Blog links and belly laughing

When I was eating dinner tonight, I all of a sudden began to feel a little weak. I was eating a delicious meal of barbeque chicken--thanks to my husband--along with a healthy glass of red wine. I had drank about 3 bottles of water throughout the day, so I couldn't have been dehydrated. I sat still for a second, let the moment sink in, and realized I was exhausted.

I have been running on adrenaline the last few days and by the end of today I had shipped all but 2 shipments of new orders that I received this week. But seriously, what a great feeling! I like the feeling of being tired from putting in a hard day's work. I love to feel like I've accomplished something. I recall the endless wasted hours in a corporate office where no one really accomplished anything, just passing the buck in emails from one person to another, waiting for someone to finally have the nerve to make a decision about something, which never came. But we were all paid well. I walked out of the office everyday having made a good paycheck. And yet I felt like I had accomplished nothing. And now, I'm making 1/10th of what I made (probably even less), and I've never been happier. And of course it needs to be about the money sometime, like at the end of the month when the bills need to get paid, but there's something in me right now that says, "I'll figure it out." I told my mother the other day not to ask me about the future because frankly I don't have an answer. This week was about luck tapping me on the shoulder and it's not going to last. The wave was high this week, but in all likeliness it will return to a steady calm again. What I tell myself is to keep moving forward and try to keep up the momentum.

Press has been great this month. My blog was featured in Columbus Monthly magazine. Then this Monday as you know, the chalkboards were featured in Etsy's blog The Storque. Then Lazybride.com picked up the Etsy story about the chalkboards and posted an article. Then Washingtonian.com picked up Lazy Bride's blog post and posted the link. I'm truly humbled by the chain of events, which I know are not huge considering the fame and acclaim of some other talented people out there, but for a new business owner like myself I'm like yipeee!! The business has been skipping here and skipping there throughout these past 4 months and I've had several moments before of feeling like I found the rhythm and direction of this business, but not insomuch as I did this week.

Oh, and a side and final note, I hear children belly laughing from the other room. No better soundtrack to life than that.

Makin' the chalkboards

It’s a bit of an assembly line around here. Of course, don’t mistake me for a GM plant, I’m only one person, but it’s amazing what a little free exposure on Etsy can do to your sales. As it so happens, yesterday when I posted my new kids version of the travel chalkboard and being all excited about selling the adult version thinking it was a fluke, an Etsy writer, Emily Bidwell, had simultaneously compiled a list of picks about vineyard styled weddings with autumnal hues. What I didn’t know at the time, is that my deep red floral-designed travel chalkboards happened to be one of the picks on her list to use as décor and favors. In a matter of hours my site visits went from say an average of 15-20 a day to nearly 1,300 yesterday.

So now I have several orders to fill, most of them being chalkboards, and I am, what you could say, a little giddy from it all. And hopeful. That’s really what it is. This is a feeling of hope. Hope that this business may actually turn a curve, get some direction, and keep up the pace with other riders. I know this little brief peak in exposure won’t last, but if anything it was a true validation that someone else out there other than me believes that what I created is good. And beyond the numbers, at the end of the day, to me it’s what it’s all about: creating some good art.