Technically, this is not me. I am not blond, even though I have blond streaks below my dark locks.

Also, I’m juggling more than three balls. Well, maybe not. Maybe all I currently have in the air are three. The rest either fell or I dropped them myself.

Thank you for checking in on me via the comments, or email. You are my tribe and I ❤ you!

Life (and death) happened

There’s been a death in the family a few days ago (his side, not covid-related). It was unexpected and put some pressure on time constraints and the family dynamic, understandably.

Hockey/ringette regular season is underway which is great after an almost 2-year interruption. But driving is time consuming which eats into my writing time, especially because I don’t live with the kids.

I’m hustling my jewelry side hustle with orders coming in. Started an Etsy shop which is initially time consuming but will hopefully become less so as I familiarize myself with the site’s functionalities.

Writing

Rest assured, I’m still writing, just not publishing… I can’t publish without editing and I don’t have time to do proper editing it seems…

Which is a lie – I just posted two article on Medium last week, one of them about the Ace of Cups as a supplement to my neglected Tarot Tuesdays.

Which is also a lie. I did not neglect Tarot Tuesday because a) I wrote a second article on Medium (about seeing patterns of number sequences all the time) and b) I video-taped myself 11 times on the last Tarot Tuesday but… I wasn’t happy with the end result. I have a new microphone but it’s not working properly and I haven’t had the time or desire to figure out the tech side of this thing. So I trashed the video. Sorry not sorry.

Stay tuned. I’m not done with my youtube channel.

Jewelry side hustle

I don’t mean to fib about my lack of time. Maybe I’m too distracted or spend too much time doing nonessential tasks. Probably I’m just in a procrastinating mood. I must set up my to do list and get back my momentum.

I find my time runs away from me and then I get overwhelmed which sends me down to my mom’s basement where I have my jewelry shop set up and I sit down, plug into youtube or a podcast, and make jewelry.

Hi, I’m Claudette and I have a beading addiction.

I must admit I am very happy to have the space to work at this side hustle. It’s been fun, I have had quite a few orders, and I’m looking to expand into making a Christmas collection (for self wearing and gift giving).

This morning my mom mentioned a flyer which advertised a buy one get one free sale of jewelry supplies at the craft store so I’ll be moseying over there at one point this weekend…

Emotional state

I feel much calmer than I did just a few short months ago. I am not frantic and discombobulated, although my periodic visits to the house often leave me discombobulated and sometimes a little frantic. Mostly the time spent there is positive; I especially enjoy my time with Tucker and my girl child.

Teenager and Beagle shenanigans

The other day, for instance, my freshly baked 14 year old suggested a nostalgic walk to a park near the house. She mentioned a swing set where she once flew off and face-planted directly into a sand pit as a 5 year old. So we went. She tied Tucker to a tree, gave him a stick to distract him, and invited me to swing with her. We both did while Tucker whined and cried at the indignity of having to watch us have all the fun while he was tied to a tree.

After a while, I got off the swing and walked over to the double slide when Tucker lunged at me in great excitement. Because of the leash, he stopped short of jumping on me, yet startled me to the point of tripping and falling onto the bottom portion of the slide which had a puddle in it. I fell backwards into the puddle which sent the swinging girl child into fits of laughter and next thing I knew my ass was all wet.

It was cool and getting colder so walking around with a wet bottom through a soggy field wasn’t the highlight of my day. But look! This story became blog fodder! 😉

Etsy

In other news, I started an Etsy store for my jewelry. So far it only has one listing, but is not displaying the way I want it to because I am confused about how shipping works. See what I mean about balls in the air? I have to do some tutorials and maybe read some FAQs to figure out international shipping instructions and have them appear the way I want them to in my profile and listings.

All my orders so far have been to the USA, but I want all of the shipping details figured out before I get requests from worldwide. It’s time consuming at the beginning of a new venture to ensure all the i’s are dotted and all the t’s are crossed but there is no way around it.

Which is why I’m procrastinating. I am not fond of this part of the business…

Anyone want to be my secretary? My business manager?

I can pay you with…Food? Hugs? Editing? A free copy of my ebook? A piece of self-made, custom-designed jewelry?

Related: Does anyone have any experience with Etsy? Drop me a comment or an email. My contact info is on the home page in the tabs.

What else is going on?

Much more. Fun stuff I will share partially on the public part of this blog and partially behind the subscriber Premium Content (paywall). I haven’t decided yet what, if anything, I want to divulge.

Stay tuned…

So I hope this reassures everyone that all is well. Again, I appreciate your reaching out to me. Thank you for reading this blog, and for your long-distance friendship.

See you in the comments.