Please go here: Be Happy Be Me
It’s been months since my last post. I’ve mostly been using Twitter and totally let go of this blog. Since son is starting Kindergarten in the fall, I thought I’d slowly ease myself back into keeping up with the blog. We’ll see, as I’ve never been consistent anyway.
It’s pretty much business as usual here. The major thing is I had a website re-design. That was the #1 thing on my list of goals for 2009! Thank you so much to Lindsay of Purr Design for working with me on the project. She was truly a pleasure to work with. I would never have been able to do it without her.
So here’s the site re-done if you’re curious: Dear Monday
mmkay… so I took longer than 1 or 2 days to post some goals. 🙂 It’s still January. Last year I didn’t post my goals till near February. Speaking of last year, this years goals will be similar to last, at least on the personal side. Anyhoo… here it is:
BUSINESS:
1. Re-do my website: I haven’t updated my website because I find the task daunting. I need a proper shopping cart where I can basically upload. Hopefully I can handle that much!
2. Find 1 or 2 more GOOD reps, emphasis on good. It’s possible to have reps that sell nothing the entire year. Sigh.
3. Concentrate on selling on website again. It would greatly help once goal #1 happens.
4. Make to-do lists everyday – this helps me so much, I don’t know why I only do it when I’m overwhelmed.
5. Etsy – maybe. I have an account, just have never done anything with it.
PERSONAL:
1. Sleep earlier – my son is sleeping thru the night. FINALLY. He only wakes up once every night. That means I’m actually getting some sleep but I need to be less of a night owl.
2. Exercise – started yoga once a week but need to add some kind of cardio.
3. Dress up more – this is part of my ongoing makeover/getting back to life thing
4. Declutter & organize the house – little by little, this will happen.
5. Make some Vietnamese food – you’d think I’d learn from my mom. I don’t do well with “a pinch of this, a glob of that”. I need written recipes!
6. Do some art. Maybe this should go under “business” goals. I’ve been wanting to do block prints FOREVER. But I haven’t found the time and I’m afraid.
There’s tons of other sub-goals but why overwhelm myself with a long list.
Overall, I want to figure out how to work smarter, not harder.
Have I really been away so long? I thought my last post was in August, but apparently it was way back in May! I started twittering so I just neglected the blog. (As it turns out, I don’t Twitter that much either. LOL) I am embarrassed to say I forgot where to log in and it took me 2 minutes before I figured it out. hehe
Anyway, I want to post some resolutions for the new year in the next day or so. When I write it down, it encourages me to stick to it a bit.
I haven’t written much (not that I do much anyway) because I’ve been twittering. It’s much quicker and shorter than blogging and can be as random as I want. Find out more: Twitter
Everything is back to usual around here. I was designing lots of new stuff so now I have a small break before I design again. The new stuff won’t be on the website for a while but it’s a little bit of a new direction… less labor intensive than my ribbon edged cards but still handcrafted. I hope it will do well. I have to design alot more of the “new stuff” but I wanted to get some of it out there. Speaking of my website… my poor poor website has been so neglected. Sigh.
I don’t know if I will post much here for a while since I have twitter now. We’ll see. I know I need to streamline.
… it’s one of those things where: the more uncluttering I do, the more clutter I find. It’s a vicious circle, but I need to do it. One small section at a time. My husband looks at my to do list which says “organize bottom shelf of right side of closet” and he laughs. At that rate, I’ll be done with the closet in a year he thinks. Well…. the closet’s not big and I clean small sections elsewhere too. Plus, I tend to organize more of that area than what I list. I just need a place to start and I pick a new section everyday.
Clutter is what I aim to conquer this year. I think subliminally, it’s holding me back.
Things are going better in the exercise department. I’ve already surpassed my goal of 2 times, as that’s how many times I exercised last year. Flat abs, here I come.
