Plans

So I mentioned, in a post a while back, this feeling I've been having of urgently needing to do something more with my life. I talked about feeling like nothing I was doing was making any sort of difference and how it all seemed so pointless. Well, it's only been getting worse. Lately I find myself not caring about anything anymore. I show up late for work every day. I don't even bother to do anything on my days off, most of the time. I ignore all of the things that need to be done around the house. I just can't make myself care about any of it anymore. I have to make some changes.

I also mentioned in that post that I had a tentative plan for changing my life. I would like to tell you all that plan now and I welcome any suggestions, criticisms, comments, anything you have to say. I want to get as much feedback as I can from everyone because I NEED this to work. I need to do whatever I can to make this happen because otherwise I don't know what to do.

So here's the plan. I am going to start a business. I want to sell environmentally-friendly, animal rights t shirts. The ultimate goal is to eventually make enough money from the t shirt business to start a small farm animal sanctuary, but for now I just want to stick with Riley and Petunia and focus on getting the business up and running.

I know this may not seem like the most original idea. There are quite a few places out there that sell animal rights t shirts, but I think I have some pretty good ideas that other people haven't come up with yet. Also, there aren't very many places to buy environmentally-friendly, animal rights stuff. I always feel just a little guilty when I buy things with animal rights messages, because I do care about the environment too and it seems sad that I can't support both of those things at the same time. I have decided that all of the things I sell will be either organic or recycled and printed with water-based ink.

I want to call the company Flying Pigs Clothing. To me the idea of flying pigs has several different meanings. First of all, it indicates a belief in things that may seem impossible to most people, you know like "Yeah, everyone will stop eating meat when pigs fly." Second, it relates to the fact that pigs, and all other animals, have so much more to them than people give them credit for. They can do, and feel, and know so much more than most people would ever believe. Sometimes I think they could fly if they really wanted to. The third meaning that is has for me is sort of as a memorial to all of the animals who have died because of our selfishness. As I have mentioned before, I am not a religious person. Still there is something very comforting about imagining all of these pig angels flying around somewhere. The biggest reason for calling it Flying Pigs Clothing though is that it was Riley and Petunia who really inspired me to do this. They are my flying pigs.

My sister has agreed to help me with this, because she is a much better artist than I am. I have this long list of ideas for t shirt designs, but they weren't really doing me much good since I couldn't actually draw them. So far she has drawn me an adorable logo and four shirt designs, which I think is a good place to start. The logo is two happy, smiling, flying pigs (a boy and a girl who look very much like two other pigs you might recognize) pulling banners behind them with the company name. We have one design that has a picture of a piece of cheese with the "no" symbol over it that says "Happy cows come from sanctuaries." There is another one that looks like those superman t shirts that I'm sure you've all seen, but instead of the S it has a V and underneath it says "You don't need superpowers to save the world. Another one is much more basic. In the center it says "Did your meal feel?" and in the background are all of these words like pain, fear, loneliness etc. The last one is the one I'm most excited about. It has a picture of a fox mask and it says "Ⓥ for Vegan". I'm not sure how many people will get it, but I hope a fair number will.

Anyway, as I said, I would love to hear any input you all have about any of this. Are there designs you do or don't like? Do you see any problem with the idea overall? How do you feel about the name? Do you think it gets the point across? please especially let me know if you have seen any of these designs, or ones very similar to them, elsewhere. Obviously some of them are sort of playing off of other things, but I don't want to steal someone else' ideas. Thank you in advance for any advice you can give, and thank you for reading.