Ventures

Violin lessons for Leiden are getting more and more fraught.  She really just flat out doesn't like it.  She has been begging for months to be able to quit, and I've been very reluctant.  I don't want her thinking she can just quit when it gets hard or she gets bored.  I feel like that's not a good life lesson to teach her, but it's getting ridiculous.  She balks at practicing, and recently has started balking at her lessons, acting very sullen and quietly bratty with her teacher.  Her bad attitude stretches to the other girls, too, who have to traipse along with us.  Mimi wasn't happy about the intrusion today, and sulked the whole time.

Leiden wasn't happy, either.

It might be time to let it go, and find something she LIKES better.  She has talents, we just need to find the matching passion.

Speaking of talents, I have decided to open up my Etsy shop again.  I chose to keep the old shop and just rename it, so as to keep my old reviews, etc., as well as be able to show an established presence on the site.  The new shop is called Downstroke, which took a considerable amount of time and effort to decide on.  I had some other ideas, but the names were already taken on Etsy.  I have no idea whether this will turn out to be lucrative at all, or whether it will just be a side venture, but I'm excited about the possibilities.  I've spent a lot of time getting it ready, and taking photographs for the listings.  Jonathan has been extremely supportive in this endeavor, helping me brainstorm and muddle through branding issues.  But here's a screenshot of my shop's page!  It went live today!

And my banner...everything hand lettered by me.

Tonight it rained really hard...hard enough for me to go out and record the lovely noise the rain was making.