Friday, April 10, 2009

A CT for Me!!

Have I mentioned that I am forming another Creative Team? Yes, it's time to do that again. I feel ready. I know more now than I did with my first CT. Granted, I formed some wonderful friendships with a couple of the girls on my first team, but I just didn't feel I was organized enough myself to really keep track of things.

Quit laughing! I know I'm no more organized now that I was then, but at least now I have a place to host a forum! It should make things a little easier for us. So far, I've brought 3 girls on board...Kay, katina and Heide. I've loved the "test" layouts they did for me, and I'm looking forward to building a long lasting relationship with them! I'm so glad to have you gals helping me out! (Between you and me, readers, I hope they don't lose patience with my slow designing and my scatterbrained ways! LOL)

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

I HATE the End of the Month

I do....I just hate it! It's so hard to keep up with things at work that I drive myself crazy. Plus, I just know that there's a whole new month full of responsibilities and deadlines just around the corner--both at work and online.

We recently upgraded our program at work, which has proven to make things even more difficult. Supposedly (and I stress that word!), it's going to give us an accurate csh flow with a push of a button or two. Problem #1...we have not kept track of any inventory at our warehouse. Problem #2...we have not been shown the proper way to handle our credit card sales, so we have tens of thousands of dollars showing unbilled. Problem #3...we keep a book with all our sales and it's not even close to matching what the computer tells us the total should be. Now, where do I come in? Well, I'm expected to find out where the discrepency is occuring between what the computer total for our sales is and what our manual book total is...down to the last penny!! I also need to figure out all the unbilled activity and how to show it being paid without screwing up the accounting system.

OK...so I could do this in a few days.....provided I didn't have my normal duties to take care of or a new employee to train as my replacement for my maternity leave. I have approximately 30 minutes per day to devote to figuring out the stupid accounting side of things. I hate the end of the month.

I'm also finding it harder to keep up with the day to day things I need to accomplish in my online, designing life. Between coupons needing to be made and PMed, collab kits to participate in and keep track of, my own stuff to get into both stores, CT work to do, a challenge to plan and scrap pages for and provide posting gifts for. I just really don't have enough minutes in the day. here's my normal weekday schedule...get up at 6am, get ready for work, get Emerson up, dressed and fed, leave the house by 6:45. Drop Emerson off at daycare and get to work for 7:30. Work (no breaks and no lunch, mind you, but with moments here and there to escape online for a bit) until 5pm. Pick up Emerson from daycare and arrive home at about 6pm. Cook and eat dinner, clean up afterwards and that takes us to around 7pm. Give Emerson his bath, read a couple books, get a snack, watch a Backyardigans video and get him into bed by 8:30. Fight with him until somewhere between 9 and 9:30 to STAY in bed (and all the lights need to be off in the house or he WILL NOT stay in bed because he thinks he's missing out on something. yes, he pretty much rules the house). Wait until he falls asleep (I have a booklight, so I can read in my darkened house while waiting for Emerson to fall asleep) and then go shower and get my things ready for the next day. This takes me to somewhere between 9:30 ans 10pm. I then try to get online to get done as much as I can. Unfortunately, with an unsupportive husband, I have made a deal to not be on the computer later than 10:30. Kind of presents a problem, doesn't it? On top of that, my son rarely sleeps through the night, and when he IS up it's for 3-4 hours at a stretch. I also happen to be in the last trimester of my pregnancy. Add those 2 things together and I'm often way too tired to even bother getting on the computer to begin with! So things just keep piling up around me and I keep getting more and more stressed about it. Again, I

But it has to get better, right? No. Because hubby says I can't do this forever and I'll probably have to give up designing after the baby is born. Say it isn't so! I'm sure going to try to keep going....even if it means really having to cut back on how much new stuff I can get out there and giving up the hope of selling at another shop.

You all need to buy more so my hubby sees that this can be a profitable second job for me! LOL Here's to hoping that April is a better month for me!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

A New Look, A New Me!

I've finally done it! I've finally managed to do a little research (and, really, as if it was hard to find the info!) and learn how to change the look of my blog. A bit more sophisticated, perhaps, but definitely more "me." Will I keep it this way? Only time will tell!

But it's a new look for a new me!

The new me is many things...soon to be a second-time-around mother (we're expecting our 2nd little boy at the end of May), trying desperately to scrap those photos collecting dust in my EHD, planning to advertise more and push my products under your nose until you notice them, hoping to be more regular in my kit releases, and praying that I find the time to keep this blog up to date! LOL

The next few months are going to be excitingfor me--both in my personal and on-line lives. I'm going to be forming a new CT to help me out, and did I mention I have both a personal use and a commercial use store now! Yep! Designs In Digital is, of course, still my home for personal use items and I'll be updating my TOU to include S4H/S4O use of my products. Just Digi Layouts, the sister site to Designs In Digital, is the place where I feature my commercial use items. Just textures and paper pattern overlays right now, but I do have some templates and brushes ready and maybe some stock photos from my sister that I'll be adding in the near future!

I hope you'll join me and keep an eye open for a newsletter sign up...still have to look into that!...sometime soon. In the meantime, click on either of the blinkies at the top to see my stores and go shopping!