Hello Adoring Audience.
After a long forced vacation (I was going to use the word "sebatical" but I can't spell it for the life of me, even though I tried every vowel I know in that last vowel spot, and even a few arrangements that I knew ahead of time were wrong - promising beginning, I know.) I'm back.
Why did I leave? Well, its complicated. Mostly because I opened this Etsy shop and got a bunch of orders and then, shocker, I had to MAKE the stuff that people ordered and ship it out in a timely manner. It turned out to be... like working a second job, after I put my child to bed each night. The kind of job where you have to ride to the work site in the back of a truck and you usually only make $3 an hour. But I made some cool stuff (the highlight was a Song of Hiawatha-themed shadow-box for my amazing and patient friend Amanda - shout out, Amanda - stay cool! What, what!) I just hated life and because I was staying up so late to work on projects and then getting up so early (opening @ Starbucks) I would try to make Davy take 4 hour naps with me every day when I got home. You can imagine how well that went.
The real kicker, the nail in the coffin, if you will, of my Etsy career came when a lady messaged me, asking if I would ship an order out of country for her. I reluctantly agreed, because I'm easy to bully, even over the internet, and then she proceeded to place a huge order with outrageous specifications and vague instructions like, "Make it super special for me, k? Like with ribbons or something." And I ... didn't know what to do. Ribbons were out of the questions. I might be a serf, but I am not a sell out. At least not at such a low rate. Then she changed her mind 15 times and would always ask me to "Please respond quickly" to every question that she asked, leading me to imagine that her kid was having a REALLY rough time living without this door hanger that had his name on it. Why was it so urgent? I mean, I usually did respond within a day. I pictured little Hung (real name) tinkering away in his room, perhaps working on a time-machine or a reverse razor that GIVES mustaches instead of removing them, and of all the insufferable interruptions he must be dealing with while he was waiting for his personalized door hanger to ship from America. And so I worked as fast as I could. Don't worry, little Hung; for you; for science; for humanity! Does that make me a hero? Probably.
Luckily I didn't have to do much thinking for myself (the sleep deprivation made that hard) overall, and my most enthusiastic customer told me how much I was allowed to charge her for shipping. So I obeyed, and slaved away for 2 weeks and lost about $400 probably and approximately that many hours of sleep also. When I finally mailed off her package I only took a hit of a couple of dollars on the shipping price that she had mandated. I left that post office doing a jig, just imagining the joy that little Hung would soon bring to millions who had always wanted to be clean shaven for breakfast and mustachioed for lunch.
Wait! I have to go and make sure that I don't have the link to this blog on my Etsy site. What if...
Ok, I'm safe.
So that's the first reason. The second reason is that my baby has been cutting teeth at a rate of 4 per day. Really. She's part shark. Thats why she likes her baths so much. Or so I heard from my mom, who was really the only person giving Davy baths at that low point in my life. I could see the little boogers hiding in her neck, and lets not even talk about what the back of her ears smelled like, but I had a robot door hanger to make, so, sorry little girl, we'll push it for another day.
In fact for a few months there, my one year old baby was really getting very good at telling me exactly what she wanted me to do and punishing me effectively if I didn't do it fast enough by waking up at 2:30am and staying up until (literally. Non-exaggeration disclaimer.) 3:50am, which is 10 minutes before I have to get up for work in the morning. Don't get me wrong, I love that little mold muncher. But I was showing signs of wear and tear, like begging and threatening her alternately "Go to sleep, please, please, baby, just go to sleep. I'm going to put you in your crib and let you cry. I'll do it. Don't think I won't. I will. What do you want? Another bottle? Ok, ok." And then one night, after Davy settled down cozily in my husband's and my bed for her 8pm-2am nap, she kept kicking and kicking and kicking and I finally said, Have it. Its yours. I will sleep on the floor. And I did. As I laid there, her tiny, purple owl quilt barely covering my left leg, I thought, "This will all be put to rights one day. When Hung makes that time-machine, I will fix all of this." And on that sweet thought, I snuggled into the pile of once-worn shirts on my floor and drifted to sleep for a delicious 10 minutes.
Now that things have settled down a little I'm hoping to have more time for you, my faithful followers (Haaaay, Mom)! Here are the new ground rules though: 1. No one is allowed to pay attention to my spelling or my liberal use of commas 2. Have low expectations ok? 3. The 'Monday's Story' feature will return as soon as I can get it up and running. Its a little rusty.
Thanks for checking in!!!
