A Favorite Kind of Day

Today I am working my hours at Made in Chenango.  It's a great little crafter's co-operative in Norwich NY.  As  part of my candle business, I am a member here and part of the requirements are to sit hours manning the store.  After an unfortunate incident in March, involving rain pouring into our first floor store, the co-op was closed while we determined what we wanted to do next.  After a lot of work on the part of our board of directors, they found a new location that is beautiful.

Over the last three month's I have missed these days working at the store.  I've realized how much I enjoy these days of going to work and getting a break from the multiple hats I wear at home: mom, baby-sitter, cook, house-keeper, gardener, and the list goes on.

Today, rain falls, soft music plays and I get to work - uninterrupted - on my stack of projects.  It is absolutely wonderful!  And the icing on the cake of the new location: WIFI!  It is a good day!

Insert Busy Week Here!

This has been a crazy full week and my absence of posts is more proof of that!  I use this space to process a lot of my activities around the house, kitchen and yard.  Not much time to process this week.  I've been on autopilot making candles to replenish inventory after some great sales at my consignment locations.  I've been prep-cooking getting ready for a lunch meeting that Handy-Man and I are hosting this afternoon around days out of the house working at Made In Chenango - a co-op of crafters where I display my candles.  Yard work, laundry, mowing, meals and chasing around an active GBaby have filled every remaining minute.  By the end of the day when I would usually click on the computer and blog - I've just crashed!

How was your week?

Friendship Craft Fair – Richfield Springs, NY

On Saturday, I took my candle show on the road for my first large show of the summer.  I left my house at the crack of dawn and drove into the clouds.  I arrived, found my space, set up my tent and the rain started falling.  Ugh!  I covered my tables and waited.  It continued to rain off and on all morning including thunder, lightening and downpours.  The trusty Weather Channel ap on my phone showed that the rain should be moving past.  Finally around 11am the rain faded to a drizzle and stopped.

The afternoon fared well and folks braved the mud and puddles to come check out this 31^st annual event.  Sales were moderate and reports from veterans of this show were that on a sunny day, the park is packed.

Given the rain and chilly weather, this outdoor event did fine by my standards and I’m looking forward to giving it another try next year!

Candle Shop: Craft Fair Warm-Up

For those of you who are relatively new to ThrivingMama, in addition to being the Mama, cooking, gardening and homemaking, I also have my own business: Charity's Candles & Crafts.  I make and sell soy candles through the internet, local craft consignments and craft fairs.  This week I have been getting ready for my "real" craft fair on June 12th and my "warm-up" craft fair this weekend.

The annual General Clinton Canoe Regatta is held every Memorial Day weekend in the nearby town of Bainbridge that draws hundreds of visitors to our little rural area.  While they do have a flea-market/craft area on the Regatta grounds, I've found in the past that the sales do not justify the time of prep and manning the booth.  But, Bainbridge also holds a Saturday morning market open to all to sell anything.  Given the combination of the crowds for the Regatta and the good weather forecast for the weekend - it promises to be a good morning for peddling my soy candles.  If you're in our area, you can find me there from 8:30 to Noon on Saturday!

And wherever you are -have a fun and safe Memorial Day Weekend!

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2010 Goals

I'm really not one for new year's resolutions.  They've struck me too rigid and better markers for where I'm not meeting my own expectations.  Then I get discouraged, then the resolutions fade and are forgotten, usually before it's time to even turn the page on the calendar in the kitchen.

The beginning of the new year does encourage me to examine my life, my business and the life of my family and recognize areas that I would like to/need to change.  Here are a few things that I will be working on this year (some with the help and involvement of HandyMan) as a blogger, a business owner, a wife & mom and just for me.  What are you working on this year?

ThrivingMama

1.  Work on changing out our chemically based cleaners for more natural alternatives.  I'm currently working on make your own dishwasher soap :)

2.  Work to keep the grocery bill under budget through Monthly Menus and batch cooking.

3.  Continue to find ways to make favorite recipes healthier for us by hiding vegetables and whole grains.

Business Goals:

1. Craft Fairs: I have five craft fairs that I attended as a vendor in 2009.  I am hoping to add 3 more to my 2010 schedule including the Owego Strawberry Festival, and two others.  I'm currently researching for fairs in the Cortland and Delhi NY areas -if anyone knows of anything, please let me know!

2.  WebSite: I was a slacker on my website last year-and I've only linked it so that you can skim it over and truly appreciate the make-over that is coming.  It is my goal to update the site monthly and to have the make-over done by January 25th.  Stay tuned for more info on that!

