Web Site. Friday, November 24th, 2006

Couldn’t sleep this morning, so I got up at 5 and banged away on a piece of software that does an automatic backup of part of our website. It took me about 3 hours. Should have taken 30 minutes. I was lucky if I did a manual backup every 2-3 months, which is way to infrequent. Now I don’t have to think about it anymore. The zipped files land in my mailbox every morning.

Got a note the other day from our “now snowboarding web developer”. She says our shopping cart software is outdated, so I am organizing myself to do the update. It should be a simple point and click affair, but of course, it isn’t. Somewhere along the way our shopping cart software lost itself. It still works, but it doesn’t know which version it is, and if it doesn’t know which version it is, then I have to do a manual install of the latest version, and then do a bunch of coding to switch to the new version. If I had built the site, from the bottom up, I’d be familiar with all the bells and whistles that need to be connected to the new version. But since I’m taking over for our “now snowboarding web developer”, I get to figure it all out. And I hate it. 10 years ago, heck even 5 years ago, I would have attacked this with gusto. But for some reason, in the past 5 years, I have gotten so that I can’t stand the tedious aspect of installing and debugging software. It takes me forever, and in this case, if I get it wrong, our cart won’t work. I feel like I’m flying a 747 and the tower won’t answer. =8-0.

Vanessa got her lipstick mold today. She is in the final R&D stages of putting together a line of all natural, vegan lip sticks. We’ll have a big annoucement when they hit the market. Blog readers and newsletter subscribers will be the first to hear the news. Subscribe now. The sign-up is at the lower left of the page. We issue newsletters 4-5 times a year. There is usually a “coupon special” that Vanessa offers with each newsletter, so it can be worth you time if you are an Herbs of Grace shopper.

We had a great Thanksgiving with some friends down the road. We were home about an hour when daughter S started complaining about an ear ache. Poor kid. She was really feeling it. V and I did a quick web search for ear ache remedies and came up with onion juice. We squeezed about a 1/4 t of onion juice, mixed it with a 1/2 t of olive oil, and dropped about 4 drops into her ear. Wasn’t sure how it would go, but apparently onion is a great treatment for this type of thing. And it was. She slept the night and woke up this morning without comment. V tells me she got up around 2 for a homeopathic remedy which also helped.

White Pass picked up 36″ over the past 24 hours! YOW!

Later, Brad.

Back to Herbs of Grace

House That Breathes, November 2006

I, our two year old, spent the day in her pajamas. V tried to get her dressed this morning, gave up, and turned it over to me. I got two of each item of clothes, so she could have her choice of what to wear, but as soon as I headed toward her, she went screaming in the opposite direction, yelling that she wanted to wear here pajamas today. I started the knock down drag out, and then caught myself and let her be. Her pajamas are the full body type, with footies. They are pile and have a high neck, so I realized that she was dressed warmly. I did manage to get a parka and boots on her. So off we went, to the coffee shop and grocery store, with I in her pajamas. Did I mention that she’s two? This all makes sense now, right?

The kids are getting excited for christmas. M, age 7, keeps asking “how many more days”. S, age 5, tells us what she wants from Santa, and I, wants a nutcracker.

It has snowed here over the past few days/nights and the kids are really enjoying it. We didn’t get much snow last year so this is extra “cool” this year. Bought the kids a sled and even though the snow is very sparse, they were out there on the hill pushing each other around.

Our 110 year old house is not what you would call, air tight. Living here reminds me of the year we spent in Japan. The Japanese build houses that “breathe”. They are cold in the winter and hot in the summer. During my bicycle commute in Japan, I watched the daily progress of a house being torn down. After the siding was removed, there was building paper, but there was no insulation, and only a thin wall covering on the inside. When I talk to folks about our old house, I tell them that it “breathes”. Anyway, I woke up this morning and the temperature outside was 26F and, remembering that the house breathed all night, was 46F inside. It took the old wood stove an hour to warm the house up to 54F and another hour to get to 60F. Needless to say, we wear sweaters all the time. V has a heater in the office which keeps it toasty all the time.

V is very busy with Herbs of Grace. We have demos to line up and present, product and samples to ship, marketing and sales firms to keep organized and motivated, product to manufacture and package, office supplies to order, displays to design and manufacture, press releases to write and publish, a website to maintain and a zillion other things to do. I’m sure it’s going to get busier and busier. I don’t know if V realized this when she signed on, but she’s hanging in there. She has always had her own business, but this is the first time that she has marketed to the mass market. It’s quite different than puttering along doing Saturday markets and an occasional gift show.

White Pass has a ton of snow, hope it stays cold this winter.

Later, Brad

www.herbsofgrace.com