Step Away From the Cake

 I have now been sick for 10 days. I am blowing my nose and coughing like a fool. I just went to Dr. Google and it might be a sinus infection. Hmmmm, should I go to the doctor? Should I wait another day or two? Well, I still need to work so I'm going to have to wait a little bit. It does say that colds can last 7-10 days and I am on day 10, so I will wait another day or two and see what happens. I just need to remember to take a box of Kleenex to work today.  Anyway, it was back to work yesterday after a 5 day weekend. The good news is we only have 3 weeks until Christmas break. Woo Hoo!!!!!  I honestly think I am ready for retirement but until this student loan forgiveness thing gets worked out, that won't happen.  I do have big plans for the break. I want to get things really going in my business. I know I've said that before, but I have spent most of the year learning and I have some more learning to do before January.  But on January 1 I want to have a whole...

 I was sick on October 26th. Stuffy nose, cough, just feeling kind of blah. Guess what? One month later and I'm sick again. It started on Sunday when I was feeling so good when I woke up. I ran to the store and got some Zicam because I was determined not to be sick again. I was wrong. Monday I was really tired. Tuesday I lost my voice. By the end of the day I literally had no voice at all. Yesterday, thank god we were off school, I still had a raspy voice but I felt great. This morning I woke with a slightly more stuffy nose and a cough. UGH!!! I still feel pretty good, just this ridiculous cough. This sucks big time. Not letting it get me down. I need to get some things done today and I'm doing them.  As for my business. I came up with a great, at least to me, idea of using Hawaiian quilt designs in things. I love Hawaiian quilt designs. I just had an idea as I'm sitting here, making earrings out of them with a small outer offset. Paint the offset whiteish and paint the de...

 Seriously. I have so many courses and so many things I want to do before January that I am not sure exactly where to start. I really need to put the things I need to do in order of priorities. Either that, or I need to schedule when I will do certain things and just do it. Become indistractable. Tangent time.  I listen to Mark Manson of The Subtle Art of not giving a f*uck fame. I like his ideas and the way he approaches things and I feel like his way of doing things is much more aligned with my way of doing things. Just f*cking do it or don't. Of course lately I've been doing a lot of flip-floping on what to do so maybe that's not me lately. Anyway, I digress... I was listening to him the last two days - his shows are long - and he had this guy on who wrote a book called how to become indistractable and get sh*t done. He had some really good ideas on the show which he goes into in far greater detail in the book. So I ordered the book. It will be here soon. I plan on readi...

 I seem to do a lot better typing things out here when trying to figure them out. Probably because I've been doing it for over 20 years, but who knows.  Okay, here's the deal. I want to have hit the ground running in January with my business. I've screwed around for long enough, 2 years, and need to get my act together. But there is still so many things I need to learn. I just went though my list and here is a list of things I really still need to learn:  Shopify Social Media Photography Illustrator File designing/selling Selling on Etsy Pinterest Procreate Okay, that's basically the overview. I have signed up for a number of courses to help with all of these but I haven't finished them. So I need a plan to get these all done and get my Etsy shop in order and get Shopify back up and running and get my social media skills and photography skills on point. Not a lot to ask to accomplish in a month. So I need a plan. A solid, no BS plan to get this all done by the end o...

 about all kinds of ridiculous things. I got some more injection stuff from my doc yesterday and I didn't get any syringes. So now I'm worried about getting syringes. Stupid. It's a different name than the one I got last time so I'm worried about that. Stupid. I haven't finished my courses and I'm worried about getting those done. Stupid. I have an order for a tablet holder that I had to remake and I'm worried it will be okay to ship. Stupid. I need to stop worrying. I need to get outside my head. I'm pretty good about keeping these things at bay, but not perfect.  I'm sitting next to a stack of bills that I need to deal with today. I can't keep track of anything because I stopped using my planner. I'm basically a mess. I need to get my act together. I think I need to do that today.  I didn't really have any plans for today, so I think I will deal with stuff like an adult. I'm going to go through the budget and straighten that mess ou...

 My computer at work kept crashing so I got a new one. I got it on Tuesday and decided to not load my personal Google account on it. I decided to keep it strictly work related. Well, can I tell you how much my scrolling has dropped? I used to sit at my desk and pretend to be working but really be scrolling on Facebook. Now I can't do that and so I am spending less time at my desk and more time actually with the students. I like it a lot. I can look at all this information on my phone, but I just don't do it that much. Now I'm thinking of removing my work stuff from my phone. Less crossover.  Graduation is today from the Illustrator course I am taking. I have fallen behind and need to find some time to finish it. But I have learned a whole lot and I'm so glad I spent the money on it. I already have some ideas for files that I want to create. I have found that I can sit and watch TV and create stuff on Illustrator. I like that.  Weight. I am currently down 12 pounds from ...

 I think I've done this before, but I really want to think it through and see what shakes out.  So the question at hand is, how much do I want to make from my business?  I keep saying that I want something to keep me busy and to make a little money, but let's really get down to it, how busy and how much money?  Let's look at the numbers first because they are pretty concrete and easy to track.  Mugs:  Assuming that I get my store up and running and am selling from there, mugs will sell for about $50/each. If I sell 10 a month, that would be $500/mo.  In a year, that would be $6,000. Not earth shattering, but a nice chunk of change. This of course is not accounting for all the expenses that go into making 120 cups in a year, namely cups and laser time.  Now let's look at time. Each cup takes roughly 1 hour. So that would be 10 hours a month. Not a lot of time.  If I wanted to make $10,000 in a year, that would be $850/mo or 17 cups per month. ...