I’ve made some minor decisions and adjusted my business plan for my apothecary business and it makes me feel loads better to get some clarity.

First of all, I’m not going to be writing on Stitch and Boots anymore. All my gardening and food posts are going to be here from now on. My whole life will be here on Better Than Bullets just like my whole life used to be on Dustpan Alley. Stitch will still be there as an archive and I might still put recipes on it from time to time because I have the plug in for that on Stitch and don’t feel like adding it here. I’ll be turning off comments so I don’t have to worry about missing that.

Second of all, I will be starting a commercial website for Winters Apothecary. That’s part of why I want to put all my writing in one place again. I need to keep things simple. The Winters Apothecary site will just be my store, not a blog. It will have some writing on it as is appropriate for the store but it won’t be a personal journal of my urban homesteading. All of that will be right here. Winters Apothecary will have my books (see how hopeful I am about my writing career?) and my apothecary goods on it.

I don’t think there’s a “Third of all”. Oh! Well, my Etsy shop name will change to “Winters Apothecary” too. I guess that’s a worthy “third thing”.

Over the years I’ve done this a lot. Changing focus, starting new blogs, new Etsy store names, splitting my interests out. I’ve learned a lot, experimented a lot, and had a lot of fun doing it all. I do feel like it was all to good purpose. I wish Dustpan Alley (the blog) was still out there as an archive. For those who don’t know, we let the domain name lapse and someone bought it so my blog disappeared. We think we can get the content printed for personal archiving use but it will never be available for others and I’m a little sad about that. Dustpan Alley was the very beginning of my blogging online life.

I’ve also come to realize that I have to take it easy with this whole business building thing. It takes time. I has to take time. I’m always so impatient. Building something worthy isn’t a fast endeavor. Coming up with and perfecting labels, logos, recipes, and packaging all takes time. Finding the right suppliers and writing good copy. All of it takes time. Building a store and finding ways to induce people to come and check it out takes a whole lot of time. I need to keep reminding myself of that.

Here’s what I want:

Write novels that people buy and read.

Make remedies that people buy and use with a business thriving enough to support my novel-writing but not so thriving I have no time to write.

Still have time to garden, make quilts, preserve food, make fun of everything.

That right there is what I want my life to BE.

Everything I’ve been doing in the past 10 years has fueled me with the expertise, the experience, and the network of people I need by my side to make this happen. Running a brick-and-mortar retail store gave me loads of experience running a business and it WAS growing steadily, though slowly. That’s how it happens. We got out because we didn’t like the store being our whole life. But we were doing it right. I must also point out that I realized one of my long-time fantasies – to have a retail shop. Not everyone takes the opportunity even when it’s in front of them.

That was pretty damn cool.

Getting clarity feels so good.

I have to go to my day-job now. At least today is Thursday which means I have the next three days off.