Pancakes and Playing Catch-up

It’s beautiful outside this morning, the sun’s shining brightly and the birds are singing and there’s definitely a feeling of early spring in the air. It’s the sort of morning that makes you feel alive and like there’s hope in the world. Fortunately I’ve also woken up once again with a clear head, that’s four days in a row now so maybe those nasty headaches have finally gone for good.

Today’s Shrove Tuesday, and being a traditional sort of family that means that today’s main meal consists of pancakes. Lots of them, which means I have to stand at the cooker cooking them for about two hours. For the first time in years it is also the half term holiday from school, so for once I can cook at lunchtime, instead of long into my evening. Mike, who is working from home for most of the week has caused a problem though, by announcing that today is the one day he has to go into the office. Our eldest daughter, who also is due to be home for most of the week, also has an extremely long shift- working from eight in the morning till six this evening. Oh well, so much for a good plan…

Before its time to move into the kitchen though I check up on my emails, website and Facebook page. Several years ago I realised that children’s clothes shops start selling their summer school uniform around now, so to keep in line with them I always now add my school summer dresses during this half term holiday. I began putting the dresses on the website last night, so as everything else is looking good on the site I finish that task first. With all four colours of the dress newly ready for sale I then make a note of them on the homepage, tomorrow I must remember to update the Facebook page to show them too.

Next job is to delete my Valentine’s dress, after printing out the orders for them in case these vanish when the dress does. I hid the dress from showing on the website yesterday, but didn’t have the time to print the invoices, so having done that I copy the dress description onto a word document ready for use next year, and then get rid of it from the store. I can’t really believe it’s already time to finish one of my new ideas from Christmas- where’s all the time gone in between?

With a bit of help from my younger girls, I spend the next couple of hours in the kitchen, churning out pancakes enough to feed the five thousand, or at least a small army! I’ve decided that rather than have two epic cooking sessions, or only cooking this evening, I’m going to make the other two’s pancakes now and keep them aside to warm through later. Last year was the first time I had even kept any warm in the oven- I found that by layering them with baking parchment they kept well and I could then distribute them in batches rather than constantly having a queue of empty plates awaiting their next one! I’m assuming therefore that I can do similar whilst letting them grow cold, and I’ll try warming them through in fours or fives and see if it works. Once my children are stuffed, and the evening pancakes are cooked and ready I then allow myself to stop and eat my own. Needless to say, with my current lack of appetite even my nine year old beats my attempts to eat more, by two pancakes!!

I’m hot and tired by the end, but as I clear the kitchen I’m feeling nicely satisfied- it’s only three o’clock in the afternoon and I’m done with cooking for the day. I therefore have the time at last, and the inclination, to get the sewing machine back out. Although I’ve got a few orders outstanding, I’m going to begin with some of the demo dresses I need to get made up and photographed. One reason for this is because I just never seem to find the right time otherwise, but without a good photo the dresses never sell anywhere near as well as with one. My St. David’s Day dress only has another two weeks on sale, so I really do need to get a move on with it. The other reason for sewing these dresses first is simply that if I find my concentration isn’t fully back yet, I’d rather make mistakes with something that doesn’t have a customer waiting for it!

It’s easy to get back into the swing of sewing though, and I don’t really know why I was concerned. Firstly I make up my Red Nose Charity dress, as I’m really hopeful that it will appeal to people and raise some funds for Comic Relief, as with all my outfits it needs a good photo and plenty of time to sell itself. Once that’s made I start on my St. David’s Day dress. After all my issues surrounding the trimmings colours on this dress, I’m really pleased how it’s looking as I make it up. Unfortunately time runs away with me, and I don’t quite manage to finish the job but, as I really need better daylight to photograph it, I’ll leave the last bit until tomorrow. For now I’ve got washing to fold and airers to load…

Half Term

For the third day in a row, I’ve actually woken up feeling refreshed and without the thumping headache that was becoming so characteristic of my early mornings. It’s not that I’m missing it, quite the opposite, it’s just that after the way the last couple of weeks have gone I’m slightly wary of relaxing and hoping that I’m finally finished with this horrible flu.

Saturday was Valentine’s Day, and as Mike and I were booked into the local pub for dinner, I was really worried about having to dose myself up with painkillers all morning before venturing to have my first alcoholic drink in a fortnight. I was already worried enough about eating a three course dinner with an appetite that seems to have deserted, me so it was lovely to wake up and find my head wasn’t aching for once. After a relaxing day of doing not very much, we spent a very pleasant evening at our lovely local and I even managed to eat half of each course, much to Mike’s delight!

After church yesterday we were off to visit Mike’s mum and dad. Again, I’d been worried- sitting through and hour’s service, followed by an hour long drive across the moors would be hard work if my head was once again pounding, so it was a relief to find I’d had a second good night’s sleep in a row. It was a lovely day, with great food, and although I felt very guilty for not helping more with the food and clearing up, my dear in-laws seemed more bothered with how I was feeling now, than with my lack of manners!

This morning once again I was delighted to find I’d had a really good sleep, with no headache as a memento. I’ve obviously been feeling like I was ignoring my business all weekend though, as I was aware that I was thinking a lot about what I need to sort out on the site overnight! First things first though, having been out for a very long day yesterday, no washing up was done so no one can have breakfast until that’s all cleared up!

It’s the beginning of the half term holiday, Mike’s working from home today, and our eldest daughter has a scheduled day off work so with the washing up in to soak, and the washing machine loaded and on the go, I take our morning cuppas upstairs for a leisurely start to the day. This week has come at just the right time for me- with the chance to have slower starts, I should be able to get back into proper routines and build my strength up better, so that I’m raring to go when they’re all back at school next week. I hope!

