Hej, Hejsan, Hallå!
I took a weekend off from family life, easy as one was away at brownie camp and the other just wanted to be at home and do nothing (her words).
I know us small business owners are always supposed to stay positive about our businesses, never tell you our followers and supporters how crap it can be, and when we do, we will just come across as negative and whining. No-one wants to support someone who are horrible to listen too, we are better to just to be quiet and/or just stay positive. However it is really really HARD to always love what you do and sometimes we might just need to vent a little!
Since February this year, I have not been in a great place at all. An online shop is really hard and emotionally difficult to run when it does not go well. I felt stuck, did not know how to move forward and then the war started and the constant chat about financial crises. It has scared anyone with a heart and bills half to death, honestly turning on the heating in October feels like a bad thing to do.
I am budgeting everything at the moment and I am really careful. Yes things for myself is at the bottom of the list! And it turns out I am not alone, you are too. Because the first thing we drop to shop when money is tight is things for ourselves (not the beauty stuff, that seem to always survive the cutting list) and our homes! So running an online shop with beautiful designs for you and for your home is really difficult. It does mean that sadly this year we might have less of the lovely designs we normally have at Christmas, because the retail "experts" are telling us that this Christmas we should be really careful!
With all this on my mind and with 12 weeks to Christmas I have been feeling extra disheartened, on a daily basis I wonder if it is actually worth running an online business at all. Finding energy to keep moving is near impossible some days.
But then you take yourself off grid and head out into nature!
I have this lovely photographer friend Tina (of course you should check out her amazing images), a beautiful soul who recently moved to a little cottage in the Scottish Borders. This weekend I packed my hiking boots and headed down for a night. We had planned to sit down and work, light a fire, eat and get stuff done, like proper responsible business owners! But we did not even open our laptops, we just walked and talked and drank a lot of teas.
We walked along River Tweed on the Saturday. Yes of course a log fire, and as she is a fellow Scandi lady, a lot of candles. A proper Hygge Saturday evening! Sunday we hiked up to Three Brethern and enjoyed the stunning views. Maybe we would have worked if the weather had been terrible, but we were very lucky and got a our hearts pumping up the hill in the sunshine.
Even though we did not open our laptops we managed to get some kind of work done as we (yet again I) got to rant and properly vent. I went on and on, and a lot of stress, anxiety and worries about life and the future was discussed. And I think these things we have on our minds sometimes holds us back. We make small things unnecessarily big. For absolutely no good reason at all.
I know a lot of us are struggling with our heating bills, watching the news and wondering what the heck is going on. Privately we are looking to buy a house and just the thought of a mortgage is terrifying. The rate when we put an offer on a house a few weeks ago is not the same this week.
I needed to have a good rant, so thanks Tina for listening and giving me some good ideas.
Today I am looking at the online shop, properly looking and am critical to my own webshop. And this is a good thing as we have been working in the background on a new look. It is time about bloody time to make this your favourite Scandi online shop. I have a vision about Spektakulär online and the only one who can make that work is me! So time to make my vision come true!
But not only this, I am also searching for new designs for the website. But yes I am careful, Cristmas at Spektakulär this year will be sparse but we will always stock candles! And we will always need cosy tealight holders like these beauties by Kähler in our lives!
Happy new week, and if you like me are sometimes feeling completely overwhelmed by everyday life, then try your best to find someone to have a good vent with. And ideally while you are out for a walk in nature! Autumn is beautiful in Scotland!
Charlotte x