A Text-centric Update
- Dakini Trading
- Jul 8
- 7 min read
Welcome back! I know I’ve been gone for a while, so if you’re here reading this, thank you. I do appreciate your willingness to check back in. 2026 has been a particularly busy year at work for me; we’ve had a Major Event that requires more than my usual workload almost every month so far this year, leaving me little bandwidth left over to sit down and write. And given the state of the country under the current junta regime maladministration - oh heck, is there a nice way of referring to them? - anyway, given ::waves vaguely:: all that, finding the will to write has been a bit of a challenge. But it’s summer, and it feels like things are shifting (maybe) (hopefully) so here I am.
With my complaining out of the way for now, it’s not like all I’ve done is work, even if it sometimes feels like it! In fact, I actually had a bit of a proper vacation back in March (and I’d booked the flight back in pre-tariff November, so it wasn’t too bad a hit to the pocketbook). I headed out to the Pacific Northwest, since my younger child lives there and I had never been. It was an absolutely lovely time - I set my step record for the year, I imagine, as they don’t have a car and I didn’t see the need to rent one.
Curiously enough, my first full day there it snowed, which I was assured ‘never happens.’ Or at least hadn’t happened at all that winter. I promise I didn’t bring it from Ohio! Since the weather was less than cooperative, we decided to stop by the Art Museum that day - did we go somewhere else too? I think so, but that was months ago. The rest of the long weekend was lovely, however. Paid a visit to the Pike Place Market where we got to see a local pipe & drum band.. visited the Fremont Troll and the nearby antiques market.. had brunch with a friend and took in the Nordic Museum.. met the grand-pug.. went to the Chihuly Museum.. and had some amazing sushi. I had some vague hopes of hitting a thrift, but there wasn’t really anything near where we were (and I would have had to either jam things in my luggage or mail it home anyway).
My next journey was the annual trip down to West Virginia for the Bringing in the May festival. Last year my booth pop-up got destroyed by an errant micro-burst and I’ve not bothered to replace it because my days of being a solo traveling vendor are likely behind me now. So this year was just to visit. My friend who runs the event had some space donated in a nearby Victorian manse that now functions as an AirBnB, so I got to stay there along with another dear friend who, truth be told, is half the reason I travel down there. That was quite the place, much more than two aging faeries could truly take advantage of - but we did our best!
I had planned to stop by a store I always hear mentioned on the Mid Mod Money YouTube channel, since it’s in the general vicinity of my homeward journey. Alas, it turns out it is closed on Monday, the day I had set aside to go on the thrift hunt. I had two disappointing stops in the general festival area before getting on the road, but then found some goodies at a place I’d visited last year. Isn’t it funny how some stores seem to regularly have fun vintage stuff while others just - don’t? I could have gone by the World’s Largest Coffeepot again, but since I’d seen it last year I didn’t make the side trip.
I then got a bit lost trying to track down a place that doesn’t seem to exist anymore, and between that and travel time back to Ohio, I didn’t make any other stops. It’s really just as well though. I still have a bag full of finds from last summers trip to the northwest part of the state that need listed, along with a few other little hauls I managed between then and now - though I have gotten some of them up already.
I sadly had a rather negative experience right around the same time: I temporarily, and for no reason that I can tell, lost access to my Etsy shop. It wasn’t suspended or anything; I just couldn’t get the login to work - and you have to log in first to contact Etsy help. I was recommended to an ‘expert’ who was supposed to be able to assist with the issue - or to help himself to my cash without doing much of anything as it turns out. One day, though, the login process started working as mysteriously as it had stopped so I bid farewell to Mr Expert and have been trying to get the shop back up to snuff ever since.
One of the most unfortunate things about all that was that I had received an order right before I lost access. Luckily, the email contained all I needed to know to get the order shipped, so the customer wasn’t inconvenienced. I’m sure it didn’t look great to Etsy that (from their perspective) the order was three weeks late going out, but I don’t think I’ve been particularly penalized for it. Now that I’m back, I was able to finally mark it as shipped. I’ve made more sales since and seem to be on track to where I was before all this nonsense happened so, no harm no foul?
Now we’re suddenly into the season where I don’t want to be sitting inside on my computer editing photos and listing items - because it’s nice outside! And to that end, I’ve been doing a lot of work in my yard. We have a smallish backyard right behind the house, and then a larger one that runs up beside and wraps around behind the garage. This area get VERY wet in the spring, like, you really need muck boots if you’re going to walk back there. And then we had some household reconfiguration that left us with a lawnmower, but no one to run it. Except me, of course. Only it took me a while to figure out how it works – it’s not exactly intuitive - and to track down the charger for its battery.
But I did. The front lawn and ‘front’ backyard had to be done first, of course. They at least had been mowed a time or two this spring so it was just keeping them looking tidy. That back area though? It was a full-blown meadow, with grass stems and eager weeds standing hip high. Those were not cut in a day. Not even two days. It took a full week of coming home from work and pulling out the mower to get it under control, eek! I left a large patch of clover for the bees, and there’s a back corner full of wild strawberries I’m leaving alone until they’re done fruiting. It’s good as done, however, and what a relief.
My intention when I started writing was to talk more about that, about creating an attractive outdoor space and the emotional relief it’s brought not to look out on a jungle that would get me cited by the city were it visible from the street. It seems I have not done that. Maybe next time - now that I’ve gotten nearly a full blog post knocked out, I won’t have the existential dread of, I Really Need to Do That One Of These Days hanging over me. And of course, if I actually get the yard close to the vision I have for it, I suppose I could even take my laptop outside and write the next post from there.
I’m also choosing not to put photos or links in to this blog, solely because it was written in June - before the heat wave - and now its July and if I don’t get it posted life will rush me on to yet something else. As it does. I do have an idea in mind for my next post, at least, and am rather excited about it so I figure, let’s just get this knocked out and then see about getting back on some sort of schedule here. Of course, keeping up with my shops, with promotions, order processing, planning ahead for the holidays (yes already) etc. is a full time job and I already have one of those. Which is two weeks away from its busiest event of the year. Yikes.
Speaking of promotions, though, I guess I will add one link. I got a crazy idea that turned into creating 80 separate images and combining them all to create this: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8GD7k3h/ . If you don’t with the ticky-tockys, you can also find it on YouTube here: https://youtube.com/shorts/e9crrFsr0NA?feature=share (or virtually any of my socials; I’ve been pimping this one pretty hard). There are things I don’t like about it, specifically the color scheme; but overall I’m super tickled with how it turned out. It’s become my most viewed video on YouTube by an order of ten which is pretty awesome. Plus I discovered I have another one waiting in Canva for me to get back to, so watch this space! Or that one, rather. Maybe give me a follow on one of those channels, so you don’t miss whenever I get around to dropping the next one.
Look! I'm minutes away from hitting the publish button! This is a milestone - one I hope to repeat before the summer is over. If you've gotten this far, I'd love it if you clicked the like button. Or if you want to get super fancy, you could leave a comment, let me know how you found this. But even if all you do is read it, know I appreciate you and hope to see you here next time. So until then, I leave you as always in perfect love and faerie dust. Ta lovies!
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