The End of a LOOOOOONG Week

Thank God this week is finally over.....except tomorrow is Monday.

I have just worked 7 days straight...again! Today I had the Little Me Markets and it was full on from the start.

My stall set-up

Gaia Organic Cotton

Skeanie & Walnut Melbourne Shoes

Natural Blossoms Skincare

Squiggle Pop

Lots of little things for little ones

Now I'm home and relaxing in front of The Voice with a lovely stir fry. Emily is sleeping soundly and I'm really looking forward to slowing down the pace in the next couple of weeks and having some completely normal housebound weekends with my baby. 

Makin' Lemonade

Last night and this morning I was pretty disillusioned about my life. How did everything turn upside down so quickly? What did I do wrong? How am I going to fix something I have no control over?

This afternoon I decided fuck it! If I can't do anything about it I might as well get on with things. Everything might work out and that would be great, things might not and if that happens I know I'll survive. It will be hard and I'll have a lot of sorting out to do but I'll be OK.

One thing is still certain. I have a daughter to raise and a business to run.

While we were on holidays the shop was pretty slow. And with little money coming in and lots of bills to pay I really have to pull my finger out this week and get some extra sales through the door.

I've come up with a plan. I have a small amount of summer stock that I need to move so I thought I'd start with that. It's currently sitting on a 50% off rack but being so cold it's not moving. So I've decided to have a Facebook sale. It's a Market Night where my customers can purchase excess summer stock at below cost price in a one off offer. If you want to check it out you can go to my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bearly-Worn/123812704350325 .

The second part of my plan is to win some free advertising for the shop. Tiny & little are having a competition to win a full free page ad in their Winter 2012 issue out June 1st. All I have to do is receive the most votes and my little shop Bearly Worn wins! So I've asked all my FB fans to go there and vote. If you feel inclined (this is a bit cheeky) I would also love your vote. Just got to tiny & little and type "I vote for @bearly worn" so that the shops page is tagged and the vote gets counted.

Hopefully this gives me something else to concentrate apart from my personal problems and makes me a little money just in case.

The Best Day Ever!!

Today was the best day ever! I mean it, it was awesome.

On Monday I put a Facebook post up saying there would be a big announcement on Thursday. On Tuesday I posted a reminder and on Wednesday I said I had not one but three big announcements to make.

Today was the Albury Gold Cup and a gazetted public holiday from midday which meant no childcare and therefor no shop open after midday. At first i thought it was a disaster. I need the income desperately at the moment and half day closing meant I would struggle to meet my sales target.

So these were my announcements that I made on Thursday:

Announcement 1: It's almost been a year since I bought the shop and to celebrate my 1 year anniversary we are doing a bit of a make-over in the shop. Over the coming weeks you'll see a new color scheme, play area, shop fittings (I've started this already) and a new logo. A huge thanks to Kath from Doodlebugs who has been madly designing the new bear and logo. I can't wait to show you all!

Announcement 2: With the success of new labels Gaia Organic Cotton, Eternal Creation, Mizzle, Walnut and Skeanie added to Bearly Worn over the last year I've decided to expand the range for summer 2012! I'm very pleased to announce I have just signed orders for Koko & Co., Milky and Freshbaked. There will be more to come so keep your eye on Facebook as I'll list them her as they're confirmed.

Final announcement for today! To celebrate Albury Gold Cup I am having a one day only SALE! Come in between 10am and 12pm tomorrow and get 10% discount on all new winter stock from Gaia Organic Cotton, Mizzle, Skeanie, Uh-Oh! sleepwear and... Walnut Melbourne. This is for TOMORROW ONLY with no exceptions, rain checks and not in conjunction with any other offer. So come in and save some $$$ on your kids winter wardrobes! See you tomorrow :-)

 

Well turns out a lot of people read my post about the sale and at 9:30am there were people lined up at the door. In two hours I did a weeks trade and I couldn't be more chuffed! Honestly i wasn't expecting this at all and today I finally feel like I made the right decision buying the shop. It's been a really hard slog this last 12 months and days like this give me hope that it's all worth it.

 

Anyway, not to worry. I hope tomorrow is just as good and that the trend continues. Next on my list of many things to do is the new radio campaign. Anyone good with writing jingles?

No Rest for The Wicked

What a great weekend! I got no housework, cooking or washing done. But I did have a great time!

It started with Saturday morning coffee and a trip to the hairdressers. I was so scared because it was Emily's first haircut and I knew we'd be cutting off the last of her baby hair. Why is this such a big deal? I think after she started toilet training early and because she is so physically advanced and big for her age (at 20 months she's 15kg and 90.5cm tall), cutting off her baby hair means that she's now a little girl and I kind of want to hold onto Baby Emily for just a little longer.

