Hope you are well. Hope you are warm and dry. Lots of you seem to be getting snow, ice, cold. So sorry. Here we are just sinking up to our ankles in mud, with more on the way.
This is going to be quick because I’m running out of day and the list is long.
My online store is LIVE! Ok, it only has 6 items at the moment, but I am working hard to get more on there. I set myself a deadline of January 31st to get it running and decided since this will be an ongoing process, just do it.
Now, I’m not really sure if all the bells and whistles are going to work correctly right out of the box. Please bear with me as I work through stuff. Shipping will probably have to be tweaked yet. If you try it and have questions or think the shipping seems to be running too high, please email me at bloomtownstudio@gmail.com and I will see what I can do.
More than orders right now, I would appreciate you signing up for my email list. First, I need to see how it’s working and second, I can let you know when new items or features are added. I promise not to bombard you with emails! I’m thinking once a month will probably be all that happens most of the time.
I hope you are well and safe. It seems like the whole world has been having crazy weather. TODAY I am feeling good. Yesterday, not so much. We have had many days of gray, gloom and rain. TODAY is BEAUTIFUL! Yesterday I dragged my poor, depressed body from chore to chore and was ready for bed by 6:30 pm. L. and I got out to run some errands this morning while she is out of school for exam week and a few minutes ago I walked around the yard in the sunlight soaking up some Vitamin D and taking some pictures to share with you.
I have started a few more paintings this week and put the disappointing ones aside for now. This one is still a work in progress and will probably take a while. The other two are just at the very beginning stages and I can probably show them next week.
My main goal is to have my online store up and running by January 31st. It is close to being ready. I’m not sure how many items will be available right away, but I will at least have a few prints available. I will have a place for a newsletter subscription if you want to be notified of new artwork or sales. That is my only plan for a newsletter right now. I get too many newsletters in my mailbox so I don’t want to do the same to you.
This is going to be short and sweet this week. I need to get outside some more, drop off goat feed and shavings for the chicken coop. More rain is coming so I need as much Vitamin D as possible to get me through.
Well, I guess we can all say that the party is over and it is back to work. I don’t know about you, but by the time the holidays are over I am more than ready to pack up the decorations and get back to a schedule. Like 2020 though, 2021 is not coming with anything close to a normal schedule. DH is off work for another week and a half, the niece is home this week still and will only be going to school in person two days a week like last semester and the son and his girlfriend are still living here and waiting to hear from job applications. The crazy continues.
Before the end of 2020 I set a goal of getting back to work for at least 20 hours a week. “What the heck does she actually do?”, you ask. I closed my graphic design/print broker business back in 2018 to basically take on full time parenting again after our niece came to live with us in 2017, then my Dad got sick and I made myself available to help with him and take on the whole packing and moving ordeal. Now that DN is in high school and has learned some life skills and Mom seems to be in a good place now that Dad has been gone a year and we have the major remodeling done on the house… I can get back to…
Back in 2017 I started selling my “stuff” that I no longer needed on eBay. Clothes, household items, etc. That sort of morphed into selling vintage “stuff”. Sometimes I sell “stuff” for other people who don’t want to deal with it themselves. It has been a nice, consistent, small stream of income that is very flexible. I have been able to put my store on vacation when we moved and when Dad got very sick, then pick it back up when I had time again. No, I don’t make lots of money with it, but it is one of those things that the more time you put in, the more money you make.
Take a wild guess! Yes, it is time to paint and draw in quantity. Over the holidays I started painting some wood scraps from our barn with seasonal subjects and not only had lots of fun doing it, but sold enough to cover our Christmas expenses. Many, many times I have started this only to have to stop and deal with life stuff. Every time it makes me sad and depressed, but then I have to tell myself that doing something is better than doing nothing. So, once again I am trying my best to set regular work hours this year. Some of the time to paint and draw just for fun and practice and some of the time to put work on some of the sites that I sell my art work on. There is some tired artwork of mine floating around a few places that desperately needs updating!
“So, what the heck does she do the rest of the time?”, you ask. Let me give you an example of a not-so-unusual day that actually happened yesterday.
12:15 am – Dog has seizure #1 (I have spent a week trying to get his new meds ordered and it has been a nightmare). DH and I jump up from a sound sleep, stay with the pup until seizure passes and then wait the next 45 minutes for his disorentation to wear off.
4:15 am – Dog has seizure #2. Same routine. We go back to bed to doze for about an hour.
6:00 am – Go to sunroom to feed cat and realize she is sick. Very concerned and call vet. They can see her if we drop her off by 10 am. This trip fell to DH thank goodness!