Family Goals

1. Friday Night Family Nights - I had begun to notice that when we were all home, life was a game of shuffle GBaby back and forth so we could each get stuff done, and very little time away from the meal table was being spent together-all three of us.  So, we are instituting Friday Family nights.  This will mean that we cook dinner together, do bath and play time together with GBaby and once she goes to bed, HandyMan and I will have our own time together to watch a movie, talk about the week, etc.

2.  Work Down Debt-We are on track to pay off HandyMan's student loans this year. The next stop is our mortgage.  We really don't have any idea how much we'll be able to put towards the mortgage principle, but plan to put the excess from our frugal lifestyle towards paying off our home.  When I did the numbers and realized that by paying an additional $50 a month to our mortgage, we'd save $2,075 in interest over the life of the loan, it put the return on investment in black and white.

Personal Goals

1.  RAFT the Inbox - HandyMan has this knack for keeping his e-mail inbox empty.  I've always been amazed and just this last week he spilled the secret.  With every message that comes in you do one of four things as soon as you open it: Reply-Act-File-Trash, RAFT.  I'm a bit hesitant to admit that when I started RAFTing my inbox there were over 650 messages, some read, some not.  It is my goal to have my inbox cleaned out before we leave for vacation in February.  With a bit of work, I've managed to get it down to 550 messages already ;)

2.  Begin exercising again, for real.  The last year since GBaby entered my world, I've called her my workout routine, and she does require me to be on the go a lot.  But now she's heading for walking which means those upper body mommy muscles won't be used quite as much, and I'd kind of like to keep them in shape.  So, I plan to start exercising again and HandyMan has agreed to continue the "AM Shift" before he has to go to work so that I can do this.

Randomness

Web Design: This has been a very full week and every spare moment I've had, I've been working on re-designing CharitysCrafts.com.  Look for my new updates early next week if all goes well.  I've also added a bit of winter cheer to this site too - see the snow flurries?

Monthly Menu: I've kept on track with my monthly menu and this week, most of my meals were out of the freezer with a few fresh touches.  A salad here, fresh cornbread there and freezer meals are fresh and new and I didn't have to spend a ton of time in the kitchen.  The souffles were a big hit, GBaby was a huge fan and these will definitely be on next months menu.  They have reheated well too!

Cabin Fever & Reorganization: This week I also begin to feel the wall start to close in on me with the first signs of early cabin fever, exasperated by seeing a friends new, and empty house.  Floor space envy set in and I came home and started rearranging.  My goals were to open up floor space for play areas, to create a sitting/movie area in our upstairs and to add more kid-proofing.  Namely, GBaby has taken quite a liking to emptying bookshelves, I'm not a fan of reloading bookshelves so I moved stuff around to make toddler access a bit more difficult.  We'll see how it works.  Anyone out there have tips to ward off cabin fever?

Giveaway!: One final note: Erin, over at 5DollarDinners has a $100 Visa card to giveaway.  Check it out if you're interested :).

Week of Many Hats

Where has this week gone?  It's Thursday already!  How did that happen?  I've had on many hats this week and here's a bit of what I've been up to:

Charity's Candles - I've been getting ready for my craft fair this weekend at SUNY-Oneonta.

Web Design - I've been doing some updates on the web-pages I manage.  Have I mentioned that I also do web-work and  web design?  I've been working on my friend Perri's site for about two years now I guess.  She has some great photography and I still have a few more changes to do for her :).  I'm also the Online Chairperson for our local Relay for Life so I'm responsible for 'personalizing' their template website for our event.

Work & Life - I've also been busy with some other part time secretarial work that I do for our church.  On top of the GBaby's sick again and we're all working off of random sleep.



Yesterday I did sneak in some baking therapy.  I made the Challah recipe from my Bread cookbook and you can see the results- and it was so yummy!  I also had a Lemon Meringue Pie failure (yummy but ugly) and a success (yummy and pretty) but I didn't get pictures of those.

Sunday Sunshine: So Much in a Week

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week.

It has been a very full week!  I was able to spend the better part of the week at my parents with GBaby where I had all kinds of extra help which was fabulous.  I needed a few days of mom taking care of me so I could better take care of sick GBaby.  She is now feeling much better and we're all hoping she's on the mend.

HandyMan met us at my parents and managed to be on the early flights, in spite of all the delays on the route he was travelling.  We all drove home on Thursday and hit the ground running.  I had a great craft fair in Walton on Saturday.  It is the annual American Cancer Society's Harvest Fest.  While traffic wasn't that great and it was freezing out, sales were actually on par with two years ago when I last did this fair.

