Update, or something...

Things around here have been insane. Thak is doing the jobs of 3 or 4 people at work and is #1 in his class at school, Erin is enjoying cheerleading, Orren has two teeth, and my business is going well. We're running a million different directions at a million miles per hour, and frankly, can't wait until this Army thing is over so we don't have to run this hard anymore.

Thak is taking a couple weeks of leave starting on Monday, so we'll only have school to contend with, plus my stuff, but at least I'll have Thak around to distract the kids so I can deal with my customers without having to deal with Erin trying to hawk a used Hannah Montana puzzle or hand them a fake invoice. She doesn't get that this isn't a game, that my business is real, and that my customers come to order purses from me, or to pick up what they have ordered, but definitely not to play with her. It'll be good to have Thak here for a couple weeks to help me with that. After that, it won't be too long before school starts again (no, I don't know the dates. Don't ask.) and I'll at least have the days to do more with business stuff.

Like I said before, business is good, but I still don't enjoy running it. For every good customer who's delightful to work with, there are three who are anything but. The main problem I'm having is that people can't seem to respect the balance I need them to understand.

On one hand, I need them to respect that this is a business, not a yard sale or a hobby, and I need them to show up on time for their appointments (most of them show up 30 minutes to 2 hours late), to pay what I'm asking without trying to negotiate, to not try to trade me used crap for my products (did I EVER say I bartered?? OK, so I do, with other designers and artisans, but not for just random crap that I don't want anyhow!) and to actually pick up what they order.

However, on the other hand, I need them to respect the fact that I'm a person with a family, and it's ok if I refuse them a noon appointment since that's when Thak gets home for lunch (Guess what?? It's not a sin to want to eat lunch with my husband!), and that I'm not in the wrong if I tell them they can't pick up their order during the time I am at cheerleading practice with Erin. I also need them to accept that I only wish to conduct business between the hours of 9 am and 4 pm on weekdays, and OCCASIONAL weekend hours for those who absolutely cannot make it during the week. It's not reasonable to ask to pick up your order while I need to be getting dinner on the table, and it's not reasonable to come by after dark unless I know you. This is my home, and I'm alone 99% of the time. I may be armed, but I still don't feel safe with people I don't know coming by at night.

Running a business from home is really hard. It just goes so day by day, and there's so much to contend with. I mean, I've got a filthy obscene amount of orders in line right now, but my supply shipments got delayed (my own fault, I didn't reorder soon enough), and I can't do anything with them. I also released my wallet design earlier this week (Wallets take fewer materials than purses! I had enough scraps on hand to make samples.), and have been going nonstop with new orders since then. Some days, all the customers are awesome. Yesterday was like that. By the end of the day, I just wanted to dance. Nearly $1k in new orders, and all to the coolest people ever. Then I woke up this morning, checked the email to find a bunch of idiotic requests, and my 11:00 showed up at noon, so I didn't get to eat with Thak or really spend more than a minute or two with him while he was home. (The ones who do that are so inconsiderate. I tell them all, "My husband comes home for lunch at noon. I'd like to get you through before that, or after 12:45." They KNOW what they're doing by showing up when they do. It's passive-aggressive deployment bullshit. Guess they don't know we've done more than they have...) Then I just checked the business email AGAIN, and it's more really dumb crap from people I know aren't even going to order. I can spot them a mile away, the ones who just want to waste my time emailing back and forth, and never actually order. So yeah, that's what I've got this afternoon.

On the bright side, though, one of my shipments left Michigan yesterday, so hopefully I'll have it by next week. Contrary to what's been going on today, I DO have some awesome people to make some awesome stuff for, and I just need my supply shipments to be able to do that. It'll all work out in the end. Running a business is hard, though.