A Peaceful Weekend at My Parents’ Home and Pearls Work

June 15, I’m currently back at my parents’ home. During the weekdays, I live in Osaka for work, and on weekends, I drive for an hour on the highway to my home in Kobe to work on pearls. I returned home at 9 PM on Friday the 14th and immediately started working on an all-knot long necklace. Personally, I thought I would have to redo it several times, but I succeeded on the first try. With the thread being nearly 3 meters long, there was always the risk of it getting tangled, and I was relieved it worked out in one go. I finished the work past 2 AM and went to bed after 3 AM.

The next morning, I slept until around 11 AM. Then I prepared products for shipping to customers and started working on an all-knot 9mm necklace I recently purchased. This task also went smoothly. I finished this work and settled down around 6 PM. Although I had many pearls that needed to be turned into products, I decided to return to my parents’ home. During the weekdays, I’m exhausted from my other work, and although I enjoy my weekend pearl work, I often get too engrossed. Perhaps my heart and body were seeking a place of rest.

At my parents’ home, I was able to spend a peaceful time with Lulu and my mother. Lulu lay around and cuddled with me and my mother. My mother, thinking of me, made several small hamburgers for my daily bento. My mother enjoys sewing as a hobby, but recently, her sewing machine has been acting up, so we looked for one together on Mercari (a Japanese service for buying and selling second-hand goods). Ultimately, my mother decided not to buy one because she couldn’t see the actual product. Her opinions in such matters are very educational for my pearl business. They provide hints on what consumers prioritize when shopping online. One seller on Mercari posted photos of sewing samples made with their sewing machine, which my mother praised as very kind. I felt I should emulate such a considerate approach.

My parents’ home is in the countryside. At night, it is truly quiet and enveloped in darkness. Recently, my mother and Lulu said they locked eyes with a raccoon passing by a narrow path behind our house. Although raccoons are rare, it feels like a tranquil world straight out of “Anne of Green Gables.” In the future, I hope to be able to work on pearls in this rural place where I was born and raised.

Changing the subject, someone recently asked if they could receive notifications for my blog posts. I was surprised and delighted by this request. My website is built using a free service called WordPress. My website consists of a server, WordPress, and a template. In analogy to a house, the server is the land, WordPress is the framework, and the template is the interior design. Thanks to these, I can run a website even with no web knowledge. WordPress has a feature for post notifications, but there’s an issue. The site already has a membership registration feature, and using the post notification feature would create a second registration form. This means the site would have two separate membership registrations. I’ve searched online extensively but haven’t found a solution yet. I plan to ask friends and acquaintances who might be knowledgeable. In any case, I’m surprised and pleased that someone is interested in my writing. I sometimes receive feedback that my Etsy product descriptions are more highly rated than the pearls themselves. I have no logical thinking ability, so I always write whatever comes to mind. I’m not sure what makes it good, but I’ll continue to write without selfish motives or vanity. Although it sounds like something a Buddhist monk might say, I don’t possess such a noble character.

In addition to writing articles, I’m also actively posting videos. I upload many videos about pearls on YouTube, hoping people will understand more about the pearls I handle. Yesterday, I posted too many videos, and one of my few YouTube subscribers unsubscribed. The pearl category is very niche, so I understand that YouTube subscribers won’t increase much. However, I want as many people as possible to learn about Akoya pearls. Losing one subscriber was sad, but posting about five videos within minutes was probably not a good idea. Even I would unsubscribe in that situation.

This article is just a diary. I wanted to put into words the peaceful time I spent at my parents’ home. Tomorrow happens to be Father’s Day. I was shocked to find that almost all FlowerJem products were 25% off due to participating in an Etsy event, but tomorrow is the last day. My father is an old-fashioned, stubborn type of man who only says “bath, food, sleep.” My visit will be my gift to him. With that, goodbye for now.