I’m here.
At the start of the year I got super excited about diving back into blogging. I even had our side business purchase the remaining Xanga credits I needed to change my blog name and buy premium for a year. Then I organized ALL of my pictures (over 10,000) into more manageable folders. I spent HOURS working on it. I got a storage device to back them all up on because lately I’ve been having recurring dreams of losing all of my computer files. I tried to back everything up, and the device I got wasn’t registering with the computer. Joe tried to help me, but we ran out of time. Sure enough, the very next day, the computer had this huge error message that we can’t seem to get around. The computer isn’t fried, so there is comfort in knowing all of my pictures are IN THERE somewhere, we just can’t access them right now. Joe has a plan to get them off of there and backed up somewhere safe, so I’m not really worried about it….BUT it put a huge damper in my organized blogging plans. I like pictures. I like sharing pictures and words together. Not having access to any pictures has made me super unmotivated to blog. Yet, I feel the urge to write. write write. sometimes, and I really should just follow that feeling.
I feel like I keep having technical difficulties like this. We have two computers. One is the clunky old school dinosaur computer that Joe has pieced together over the years. It’s missing pieces, its really loud, and extremely temperamental It will work fine for months and then just kind of “give up” and get put in the closet until Joe fixes it up again. Our second computer is a laptop we purchased 6 years ago. It works pretty well, but it has zero battery life and a dying power cord, so if I even nudge it an inch, the whole thing shuts down. So, we just keep switching from one half functioning computer to the other. It has worked this way for as long as I can remember. Yet, now that I do the whole “Stay home and run an Etsy shop” thing, I spend SO much time on the computer, so it is more evident. We’ll just keep saving our pennies for a Mac (wouldn’t that be amazing? haha that’s a lot of pennies).
Also my digital camera gets a lot of use for the Etsy business and it has been falling apart little by little. A broken battery compartment that I have to hold closed, a ring missing from the zoom lens that causes the camera to randomly turn off, etc. We recently combined some Amazon gift cards with Joe’s Christmas bonus and some $$ from the business to buy our very first DSLR camera. It’s an old version, but it will be the fanciest one we’ve ever owned! It is due on my doorstep any day now and I’m obsessively listening for the doorbell and checking my doorstep. I am SO excited about it. Joe’s going to build me a lightbox/backdrop so our Etsy listings will be WAY better quality.
Speaking of Etsy (have I talked about anything else yet?) Joe and I have had some great talks lately about what we LOVE and what we could do without in this whole process of running a small business. We have SO much fun working together side by side in the shop with music going and random dancing, haha. Sometimes though, the deadlines and stress of trying to fit things in around Joe working full time AND going to class is a lot to handle. We strive to have orders completed and out the door within 10 business days. But in all reality, that usually only gives two evenings and a Saturday to work on orders. That’s fine if we’re having a slow week, but sometimes we’ll get orders in clumps, and that’s when things feel rushed and tense. We don’t want to completely give up on offering custom orders because it really is fun to make someone’s cool idea come to life. But we’re going to try gearing the shop to sell more items we’ve made ahead of time (rather than everything being made to order). Joe has also been getting the itch to make some stand alone one of a kind art pieces. He wants to be able to work on things for a few months and then sell them when he’s happy with them. Anyway, we know what works and what doesn’t, and we’re making changes every day to find a balance between meeting feasible deadlines while still having fun. YAY.
We’ve set some goals to get much more involved with social media. We are having a lot of fun with Instagram lately (#pioneerartisanworks) and have even had some customers comment on pictures of their order in progress. It is very interactive which is awesome. Anyway, that’s a start I guess.
Seems my mind is kind of caught up in Etsy/business things lately. I am learning a whole new level of busy. Mostly I’m learning that sometimes you just have to S T O P and leave the to do list for another day. It’s good to celebrate what you’ve accomplished so far, rather than beating yourself up for what hasn’t been completed yet. I could tell I am growing in the whole “trust God for the future” thing when Joe called in sick for work this morning and my first thought was “Aw man, he must feel awful.” My first thought used to be “Okay, how much $$ will be missing from his paycheck and which bills are due next?” I didn’t like that about myself, because it was super revealing of my insecurity and inability to believe that things really will be okay. The fact that I thought of Joe’s feelings first made me really proud of myself. I’ve come a long way. Today I’m going to celebrate that I’ve come this far and leave the “but look how far I still have to go” for another day. Maybe never. I started training for my 2nd 5k (Color Me Rad again!) and this time Joe is training with me. Running is way more mentally challenging than physically challenging for me. That’s saying a lot because its very physically challenging, haha. But learning to push myself past that mental block is really changing the way I think and react to other things in my life. One mile never seemed very long until I tried to run one. Now I can look and say “I ran a FREAKING MILE. That’s worth celebrating!” It would be ridiculous to be depressed over all the miles I haven’t run yet. That’s my life right now. Running on pavement. Running an Etsy shop. Running errands. Running the dishwasher. Running the pets out of energy. It’s all worth celebrating. It’s worth getting up and seeing if I can run a little farther the next day.
