Weekly Mileage #183 and Another Trip to the ER

Monday I had my first accountability meeting. We ended up talking for about 4 hours, and I think we're a good fit. I think keeping it to just the two of us will also be more manageable than being part of a larger group.

I worked on my large tote, riveting the handles and pocket to the main body.

Tuesday we had our first in-person music lessons in more than six months. River had a rhythm in a song he was working on that I just couldn't figure out, despite hearing it in the FaceTime lesson the week before. In person, we figured it out quickly because there was no lag between sounds. It was a good check-in. Both kiddos got to play with our teacher, which was much needed. It's really hard to play together on FaceTime because of the lag.

it was a beautiful day for an outdoor lesson

My sewing machine made it to the factory, hopefully without any damage (I haven't heard on that part yet), now to wait and see how long it takes for them to fix it.

Max likes her creature comforts. She dragged her crate pad from her crate and tried to pull it up on the chair, but needed Sunshine's help to actually get it up there.

I finally finished reorganizing my workspace. I'd been putting some things off, but I finally got them done, namely attaching my backdrops to dowels and hanging them on the wall and reorganizing the shelf in the corner. It's now easier to find stuff and less cluttered.

Once I was done procrastinating, I punched the stitch holes and started sewing the sides of the large tote and putting in the bottom rivets. The rivets need to be put in before I sew too far up the sides, so the two tasks go hand-in-hand.

It's been three weeks since I cut my finger, and it's healed quite well with just a small scab left. I've kept bandaids and neosporin on it almost the entire time- just letting it dry out a bit when changing bandaids if it got wet.

awkward angle to photograph. the scab in the center is where the cut was the deepest. the darker pink area is where  the cut was shallower.

Wednesday morning we all had dentist appointments. We were the only ones in the office, other than the hygienists and the dentist. I have to go back in a couple weeks to get some fillings replaced, but everyone else looked good.

I finished the large tote and prepped three notebook covers for sewing. A small notebook cover, a small music notebook cover, and a large music notebook cover.

Thursday I ran some errands and started hand sewing the notebook covers. It's not a fast process, but it is better than twiddling my thumbs as I wait for my sewing machine to get back to me.

Ocean had fun with some sidewalk chalk and a puddle

Friday was drizzly, so we went to a park with a shelter where the moms could sit, while the kiddos played. The older kids played board games for a bit, then they all (ages 4-14) played freeze tag for awhile. I brought my notebook covers and worked on them a bit.

more fun with puddles and sidewalk chalk

That afternoon I finally found my rhythm hand sewing, which will be useful when it comes to teaching it. I'd watched videos of people hand sewing leather, but they didn't really explain how to position the needles to get a consistent stitch. I finished the third notebook cover, now I just need to decide how much I'm finishing the edges- am I leaving them raw, or finishing them? Then it'll be time to photograph everything and get it all listed. I'll have that done by early next week, so I'll share pictures of everything next week.

the older kids played a card game, and River got to play with them

I finally worked through this week's lesson for course creation (no time earlier in the week). I nailed down some details, including my launch date. The cart will be open for registration Nov 19-Dec 1, all the kits will be shipped by Dec 3, and the first video will go live Dec 7. Since the first lesson is the safety video, it doesn't matter that the kits won't have arrived yet.

It's good to get the details nailed down, but also a bit nerve-wracking: the 30 day pre-launch runway starts Oct 21, which is less than a month away. Lots to do before then!

I'm definitely glad I joined the course. It may seem silly to pay for a course on how to write my own course, but having the steps spelled out is making it much easier to get everything done, without being too overwhelming and while including things I wouldn't have thought of.

Saturday I finally got the toolkit finalized (for now, until I inspect the contents in person), so now I'm waiting on a shipping quote for the sample. It's been a slow process since I'm rarely online at the same time as my contact in China. I'd post the items I need in the morning, he'd respond sometime during the night. I'd respond during the day, but not hear back from him until the next day. And so on.

With my timeline contracting (not really, I always intended on launching in November or December, but it feels that way), I need to get my sample kit, ok the contents, and get my first round of kits ordered and received before the end of November (by the middle of November would be preferable). I'm limiting enrollment to 100 students the first time to make sure I have enough kits on hand and see how things go before going bigger the next time I open for enrollment.

sitting on the cushier back cushion of the couch

I do have a couple things that aren't in my toolkits because the company I'm working with doesn't have access to them. For now, I've got US based companies that I will buy them from, which will save me having to pay the shipping fees and import taxes. I haven't placed the orders yet, but I know where I'll be getting them from.

