Oooof. I think somebody hit the fast-forward button, because it's somehow the middle of June and I have no idea how that happened? It's kind of been a blur of feed dogs make shiny pack orders take meds make more shiny get kid from school take meds make shiny feed kid dinner go to class put kid to bed make a few more shinies take meds study sleep over here.
Which... is actually a really good thing. I'd like a little more room to breathe in there, but I'm very firmly on the road to financial security (thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you) and I'm REALLY happy with the changes I've made to my workflow. Moving out of my dedicated studio space made me reevaluate everything else I was taking for granted about the business, aaaaaaand I've got some awesome new housemates moving into that room on July 1st, so basically, everything is super great and I'm really happy aside from the heat and headaches and the dog having peed on the stairs yesterday.
At the very end of May, I decided to set myself a challenge of adding $1000 of new merchandise to the website every week. This came right on the heels of having decided to abandon weekly updates in favor of "make a shiny, put it on the website, repeat forever" and it's working great for me. (Judging by the amount of packages I'm sending out, y'all don't exactly hate it either...) Somewhere in there I also stumbled across a smartphone app that took the average time to get something up on the website down to less than a minute, and that includes proper inventory management. It's... I'm actually kind of giddy about all of this, because it's just so EASY! Make shiny, snap photos without having to get up, click click click BOOM DONE. It's seriously so easy and fast that I will probably move my inventory goal even higher in July and then again in August, so I can roll into peak holiday shopping season with tons of shiny things ready to fly out the door. Look at me, planning ahead! It's like I'm an actual responsible grownup or something! My therapist would be so proud.
So, yeah, there's been a whole lot of new shinies going up the past three weeks, because I've hit my goal solidly for three weeks running and I've got a good start on week four already despite today being the first day of an experiment called "my five-year-old is staying home with me for the summer." Not gonna lie, there was some yelling today, but hopefully it'll smooth out over the next few days. Perhaps it's time for lessons in wireworking... hm... and she's been lamenting a lack of spending money lately... *rubs hands together contemplatively*
I don't have a pretty preview picture for you, because everything I've made the past three weeks is beautifully bagged up with inventory numbers and (mostly) filed away sequentially so I no longer swear in multiple languages while packing orders, but you can go see everything that's presently available right over here.
And now I should really go work on my D'var Torah for Saturday, when I get the honor of being called to the Torah to chant verses for the very first time, or some of the songs that I've agreed to lead during the service, or maybe plan a grocery list for the rest of the week, but I'm falling asleep sitting up, so I'll sign off before I actually start typing in my sleep. Nothing good ever comes of that, except for occasionally when I buy really cool beads on eBay and am totally surprised when I get the packages a few weeks later. Fortunately sleep-shopping me is pretty thrifty and has a good eye for what will sell, so it's not so bad if she gets loose with the company credit card every now and then...
How's your June going? (How did it get to be this far into June?) Are you doing anything interesting this summer? Do you have any helpful survival kits for a summer at home with your five-year-old, while working full-time?
xoxo
K.