8:15 am – Go with my Mom to take her car to get an oil change. Got back home at 8:45.
8:45 am – 11:30 am – Package up three eBay orders and one Etsy order (I have one eBay store and two Etsy stores).
11:30 – 12:30 – start eating lunch, then stop to help pup through seizure #3 (he has never had 3 seizures in 24 hours before), then realize I need to leave for…
12:30 – 2:00 – drop off and pick up library books for DN and drop off packages at the post office. Then head to nearby town (45 minute drive) to pick up son and his girlfriend.
2:00 – 2:30 – stop by vet to pick up cat on my way back from town with DS & GF. She’s fine. Slight cat cold.
2:45 – slide into the driveway long enough to drop of DS & GF and their stuff, pick up DN to get her to band practice.
3:15 – leaving from high school, get a call from Mom that her car is ready. Pick her up, drop her off to get car and head home where I manage an hour of rest before…
5:15 – 5:45 – I go to the high school to pick up DN and head home. Thank goodness DS cooked dinner and DH and I crashed into bed around 7:00 pm to try and recover from our 4 hours of sleep the night before.
And that is where the rest of my time goes. Sometimes it is running Christel’s Taxi Service. Sometimes it is Christel’s Diner. Sometimes it is Christel’s Painting & Handywoman Service. The list goes on.
Ok, enough of that insanity. The other work in progress around here is my attic studio. DH has the insulation up. Not great photos, but we don’t have the lighting up yet so this is as good as it gets. Today he is starting on the drywall. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. Currently I am trying to do creative stuff from my chair in the living room or the kitchen table. Not optimum conditions, especially where the people who live with me can actually see me and request help with something or have a few dozen questions that need answering. Concentration is difficult. When I finally have a finished studio I am putting a lock on the inside of the door and hanging warning signs!!! I love these people, but…
Next week I will fill in more details about the actual work, but I’m tired from reliving my yesterday.
Believe it or not, I am actually writing AHEAD of time this week! That sounds good, but primarily it is because I have yet another day of appointments tomorrow when I normally write my posts.
We need a copy of Miss L’s birth certificate and social security number before we can get all her requirements for health insurance, school and soccer done. So part of tomorrow will be doing that and the other part will be meeting with the attorney to get the final papers done for me to be the executor and finally get started on the estate.
Ok, a soap box moment…if you do not have your final affairs in order, especially if you have children, STOP right now, GO make an appointment with an attorney and GET THIS STUFF DONE! I don’t care if you think you are never going to die, JUST DO IT! No one should be left behind to go through the mess that we are having to work through. This could have turned out so much worse for Miss L. You do not want to leave your children to “the system”. I doubt you would want to leave your possessions and affairs to “the system” either. GO DO IT NOW! Ok, enough of that.
I have a good start on this commissioned barn drawing. If only I could find a few hours in a row for about three days, I could call it finished, but my days are broken into bits and pieces until late evening so it is taking longer than I would like. I am pleased with the way it’s turning out, but frustrated with the broken time.
On a brighter note, the disappearing Sweetie Pie (the cat) has reappeared and seems to be transitioning into a barn cat quite nicely. We still have to get her wrangled to the vet and get her spayed before we wind up with 25 barn cats, but it was good to see her again and know she was ok. Miss L was especially relieved and goes out to spend time with Sweetie Pie each day.
Our 16 guinea fowl keets are thriving in our bathroom. We have had them for a week now under a heat lamp. By this weekend we should be able to turn off the heat lamp and just leave them in the bathroom without the AC blowing on them. Danny will be especially happy to turn that heat lamp off. It’s like a full time sauna in there. I will have to find them a taller box soon too. They are almost able to jump out now. Guinea’s are known for their excitability. Can I just empathize that “excitability” is an understatement? They totally freak out every time you move and at every noise. How they just don’t drop dead from a heart attack is beyond me. Soon they will be adding their well known loud alarm calls to the freak out. I hope we have them outside before that kicks in!
Bob, the horse, still isn’t taking to the saddle outside of the round pen. The discussion is turning to what to do if we can’t get Bob trained into a trail horse. He is bred to be a Western Pleasure horse and that may be what he has to go and do somewhere else. I’m very partial to the crazy horse and don’t really want to think about not having him around.
All other critters, including the bees are doing fine. No honey this first year, but the hives seem healthy and growing. The next three months are critical so I will be paying close attention to my bee colonies now that the honey flow is over.
That’s all the news from Green Acres (if you don’t know Green Acres then go check it out on YouTube) this week. Hope all is well in your world. Have an awesome week!
Pencils, Paint & Paper 