I swear I’ve done one of these before… here it is: tagged 2006. Below is 7 random things… the old one is 6 random things. Slight difference. heehee
Okay, Lilie from A Planet 4 Creation here is my NEW 🙂 list of 7 random/weird things:
1. I like the smell of gasoline and rubber cement, but I know better not to sniff them.
2. When I watch a movie that’s just baaaaaad… I watch it till the end hoping it’ll get good. 99% of the time, it doesn’t get any better. I must think I invested x amount of time into it, it’s got to get better. I should learn to cut my losses. LOL
3. I’m not a big meat eater, so carbs are my friend.
4. I’m pretty adamant about recycling which drives my husband nuts.
5. I admit parenthood is a very grinding job. When someone tells you it’s not easy. Believe them. hehe
6. I just bought a $10 stapler and still getting over how nice it staples compared to the one I “inherited” from one of my old employment places.
7. I like to eat powdered milk, dry.
I almost forgot today was the lunar new year. We’ve been pretty sick around here that sometimes we forget what day it is. The last time I wrote I thought I was getting over a cold, only it got worse and worse. Yesterday and felt normal and started to be able to breath and get my taste buds back. Today I feel pretty good. I’m done with sick for the rest of the year!!
Now that my head is clearer, I need to figure out life, find myself, create new designs, where I want to go with business, etc. January felt like a bust so I’ll make today as the beginning of my year. Happy new year!
It still doesn’t feel like 2008 yet even though February is only days away. I think I’m at the last leg of this nasty cold we all have. At least this one was short with a couple days of high fever. The last time we were sick it went from end of October to end of Thanksgiving. I think Little J got sick again in December. It was 3 months of sick and I’m so over it.
I’ve done what felt to be like tons and tons of sample decks. Just when I thought I was done, “can we get 2 more?” At least it gave me a taste of what it’s like if I had tons of orders. It also made me think of designing cards that are a little less labor intensive.
So what’s up for 2008? After being sick so long/often, I decided this year is going to be about me. I’ve kind of put life on hold and neglected myself past few years. Now that Little J is 3.5, maybe it’s time the parents get their life back.
PERSONAL:
• sleep – hopefully I can get more than 2-3 hours at a time. Little J is starting to sleep thru the night. Yep, I get woken up 1-3 times, every single night.
• exercise – i did it twice last year
• give myself a makeover – It’s been almost a year since my last haircut… I should get a real haircut, not the kind that I have to fix afterwards. Use gift cards that I received 3 years ago to update wardrobe. Go to an H&M… I saw this store in Europe over 7 years ago and always wished they were in the US. They have stores near me now for a while, I’ll visit one this year.
• declutter the house… maybe even decorate the walls (right now it feels like one big playground). We aren’t brave enough to buy real furniture yet.
• organize – an ongoing battle
BUSINESS
• continue with new products/designs (MUST start using equipment I bought last year)
• i have a few more reps now than I did last year at this time (zero, haha) so I hope the business should at least triple.
Most importantly, stay sane and happy. Sounds simple enough but can be a challenge at times.
I bought an OKIdata laser at the end of December last year and I griped about the rebate in April. Well I finally got the darn check in mid August. That’s 7 months from when they received my receipt and proof of purchase. And in that 7 months, I called them many times to bug them, and have faxed my re-submission 3 times. When I faxed it in the 3rd time, I just said I’m reporting them to the FTC if I’m asked to fax any more re-submissions. I have no idea if that did it, or they got sick of me complaining… but about a month later I checked my status online and it said my check was processing. And when did it say my materials were received? January 20th!! So my 3 fax re-submissions were for ………….?
Anyway, after over a month it was still “processing”, I call them again and asked how long processing takes. They told me 4 weeks. I told them it’s been processing for over a month. See where this is going? In the end I got the dang rebate, but boy did I have to hassle them.
The reason I remember about this now is because my husband just got a rebate “denied” for something he bought. He sent his materials in way before the due date… But their reason was that he sent it after the expiration date, and the notice did give him the option to re-submit his info. For $9 back, he’s not going to bother and that’s what the rebate companies are counting on.
If you can’t resist a rebate, keep copies of everything. If it’s over $100, send it certified mail. From now on, I’m boycotting rebates… except maybe Epson and Apple because I’ve never had a problem with them. But I’d still be weary.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve written. I think this is the longest I’ve gone between entries. I was very busy so I took a break and then I just didn’t care about updating my blog anymore.
What have I been up to?
