Hodge podge

Hello. It's been a while. Sometimes life just gets busy.

Mostly it's just been very unsettled over here, on so many fronts. We had to do some construction work in the basement, which is supposed to give me some better space to work in . . . eventually. But in the meantime - this whole month to be exact - I've had to clean out and move every single item out of my business work space and re-locate into the dining room, living room, kitchen etc. There is stuff everywhere and you can hardly walk through the house.

It's a pain. Truly. Even though I tried so hard to be organized and keep it uncluttered and just the basics, it's a towering mess. And happening at exactly the time of the spring newsletter and a flood of orders. Plus I need to be diligent about making soap for the spring and summer shows. That's becoming harder and harder to do, since I have no space to cure it and store it.

It's construction stuff and complicated and necessary and full of delays. It was supposed to be 3-4 weeks. It's already that, and still so far away. Step by step it's progressing and great, but it's slow and tedious too. I think at some point I'm going to be thrilled about it. But I'm not there yet. I'm squished in a corner, and fighting dust.

On the one hand, it's nice to be upstairs in the little bit of sunlight of we've had this winter, instead of the freezing basement with not enough light. But I can't find stuff and I have such a small space to work. My computer is on a dinky little table. And then it died.

That's the other challenge - computer woes. My (relatively) new computer died. It was a hand-me-down, but much newer than what I was using before. Really big and beautiful and fast. And then the logic board went kerflooey a week and half ago. No internets or browsers would work and stuff just kept crashing. Emergency new computer. Which again, has its ups and downs. Ups - gorgeous, lightening fast, totally the newest thing out there. Downs, nothing I did before worked with the new operating system. Besides surfing, and a little document typing, nothing worked. They had a much easier time migrating my old computer to the new one than they thought they would. But it's all having compatibility issues. To be expected when you are making a leap in systems, but so much frustration. Back up external drive, photo program, printer, customer database program, fonts, address book - all had to be upgraded, rebuilt, imported/exported. It's been one mess each day to overcome.

Today I can finally say I think I've gotten to the end of the list. My customer database was the last hurdle. I think I've got it all imported correctly into the new program and I'll be able to print mailing labels for the summer mailing. I don't think I've lost anybody, but please holler if you don't hear from me in May.

So the business has been operating and functioning - orders are coming in and going back out on time. I've been producing as much products as I can keep up with here. And I'm planning ahead for all the later spring and summer events. It's cooking along. Messy, frustrating and cramped, but still moving along.

That's the nutshell. I've been avoiding the blog a bit because whining is so un-cool. One step forward, two steps back, turn around in a circle, the dance is confusing and I still don't have the steps down, let alone the arm movements. If I just stand here and flap my arms a little, will that work?