Weekly Mileage #270 and Another Conference Added to My Fall Schedule

Monday I finished figuring out how to make a gift option for my Leatherworking course. Students (and their parents) need to sign up themselves so they can sign the liability form, but I didn’t have a way for others to gift the course and the recipient sign the liability form. Someone had asked about it last week and it took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how to do it. In my defense, it required a number of different help pages to get me through all the steps needed- there wasn’t just one page listing it all out.

After I sent her the email letting her know I’d set it up, she emailed back to let me know she was purchasing four registrations as gifts !!!!! Such a blessing.

I also realized that I’d inadvertently made my shop password protected, but there was nowhere to sign up for a password or to enter a password 🤦‍♀️ Yikes. At least I realized it this quickly. I’d installed an app on Thursday or Friday that was supposed to allow me to password protect a page, but it was protecting the whole shop. Annoying.

Of course, I didn’t realize it was the app that was the problem, so I was combing through the code of my backend, trying to remember what I’d added last week. I even deleted the app, but it didn’t make the necessary changes. It was only when I was looking at the code that I noticed the app info still in the code. I deleted it from the code and everything was good, thankfully. It was definitely stressful though, especially the not remembering what exactly I’d done part. I really need to get in the habit of backing up my site before making changes to the code, especially given the substandard level of my coding knowledge.

I want to have a page on my site that’s password protected for email subscribers to access free downloads that I offer (printable scavenger hunts at this point), but I’m really having problems making it work on the Shopify platform. I may need to host the page elsewhere and link it in or something. I just don’t want to have to spend money on hosting another site, so I need to do some research into it.

I took River to the pediatrician to get a tick bite checked out. We caught it before it was engorged, but the site was looking irritated and a bit angry, so I wanted to get it checked out. She wasn’t worried, so we’ll just keep an eye on it.

At Scouts I discussed some Eagle project ideas with the dad of the two girls that are in our ward and our troop. The older daughter joined the same time Sunshine did and they’re both getting ready to start on their projects.

Tuesday we went to music lessons, I did the grocery shopping, and I had an online sleep doc appointment. We’re going to try a different medication that’s supposed to have more stable effects and no heart palpitations. It has to come from a specialty pharmacy though, so it’ll take a few weeks before I actually get started on it.

Monday I’d gotten an email about a conference being held in September: the Wild+Free conference. I’ve wanted to be a vendor at their conference since I started expanding my product line, but the pandemic put a crimp in that idea, until now. As soon as I read the email and saw that they were looking for makers, not big corporate vendors, to be there, I immediately filled out the application. I got word on Tuesday that I’d been accepted and I just needed to pay the booth fee, which was on a first-come, first serve basis (ie, if I waited too long, I’d miss my chance). Thanks to those four course registrations on Monday, I didn’t have to scrape together the money- it was already in my bank account. Another blessing! This conference is shorter and should be less stressful and exhausting, but should also be lucrative on the product sales side and business recognition side. This is the audience that should embrace my handmade leather and waxed canvas buckets and pockets and not mind paying the premium that goes with handmade items.

At karate class we reviewed and started testing universal 5 and grabs. The end of the cycle is coming soon.

After the kids were in bed Jeremy and I were watching a show and afterwards I was looking for one of my sandals. I couldn’t find it, so I asked Max if she had my sandal. She came into the room with my sandal in her mouth and her head down. She knew she’d done wrong- she totally destroyed my sandal. Frustrating, but at least I got almost 4 years out of them, so while they weren’t cheap sandals, I did get my money’s worth out of them. Now I have to replace them though, which will take time (to find new ones I like) and money.

Wednesday Sunshine got her braces off and her temporary retainers. She’ll get her real retainers in two weeks. It took just under three years to take her teeth from a crooked mess to nice and straight.

I worked on organizing my work space in the basement. This meant I had to first unload and take apart the shelves, which is why it’s taken me this long to do it, despite changing up how everything is oriented a month or so ago.

Thursday we had our annual Evidence Of Progress interviews. Afterwards I worked on organizing the shelves some more. I labeled bins, got rid of stuff that I haven’t been (and won’t be) using, consolidated items so I don’t have duplicate items in different places (this has been an issue with hardware like rivets and snaps that I use in personal projects, projects to sell, and in the tool kits), and designed an acrylic tool holder.

Jeremy’s brother and his dog arrived in the evening for the holiday weekend.

Friday it rained all morning and we had a tornado watch on till 2pm, so play group was canceled. I spent the day cutting the acrylic tool holder and tweaking the design so everything fit snugly. There was a bit of trial and error involved, but it turned out pretty well. However, the super glue I used to glue it together wasn’t the best choice- it fogged the clear acrylic. Oops.

We went to karate in the evening and we’ve now passed all our tests for this cycle except Ocean, who still needs to test his universal.

On Saturday Jeremy and his brother took the kids to Busch Gardens. I stayed home with the dogs and cut leather. I cut one bin of leather scraps for use in the tool kits and for cord keepers (they’re small and make good use of scraps), but I still have another bin to sort and cut. I partially restocked materials for tool kits, but I need to cut some actual leather rather than just cut scraps to size. I stopped at that point to start cutting out pocket pals. Using the clicker dies and the hydraulic press is definitely quicker than cutting them all by hand (especially the stitching holes), but an actual clicker press would be so much faster (and less work for me). Once I get one of those I’ll start buying better quality clicker dies that have clear acrylic backs rather than wood backs that make it difficult to be precise with positioning.

Sunday I worked on catching up on blog posts <again>. Every Sunday I say I’ll work on them, but there are too many Sundays where I’m just too exhausted to do anything when we get home. Though it’s now better than when I was YW president. Teaching a primary class is much less draining than leading the YW and attending all the meetings.