Back at It

Not long after my last post, things got turned on their head for our family. The contract C. L. was working ended earlier than expected, so we found ourselves scrambling to find steady work with which to support ourselves. We had already purchased three more gallons of paint before said contract ended. So our time was split between applying to several different postings every day and working our way through as much of the home redo as we could with the supplies we already had between assessments and interviews.

Living Room Before

Living Room Now

This is the change the living room went through. Really we just painted, got rid of the couch with the broken springs only to be replaced with a web chair for now, and rearranged a bit. It's in a bit of a transitive state until we can recoup enough to replace this rather worn out carpet with some type of wood laminate and get some new furnishings.

We were lucky enough to be given a hand-me-down television and dresser. So I painted the hand-me-down dresser for our master bedroom, and we took the dresser we had in our bedroom before to be used as an entertainment unit since it fit the "new to us" television better than the fireplace mantel.

Kitchen at the halfway mark.

Kitchen nook halfway mark.

I didn't snap any before shots of the kitchen, but the walls were the same color as the living room in the before image. I ended up accepting a full-time position the week after we painting the kitchen walls, and C. L. accepted a part-time work-from-home position the following week. So the cabinet portion of this room's makeover is taking a bit as we're having to do it in fits and spurts as we have the rare free weekend or a half hour here or there to paint cabinet doors. So far we've gotten the frames 80% done and the doors mostly prepared.

At this point, we're just hoping to have all the doors painted and rehung by Christmas given each door's front and back needs three full days to cure before they can be put back up. And we only have enough room to work on a maximum of two doors at a time.

But, the both of us are back working again, and our positions are situated in such a way that we are able to continue homeschooling the girls. We have both had about a month to settle into our new jobs now, and we've begun working out little ways to make our days and evenings more efficient. Because of this, I have been able to return to both writing and soaping this week.

Did you notice the Icarus progress ticker moved for the first time in over a year? It wasn't as much as I used to crank out, but I did manage to add a little over 1300 words this week, writing for 30-50 minutes each morning before heading in to work. I've been writing in a notebook as I finish up my coffee between breakfast and getting dressed for the day, and then I typed that, tweaking as I went, today just before writing this post.

Considering I have a bit less than 4500 words to go before hitting the rough draft word count goal and ten chapters left in the outline, I'm guessing it's going to go significantly over that goal. As it is, I'm even beginning to wonder if I might need to break this portion of the story into two novels versus the one or just keep it as one big book. But that's a decision for the next phase in the process.

So far, I'm planning to focus on writing and putting coats on cabinet doors during the work week. Then I will spend a few hours each weekend soaping, taking new, updated product photos, packaging, and other various tasks for Contented Comfort on the weekends. Now that the cabinet frame is almost done, and we've settled after the onslaught of back-to-school shopping and events, I can focus a bit of time on not just recovering the business after last fall's setback, but growing it.

I plan to do this by first doing a full restock after Con Kasterborous' sales and in preparation for Rocket City NerdCon at the beginning of November. As I do that, I am going to reshoot each variety's product photos using the light box setup we invested in a while back. Thus far, I've been relying on natural lighting, which is great, but it doesn't make for the most cohesive look when the slightest difference in angle or cloud cover on any given day can drastically change the lighting. So I will effectively revamp the entire store website slowly over the course of the next few months by upping the quality of the photos and making tweaks to the web copy.

Thank you for reading, and I hope to get back into the swing of regular contributions to my WIPs and this blog while working around a full-time job, complete with a two hour a day commute. Please have patience with me.