Clean Monday

Today is the first day of the season of Lent, Clean Monday or Pure Monday. Therefore I am trying to stay busy today with just cleaning the house from top to bottom. Sort of a spring cleaning. I have a huge pile of stuff to go to goodwill later. I just had to take a break for a few so here I am blogging instead of cleaning.

Had a beautiful weekend at the beach with my grandma. It was extremely hard to leave her yesterday. She is all alone by herself down there. She is getting extremely sick and it is very hard for her to take care of herself at this point. Yet on the other hand she is so independent and strong of spirit that she is not wanting help at this point either. She does admit to it being hard to dress herself and cook. So that worries me so much. I am about 3 hours from her so plan on going back down there on Saturday. She is so lonely and has nothing to keep her mind off the cancer and the pain. First reaction is for me to talk her into coming to stay with us and letting me take care of her. But I do have to think of myself and my family. That sounds so selfish of me to say. With the migraines and health issues I have had recently I have to consider me. What good would I be to my kids, grandma or husband if I had another stroke. At the same time I can't bear the thought of her last days being in a nursing home though.

Update on me is I have new medication to try and see if it helps with the migraines. They also said to stay away from stress and to just try to take care of me. Hah that's funny "stay away from stress", how does anyone stay away from stress. I am going to try to not get stressed out and not take so much on but stress just happens:) I have been trying to do WAY more than one person can possibly do. I am a licensed daycare provider and for almost two years have had 6-9 kids here 5 days a week, 10-12 hours a day. Yes with a teenage helper a couple days a week but the daycare alone is more than a full time job. I am also just finishing up my bachelors degree online in business management. Then I ran across etsy this last spring set up a shop with a few cookies and never thought anything of it. When I started preparing my mixes for the holiday craft shows that I do locally each fall. The idea came to me practically in the middle of the night one night to list my mixes on my etsy and see what happens. Well the holiday season on etsy was quite successful for me and I am now addicted and love the whole concept of etsy, lol. I now have two shops, megscreations with my mixes and whimsicaltots with my toddler art stuffs. Then most important of all is my two precious little ones. Having a two and a three year old is a full time job in itself as well.

Before last week I had already begun to come to realization that I could not go on doing so much anymore. Going on 3-4 hours sleep every night was not working at all. I gave notice to all my daycare parents except my cousin. I had planned on starting a preschool in my home right away but I am now putting those plans on hold for now. Maybe this fall but then again maybe not with the busy holiday season coming soon after that.

Considering just doing etsy full time from here on out. I really do believe I can make it into a full time business if I had the time. I have so many great ideas in my head that I never get time to actually create. My wonderful husband asked me this weekend if that is something I would like to do, etsy full time. He said he would be supportive either way. We both admit that losing all daycare/preschool income would be very hard for us financially. He has even offered to help me if I need any help packaging or whatever. I am definitely passionate about baking and my mixes and I think he likes to see me doing something I really enjoy and am excited to tell him all about each evening when he comes home.

So I am giving myself a new challenge. To treat etsy like a full time job and to see for the next month what I can do to grow the business and then make my final decision. At this moment I am inactive with the state of Washington for daycare licensing. I will have to make my decision very soon. I am not watching any kids at this time. So my time is free to spend with my kids and develop my etsy shops. And of course visiting with my grandma as much as possible. Oh and can't forget about finishing school. So I am going to put myself on a schedule and stay to it regarding the etsy so I can see what it would really be like. Wow I have really rambled on and on but it feels good to just get it all out. So now back to my cleaning. I think I will blog tonight or tomorrow about some new ideas for my megscreations mixes. Stay tuned for some great sales and new mixes coming soon! Please order mixes if you want a yummy homemade gourmet treat. I need to keep myself busy!

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MIA

I have been MIA lately. I have been taking care of myself and my family. I had to take a step back and just take a moment away from etsy and all my endeavors there. I have been experiencing some really severe migraines lately. Probably from all the stress. But anyways the doctors have been getting really concerned about it because of the stroke I had 3 years ago. Which I had a migraine for 4 days right before that happened. I have been trying to just take it easy and worry about other things right now.

Like the health of my grandma. She has been battling cancer for awhile now but in late December we got great news that she was in remission. Well remission didn't last too long because on Wednesday she was diagnosed with bone cancer and has tumors several tumors in her arm as well. So there is nothing we can do at this point but be with her and try to keep her comfortable. Please pray for her. She is in so much pain now:(

For those waiting on orders, all orders are out and no worries there (hubby has been awesome with helping me). For those considering ordering, please do. I am at the coast spending the weekend with my grandma but will be back home by monday and ready to fill orders. I have shut the daycare down for a couple weeks to try to get these migraines under control. So I have time to just focus on me, family and Etsy when needed.

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Wow what a day of deals

I am very excited at how many people responded to my blog & tweets about taking offers. Got quite a few sales so will be very busy till late tonight and most of tomorrow. Will be taking pics all morning. Hoping to get some pics as good as this one. Don't mean to toot my own horn but I think my photography is getting so much better. These are some brownies I made the other night. They were so good. Almost didn't even make it to photoing them. Everyone was eating them so fast, lol.

After I get all my orders out and photos posted. I will be working on some new mix ideas. Am super excited to introduce some totally new mixes next week. Check back for more info. Also will still be taking offers on the baked cookies, brownies, biscotti and muffins that I mentioned in my last blog post. I will be offering these through the weekend for this price.

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Taking all offers on my mixes!

