Yesterday I took the day ‘off’. Well, as much as it is possible for me to do so. It has been a long time since I spent some time on myself and I was really beginning to feel very overwhelmed by all the things I need to do.
Common sense tells me that the last thing that I am supposed to do when feeling this way is to do MORE. My natural instinct would be to work harder to accomplish everything and get back on track. But I have been trying that for several weeks now and all it is doing is making my anxiety levels move higher, as it seems that as I try to work harder and faster, the work keeps coming in faster than I can keep up with it. In the end I am feeling even more overwhelmed, on top of feeling guilty for not finishing up all I want to finish.
That isn’t a good thing. The last thing I need to do is crash and burn right now when things are going well. But I need to do something a little differently so that I don’t let all of this get the best of me.
Even though I took the day off yesterday, I spent about half the day doing customer service things. I strongly feel that no matter what, I try to help people as quickly as I can when they have questions or need help with things. Yesterday there was an issue with Paypal and a charge back to my account. Even though the amount of the charge back was small, I didn’t understand why it occurred. Apparently the customer ordered the pattern and Paypal felt the customer may have not authorized a payment. I found this odd because it was the second time the customer ordered from us. The first time, they paid for the pattern with Visa and all was fine. They came back for a second, similar themed pattern so I didn’t think that there was any fraud involved. Add to that they only ordered one pattern. One would think if the account was compromised, the thief wouldn’t risk being caught over one pattern.
I had received notice that the funds were on hold 10 days prior. I provided Paypal with all the documentation which showed that I shipped the pattern at that point, when requested. I was somewhat shocked to see that Paypal decided to give the customer back their money. It made me rather upset because I was never contacted by the customer that anything was amiss, including that they never received the pattern. So in the end, they got their pattern for free.
I give patterns away all the time, so you know that the amount wasn’t what bothered me. It was that someone would take advantage of me like this without even contacting me. I would have certainly re-sent them pattern if necessary and work with the customer to make things right. I did try to call the customer, and the woman who answered the phone said she knew nothing about it and her husband was not at home and wouldn’t be for a long time. She seemed very suspicious of me as if I were trying to sell her something.
I tried to call Paypal, but I was left on hold for over an hour and a half until my phone battery went dead. Apparently they can do that and don’t really care if their customers are happy or not. That was also very frustrating. Finally I decided to just let it go. It wasn’t worth it to me anymore.
People mentioned that they don’t use Paypal because of this reason, but nearly half of our income with our website sales are from Paypal and we find that many customers use it over credit cards. So we need to use it also.
Our little business is growing every day. As it does, we need to grow with it and it is our desire to keep our service and quality at the high levels that brought us to where we are in the first place. I think it is wise to step back and take a breath every now and then and regather our thoughts.
It is for that reason that I am going to take a day or two off from writing here for the time being. I am still working on my “12 Days” project and I really want to focus on that and finish it up. It has take quite a while it seems to me to get moving, and I think that I will feel much better once it is behind me and done.
Yesterday, after the Paypal incident, Keith took me out for a ride to Yarmouth just for no reason. We had a nice quiet dinner and picked up a couple of things, and when we got home I took a short nap. We then spent the evening watching a couple of movies and I played some of my computer games for a couple of hours in the background. No painting. No drawing. No cleaning the house or cooking. Just quiet.
It was probably the laziest day I have had in a couple of years.
I am not going to get into the habit of doing it, but for the moment, I felt it was necessary. If I didn’t take some time for myself soon, I was certainly working toward getting sick or something like that.
I promise I will be back soon. I do miss when I don’t write because I hear from so many of you from the different places that I post and you have all become part of my day as much as I am part of yours. But sometimes just a short break is necessary to keep things going in a good way. I think this is one of those times.
I wish you all a great day and week. I look forward to finishing up my latest project and showing it to you all when I am done. In the mean time, I hope you all have fun finding creative things to do. And take time to enjoy your life in the process.
May you find your sliver of sunshine, and enjoy it to the fullest! :)
Happy Monday!
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Crafty Puzzles 