My little girl is a bit of a loner most of the time. She can be shy and doesn't like strangers or big crowds. So our plan was to just sit and chat in the hairdressers and if she seemed comfortable enough we would cut her hair. It worked a treat. She even thought sitting in the big chair by herself was great fun and happily let the girl cut her hair. Then she stood in front of the mirror for ages checking out her new do.

The only thing she didn't like was getting her photo taken.

Since that went so well we went off to see my friend Mrs Doodlebug who's husband had gone away for the weekend to a music festival and she had the two boys and her 8 month old (also named Emily) at home. We decided to go for a short walk to the main street of Wodonga as the Harmony Carnivale was on and there were loads of live music, art and market stalls.

First thing Mrs Doodlebugs boys did when we got there was run off so we spent the next half hour searching for them, prams in tow. After finding the boys (I managed to sneak an Organic Olive Tapanade purchase in) and giving them a stern talking to about not scaring their Mum like that again, we sat down for coffee and scones and watched the local primary schools music group perform some singing and dancing. Emily thought it was awesome fun and even got up on her chair and did dance moves I've never seen her do before. See what happens in childcare!

We went home for her midday nap and she slept for 3 hours! Whenever she does that it means she'll be up late that night (usual bedtime is 7pm) so I suggested to hubby that we head back to the Carnivale for a curry dinner and to watch the parade. Emily had a ball and we ran into loads of friends. It was such a great family atmosphere and I definitely think we'll go back next year. Emily even had some butter chicken from the Indian curry stand.

Today was always going to be busy. One of my oldest friends is due to have a baby next week and I wanted to catch up with her before she went in for her scheduled Cesar. She has a little girl 6 months older than Emily and I thought they could have a play together.

Well they didn't exactly play, they wanted everything each other had and there was scratching, biting and a bit of slapping involved. How ironic though that because Emily used the big toilet my friends little girl had to use it too. My friend says she can never get her girl to use the toilet and it's great that she wants to copy what Emily did. On the other hand Emily has never really been very social with other kids and after the initial squabbles, my friends little girl came over and gave Emily a hug and a kiss. Emily thought that was great and reciprocated. It was so sweet!

I can see these two being great friends when they get older, just like her Mum and I were at school.

So after I put Emily down for her midday nap I headed back into town with my Dad for a fun filled afternoon of putting up new shop fittings and re-merchandising the shelves. We still have a long way to go but the beginning of the shops transformation is now underway and it's so exciting.

Showing off my new Gaia Organic Cotton range.

So tomorrow I have Market Day at QEII Square in Albury and it's going to be fine and sunny so I'm hoping for a huge day. I have a stall going and just finished packing the car withy everything I think I'll need. The shop will also be open so fingers crossed we get loads of people with kids looking for baby or children's clothing.

I'm trying to think of something special to do with Emily on Wednesday as it's our new day together. I'll be in Melbourne buying on Friday, then another market on Sunday (which I haven't even sewed anything for yet!).

So with such a busy week ahead I better go get some shut eye.

How was your weekend? 

TFIF!

What a massive day......or not really.

It started with a semi successful drop off of Emily to her new day care center. All was going well until I put her bag in her pigeon hole and she realised Mummy was leaving. There were tears and the poor childcare lady could barely pry her arms from around my neck. I sat in the car, told myself to get it together and took off for work. I hate leaving her like that.

Coffee in hand I was determined to get a heap of pricing done today and was also hoping my three boxes of winter Eternal Creation clothing would finally turn up. After the morning rush of sales (yay! I love meeting my target by 11am) I received a much awaited package from one of my organic clothing suppliers. I won't name and shame......you can figure it out by yourself. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I had to return some stock from this supplier due to imperfections and marks. There were about a dozen pieces and one in particular looked like it had been dragged across the factory floor before being packaged and sent to me. So when I received my replacements I expected to find perfect pieces all ready to hang.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I think they just re-packed the pieces I returned and sent them back to me! A pair of pink footed tights for a newborn had dirty marks on one of the feet and all the cream tops had small red marks. Two of the items were listed as no longer available but there was no credit on the invoice. I was slightly fuming.

OK, stay calm I thought. I filled out new return forms and repacked the stock to return for the second time. Then I called my agent to tell her that for a second time I'm returning faulty or marked stock. When she called me back she was apologising profusely and also wanted to let me know the Production Manager wanted to call me personally to apologise. Quite frankly, having come from a manufacturing and logistics background I understand that the owners and reps are not responsible for this kind of thing and as much as they try, it's the guys on the ground who make it happen. Unfortunately the guys on the ground are in China and their Quality Control sucked. I also wrote a long winded email (well they did ask for my complaint in writing) expressing my "disappointment" at the lack of attention to detail and difference in quality from last year.

