Make Two Purring Cats Studio at CafePress
When the going gets tough, the tough get going! I always liked that song by Billy Ocean, and the sentiment is so true! I've been on fire over here in my office, working on my new Cafe Press store. It takes a long time to build it to the size and reputation of my Zazzle Silver Pro-Seller store, which has over 18,000 products in it. The Cafe Press store has a few hundred so far, and is growing steadily. Happily for me, I am able to use HTML language on my CP store, and will make it more fancy once I get a larger number of products released for sale. Cafe Press put my store front and center on their main page in the "Featured" area yesterday, so that helps get some exposure, too. A new store is not well seen in the Cafe Press marketplace until it gets settled in, so any exposure on the front page of CP is welcomed (thank you, Cafe Press!).
There is a vast amount of work to be done, in making a good online store. It takes careful planning, advertisement and design sense to do it right. I make mistakes then redo them over and over unti I get it right at times. If it doesn't flow or look right, it has to be fixed. No slacking in store design and execution. None. So, with snoring cats by my side, the stereo on and a peaceful mind, I'm a creating and designing machine! Doing this kind of work in general, takes patience, which I usually don't have, but force myself to. Concentration is important, and I'm good at that if my mind is calm. It's called "getting into the Zone", basically. When I'm in it, a bomb could go off and I wouldn't notice, too focused in on what I'm doing. So this is why it's so important to have the right atmosphere and as little "bad" stress as possible while I'm working.
Otherwise, my car is still in the shop getting fixed. My laptop is still waiting for me to get it fixed, and I am not physically feeling all that great. The infection in my gums came back and is spreading, yet the dentist didn't return my call when I called him. So, I'm just dealing with it on my own, but if it gets any worse I will have to contact them again or go to an infection specialist to see about some antibiotics. Sometimes I feel like one big Petri dish. I'm better than I was a year ago, but I don't want to backslide with the progress, so I'm pretty vigilant about getting rid of it.
Mom and dad are doing ok, enjoying the last warm(ish) days of Fall on their front porch, happy and most importantly, in good health. Their wayward cat Felix finally returned home, which was a relief. He's not an outdoor cat and so I'd wondered if he'd figure out how to come back..and somehow, he did. He was sitting near their sunporch, outside on the trash, talking to one of their indoor cats, when dad found him late at night.
All in all, my stores are still seeing less profits than this time last year, but they are coming back (hopefully, slowly) from the dire earnings from last month. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Friends, who are business savvy, tell me that it's not my fault, it's the economy, and to just keep pushing onwards. I appreciate the moral support, and the occasional rescue (since the car's being fixed) to get me out of the house, because being inside too much makes me stir-crazy. I like solitude but not too much of it. Going out, whether to the store or to a restaurant, is a good break from marathon work.
