Wow. . .just wow

When goimagine closed 5 months ago I moved to square; it seemed simple at the time, however, it was a whole new site builder with strange navigation and many steps. 

Well apparently, I screwed up my shipping settings, and my checkout has not actually been functional, like at all, like all bloody year. 😫 

I have seen "Cart" called out in my google analytics, so I KNOW people have carted items and tried to purchase. I had been writing it off as abandoned carts, things aren't cheap, sometimes with tax + shipping totals can be higher and cause people not to complete the purchase, so I was trying to not let it bother me. 

Seriously though it has been bugging me for months that I haven't had any orders all summer, it's not normal, but again trying to not let it bother me because the whole world is not normal right now. 

Anyway. . .it should be fixed now, hopefully, fingers crossed that I may actually get some orders and have a decent holiday season. I am still fighting with pinterest catalogue issues but I'm not giving up.

I have always loved photographing clouds at sunrise or sunset; they make the most spectacular displays. 

In other news; I got my flu shot, updated my voter registration, and we are painting and working on the laundry room this week. (finally) 😅

When we moved in, we started with the main hall, master bedroom, living room, dining room, then guest room, and hall bath, so the laundry room wasn't really a priority. 😅 But we've been here a couple months now and I hate the washing machine that was here, I want my Maytag super capacity back. I will continue to live with the existing Whirlpool dryer because it's gas and my Maytag is electric and path of least resistance. 

I swear one day I will get back to making things. 😏

If at first you don't succeed. . .

Try, try, again, that's how the saying goes anyway. 😏 

After what seems like an eternal battle with pinterest and the mystery 1403 error that literally is not even in pinterest's own help pages.

I got an email reply from their support and as it turns out it's pretty simple; you cannot use a google drive for the photo storage. no, seriously, that's what they told me. 

Why the frack can that not just be in the damned instructions to begin with?!? 😒 So as I curse and roll my eyes and delete the last half dozen failed uploads, I find myself annoyed but determined. I will get this done, tech be damned, I will not be defeated by a stupid spreadsheet. 😐

In spite of being sick for the last week I am slowly working on my shop, although, in some ways it looks worse ever. 😅

just a big ole' mess of exploding boxes 😅

I realized I haven't listed the ornament sets on the website yet. I should probably do that soon-ish since holiday shopping season is coming.

so frustrating

Technology can be so frustrating; as a genXer I loved my 
Atari and my first computer was a Commodore64, so it's not like computer stuff is new to me but the current state of technology is stupid. 😐  Seriously, I've been doing the e-commerce thing for like idk 15 years or so, from my original stand-alone leather site, thru etsy, goimagine, michaels, now on square, I've been around this block. 😏 

However, in recent years it has become so frustrating that I just want to rage-quit every other week. 😠I try and try, I follow all the rules, and guidelines, meet all the requirements, fill in all the forms and check boxes and still errors, glitches, and rejection. 😠

I'm left just wondering why I bother and if any of the spent energy was actually worth it. 

I once spent many many hours over a period of multiple months to get a facebook pixel to work and connect with an online shop only for facebook to disable all pixels 3 months later. 😏 (so they could force everyone to use fb checkout so fb could collect their %)

I have most recently spent time trying to get "merchant" status on my business pinterest in spite of multiple failures to get a "catalogue" to upload and function properly I kept trying. I really thought I had gotten somewhere the other day when I found I had a checkmark and approval. 

but in truly craptasic fashion the day after I post on facebook about "hey look I did a thing" it disappeared and I got an email saying 

Just to be clear my products were never being distributed on pinterest because the catalogue upload keeps failing and the url version says the format's wrong and whatever. Because the reality is from the time I got "approved" until 48 hours later disabled, I didn't post anything or change anything in the account. So, I contend I wasn't violating any of the rules, guidelines or requirements for merchants or products or I wouldn't have been approved to begin with. As for the "excessive user reports" reports for what? I don't understand I'm not violating any IP stuff, I maintain my boards and delete old pins with broken links, what are users reporting?! And if there are a bunch of complaints about my account/pins why have I never been notified of a single one?!??? 😕

Furthermore there are a limited number of appeals 2 and the box says to make changes first, but I don't know what to change since nothing has changed since the approval it's not like I can just undo the last thing I did because I didn't do anything. 😒

So, I admit I am basically wasting my first appeal to point out that I don't know what to change based on their vague "reasons", lack of directions, and fact that I changed nothing between approval and disabled. If they reverse it based on I called them crap then it proves the disabling of my account was total BS, if they can give me something specific they want changed great, if not fuck 'em I no longer care.

That's settled

First Key is a crappy corporate landlord that doesn't follow its' own procedures and I'm glad to be rid of them. We did not get our whole deposit back because they took the final utility bill out of it and charged us $350 for pressure washing the exterior of the house (which was filthy when we moved in).  I'm annoyed because all the emails and instructions said the final utility bill would be sent and paid separate, never once was it mentioned anywhere that they would just deduct it from the deposit but that's what they did. 😏 So I'll work on letting go of my annoyance and instead just be glad to be Done with them. 

I didn't post last weekend so one would think I'd have a bunch of stuff to write about this week, but I've been sick, so not really. 😕

I have worked on the mirror in the hall bath, but it still has layers to go.

I have re-hung the living room drapes (finally)

I decided, I am not putting sheers back, because I like my view and natural light. 😉 Plus the ones that were in the living room I used in the dining room, because the ones from the dining room fell apart when I tried to wash them, 😅 not at all surprising considering the very thin nature of the fabric and the decades of sun damage. I did look at/for new sheers for the living room, but I didn't find any I really liked so unobstructed view it is. 

side note, the cats are very happy with their new yard and the country quiet 😇