Three things to love about Pierre, South Dakota

1. This morning the Bug, the Princess and I went to the thrift store. Tuesday is the day all the new stuff appears, so it's a fairly crowded day in a very small building. Add a loud 3 year old and a stroller and you can imagine how much they love me, but we still go every week.  Today I had given the Bug his very own five dollar bill with which to buy his toy. Predictibly, he lost it. I mentioned it at the check out and she took my name and number, but really, it was $5 and I expected it to be gone.   I got a call, less than an hour later, that someone turned it in. Yes, this could happen anywhere, but it seems like such a small town thing to me.

2. When we first moved here I worried about the tiny library. One of my first posts was about the library and how  less technologically advanced it was than my old one. As time has gone on, I've come to love the little library. I can get most of the books I want off their shelves, and if they don't have it there is always Inter Library Loan. They forgive all fees if you return books on Wednesday and Sunday, there's no limit to the number of books you can check out, and all books are 30 day loans. With only one or two exceptions, the librarians are all very friendly.  But here's why I really love it- on Sunday, Mike dropped me off at the front door so I could run in some returns and pick up my holds. I get a LOT of holds. I was standing at the desk putting my returns in the bin, when one of my favorite librarians looked up and saw me. She said, "Oh! I have something for you!" and propped against the phone, right there on the front desk, was a little note attached to a card that they had found in one of my returns. The amazing part is not that they would return it to me (though really, it was an unremarkable Christmas card), but that I hadn't told them my name. They didn't KNOW I'd be in on Sunday unless they'd noticed I'm there every Sunday.  It wasn't with my holds that I hadn't even asked for yet.  When we go to story time, which is not as often as you'd think, the children's librarian remembers ALL the kids names, including mine. This personal touch is exactly what I want in a library.

3. We recently had some work done on our car.  We only own one car, our other vehicle being a company truck. We are allowed to ride in the company truck, but it only seats four. So we had no car that the entire family could fit into. The day that it was returned to us was a particularly busy one for Mike and he was having a hard time getting away from work, let alone finding someone to take him to pick it up. When I was talking to the woman on the phone, she offered to bring it to me. "Oh, I'm headed that way anyway, I'll just have my partner follow me. No big deal!" No extra charge. My car showed up at my door within the hour.

Deep Breath!

I own my own business.

I am a small business owner.

I work from home.

My Etsy shop is my primary source of income.

You know how sometimes you have to say it outloud or write it down before it becomes real? Now I've said it. I've been giving it a lot of thought and I've realized that I will not get a better chance to make this happen. I am going to do whatever I need to do to make a profit on Etsy.  I will make enough money with my sewing that I don't need a day job. It's true that I have a lot going on right now, but that doesn't make it any less true that there will not be a better time to do this. If I can't do it now I'll need to get a 40 hour a week job, and if I do that I'll never have this opportunity again. This is something that I've been thinking about and talking about for years. I've made all of you follow along with me, and I really hope that you'll stick with me to see it through to the end.

Here's my game plan:

I am going to write a mission statement and post it publicly, so you can all hold me to it.

I hope to will hit 100 sales on Etsy by the end of next month, and 30 more by the end of the year. At a minimum.

Make at least one new item a day. I won't like post one new item a day, since things are easier in batches, but I want to average out to making one a day. If not more. I would love to will have a full shop of non-custom items, ready and open for Christmas shopping on Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

I am going to write a mass email announcing the new shop plans and send it to everyone I know by the end of September. I will only do this one time, but in that email will be a link to signup for my real newsletter, which I plan to send out no more than 6 times a year. I hope you will all sign up for it.

I plan to blog about my journey. I'd love to read how other women, moms, parents, crafters, whoever, made their dreams a reality, and I assume that there are other wannabes out there who would like to read how I do it. (Note: Completely positive statement there! No crashing and burning!) I have four or five topics in outline stage already, and I'll often refer my business in my other posts.  It is inevitable that this will impact all the other aspects of my life, so prepare yourself for tales of how the Princess played in the dog's water cause her mama was too busy sewing to notice care, and how the Pirate wore dirty socks cause I forgot to do laundry, and how you can't walk through any room in my house without stepping on toys.

I don't plan to stop doing other things I enjoy, like sewing dresses for my little girl, or reading books for pleasure. I'll still blog about that too, just like always.  Some of you have been reading long enough to know that I don't always follow through well, I've been talking about this for years! But I've been home for over a year now and I can't imagine going back to a job every morning. I can't imagine letting my baby spend 50 hours a week with someone else. I can't imagine doing something I don't love. 

This is my chance and it won't get any better than this.