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Happy 2nd Blogiversary!

Cyn — Wed, 18 May 2011 13:20:14 +0000

Yes, two years of insightful, earth-shaking posts!
Ha! Not quite, but I have met some great friends through this blog and learned a thing or two about my business and myself.

I wish I had a screenshot of the blog as I designed it a couple year’s ago. I do have my header (I must love me some red and deep aqua):

and a screenshot of my website’s front page from then, and my, how things have changed:

I always feel that this blog, like me, is a work in progress. I try, and sometimes fail, but keep going to shape this space into an extension of me and the life choices I make. When you stop by, read and make a comment, I appreciate it beyond what can be written here. Here’s to many more years – thank you!

OM :: The Numbers

Cyn — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 15:30:42 +0000

Did you feel all that energy at the beginning of the year? All the possibilities, the plans, perhaps some resolutions? I love that feeling because it really is one of life’s natural highs.

The yin to that yang is usually the dissection of my business numbers from the previous year. They annually send me into a funk and crush that new year energy to pulp. Not so this January. Without revealing all my biz-ness, I was much smarter last year than in any previous year of working at home. This doesn’t mean I was pulling in huge profits, but my spending was mindful, my sales were the best they’ve ever been and my prospects to expand seem very good moving forward.

My moment is realizing that I can learn from what the numbers reveal instead of wallowing in the negative. The numbers can propel me forward instead of dragging me down. The numbers can turn me into a ~~perky cheerleader~~ positive force for my business. That’s something to rah-rah about.

:::

OM is *one moment* and is a meetup designed to notice & relish a moment in everyday life. The meetup idea was created by Linda at her blog, a la mode stuff.

If you’d like to participate in OM, just click the button and you’ll be taken to Linda’s post explaining it all.

The Meetup :: October 2010

Cyn — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:44:51 +0000

Hello Meetup-ers! Hope your September has treated you well. With the slow start of school and adjusting to a new schedule, this past month has been challenging time-wise.

I have been drawing more and more, which is great. Now I need to see the drawings through to a completed piece and list in my stores. I have quite a few designs that live on my PC that I need to set free! (And yes, I’m a PC, don’t judge.)

I did create Office Hours (you can read the post here) and it’s been great to define these for myself and my family. Still working out a few kinks, like fitting in exercise in my non-office hours, but it feels like a big accomplishment.

Another big one… blogging every day, Monday to Friday, on both the card and dog blogs. Whew! I didn’t really mind the schedule until this last week of the month. I think I was energized by all the newness of the posts at the beginning of the month. For October, I will go back to five days a week between the two blogs and analyze September numbers to see if blogging daily on both is worth it.
:::
With a nod to Paper Mango’s, Melanie, I will be handwriting my goals this month.

October is going to be a month of making and listing, over and over again. My father-in-law is getting married in December and asked me to do the wedding suite for him. That’s the first priority, but I also need to finish the grocery notepads I’ve been working on for awhile and finish the prototype of my home product. Then the holiday prep, which includes Craftland (oh boy!) and I must stop neglecting the Dog Paper. I have some cute dog drawings that I’m pairing with patterns for a new line of paper goods, but it’s another design stuck inside my laptop.

I’m excited about my personal goals and I think they can all be met. I failed miserably with my yoga goal last month, but I am ready to commit to it this month. I’m also running again and have took up the challenge to run 50 miles in October from one of my favorite people on the interwebs, Cathy Zielske. And with the change in season, I can start getting up at 5am again.

Okay, that’s my long-winded goal post for the month. Looking forward to reading yours!
If you’d like to join The Meetup, check out Liz’s blog, Athena Dreams.

Office Hours Posted

Cyn — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:00:21 +0000

From a conversation about working too much to…

Realistically thinking about my business needs to…

Meeting with my husband and coming up with a plan to…

The Office Hours on the door.
:::
Last week was the first full week to implement our new schedule and I would mark it a success. I haven’t quite gotten on the early morning bus yet, but it takes time for this old body to adjust. Part of this schedule is to live healthier, in both my personal and business life. Defining my time for myself and my family already feels better–healthier. There is work time, workout time and family time. It seems so simple, but I realize it’s hard work to commit to managed time.

I’m ready…

OM :: The Office Hours

Cyn — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:00:44 +0000

It seems when you run a business from your home, your time at work needs to be approved by whomever you live with, at least if you’re part of a family. I don’t know if this expectation arises when you’re male. I would imagine any time working at home, especially when there are children involved, would require some time management.

Anyhoo, I’ve been at this full-time work-at-home business for two years now. I’m just now realizing that we, as a family, need a schedule. My schedule. And it needs to be pretty immovable.

I have a schedule typed and posted. But in our reality of holidays, the jump start of college football season (part of hubs job) and the shortened first weeks of school, we haven’t implemented it yet. Monday will be the start of the litmus test of whether this will work. I hope it does… it gives us all a bit of routine that we’ve been craving.

So, after this summer of “why don’t we do this today?”, my moment is the absolute desire of routine. I think I can declare that desire a family moment this week. Let’s get this party started!

The Meetup :: September 2010

Cyn — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:04:48 +0000

I’ve decided that August is a weird month. Even though it harbors my birthday, August has that desperate feel to it. Stuck between “Hurry up, let’s get this month over with” and “May summer never end,” I feel like I’ve been rushing around, pushing this month away, while embracing it at the same time. The fact that summer is almost over, school supplies must be purchased and you start to see Halloween candy & decorations all contribute to the cuckoo factor.

