Friday, January 25, 2008

Shoppe News: We are up and running!

Thanks to our local computer dude, Dimitri, for getting us back on track!

Our Lady is back and right as rain so far . Orders are no longer being delayed. Thanks to everyone for your patience while we muddled through this. As D said, it is "never a convenient time."

This did highlight for us a few things that have been on the burner for awhile that we hope to address in the coming year: we need a new website, totally updated. We're going to be slowly working towards this in the coming months. There's a learning curve to wrangle with in the new program, but we love a challenge.

And we need to transfer all our labels from our limited graphics program to a better one (I've wanted to do this for years; but it takes time, which I don't have much of!), and also -- my secret dream! -- get them mass produced. Right now, I do everything myself. If I had multiple labels already printed, it would streamline production so much. This sounds like a small thing, however every little item I can streamline means that I have more time to dedicate towards the aspects of the company that I don't want to have to skimp on -- the mindful creation of the tea blends themselves, the personalized effort we put into the packaging, to name only a few.

I would also like to have more and more info here on this blog -- I'd love to see this become a place people share and converse about herbal health, WAHM's, children's herbal health, recipes, small business support for women...what would you like to share? If you are checking in , please feel free to leave comments now and again. We'd love to hear from you!

Friday, January 18, 2008

Hard drives and files, OH MY!

Well, it happened. Our beloved link to the outer world from our nest here in the Redwoods of rural California has been severed: our hard drive crashed this week. At least it is only temporary. At least we have backed up pretty much everything.

But this means that we are currently in a holding pattern while our Lady of the Perpetual Internet is fixed. So if you place an order, please know that we will fulfill it ASAP, however it may be delayed depending on what you order. Currently, we cannot access labels for our teas, so in particular we are limited in teas right now.

This issue is being addressed as we speak, and hope to be up and running at the top of the week, at the end of the week at the latest. We will be checking our emails as much as we can, but it will be intermittent.

Thank you for any good vibes of Happy Computerness you can send!

Press on!
MsThistle

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Shoppe News

Whew. Well, the holidays are over. It was a hard season this year, but I made it through. Next year, I am clear that I absolutely must have some elves to help. I can't do this alone anymore. We aren't a big operation, but we are big enough that doing it myself has become a challenge.

Some updates, and a shout out to patrons who have been trying to reach us by phone:

~ From now on I will be posting News here at the blog,
instead of at the website with its own page.

~ Recently, I've had a hard time retrieving and hearing messages from our phone. For instance, I received a text message almost a month after the send date. Not sure why this has happened; I only know that this has resulted in a lot of very delayed brochures being sent out, for which I apologize. We couldn't be here without you, our customers -- but sometimes there are glitches in the program, so to say. My messages the last week have been coming in what seems to be a timely fashion, so hopefully this won't be a problem in the future.

If you are someone who has left a message and not received a brochure yet, please do call
again. Remember to speak slowly and clearly so that I can be sure your address, or call back
number is correct. And as always, thank you for your support!

More later-- press on!
Ms Thistle