So its the beginning of another week and I'm ready to be home for the week.  How was your week?

~sjt

All in a Day's Work: Greene Apple Fest

One major source of exposure for Charity's Candles and Crafts is craft shows.  Most of the time the ones I attend are part of larger festivals are well known dedicated craft fairs.  Both draw significant crowds.  A well established event will have attendees that will come rain-or-shine because it is a tradition.

While visitors to these shows arrive looking for their favorite gift items or foods, I arrive looking for my competition - and at these events it's not always other candle-makers.  Often times its the little things that will draw the cash out of an attendee's wallet before they ever get to my booth.  Are there admission fees or parking fees?  Will visitors hit the craft area first or the food area and be tempted by all the delicious smells of food vendors?  All of these are things I take into consideration when I'm evaluating a craft fair.

Greene Apple Festival in Greene NY has become one of my best fairs of the year.  This past Saturday I left the house at 6:45 am and had my tent and booth set up by 8:30.  My feet were freezing and I was so happy to have dry warm socks and shoes to change into once I was set up!  The day was fairly grey and dismal but there were large crowds all day.  The rain held off until it was time to break down.  So I loaded up my little car in the rain and headed home for warm, dry clothes!  Once home it's dinner, GBaby to bed, and then inventory, accounting and then to bed myself!

AppleFest is one of those events that folks come to as a tradition.  In 2008, I set up in the rain, I sold candles all day in the rain, and packed up in the rain.  Folks were pushing around mud-caked strollers, kids were stomping in the mud in their galoshes and rain jackets and those who came out were having a great time!

This year was weather was dryer, the crowds were bigger and the sales were better than in 2008 and I look forward to seeing the crowds in Greene again next year!

Sunday Sunshine: Candles and Craft Shows

Practicing contentment by remembering the graces of the week.

This has been a very full week.  I was able to slip away for a Ladies Bible Study on Wednesday which was a great time with friends.  I also managed to get everything ready for the Greene Apple Festival where I was selling candles and in spite of the chaos of trying to get everything together and then realizing once I got there that I had forgotten stuff - the entire week was covered in a wonderful peace.  GBaby has popped another tooth.  She's up to 6 now and today seems to be a "happy in between teeth day" - for that I will be thankful!  I had been saving up for a little bit to make a purchase that I was able to make this week and my new sewing machine arrived on Wednesday.  I am very excited about this and will be posting much more on this in the near future!

Blessings to you on this first day of the week!

sara

All in a Day's Work

As part of Charity's Candles, I am a member at Made in Chenango, which is a local artisan co-operative. It's a great little store with handmade items including candles, soaps, woodworking, fiber arts, sculpture and jewelry. If you're ever in the Norwich NY area, it's worth a visit. Part of my responsibilities as a member include working a certain number of hours a month - which is where I'm headed today. Usually, while I'm minding the shop I have time to do things like catch up on my own book-keeping and type up all the recipes I've promised you all! Stay tuned!

The Charity's Candles Side of ThrivingMama

Some of you may have noticed that there's a link at the top to one of my part-time-work-at-home-mom endeavour: Charity's Candles and Crafts.  If you're in need of yummy soy candles to warm up your fall, I'm your gal!   September usually marks the beginning of the busy time under my Candle-Maker’s hat and this September is no different.  I have four good-sized craft fairs lined up for this fall in Greene, Walton, Oneonta and Chenango Valley, NY.  I also have two retail locations in businesses in Bainbridge and Norwich that will keep me on my toes.  This week I’ve been pouring and packaging candles and trying to get ready for the Greene Apple Fest the end of the month as well as working at the store in Norwich.

I’m glad to find that I still enjoy getting my hands waxy and pouring candles.  My dedicated chunks of time to the work seem to be a bit shorter, since there’s a short person in the house calling for lots of attention, but with one ear on the baby-monitor and one ear taking in an audio-book, I can get lost in my work for as long as nap-time will allow.

Just how much is that you ask?  Friday morning (after finding coffee, starting laundry, unloading dishwasher and finishing last night’s dishes) I managed to package about 70 candles poured earlier in the week, and pour about 50 candles in 6 different fragrances.  I was also working on pulling orders and organizing stuff in the chaos of my work-room.  All in the three hours between GBaby’s first breakfast and when she was ready to face the day.  I’m learning just how much I can get done in short spurts of time!

When do you find you can get the most done?  What is your favorite fall candle fragrance?