I did okay with my summer goals. I wish I had drawn more and finished those flippin’ classes, but I shall conquer them soon. I did some work on my big wholesale goal and plan for more progress this month. Getting my studio together was a long shot for August and so was organizing my home (I live with three males – you do the math on how big a job that will be.) But I’ve made some headway and plans are in motion. I feel good about where it’s going and that’s an accomplishment in itself.

September is packed! There are carry-over goals from the summer, but some hefty, lofty, shifty goals that I hope I can manage.

My holiday designs should have been done by now and when I go wholesale, I’ll be on a more stringent and earlier schedule. But since these designs will just be for my own retail site, I can be a slacker and finish them this month.

Both my boys are in grammar school this year. My 5-year-old is half-day PM Kindergarten, so I need to create a new schedule for myself. My husband’s schedule also changes at this time of year, so I’m going to have Office Hours. My door will be shut and I will not be disturbed. I will also be taking one day off a week (Sunday is the day) with no contact to my business, unless I have a pending order. These office hours will give my family some much needed expectations of when I will be unavailable for my other full-time job.

I applied for a holiday show, but it’s juried, and I’m not sure if I’ll get in. If I do, I’ll need to set aside some time to create inventory for it. It’s a pretty big show… I’ll keep y’all posted. I’m working on my first non-stationery home product and I’m hoping to have a prototype completed this month. Home goods is a direction I want my business to go (it’s on my biz plan) and I think this product is a good start. I’m sorry I have to be secretive (it drives me bonkers when other people do it), but that jinx factor feels pretty powerful.

I’m going to blog Monday through Friday for all of September. That’s ten posts per week! Yup, crazy talk. Read more about my plans here for this blog and here for the dog blog. And if I want people to read my posts, I need to get better at reading theirs, so I’m going to figure out how to read other blogs in a more timely fashion.

Good luck with your goals this month. I’ll be stopping by to check them out. If you don’t participate in The Meetup and would like to join, visit Liz’s blog, Athena Dreams here.

Preview of a New Schedule

Cyn — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:27:59 +0000

I’m going to experiment with posting on this blog Monday through Friday, every week in September and thought I would give you a little preview of my plans.

I’m going to begin a photo a week project called 52 Pick-Up, inspired by my friend, Angie of Jumping Jack Designs. Angie has been participating in a 365 photo challenge for herself and is currently in Week 33 (check out Angie’s stunning images here). I’ve seen her skills grow so much over this year and her photographs are the envy of quite a few people. I’m hoping my skills improve, but I’m more excited to just get out and use my camera (a little Canon P+S) more often.

Where You Live is a feature that I’ve been planning for awhile. I’m eager to share some of the places that friends and colleagues call home. We’ll be traveling the world to see and appreciate these unique settings, but to also get you thinking how where you live is pretty great. If you’d like to be featured in this series, shoot me an email at riverdogprints [at] riverdogprints [dot] com.

Other plans include some posts on DIY projects that I will be tackling next month. Also, I’m going to bring back Blog Love, but instead of doing a blitz like the Blog Love Week I posted last year, I will feature one blog I love once a month. Another monthly feature will be a Canning Round-Up of links and information from the homemade front. There is SO much goodness in this homemade movement, it will be full of irresistible recipes and news.

Weekly features will include OM [one moment], the meet-up created by Linda at a la mode, and My Creative Space from kootoyoo. OM has helped me look at my weekly life in a more observant way, noticing both the small and big things. I’ve enjoyed chronicling them and reading about the other participants’ moments. I’ve only joined in with My Creative Space once, but I love the concept and hope to examine my space in a critical and motivational way.

There are other posts that will be peppered in between all this supposed goodness. Should be interesting… Scout’s Dog Blog is going to get the same M-F treatment in September. She’ll be posting her plans tomorrow. Whew! That’s a lot of stuff… hope you’re planning/enjoy this last week of August and having a happy Monday!

The Meetup :: August 2010

Cyn — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 03:25:44 +0000

I’ve been staring at this post for awhile and not writing anything. Just back from vacation this weekend, I had a full day of completing orders, assisting my parents and wrangling my boys. I think my brain is a little flat, so forgive me for keeping it simple and brief. Here’s my list, with a couple of additions, to round out the summer. I hope I can conquer them all!

Sunflowers

Cyn — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:56:19 +0000

sunflowers, originally uploaded by Cyn & Scout at RiverDog Prints.

A little extra beauty from our CSA…

Analytics for Everyone

Cyn — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:00:41 +0000

How often do you analyze your numbers?
I look at my numbers with no regularity because I don’t know how to analyze them. I can stare at them pretty well, but I don’t think winning a staring contest with my analytics is going to help my business.

When I took the SATs and later the GRE a couple decades ago, my scores were pretty middle of the road. My boyfriend at the time got a perfect score and one of my best friends was just shy of that by 10 points. Besides feeling inadequate in comparison, I took solace in the fact that I had a super score on the analytical sections. So, what has happened to my brain?

It’s not that I haven’t tried to figure it out. I’ve visited other sites that offer some explanation of how to “read” the reports. Soon, I get the same vacant feeling between my ears and I go design something or hang out on Twitter. And the analytics are left to themselves until the compulsion to conquer them comes over me again.

So, I throw out this challenge to you. If you have a good handle on your numbers, can you tell me how you do it? I’m hoping there is some secret formula or code that will make it, if not easier, then interesting. Do you have something like that?