Random Friday: A detailed look at my weekly calendar and to do list

• This school year I bought a planner and have been using it for a month. It shows a week at a glance with a section for my to do list, and a side bar for additional notes. (It's technically for menu planning, I don't use it for that.) It's ridiculously full each week, because I write a daily to do list on it, but it's really working out for me.  I tried to make notes for how I use it, but you'll have to click on it to see it bigger. The key turns out to be writing out my to do list in excruciatingly tiny detail. Each morning I make a new to do list, carrying over whatever didn't get done yesterday. It does not include things like laundry and feeding children. The section under the pirate ship are future blog posts, if I ever write them.  How would you tweak this to do list to fit your life? What am I missing? What could make it easier to get organized?
• I dusted off the made by lisah blog yesterday, with a post of my Favorite Etsy finds of the past week. Pop on over and take a look!  (I also worked on sprucing up the sidebars and vacuuming the dust out of the corners.)
• We're going to have a little friend staying with us a couple days a week. We've had her here twice now and I think it's going to work out well. She's a little younger than the Bug, but he still enjoys her company. We'll be calling her Little Bo Peep, just cause I think "Bo Peep" will be fun to type.
• I've been lugging these 4 or 5 underbed boxes of paperbacks around with me for the last 12 years or so. As part of my storage unit clean out, I just purged 4/5 of them. I added them to my yard sale stacks, but honestly I can't imagine who is going to want to buy 15 -18 year old Harlequin romance novels, or other old, non-stellar, titles.  I did keep a handful of my favorites. (G, if you're worried, Jake's Mountain is safe!)  I also purged about 1/3 of our other books. I still have 2 or 3 boxes to go, but a lot of them are Mike's so I suspect they will stay put.

What I Read this week:

• Finished Divergent by Veronica Roth. I loved it so much. Probably more than The Hunger Games.I might even review it.
• Started The Help. In Large Print!! Kinda worried I'm not in the mood for something serious, which means the next one is really crazy...
• Started Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I've been telling Trish I would read it and the anniversary of 9/11 seemed like a good time.

I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks. All content copyright Books. Lists. Life. at http://bookslistslife.blogspot.com. If you're reading this post anywhere other than there, you are reading stolen content.

Random Friday, 20 weeks (& a poll)

Maybe one week I'll try this with a real camera instead of my phone, and maybe not in a work shirt and not AT work?

Monday is our 20 week ultrasound, I will be sure to report back as soon as we know anything. Meanwhile, a little poll? I don't know how to insert a REAL poll, so just pick a number and explain in the comments.

1. You are having another boy, because boys rock and it's always nice to be outnumbered 4 to 1.
2. You are having a girl, because everyone should experience stepping on Barbie shoes in the middle of the night.
3. Your baby will be a stubbon little thing and refuse to let you see. Everyone likes a nice surprise.

Some possible hints: This baby is WAY lower than the boys were. This baby is also way more active at this point in the pregnancy than the boys were.  This is the last time I will be pregnant, this is IT.

I have an excellent picture of the boys to share with you soon, just as soon as I get it out of my camera. Maybe I should have posted it here to show you what life with two boys is like, you know, before you vote in the poll?

You know that pain scale of 1-10 that doctors insist you use? Try this one instead. MUCH clearer, no?

We have one million things to do this weekend. Additionally, I have quite a few shop type things to get taken care of over the weekend. I have TWO custom name banners to get made (one of which has the Pirate's name on it! The Pirate insists I make him one too. Um, kid, what do you think that is hanging in your room?) I need to fill some rice bags. I need to completely a small bit of handsewing for the quilt bee group. I'd like to have a new item to add to the shop next week, the list goes on and on.

And speaking of new items, last weekend I added a brand new category of items to the shop- Rice Heating Pads. Now, shipping is a bit spendy, but if you buy two the shipping is about the same as if you buy one. And if you buy one rice bag and one (or more) something else that fits in the same box, you get the something else shipped free. How nice is that? So go check them out.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Craft Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco

As you are all fully aware, given how much I talk about it, I have a shop on Etsy. I'd love to turn it into something that will generate a little extra income for my family so that I could one day be debt free. (Yes, "one day" is a long long long long LONG time in the future. Do not crush my dreams.) To that end I bought (yes, bought!) this book- Craft, Inc.: Turn Your Creative Hobby into a Business. It's a short little book, only 160 pages, and while not everything in it will really apply to me, there was a lot of inspiration to be found.

