found.Ten months on our baby has grown impressively. It is doing well enough to support itself but not quite well enough to support its hard working mum and dad. I am starting a blog to cover the ups and downs of the next few months where we are either going to loose it all or have a fantastic website that will look after us when we are old and prematurely grey. Come back soon to find out how were getting on!