Or close to all, just convo me. Feeling very generous so you never know the deal you can get today. I have decided to take all offers for the next 24 hours, cutoff will be 7:00pm western tomorrow(new time:). I need to make all my mixes to rephoto each of them. Rather than making them just to photo then give to family & friends or just eat it all ourselves. I thought maybe I would try taking all offers and see if I could at least make mixes for orders and photo those. I have over 125 mixes listed right now and would like to rephoto all 125. Plus different combinations of these. Plus the actual finished product, ie soup, cookies, brownies and such. This is a huge task but thought if I could get at least get some money it would make it more worth it. Of course the shipping would still be needed but the actual mixes I will give for next to nothing. My mixes are really yummy and super easy. They make great gifts for just about anyone. You only need to add a couple of simple ingredients and follow the easy to follow instructions that are included and you have gourmet goodies.

Also I will be photoing all the actual cookies, brownies, biscotti and muffins among all the other mixes I offer. So I will have so many baked goods around here that I'm afraid I will be 500 pounds if I keep it all, lol. If you are interested in any of my cookies, brownies, biscotti or muffin mixes I have listed but would rather me do all the baking then no problem. I will make any of the cookies for $18 for two dozen thats including shipping. Just take a look through my shop policies for a complete list of choices, http://www.etsy.com/shop_policy.php?user_id=5858455 For the brownies, biscotti and muffins I will sell these in packages of a dozen for $18 and that is also including shipping. Just take a look at the shop policies for a list of these as well.

If you are interested in any of these options, then please just convo me and I will make a custom listing. All orders of baked goods will be shipped priority mail. I will be baking and making mixes all day tomorrow and will ship all orders on friday morning. Thanks and have a great day!

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Just couldn't wait

I just loaded my new banner onto etsy. I Love It. I just couldn't wait. I decided that I probably should just start making all the changes gradually to my shops because I don't know if I will get the time to do it later this week like I had planned. I also was thinking of if I were to change all listing at one time then that would be kind of a waste of money to renew everything all at once that in one day. So if I change things gradually over the next week and renew as I make changes that would make it more worth the fees and get more views.

So we had some beautiful weather here today in the beautiful, rainy Pacific Northwest. I was able to get a little time to photo some mixes and goodies today. Tomorrow is supposed to be another nice day so hoping to get a lot of mixes made in the morning to photo in the afternoon. I made a real nice spot in my office to take all my photos at. I am finally figuring out lighting and the settings on my new camera. Need to get one more lamp though. Will be going to walmart tomorrow for a cheap lamp. I think I am also going to look for a nice, pretty mixing bowl for using as a photo prop.

Since I have decided to start changing pics and descriptions as I get them done. I will still run some sort of sale this weekend after I have changed a lot of the photos and descriptions. I haven't decided exactly what my sale will be though. I will be listing a lot more in both shops this week. I made up a lot of mixes today and took photos. I also made some really yummy peanut butter chip brownies and chocolate chip cookies. Which I also took photos of as well. Did manage to also make about 20 crayons and 2 colors of whimsydough, which I will photo tomorrow. Now I better get going to work on listings and change photos.

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Unveiling the new look

I am really excited for the coming changes. Towards the end of next week I am going to put my shop on vacation for a day. I will be working on each of my listings. I am redoing photos and descriptions. Also will be changing my banner. So a whole new look pretty much, I can't wait. Mainly just sharpening things up a bit. So either Thursday or Friday I will be closed and will reopen with an all new look, YAY.

Then periodically will be listing new goodies. My goal is to get most of my 125 mixes listed individually so people can see a picture and get a description for each and every listing. I am going to be photoing alot more of the finished product to include in my listings also. I have cooked and baked so much lately that my family is getting the whole list of mixes memorized, lol.

Hopefully next week will be also be the Grand Opening of my new shop Whimsical Tots. As a daycare owner I know how special it is to hand a toddler a new fun art or craft supply. So have been experimenting with making crayons, playdough and such for a few years now. I will be listing these in my new shop and can't wait to see that take off.

Will also be blogging alot more now that my time won't be all focused on the daycare. So check back for recipes and craft ideas I will be sharing coming soon.

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"Quitting" my day job!

I'm quitting my day job. No not really but I have decided to completely change my life around alot. I am no longer going to focus so much time and attention with the daycare. I am going to put most of my time and energy into Megs Creations and now my new etsy shop Whimsical Tots. As for the daycare I am going to be changing everything over from a full time daycare to more of a preschool. I have given notice to almost all of my parents. Then I will take a month off to plan and organize everything for more of a preschool setting. I will only have my 2 and my cousins 2 full time now. After I get everything planned and organized then I am going to advertise for a few more kids only 3-4 hours in the mornings for preschool. I am very excited about that and can't wait to focus on nurturing these creative little minds. As for the etsy stuff I will now have much more time to focus on making this a real and legitimate business. I have been working with a graphic designer that is working on a whole new look for both etsy shops. I am giving everything a whole new makeover. We are designing a custom logo that will be on my etsy as well as my blog and I think even my twitter. It's really cute I can't wait till it's all done. I also got a new camera and I am in the process of taking all new pictures. Tomorrow I will be cleaning out the playroom and making that my new office. I bought all new shelves in the living room for all the toys. It is going to be so nice to have an office. Hopefully that will inspire the creative juices. I have so many ideas and plans. Now hopefully with the space to do it all I will stay motivated to create so many new things. I have been researching light boxes and now with the extra room I will be making a more permanent one to perfect the photos. Well I think that is enough rambling for now. I also plan on blogging and social networking alot more:)

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