The fact is this brand is extremely good and apart from one line everything else is perfect and my sales reflect how good they are. So I'm not going to hold it against them, but I'm allowed to be pissed off that I wasted an entire morning and half the afternoon sorting it out and I only got one tub of stock priced for the shelf tomorrow.

Hubby was home sick today and apparently too sick to pick up Emily from childcare so at 5pm I rushed out the door, stopped by the butchers on the way to the car park, picked up some stir fry and raced to pick her up before they closed at 5:30pm.

By the time I got home I had a splitting headache and no motivation to cook a rousing stir fry and rice. It's Friday night for FFS! Pizza! So I called the new pizza delivery up the road while hubby lay moaning on the couch and Emily tugged and cried at my legs for a bottle of milk that we're desperately trying to wean her off. I swear you'd think she was coming of heroin the way she carries on.

The pizza was disgusting and hubby complained the whole time about it and how sick he felt. Emily finally went off to bed crying herself to sleep because she wanted a bottle and we're trying hard to stick to our decision to get her off them.

Then I sat down, opened my laptop, checked my Facebook and what do I see? Mrs Woog shared a picture of me in my short condom dress. You can see it here https://www.facebook.com/woogsworld. Thanks Mrs Woog, as one of my blogging hero's you made my day!

This is my little munchkin all ready for day care today. I think she thinks she's driving the Mazda.....

Who's your Blogging hero?

How Was Your Day Dear?

I'm single parenting at the moment as hubby is on "a business" trip. This business trip happens to be in Coffs Harbour in a 5 star luxury resort and his room, with it's king size bed and spa, overlooks the ocean. He tells me tonight that he spent a hard morning brainstorming in an IT workshop, then spent the afternoon in the pool and got sunburnt.

I on the other hand was woken at 6am by our screaming toddler, who by the way didn't go to bed until 10pm last night! My morning shower was taken whilst Miss E had her face pressed up against it crying "Daddy" and staring at me like I could magically produce him. After getting us both dressed and breakfast, cleaning the house, doing the dishes and putting on a load of washing I had to answer a phone call from hubby just as I was about to race out the door. Apparently it's not nice to just hang up on someone who tells you they just woke up (it was 8:30am) and what a glorious sleep he had. Really? Do I GAF???

Dropping Miss E off at daycare I politely ask if they can please make sure she wakes up at 1:30pm as she hasn't been going to sleep at night and I want to tire her out so she'll go straight to bed tonight. This is followed by a lecture from the childcare worker advising me I enable her too much by giving her too many cuddles and I should just let her cry it out. She tells me they have no trouble getting her to sleep during the day. Well that's just great!

I get to work and my back room looks like a nuclear stock explosion. There is literally no room to move and so after spending the first hour rearranging I finally am able to make my way to the kitchen where I find a mouse has accidentally got caught in the trap my Dad set behind the fridge 6 months ago. I feel sorry for him. I also feel disgusted and dry retch as I pick up the trap and throw the entire thing in the bin. I'll just buy a new one, it's too much to ask me to get the thing out of there!

I go to put pictures of my new Gaia Organic Cotton Winter 2012 collection on my website and realise that my computer just wiped the shop copy of the stock images. Aaaarrrggghhh!!! Another job I'm going to have to do at home on the trusty Toshiba.

Gaia Organic Cotton Winter 2012 Preview

 After this discovery I decided to have a go at doing a new window for the shop. Originally I wanted to do a Red and White theme for Valentines Day, but my new Eternal Creation range hasn't arrived yet and so I'm having to make do with Pink and Blue. I think it still turned out pretty good.

 Anyway, picked up Miss E from childcare and found they had let her sleep for over two hours today so she was not tired at all. She also had a big scratch on her face which they couldn't tell me how it happened. This is not the first time I've had these kind of issues, however luckily we are on the waiting list for our preferred childcare centre in central Albury and hopefully soon we'll have a great place where I don't have to worry.

Tonight it took until 9pm to get Miss E off to sleep. We raced around the back yard when we got home, made dinner, had a bath, watered the garden, read books and played until she was exhausted at 7pm. Then as soon as she lied down and I turned out the light the crying game started. I ignored, painted some new shop fittings, did another load of washing, took out the garbage, checked Facebook, until I heard the whiny cry change to a distressing scream so I raced back in to find her soaked in sweat and she had vomited all down the front of her PJ's.

I cleaned her up, gave her some warm milk, cuddles and kissed her and told her it would be OK, put her back in bed and held her hand until she finally drifted off to sleep.

Then hubby called........

Seriously I couldn't give a toss how wonderful your damn resort is and how you plan to take me there one day!

Apparently it's rude to hang up on someone when there telling you how wonderful their life is when your day has been so shitty.....

How was your day?