That is all

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. ~C.S. Lewis

The Baker Inside

The flour is bought.The eggs are ready.Yeast is ready to proof.Everything is good to go and the baker is about to burst out in one floury-induced bread bomb :lol:Well, this weekend the baker will be bursting out. There's not enough time to make sure the dough rises properly during the weekdays. Remember good bread takes TIME.I'm considering rearranging our refridgerator so I can put the dough in there to slow the rising. I want this bread to be very tasty. I've never tried placing it in a cooler environment, but the longer it takes to set up the more flavor it will have.I'm making a Honey Wheat Loaf. 2 loaves to be exact and probably 2-4 more on Sunday and if I can afford it some more on Monday (over the Labor Day Holiday if weren't not cooking out or anything) and I'll have to get more flour, butter, eggs and probably honey at that point. I'm trying the King Arthur Flour this go around. I recently bought their whole-wheat baking book. OMG, is it filled with delicious things or what!I'm especially excited to try ALL of their reciepes that involve pumpkin. I should make pumpkin stuff year round. It's too good to keep to one season or holiday for that matter. Can you imagine having cake only once a year? Oh the horror!Having pumpkin only in the Fall is like some weird social standard. It's like if I had it or baked it any other time I'd be banned from baking for ever.Nah. Who the heck needs to live up social expectations. It's just pumpkin. I wonder if i could make a Whole Wheat Pumpkin bread. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Why must it ONLY be Wednesday!!!! Saturday needs to hurry up.

Hey Mr. Postman!

Shipping seems to be a big ta-do on Etsy. Rightly so, I mean no one wants to be overcharged and most buyers are also sellers so they can easily calculate the shipping surcharges.I'm currently going thru the mundane process of getting my shipping prices to where they need to be. I'd like to be as accurate as possible while keeping in line with the general business expense stuffs like (packaging, wrappings, thankyous) things that generally add a bit of weight to the overall shipping price.This is important not just to my customers but to me :) I can't very well expect to be doing this in the middle of the Holiday season, egads no!So I've been wrapping each item as if it were about to go off to their new home and weighing them on my scale. Now you might be thinking, well Rebekah, you should've done this when you initally started selling your wares! I did! Honest! It's just that I was placing them (on the advice of a fellow seller) under a different classification AND with selling more stuffed animals my packaging is evolving. It's good to revamp them now and not, say a year or even months down the road.My work bench is covered with packaging supplies, tape, bits of ribbon and a scale SOMEWHERE in all that colorful pile....it all looks like the Mail Fairy exploded in there. *Note to self, clean craft room Sunday* This all lead to a funny conversation with the postman at the post office yesterday afternoon. I asked him how they classified my packages and he said something along the lines of, "If it's over 3/4 of an in. (aka padded mailers or slightly bulky so it can just go thru the sorting machines) they classify it as a parcel."Well, let's just say the magic lightbulb clicked on above my head. Duh! Of COURSE they'd be a parcel! No wonder I can't pin down better rates for my customer :LoL: good grief.And now that my genius head is screwed back on facing front I've got my work cut out for me this weekend. BUT I'm still new to this and I learn good stuff everyday. Here's hoping I keep getting better and never stop ^_^

Time & Balance vs. The Glass of Water

It’s hard sometimes as a crafter, an artist, or even just an average human being to feel inspired ALL the time. There are some people that seem to have a knack for finding inspiration anytime, anywhere …but not all of us are that tuned in.I think I’ve found a bit of new inspiration today despite feeling overwhelmed with ideas in my head and life in general. It boggles me that people have time to take pictures, upload photos, converse with friends, list items, provide wonderful customer service over the internet and then above all else…create. It amazes me. I’m great at multi-tasking but I don’t think I’ve found that balance yet or that schedule :lol: I think working full-time is partly to blame, but I know other artists whose lives are full of wobbly toddlers and hyper active pets, sports loving husbands and nagging parents. And yet they still manage to create and balance. I have no excuse to just pine at not being able to create or that I supposedly don’t have “time” to make anything special. My things ARE special and to find inspiration I have to believe that what I’m creating will one day bring a glint of humor into someone’s eyes.It’s hard though. Work drains my creativity and a lot of my emotional energy. It’s not a healthy environment for me and I’m looking hard to find new employment, so that added stress dampens the drive a bit, but not enough to stop me.I need to start a new creative tablet for my ideas again as my old one has been ruined by a glass of water. Don’t worry I was able to salvage most of my ideas and I do have a spreadsheet with the names of my creations. Not all is lost!

Posty McPosterson

I've been making new friends and creating new cats Waves at BoxingDay It's a good thing I took so many pictures yesterday as it's suddenly been raining on and off the past few days.Which is good, but I think it's signaling the change of the seasons again. I can't wait for Fall it's the BEST ^_^ From the smells, to the cool crispness of the air, heck even the fresh apple cider chokes me up a little :lol:What do you love about fall? Maybe it's these!