After lunch River made an unplanned trip to the ER (does one really ever plan on a trip to the ER?). He was trying to lower the 2" blinds in the library, but managed to pull the whole thing out of the bracket, and it landed on him. The heavy metal frame scratched and cut his face and scratched his chest. Jeremy took him since he handles blood better and only one parent can go in these days. River got seven stitches. The part closest to the corner of his mouth is the deepest and may cause a bit of muscle damage. He may end up with a crooked smile. We'll get him checked out towards the end of next week to make sure it's healing properly. He'll have a scar for awhile, but it'll fade with time: Ocean's scar that he got when he was about a year old is barely visible now.

stitches, a cut, a scratch, and some dried blood that he won't let me wash off yet.

This is a record for us- two trips to the ER in less than a month- we usually average less than one a year.

That afternoon I ran my leg in the Great National Park Relay. Each team had 24 members, each of whom ran a one hour leg over a 24 hour period. I'd originally planned to take Max to the trails park and run there, but it rained most of Friday, so the trails were too wet. Instead I ran on a gravel road not far away. Max was disappointed at being left home, but since she doesn't heel yet, I didn't want to run on the road with her, even if it's not heavily trafficked.

 My leg was at 3pm, which isn't my favorite time to run, but I missed the good morning times when I signed up. It was a bit warmer than I'd like, though not as bad as I was afraid it would be. I'm definitely out of shape from not running much the last few months, but I ran 4.4 miles in my hour, which isn't bad. Out of that 4.4 miles, I ran total of 3.3 miles. I cooled down by walking .25 miles.

Later I looked up trademarks and domains. I have a domain for my school, which will eventually house multiple courses and a project of the month club, but I need to grab the domain for my course as well. I'm not sure yet if it'll be a sales page or re-direct to my school site or what, but I'll get that figured out soon. Based on the little research I did (have you ever checked out the government's trademark site? soo hard to understand- there's a reason it's recommended that you hire a trademark lawyer if you want to trademark something), I don't think my course title is trademarked. But I'm also not sure that I can trademark it, it may be a bit too basic. I need to do some more research into it.

While out running errands, Jeremy bought me a chocolate bar, which I decided to eat. I'd run nearly four and a half miles, so I could eat a few more carbs, right? Hmmm. No. It's been more than a month since I had sugar in that quantity, and I did not feel good. I didn't have insomnia at least, but I sure didn't feel good that evening.

Now if I can just remember this, it'll be even easier to stay away from sugar and carbs in the future. It's a process, and I'm doing a lot better this time around, but I still have to fully convince myself that sugar is not worth feeling crummy. This was definitely a step in that right direction. And at least I did it on a day when I expended a lot of energy, which helped counter-act some of the negative effects of eating all that sugar. That hasn't always been the case, but I suspect it worked out ok this time since it had been so long since I last had sugar.

Weekly Mileage
Saturday- 4.41 miles run
Saturday- 0.25 miles walked
total- 4.66 miles

2020 totals

31 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

174.75 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
22.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
260.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
457.25 miles total

Sunday Funny

Ocean is such a funny kiddo. He loves getting dirty and playing in the dirt and the water.

No, I have no idea why he's hugging the ground. Yes, his shorts ripped on one leg from playing too hard. Yes, he was happy as a clam. A very dirty clam.

Weekly Mileage #182 and Sewing Leather By Hand

Monday morning I thought about going running, but it was already 72* at 8:30 am, so that was a no-go (68* is the upper limit of what I can comfortably handle). The rest of the week should be better, though.

Jeremy had drill over the weekend and is now doing his second week of virtual AT. He did the first week was back in July. I'll be glad when it's done- it's such a pain having him here, but unable to do anything.

Max subduing the scary box

We got some more money from the VA, this time back pay on the difference between single person disability rate and person with dependents disability rate.

After school in the morning, I did the grocery shopping before working a bit on my course. I found a company in China that sells most of the items I need for my tool kit and they already had several tool kits of various sizes available. I figured they'd be able to put together what I'm looking for, and so far, so good. It's taking some time and some back and forth, but we're close to having almost everything I need in there. Getting everything, or nearly everything, from just one source will really make my life a lot easier. And it'll cost less overall and be more efficient from a time and import taxes perspective.

