My Typical Day

My day begins with my friendly little alarm clock :)

He usually wakes up around 6:30am and will give a low chortle, and if I am not there within a minute he starts to chirp twice, loudly and sharply, to make sure I wake up. He's a Congo African Grey and he'll be 6 on November 2nd.

I am usually checking and replying to emails while having breakfast. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I like to have a bowl with a banana, blueberries, nuts, seeds, cinnamon and a little raw chocolate granola on top, with brazil nut milk I make myself. Hmmm, except for the chocolate, my little friendly alarm clock likes most of that too (he doesn't like seeds and chocolate is not allowed) :).

There are always orders to color and varnish and so I'll spend a couple of hours varnishing and/or coloring right after breakfast. Most days I have something that needs to be shipped so right after lunch I'll start getting things ready to ship. The post office is a short walk from my house just around the corner. If there isn't a lot of shipping to do, I'll stay in my studio after lunch and continue what I was working on in the morning.

I like to also color in the evening and work on new designs. I have a new design in the works at the moment that some of my customers have suggested. As the prototype comes far enough along I'll share more photos here.

After dinner my husband and I will sometimes go to the local bookstore and hang out for a couple of hours -- since I can't color or varnish there, I take along my knitting. Here's a photo of what I'm currently working on. It is the Heart to Heart beaded scarf designed by Sivia Harding and is from the "Embrace the Lace" club that I ordered through Woolgirl. Her kits are awesome! The yarn is Mama Llama Cashmere (100%!). It's a very pretty aqua color. I am now halfway done and the next kit in the series already arrived a week ago, so I'm eager to finish this one and start on the next one -- also lush!

After I get back from the bookstore, it's time to put the little alarm clock to bed. He usually is telling me "It's dark!" just around 9pm and "Want to go night night?" so it's easy to know when he's ready :). Then it's back to the studio until time for bed for me. If there are Etsy orders finished I try to post them before I go to bed -- which is usually about 11:30pm. I have to really pull myself away to end the day -- I love what I do so it doesn't feel like work and I know someone is waiting patiently for their stuff so I am eager to get it to them as well.