The Move
We needed to get some Etsy overflow and other things out of my son’s storage unit so he could cancel it. What that means is that the “Great Move” has lasted longer for us than it has for him. It feels like I’ve been talking about the move in this segment forever. That’s because of the pressure I feel to get to the point where this project is published and getting that trial by fire that I both welcome and fear. I’m trying to give myself something of a break. While I feel pressure to be as full time and performing now as I will be when the project funds, the fact is, I couldn’t, even if life didn’t sometimes gets in the way.
When my son moved in with his work from home office (that took up more space than his personal stuff did) he was single and when he moved out he had a family. It’s not just moving him either, but also restoring the house back to previous status. But, hey, I’ll have a guest room again!
Training and the “Eating Plan”
I didn’t wait till the move was over to start the weight loss eating plan. It had been a couple of months since I had denounced added sugar and I thought that would result in at least some weight loss. When it didn’t I joined a group and was anxious to get started. Different people said it in different ways, but the recommendations from the cycling group added up to increasing my protein intake by quite a lot, decreasing carbs by quite a lot and to restrict the hours of intake. I plunged in, but was doing research from reliable sources too, not just taking the word of FB strangers, ’cause we all know that FB is a bastion of “misinformation” for people who don’t.
Starting something new with a lot of restrictions at a time when I was ultra busy and away from the house a lot resulted in me having some days where my caloric intake was half of target. I wasn’t hungry and wasn’t recording things at first, so I didn’t notice right away. With all the protein, I can be pretty satisfied on 600 calories a day, but I’m pushing myself to double that so I actually get the recommended level of protein, among other things.
I made sure I rode nearly every day too. It was a pretty big adjustment and I was using some new information. I was unaware of newer protein recommendations, especially for people in my age bracket. It left me weak and worn at times, but I didn’t want to put things off. I want to be prepared to ramp up fast when funding happens, and even though it’s a stressful delay right now, I’ll be glad I did it later. More about that in a separate post, one that I lost my most recent edits to :(.
The Etsy Store
I don’t remember if I’ve explicitly said the store was potentially on the chopping block, but it’s probably evident that I morn the dream I once had. I was trying to figure out what I could do about the shipping and other dilemmas. I went in and began to edit. I haven’t been using calculated shipping because I don’t have space to pre box and don’t know what dimensions will be. On top of that, USPS has reduced the size of their priority boxes and many things I ship don’t fit at the old price points anymore. In other words, not only did the price increase for any given box size, the box sizes also decreased. What used to be a “small” is now a little bit smaller. That makes it more likely to break if I try to use it. For the post office, that should add up to more insurance claims. For me, that adds greater size/price uncertainty to existing location uncertainty for my shipping parameters.
Still, I decided to choose a size that I thought most mugs would fit in and convert to calculated shipping for those items. The shipping price jumped $3 over what I had allowed. It took too long to figure out technically how to make those edits and I stopped after the first one. I had my first order in 2 months within 48 hours. I wondered if it was an algorithm reward for switching to their preferred method or if it was that bump I get when I’m about to let all my listings expire, or I suppose it and the other order that came right after could just be random events. Whatever, I was ecstatic. They were even Georgia orders, so the heavy one isn’t going far. The question is, do those two orders give me the inspiration to commit to making the investment in Etsy fees and organization?
Until next time, Have a glorious week, and we’ll see you on the trail.