Filling orders – Suddenly I’ve had a steady stream of wholesale orders. Some weeks were crazier than others but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. With a young son, I am seriously thinking what I would do if I had more business! Orders from my website have been pretty sucky which serves me right because I’ve done zilch in advertising this year. With the holidays coming up, maybe I can muster up a newsletter or something 🙂 Sigh…
Graphic design – I finished with a client’s CD project with its marketing materials and such. And then this is the busy season for my bro-in-law with his music school putting on a rock show. Photoshoots, CDs, flyers, etc etc.
Dodging fires – We really thought our house/neighborhood was in trouble during that week of Southern CA fires. The fire was across a big road and 6 houses away from us. It was crazy with people evacuating and burning embers falling. Luckily (I suppose), the fire was next to the Fire Authority and I don’t think they’d let headquarters burn 🙂 . Phew.
Family – Little J turned 3 so we had some family visiting. We always have family stay with us, it just seems like a lot more these past months.
Pre-school – Sigh, it’s been ok. The first day was great!! After that, I think J realized I’m not going to be there so it’s been really tough dropping him off at school. He stopped crying after about 3 weeks and now is resorting back to crying since we just had family stay with us for a week. Time goes by so fast the 2 days that J is in school, I’m still getting used to having a couple hours to myself!
A Halloween picture. We bought his costume weeks before … it’s just a coincidence that he’s a fireman.
Tomorrow is the first day of pre-school. My son has been asking about “SCHOOL?” “SCHOOL?” a lot and takes out his Thomas backpack just to try it on for size. (I hope he longs for school this much when the teen years come.)
As for me, I’ve been counting down the days. 🙂 Now that it’s practically here, I’m both jumping for joy at a much needed break and……. nervous at the same time. Hmmm… maybe I have a bit of motherly instinct in me after all.
My busy wave is over with. Whew! The CD project went a little longer (not on my part) than expected, but is now done and printed. Once again, I can concentrate more on Dear Monday stuff. I don’t even know which to do first… time to make my beloved lists again. There’s some new stuff to add but I just dread taking photos!
I am looking forward to September. In 3 weeks, my son goes to preschool 2 days a week. PRESCHOOL. That means I’ll have about 10 hours of free-for-all time. Oh preschool, I can’t wait. I don’t even know what fun thing to do first. Hmm, I’ll make a list for that too.
I disappeared from my blog for so long I forgot my user name and password when I logged back in. haha. At first, my disappearance was I needed a break and just didn’t feel like writing since there wasn’t much to write anyway. But then my disappearance was because it seemed I just got busy with everything.
I recently signed on 2 really cool reps… I don’t have much experience with reps so I thought it would take a while for orders to come… but a few came in, all at the same time. While I jumped for joy and cheered 5 times, I also previously committed to a CD design set to be due this week. It’s a fun project and my client is the best but… my time management skills aren’t the greatest. I like to totally concentrate on something and be in the zone but with a couple of things going on, I have to “allot” time for each project.
I’m almost in the home stretch. I was able to fill those orders and the CD design is almost done. It’s really not that much work, but when I only have a few hours at night to do stuff, it makes me a little irritable. haha. My poor husband! (Hi honeh!!!)
I finally updated my index page for the website. It was spring for a looooooong time 🙂 Got my newsletter out just in time because Dear Monday’s gonna be “open” for a year on August 10. Time really flew by. It seemed like I did nothing, yet so much at the same time. I’ve got alot more to do, take pictures, load up new stuff… etc etc
Anyway, I’ve got lots of catching up to do. Not only did I neglect my blog, I stopped reading others’ too. Wonder what’s going on? haha. It’s just as well. I need to read blogs as much as I need to watch TV. 🙂
We’ve been back the past few days. It’s great to be HOME again. It feels like we have so much space compared to 700 sq ft apartment. No more parking a block away for husband, and no more wondering if someone took my reserved parking spot.
I’m trying to get back into the swing of things businesswise. I’ve slacked off completely on PR/marketing. It’s not one of my favorite things to do either. I can’t remember the last time I sent out my newsletter… probably right before we left. Time to get back on that especially since next month is 1 year since I officially started selling online. Also been a while since I updated my homepage too… it still has Spring cards.
Anyhow, just enjoying my time back and trying to motivate myself to do the fluff part.
dear monday 