Max "manspreading" as Sunshine puts it. I keep telling her it's "doggyspreading"

Customer service rep responded to my email Friday afternoon. I need to send my sewing machine in for some warranty work (oops, I forgot to save the original packaging, which I'm supposed to use to send it in) and they want pictures of it sewing. I'm not sure how that will help, but ok.

Scouts was a socially distant orienteering course. We started half an hour earlier than usual and it still got dark before they were done. I sat and cleaned out my email inbox (still a ways to go, but I made good progress) and got a little chilled. I should have brought a jacket or long sleeve shirt. Fall is finally on its way! I've really been looking forward to cooler temps this year since the heat of summer did such a number on me.

it's really hard to get a selfie with Max. she just doesn't understand the concept.

Tuesday morning temps were in the low 50s, so I got up and took Max for a trail run. It was glorious. Only 4 other cars in the parking lot, we didn't see anybody on the trails, and it wasn't hot and humid.

I haven't seen the parking lot this empty in months

Wednesday I re-watched the troubleshooting videos and ran through everything again. I decided to try the one adjustment I hadn't yet attempted because of the location of the screws. I could only loosen one of them. Jeremy spent several hours on it as well, but couldn't do it either. We stripped out four allen wrenches in the process. So frustrating.

not the screw we couldn't loosen

I also called around to find a local sewing machine repair shop. There are none local, but I found one about an hour or so away that has a three week lead time. I found two others, further away, that are even more backed up. I need to call customer service to see how long they'd take before I decide what to do about it.

I thought about just buying the more expensive machine that I should have gotten originally, and getting this one fixed and using it as a backup/employee machine. But spending that much money would tie up funds that need to be available so I can purchase the tool kits. I'll make the money back, but only after I front the initial expense. So I'll hold off on buying the nicer machine.

While I thought some more about what to do, I cut the leather for a couple of totes. These are a different design that need less sewing than my original tote design. I'll hand sew the side seams and hopefully they'll turn out decent.

While I'm waiting for my machine to get fixed, I'll also try sewing some of the thinner leather on my regular sewing machine- maybe it can handle it long enough for me to get the industrial one fixed? If not, I'll just focus on sewing waxed canvas items, which has been on my to do list for awhile.

Thursday I tried one last time to loosen the screw from yesterday, but still no luck. I'll send it in to the factory on Friday, since supposedly it only takes them 5 days to fix machines. Even with shipping times hopefully I'll get it back sooner than if I took it somewhere.

hand stitching the side seam on the new tote design (I really need to figure out names for these things)

Friday I packaged up the sewing machine, then took it to the local UPS hub where they have a customer service counter and I could get a receipt for high value insurance. Only the counter was closed and will be all next week, too. I ended up handing it over anyway, and just praying nothing happens to it on the way. Super frustrating.

I finished hand-sewing the side seams of the first tote and riveted the side seams to the bottom. I need to finish a couple more details before it will be done. On the next tote, I'll do all the rivets before I finish the side seams. It was a huge pain doing them in the enclosed space of the tote with the seams all sewn.

Saturday morning I thought about going for a run, but I stayed in bed for a bit and rested and read. The stress of dealing with the sewing machine issue knocked my sleep schedule off this week and I decided relaxing was the better choice then getting up and running.

side seam of finished tote

I did spend a little bit of time chain sawing the suckers that have grown up around the small trees we cut down a couple years ago along the driveway. The driveway was getting overgrown, so it was past time to do that.

rivets attach the side seam to the bottom- no sewing needed, which is good since my machine is out of service

Then I sewed the pocket together and attached the handles and the pocket to the tote with copper rivets. It turned out better than I hoped :) I sewed the pocket for the second tote and prepped the handles for it.

Then I replaced the handles on the tote I've been using- the last in my run of four, that was finally the size I was looking for. The handles were a bit flimsy and Max and chewed on one of them a little. And the Chicago screws I'd used to attach them were forever coming loose. Copper rivets look good and won't come loose and the thicker leather I used this time will last a lot longer than the original leather. I also rubbed some leather balm into the tote to clean it up a bit.

Sunday I finally caught up on posts from the last month, so if you missed them, scroll backwards to the last post in August to get caught up.

