Bugger of a week..I really mean it!!

Ever just had one of those weeks that truly disrupt your routine & balance? I had one of those just recently & have just come up for air. Crazy thing was, it had nothing to do with the kids, it was my work it involved, & my couriers were to blame!!!

It all started just over a week ago when routinely I posted three orders.
The first to one of my consultants who sell in my Quirk and Quaint business.
The second other was a wholesale order.
The third was for my lovely machinist who makes my products.

My first order was worth a significant value & lucky me, this parcel was in a van that had been robbed. Mind you I wasn't advised this until my consultant started asking where it was, & I started tracking it. Yes I know it was bad luck, & trust me such an inconvenience. All the customers had to be called to advise them what had happened, & I was hoping they were happy enough for them to wait for it to be replaced. Thankfully they were, & being a handmade business I don't have a warehouse where I can repack orders quickly, they all had to be made again. Then I have had to submit invoices for insurance purposes. So damn time consuming.

The second and third were lost together. The driver who does my pick up run suddenly resigned & was yet to be replaced. Again, I wasn't told so when my 2 parcels had been sitting there all day & not collected, I called & was soon advised of this. Not impressed with the delayed updated, but anyway they were collected & I thought all was good. They had an external collector pick them up & when they still had not arrived 4 days later, again panic struck. The wholesale order was only 2 cushions, so that didn't freak me out at all too much, it was just an inconvenience again. However the order going to my machinist had A LOT of work in there to be sew, & it's value & time was worth a lot also. Personalised products take time to prepare & organise, & this parcel took me just over 2 days to do so. When I tracked it & called the courier company several times, & there was no record of it, I FREAKED out & felt ill!!! I was finally advised it was lost, which didn't make me feel any better.  Eventually it was found, the external courier didn't put the right ticket on it to resend it back to the correct depot for dispatch. A week later it arrived. I am so lucky that Aileen who sews for me, was so helpful & managed to have it all sew for me almost on time, as well as the current weeks work. If it was for her I would have been stuffed, I really mean that.

I just wanted to scream & blame everyone, be an angry hippo, but that was just my helplessness coming out in me, as there was literally nothing I could do. I will admit to crying, & felt so much better when Charlotte heard me & I got lots of cuddles, which was so beautiful.

The catchup has been horrendous as I had to repack a lost orders, as well as current ones, I literally packed all day last Thursday & Friday. Trying to do it around kids is so challenging at the best of times, so I had to bribe them a lot, let some extra iPad time happen, & I threw in a few movies & I got it done. I am sort of up to date, but still behind as I had my normal "to do" list for that week, but I just had to not worry about it. Mind you it's still waiting for me. It was just an absolute nightmare week.

For someone who works for themselves, especially handmade, with kids at home, it wasn't even the money I was worried about in the end, but more the time & hours that are involved. Fingers crossed never again.

This week is a new week, & I won't let it scar me (I hope), time to move forward, reward myself for doing what I though was impossible & have a great week this week.