I don’t have a great many aims for today, just some basic admin work. Having not looked at the website at all over the weekend, I want to take a fresh look at it today, and just double check that I’m happy with how it all looks and that there’s nothing obvious that needs tweaking. It still looks good to me, the design is supposed to translate well on mobiles and other devices too so I take a quick look at it on my phone too. I’m actually really surprised by how good it looks on there, so I’m pleased with my final decision on the design. Hopefully this one won’t be ditched at all in the near future!

During the afternoon my four girls all go into town to watch the Shaun the Sheep film that is currently showing at the local theatre-come-cinema. I take the chance to do some cutting for the new dresses that I added to the shop last week, but that I now desperately need a demo of so that I can photograph them, thereby giving them a half decent chance to sell! One of these dresses is my Comic Relief charity dress, and so I also take the chance to put a link through to it on the homepage of the website.

The other job for this afternoon is to re-do my pattern pieces. All my patterns are hand drawn and cut out, and have been re-made several times over the years. Pin holes are the main problem here, as there are only so many times you can put pins through the same piece of paper before the paper becomes just one big hole! Although drawing around a shape, and then cutting it out sounds simple, it does have to be done very carefully. I’m aware that every time I trace around a shape it has the potential to get larger, so I have to watch my cutting out skills, or else the whole outfit could change over time. And, of course, adjoining edges have to still come out the same length.

Having been waiting to do this job since my big rush at Christmas, it’s nice to get the chance to finally refresh my patterns, which will make my cutting out easier and quicker next time. It may be only small steps towards getting back to working as normal, but I feel good about my business tonight- the website has a fresh new look, my patterns are crisp and waiting for more orders to come in, and I feel well enough at last to start sewing again. My job for tomorrow…

New Website Design

So yesterday evening, having dismissed my first choice of website design, I had a play around with my back-up option. Time was short, but I didn’t want to leave the website overnight with a design that I wasn’t at all happy with- it’s amazing how many orders come through in the small hours and I didn’t want to be putting potential customers off. I had the same immediate problems to overcome- although there is no logo allowed on this design, (it simply states the name of the store instead) the slide-show on the homepage was showing the sample store’s photos not mine, even though I’d put together a slide-show for the other design, which I’d expected to follow through.

After replacing the slides with the ones I’d designed earlier, I then added another one for good measure- my store’s logo. I played around quickly with the colours so that they were near enough to my usual ones, and then took a look at the temporary finished result. I have to say that disappointment didn’t really describe how I felt, more discouraged and despairing, but the outcome was still an improvement on the first attempt so with dinner needing cooking I decided to leave it and go back to it today.

This morning I wake with a thumping headache again, and once again it proves stubborn to shift. Everyone else appears to be well and happy so far, so perhaps we are actually nearing the end of this very dreary time of illness. With our eldest daughter home on a scheduled day off today, Mike sets off to work after giving me very strict instructions to stay in bed for a while longer! Heeding his advice is difficult- I’m feeling so much better the last thing I want to be doing is lazing around in bed any more, but on the other hand my head really hurts, it’s dull and raining outside, and my biggest girl won’t be back for another hour or so as she has a driving lesson.

Two hours later and I’ve had enough of sitting in bed, although I have been enjoying taking the chance to read, so I head downstairs for some enforced breakfast. My daughter arrives back home and she’s looking very pleased with herself so that obviously means she’s had a good lesson. After loading the washing machine and listening to her tell me all about where she’s driven around today, and with my head finally beginning to settle, I log onto the computer to continue with the website.

I start by taking a look at the website as it was left yesterday to see if I can play around a bit more with it and get it more how I’d imagined. At the moment it doesn’t give the impression of a more sophisticated site that shouts ‘buy your doll’s clothes from here!’ it just looks amateurish and more like it’s telling people not to bother wasting their time, never mind their money. The spaces for the main photo of each item is pre-sized, and my photos don’t fit well. Because the main background for the site is coloured, there are white edges around the pictures where they don’t fit. I try using the portrait style photos of each item instead, but they’re still the wrong size although they do look marginally better.

Despairing, I take another look at the website designs on offer. My third choice that I had dismissed days ago now looks totally inappropriate, my experience so far has shown me the features I need the most on the site such as links through to all my other pages, showing what payment options I offer, and of course no set sized photos. I try out a couple of the sample stores to see what they are like, and notice one I hadn’t even considered previously. It’s called ‘Chocolate’ so it really should have appealed on that basis alone! More importantly though, it shows all the design features I know I want, and still includes a slide show on the homepage, which I’ve actually grown quite fond of.

Taking the plunge is easy this time- I’m so downhearted by the two previous attempts that this one surely can’t be any worse! I’m also prepared for the immediate issue of changing the slide-show photos which I set about doing immediately, and this design also incorporates my logo again. Although I once again have to resize it, it’s allowed space means it doesn’t look quite so squashed up and insignificant. I check the site online, and so far it looks good, if a little odd with the standard choice of colours. An hour later I’ve fixed the colours, set a background colour that will show up down the edges on wider screen computers, and changed all my photos back to landscape- my preferred option, and luckily the one that looks better on the site, although either suits.

Looking at the website once again I feel very satisfied with what I see. I’m sure in the great scheme of things, it doesn’t rate very highly for sophistication but it does look a little more professional and has finally achieved what I set out to do- I now have an appealing looking website with the features I want to show, and showing my doll’s clothes to their best advantage. I just hope all my potential customers agree!