Monday we cleaned the house, which it desperately needed. I detest cleaning. It's one of those futile tasks that gets undone as soon as it's done (if not while it's being done), especially with little boys in the house. But at the same time, I hate living in a dirty house.
I was still feeling more anxious than I'd like, but definitely better than the previous few days. That afternoon I took the RV in for its annual inspection, which it passed this time.
That evening we had a socially distant kayaking activity for Scouts. Sunshine did some stand up paddle boarding as well as kayaking.
The lighting setup I ordered last week arrived, now I'm just waiting for my backdrops, which have been ordered. Then my product photos should look a lot more professional. My stickers also arrived. They have a matte finish, which I like. The square one didn't photograph very well, but the color is a dark blue gray slate color.
Tuesday I worked on getting back in the groove of getting stuff done. Last week threw me off and I've got a lot to do to catch up, which doesn't help my anxiety levels.
My second order of waxed canvas arrived, so I now have the materials for all my initial projects, if I just had the time to actually work on them. Everything in their time though, and there's other tasks that have to be finished before I get back to actual leatherwork.
Speaking of other tasks, I worked on blog posts for my shop site and almost finished them on Tuesday.
Ocean was playing with the felt letters and made this design on the floor. Then he ran downstairs and came back with an xbox controller to make sure he got it right :)
Wednesday I ordered a rubber stamp and two brass stamps with my logo. The rubber stamp will be used on packaging, the brass stamps for marking on leather. I considered just using my acrylic stamp for awhile longer, but I kind of wanted to just get it done and not have to worry about the inadequacies of the acrylic stamp (which it definitely has). Though it'll probably take a month for the stamps to arrive, so I'll still have to use the acrylic stamp in the meantime.
I finished catching up the blog posts for my shop site and then started on some other site updates. I also updated my social media logos.
And then it was time to stop and pivot back to my travel blog. My last batched post was published last week and now it's time to batch another round. Last time it took me a bit more than a week to batch two months' worth of posts, but I'd really like to shorten that timeframe. I've got another two months' worth of posts in the works, and I want to finish them by Tuesday so I can finish my site updates (just a few things left), then start making tote bags.
After I took this picture, Ocean rearranged the letters and brought in a green one so that the colors matched up. He was a little put out that he could match the letters, or the colors, but not both.
I also took some time out to go through the keto cookbooks I ordered last week. I went through and marked recipes and made a list of ingredients I need. Most are pretty repetitive and we already have most of the ingredients, but there were a few oddball ingredients like hazelnut meal, peanut flour, and lupin flour. Some can be bought locally, others online at sites like Amazon and Thrive Market.
I realized if I'm going to stay low carb/keto long term (which I need to do to manage my narcolepsy), I need to put a little more effort into it. I've only been using the same couple recipes over the last year and a half, which has not been helpful for staying on track. Sweets are a real issue for me, so I need to find some good recipes I can make, that I like, so that I have substitutes that won't knock me off track when holidays and celebrations come around. I seem to get derailed around holidays and celebrations much too easily, which is why I haven't been able to stay low carb long term. I bought keto breakfast, dinner, and dessert cookbooks, but I also bought a keto baking cookbook. That one has some intriguing recipes that I'm looking forward to trying.
My new business cards and product tags arrived. The care tag is double sided, and I'll punch a hole at the top for string. I was aiming for rustic tags and business cards, which I got, but I'm not completely sure I like the end result. The waxed canvas care instructions didn't turn out as clear as I'd like- I should have used a different font. Overall, though, they're not terrible, and I doubt anyone will look at them as critically as I am.
Friday I hopped on my bike for the first time in several weeks. I also adjusted how it sits in the trainer, which unintentionally resulted in no more easy spinning. But I wasn't getting a lot of benefit from those easy spinning miles, so that's not a bad thing. I also worked on my batched posts.
Saturday I walked on the treadmill and tidied up the desktop on my computer, went through the millions of open tabs and windows, and brainstormed a socially distant product feedback party where I have fellow homeschooling moms look at and examine my products and give feedback on them. How's that for multi-tasking? I thought about running part of the time, but I can't run and work on the computer at the same time, and I really needed to get that work done.
Did a little more shop site work (I keep thinking of random things to look into or take care of, so I stop and do them while I think of them). Then onto the batched posts. The last two need a bit more research before they'll be at draft stage. I leave final edits till after I get the pin images and alt texts done, which gives me time to go back to the posts with fresh eyes. So, good progress, but the research stage always takes longer than I'd like.
I made some low carb peanut butter cookies that were pretty good. They used peanut flour instead of almond flour, which I liked, since coconut flour and almond flour (the usual low carb flours) don't always agree with me. I used half the low carb sweetener the recipe called for, which affected the rise a little, but they tasted good.
I used a new brand (Lakanto) of sugar free chocolate chips, and I like them better than the other brand I've used (Lily's). They're both sweetened with erythritol, which has an unpleasant cooling effect in the mouth. It's worse in the Lily's chocolates than the Lakanto chocolates, which are also sweetened with monkfruit. One thing I liked about this recipe: it only made two cookies, so there's no extras sitting around, begging to be eaten. They're less tempting than sugar-sweetened cookies, but there's still a good chance I'd eat more if they were there.
The friendly(?) neighborhood bear made another visit Saturday night, strewing trash across the driveway and pulling several bags into the woods. The kiddos were not impressed with being tasked with the cleanup. Sunshine asked about animal control services (they won't do anything with a bear unless it's aggressive) and River thought shooting it with a machine gun would take care of the problem.🤦♀️ Really, we just need to figure out a better way to store our trash cans so they're not tipped over so easily.
Last week I started teaching River how to do his and Ocean's laundry. They've recently started changing their clothes 3 or 4 times a day, which has resulted in them running out of clean clothes much sooner than they should. They play outside in the hose or the rain, come in and put dry clothes on. They go back outside and play in the water some more, maybe changing beforehand, definitely changing again after getting wet.... Anyway, so far it's going well. I think Sunshine was 10 or 11 when I started teaching her, so they're getting a head start on her. Never too early to start learning life skills!
Jeremy had online training with the military all week. They're supposed to do two weeks a year, but they did one now and they'll do the second week later. I'm not sure if it will be online as well, or if they're waiting to see. Anyway, lots of fun. Lots of telling the kiddos to "be quiet, daddy's on a phone call!" and "go upstairs, or downstairs, or outside, but get out of the library!" (where daddy was working). Ideally, I would have taken them off on an adventure, but if it was ideal, he wouldn't be doing training at home, so it would be a moot point. As it was, I wasn't willing to take the kiddos anywhere because it's been so hot and humid and I'm trying to get caught up on my work. I've gone two weeks without doing any leatherwork and I'm getting antsy about it.
Weekly Mileage
Friday- 10.0 miles biked
Saturday- 2.50 miles walked on the treadmill
total- 12.50 miles
2020 totals
27 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge
164.19 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
20.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
210.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
394.69 miles total
20.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
210.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
394.69 miles total
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