Ilasco breaks the book down into chapters about marketing, inspiration, sales, and pricing, among others. The book covers in very general terms all the different aspects of owning your own shop AND creating your own brand. She's very clear that you have to brand yourself fully, you can't have a bunch of random stuff throw together and expect to be a rousing success. I think this is possibly the most useful thing I took out of the book and I expect it'll cause me to think more about my own shop and how I can pull it together more cohesively. One thing I took the time to do already was to create a Facebook fan page for the shop, please go become a fan!

Throughout the book there are short interview from various people who have managed to turn their hobbies into very successful brands. Each one was about two pages long, just long enough to keep me interested, without too many details. Some of them were very inspiring and make me think that this IS possible for me.

The one aspect of the book that wasn't so helpful for me was that a lot of the book does focus on things that can be mass produced. For example- pottery pots, or lip balm, or even knitted hats. Most of what I make tends to be one of the kind- custom team banners, messenger bags, and tote bags from t-shirts. It's a little harder to market something that is so unique- just how many sample banners do I need anyway, if the Twins fans don't bite?

Overall, a useful book, one that I'll add to my shelves. (The bright yellow spine will certainly look nice on them, don't you think?) It certainly does inspire me to work harder at my goal. If you're interesting in starting a creative business of your own, I think you could get a lot out of this book, otherwise probably not for you.

If you could turn any hobby into a business, what would it be? What do you love to do? You don't have to be great at it, I'm just interested in what your passion is... and don't say "I'd love to make a living reading books!" cause DUH.

Craft, Inc. by Meg Mateo Ilasco

Chronicle Books

2007

160 pages

Team Spirit Banners/ Contest Reminder

One of the things I've been making a lot of lately are Team Spirit Banners. I made a Minnesota Twins one to hang at our campsite.


I made a Go Bulldogs! one for my mother's classroom.

There's a Sturgis Scoopers one, which is a local high school team.



I'm in the process of making a War Eagle one for my friend to tailgate with this fall.

(You'll have to imagine this one, it's not quite assembled yet!)

You'd prefer one with a name on it? I can do that too...

What team do you cheer for? Could you use a custom banner to hang in your game room or at your tailgate party? There is still time to win one! Blog a picture of your TBR pile, or if you don't blog email me a picture and I'll post it for you. You have until August 31st to get your entry in! Be sure to leave me at link at the contest post. Don't have a TBR pile, but still want a banner? You can get your own at the Made by Lisah shop.

Secret Recipes

How do you feel about secret recipes? Do you think that family recipes should be held close and only made in secret? Do you think that they should be shared with everyone so that everyone can enjoy them? In A Homemade Life Molly Wizenberg explicitly says that she thinks recipes should be shared. I no longer have a copy of the book so I can't quote her, but she makes quite the case for it. There are a couple of standby recipes that I take to potlucks and I'm happy to share them. In fact, so are a lot of other people of you look on Recipes.com.

What about patterns? At what point does a pattern become so original that I am allowed to make one for myself but not allowed to use it for my profit? What if I just want to make 8 of them for my nephews? Is ANY pattern off limits? Where is the line between originality and basic sewing? I wrote a long post on this over on the sewing blog this morning, please stop by and weigh in. I'd love to hear some other opinions.

401st post GIVEAWAY!

Hey! I just noticed that my last post, for Delurking Day, was my 400th post! Since I missed the chance to do a big 400th post Giveaway! I've decided to do a 401st post Giveaway! (Handy how you can make your own rules with a blog, huh?) I have no idea what I'm going to give away, probably a mix of things that may or may not include: things I made, books, book marks, gift cards, candy... I'll be making it up once I see who wins!

So, how do you enter?

There are two ways!

First, leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite blog is- it can not be your own blog and (sadly) you can not kiss up and say mine is.

Second, head on over my my BRAND SPANKING NEW sewing blog made by lisah and leave a comment there. The new shop isn't quite off the ground yet (still needs to be filled with products) but the new blog is getting close. I still need to spruce up the layout a little, but the header is up and I've done a few little posts. I won't be posting at Sew What Bags any more, so if you're one of the three people who subscribe to it, be sure to move your link.

You are welcome to comment at each place, for a total of two entries. You can also enter the giveaway at the Delurker post (and you don't have to be a lurker to do that, you can be a regular) but you can NOT win BOTH prizes. I'll leave both giveaways open until Sunday, and then use Random.org to draw winners. Or I'll have the Pirate draw a name out of a hat, if it doesn't seem too daunting to write your names out.

And, Thanks everyone, for making me blog 401 times. Ya'll are great!

.