Etsy and Things that resemble ramblings of the mundane sort.

I just took a look at my shop stats for Etsy..

In the past 30 days I've managed to somehow pull in over $600 in Etsy sales alone. 

I'm not even sure how this happened.  I know I've had a lot of custom orders and such.. plus the random necklace sale here and there.. but nothing more than $100 at a time. 

Still.....

I have no clue how to keep this kind of momentum up. I know how fickle and cyclical Etsy is... but if I could even keep up something close as that average.. Life would be much less stressed, I think. 

I'm filling out the app for a Florida show for the spring. Don't know if I'll get in. But if I do, I'm only doing the Ft. Lauderdale one, and not the Miami one... which would give me time to fly back to AZ and see friends and family, before Norman, and Georgia... ( crap... I almost forgot about Norman!).. I really need to make my schedule for next year. 

I'm frustrated.  

Even though I had a bunch of stuff removed from my credit, and have pretty close to everything paid off, my credit score dropped... by quite a bit. Which was kinda the OPPOSITE of what I'm trying to achieve here.  A couple of online financial sources say to wait a couple weeks and that it might bounce back up again...something about buckets and scorecards and comparisons, which made no sense to me and sounded more like they were talking about a soccer match... but I'll wait.  There are still a couple of items that I have no idea what they are or why they're on my credit, so I get to Take On The Man, to prove that they're not mine. When my debit card was hacked a couple of years ago, I think that there is a good possibiity that they got more of my personal info than I had thought. 

In other news.. 

I'm in Maryland.

Pretty sure I am not supposed to be here. 

Currently crashing in the booth of the girl who I am working for... but, it's her new booth.. so.. she doesn't want me sleeping on the beds here. Which...I guess is fine. I've slept on a floor many a time... But I suppose there is the slightly annoyed part of me that is starting to grumble. There are two beds. I have my own bedding, No one is here during the week.  But I am floor sleeping none the less. 

But I won't be able to sleep here during the weekend.. she wants the place to herself and her sister in law. I can dig that too. It's a tiny place. But that means I have to play the game of "where do I sleep tonight", for 3 nights. Plus, pretty sure that I won't be able to crash here during the week after this.. And I have no decent place to work on stock... and in the end...I'm feeling that this isn't worth it. I adore her...I really do...but I think I need to focus on my own shop, and that this was probably a mistake. Especially for only $200 a weekend ( which I am actually grateful for, because hello.. any money is better than no money..), but I'm not hurting for it right now. And I MIGHT be hurting my shop by not being able to focus on it. So... Dilemma. I'll figure it out. One way or the other. I don't want to leave her in the lurch... but I can do better than this for myself in the end. And as much as it sucks...sometimes you do have to put yourself first.
  
I still have a crapton of orders to finish. I should get on that.

Wallets Have No Vocal Chords

But if they did...

OUCH.

So, of course I jinxed myself today. Talking about bills and paying things off. Received a call a few hours ago from an agency about a credit card I had way back when I first started the shop. Credit card was very much past due. It was on my " To Be Paid" list for this year.. but I wasn't quite expecting it at this moment.

The good news. Credit card is now paid off. It's done. This should also, in theory, raise my credit score by a bit. Wheee! The other good news is that I actually HAD the money to pay the amount that we settled on.

The bad... I am probably living off of ramen and air for the next few weeks. The amount came to just a little over $2500.00... This means.. no new roof on the Carolina booth. I'll have to figure out some sort of cheap way to make it a shelter from the rain, because I can't count on rain free weekends there..as much as I would like to.  This also means waiting a bit before paying end of year taxes. Or anything else. Will have to really push Etsy so I can at least afford to put in my apps for a couple of shows next year, and have money to pay my next installment on the Carolina booth.. Yeeeesh. 

I do have a bit of money owed to me for some special orders ( half down, half when piece is finished)... and from the consignment shop in New Orleans.. plus other places where I have money squirreled away.. but still. That was very much Not Expected.

BUT... it will be paid. It will be done. The goal of this year was to move, and to pay off as many of my debts as possible. Despite everything... I'm doing that. Will continue to think positive on this... and pray that people buy chainmail for Christmas.