One thing I'm grateful for is the ability to find the silver lining in most situations. I realized that while hand sewing is not the most efficient, quick way to make my products, it does give me some good practice, which will come in handy when I start teaching hand sewing in my course. My course is strictly hand sewing leather, and while I've done some hand sewing, a bit more experience isn't a bad thing.

This week I joined a course creation group. The enrollment period just happened to coincide with when I was ready, and the timeline for creation lines up with the timeline I had in mind. I've seen this course open before, but didn't sign up because I didn't have a course idea. I didn't want to sign up without an idea. The group will help me work through all the steps to have as successful a launch as possible, including the steps that the introvert in me would prefer not to do (live video being a big one). One of the things we're supposed to do is find an accountability partner or group among the other course participants to help us stay on track. I found a couple people in the course creation group that live nearby and one of them wasn't already in  an accountability group, so she and I will be meeting to make sure we stay on track and do everything. Can't wait to get going!

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 1.55 miles run
total- 1.55 miles

2020 totals

31 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

170.09 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
22.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
260.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
452.59 miles total

Sunday Funny

I wanted to get a picture of the boys playing together nicely with the new Rescue Bots, but as soon as I pulled out my phone, River struck a pose.

 I finally got him to stop, but by then Ocean had changed positions and it was no longer a great shot.

Weekly Mileage #181 and the Missing Tooth

selfie with a disposable camera

Monday was Labor Day, so we took the day off school. The weather is finally starting to cool down at night, so I took Oreo for a trail run in the morning, though I didn't start quite as early as I should have. She did well, despite there being a lot of people and their dogs on the trails. We'll definitely do this again.

We finally got the pictures developed from our Green Bank Observatory trip last fall. Electronics aren't allowed in certain areas, so I used a disposable film camera. Definitely a difference in photo quality.

on the observation deck with the Green Bank Telescope in the background

one of the radio telescopes

Sunshine in front of the GBT- that white space covers more than 2 acres!

side view of the GBT

the 40' teaching telescope the Scouts got to use

I reorganized my workspace in the basement. I assembled the wire shelf I'd bought, then moved the white shelf that used to hold toys to the right and loaded most of my leather on the wire shelf. It's much easier to get to my leather now.

A bear came through Sunday night/Monday morning and got into our trash again. If we doubted it was a bear dragging our trash bags into the woods, the giant bear-sized poop he left in our driveway dispelled that idea.

that bear had been eating seeds...

the leaves are starting to change!

Tuesday the local schools started, which means seminary and speech therapy started as well.

so cute!

We've decided to change Oreo's name to Max. While Oreo fit her looks, it didn't fit her personality. We were watching Avatar a few days ago and one of the characters yelled "Max!" and Oreo looked up. We tried it out over the next few days, and Max is her new name. We still slip up sometimes, but it's coming.

Her full name is Mad Max, Scourge of Multi-legged Critters. Mad Max because she gets the zoomies and is quite speedy. Scourge of Multi-legged Critters because she goes after all the bugs. Floor raisins (ants), sky raisins (flies), jalapeño sky raisins (giant wasps), and the giant cicadas we have this summer.

The replacement needle plate arrived and I installed it, but it didn't fix the problem. I went through all the troubleshooting suggestions in the manual, but still couldn't get it to work properly.

I went back and forth with the customer service rep for the sewing machine company, but he kept suggesting things that I'd already tried (and said I'd tried). I went through all the trouble shooting suggestions again, but still couldn't fix the machine. I ended up sending off a nasty gram Friday afternoon, calling him out on not reading my emails and giving canned responses. I sent it too late in the day to receive an answer, so I'm not sure what will be the next step.

Friday we had someone come out to check our internet- it's been sooo slow, which is why I haven't been getting my posts up on time- it takes forever to upload the photos. He was able to improve the upload speed a smidge, but our connection in general is still really slow. We've finally decided to bite the bullet and pay an arm and a leg to get Comcast to run a line out to our house.

Friday evening River was playing with his loose tooth in bed, and it was so loose that he was able to pull it right out!

The tooth fairy didn't have two quarters (the going rate for a first tooth loss in our house), so River lucked out with a Sacagewea dollar, courtesy of Jeremy's wallet. Not using cash is a real pain...

Max pictures. It's actually really hard to get good pictures of her, as she's always moving, unless she's asleep.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 1.75 miles run
Wednesday- 5.00 miles biked
Saturday- 5.00 miles biked
total- 11.75 miles

2020 totals

30 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

168.54 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
22.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
260.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
451.04 miles total