Admin Work Abounds

Anytime you have a business, there is administrative work to do.  Keeping the financials current and correct, balancing the checkbook, making sure the website is always up to date, writing descriptions of newly woven items, etc.  Every aspect of a business requires some sort of administrative oversight.  And the business runs so much faster and more efficiently if the administrative junk is not allowed to pile up.

I like the administrative side of things.  I like balancing the checkbook and most of the rest of it even if it keeps me from weaving. And that's where it bites into my creativity.  My knitting and spinning mostly happen in the evenings in the living room in front of the television.  British mysteries and police procedurals in particular.  But the weaving takes place out in the studio and that's where the admin work gets done.  When I walk in the door, both sides are trying to catch my eye - the looms on the one side and my desk on the other.

This last week has been mostly on the admin side rather than on the weaving side for several reasons. First there is my ankle.  I've been to the orthopedist, had x-rays and started physical therapy with almost no relief at all.  The MRI was scheduled for today but had to be switched to the end of next week.  Rats!  One more week of hobbling around.  That change required three phone calls to reschedule all those things that need to happen after the MRI rather than before.

The second, and by far more time consuming, was the website stuff.  We changed the look of our website by changing the theme.  I love the new look and for the customer, the change was instantaneous.  At least I hope so. The cart and the customer's ability to buy things worked perfectly.  The part that required my attention was correctly all the errors and omissions in my updates to the items on the website. This theme is more brittle when it comes to my inconsistencies. I need a photo for every item and an item for every photo.  That sounds straightforward enough but it's exacting. It won't let me use a single photo as a reference for two items even if it makes sense to me.  In some cases I just added the same photo twice and the system was happy. It means that I need to be more careful cleaning up the loose ends.  Ok.  I can do this going forward but catching all those errors, built up over the last 5 years is a nightmare.  Bless Peggy for spending time to go through much of the website item by item.  Thank you, Peggy.

The last thing I had to work out was our sale email.  It went to all our customers on Tuesday and the "Shop Today" link on the bottom of the email didn't work.  Rats, again. It has been repaired and the "Gosh, I'm so sorry but here is a link that works" email should go our shortly.  I hate it when this kind of thing happens.

So, now I'm off to do more fun admin work.  Peggy's new run of kitchen towels are sitting here waiting to be photographed and tagged so they can go up on the website.  I think you'll love them!  They are wonderful! Then maybe I'll get back to weaving.  At least, I hope so.