I will offer a few reasonable reasons for why you haven't seen any new blog entries lately. The theme is time and my lack of it.

Reason #1: We're busy at Mayfly and Junebug Designs.  Really, really busy.  This is the idea, right?  We're filling current, everyday orders while still filling the New York dealer package orders and other new dealer and dealer update orders.  By the way, if you are perturbed that you haven't received your order yet, I definitely wouldn't read Reason #3. Some great new products are in development, too.  All of this takes time, of course. I arrived at the office at 8:30 a.m. yesterday and left at 5:45, yet still did not accomplish all that I set out to acccomplish for the day.  I did spend the last hour writing this blog entry, or what was supposed to be this blog entry.  As I was attempting to save it, I somehow erased it.  I'm not sure how this happened, as I am very familiar with how to hit the save button on the computer. I do it all the time, in fact.  Now it is 6:51 p.m., and I'm writing this entry while my children recreate scenes from Lord of the Flies. This brings me to Reason #2...

Reason #2 (a, b & c): I have three wonderful children. Three very engaging children.  All three could easily talk (or sing) to a wall 24/7. So along with the time it takes for their normal activities and the phone calls, emails, paper work and driving that accompany these activities, additional time disappears when I hit the door in the blog-friendly evenings.

a. My eleven-year-old son Hunter will attempt yet another conversation about a computer operating system of which I have no knowledge or interest.  Nodding and replying "Uh huh" will only get me so far.  He will accuse me of not listening to him, and he might be correct.  It is difficult to think after a long day, but he also thinks on a level at which I do not think at all.  Ever.  I try to talk to him about other things, like girls and who he likes, but he does not ever want to share this information with me. Go figure.  Five minutes later, he is asking me if he can partition his hard drive so that he can install this or that.  Then I ask him if he has completed his summer reading requirements, and he disappears for a while. These conversations take up a good deal of time.  Brilliant, handsome young lad, that one.  And of course I'm not biased.

b. My seven-year-old daughter Montie probably entertains herself the best of all three. She sings, dances, and strums her guitar through life.  She's bound to end up on a stage somewhere, doing something someday. When she's not creating an epic drama/musical involving Polly Pockets, plastic fairies, rubber technicolor hamsters, Q-tips and wet toilet paper, then she would like to watercolor with me.  Or make an extraordinarily complex and messy art project. Or cook with me. And then I clean up after her.  Very talented and darling child.

c. My 2.5-year-old daughter McAlpine is an angel in a pink tutu, or maybe a baby devil disguised as an angel.  At any rate, she's as adorable as her sister, but not so good at entertaining herself.  She's sort of spoiled, but that's OK because she's my baby.  For amusement, she runs away from me or runs away from me with an object that I have asked her to return to me.  Now that she is learning to form sentences, she is quite chatty, inquisitive and obstinate.  If I do not immediately answer her question, or if I say something she does not want to hear, she likes to reiterate her question or concern, increasing the volume with and pausing between each word and/or syllable for emphasis. Take the time she wanted another cupcake, but she had already eaten a couple of cupcakes, or, at least, the frosting off of a couple of cupcakes.  I said, "McAlpine, you do not need another cupcake."  She responded, "Yes...I...do...need...a...nother...CUP...CAKE...MOMMY!!!!" I can't remember exactly what happened after that, but she probably lost it.  I probably gave her the additional cupcake.  I have no idea why she is spoiled.

So by the time I get the kids in bed, I'm truly exhausted. They are lovely little time sucks, though, and much more important than this blog.  On to Reason #3...

Reason #3: Aside from the normal work and home activities, life is full of some very random distractions.  For instance, on Sunday afternoon my car wouldn't start.  So Libbie picked me up for work Monday morning, and as we approached our building in the office complex, we came across a goose. Really, a goose. A very friendly and fluffy, loose goose. We office in central Austin, so not a likely event.  His wings were clipped, so this goose was obviously someone's pet.  July days in Austin usually top 95+ degrees, so it became our personal project to find the goose's home.  I followed him around the parking lot for a while, ensuring that he did not get hit by a car.  I snapped a few pics on my phone. We bonded. I told him that he could come and live with me if we couldn't find his owner. Then, a neighborhood postman told us that he lived at a certain address, so I picked up the goose, put him in the back of Libbie's jeep, and off we went to pen him in what we thought was his yard.  No one answered the door, but as there were some feathers and bird droppings along with the empty beer cans on the front porch, we returned to work, satisfied. Sad for the goose to have to live in that hovel, but satisfied nonetheless. An hour or so later, our own postman we had seen earlier that morning came to our office and said "I found the owner of the goose!", pointing to a woman shaking a plastic cup full of goose feed.  She did not look like the beer-drinking, living in a hovel-type of woman. Libbie and I told her the current location of the goose, which was NOT her address, so we all jumped in our vehicles and rushed back to the incorrect yard, which now contained a barking dog, but no goose.  The goose's name was Goose, we found out, and we spent the greater portion of the work day driving around the neighborhood, trespassing in order to peer into various backyards, calling for Goose.  In the process, we did see numerous cats and dogs, and even a chicken.  We also heard rumors of a turkey and an anteater. Seriously. Interesting pocket of Austin. We finally all gave up, and Libbie and I felt terribly guilty as we returned to work.  Libbie called the owner before we left, and she told Libbie that, thanks to a Good Samaritan, Goose was on his way to Austin Wildlife Rescue, and the owner would be able to pick him up later that evening.  We were very happy, but very behind at work.

Between work, children, and geese, when the hell am I supposed to blog?  Hopefully it won't be too much longer for the next entry... 

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Well, I'll start blogging at the beginning. Before Mayfly and Junebug's blog could exist, we made the decision to have a new website built for our company.  Previously, I had fiddled around with Dreamweaver, but as a mother of 3 trying to run and grow Mayfly and Junebug, the website was simply not being updated.  

In a very round-about, Austin-y manner, beginning with a suggestion from my good friend Maria Bergh of Giant Media LLC, we ultimately found and hired Grant Chambers of Create Multimedia LLC  (http://www.createmedianow.com/) to build our new site.  We love it and have already received many compliments from our retailers, family, and friends.

We were lucky enough to happen upon a great photographer, too...Thomas Bacon, who freelances when he is not working at Create Multimedia.  Thomas was responsible for most of the photography on our site, and I was quite impressed by how much he accomplished on a 95 degree+ afternoon here in Austin with eight children running amuck.

Grant and Thomas understood our tight schedule and, against the odds, managed to hit the target launch date.  I was delighted to send out a mass text announcing the new site from the Rainbow Room in NYC, where Libbie, Jenny, Leeann, Nancy and I were attending an event celebrating the end of the first day of National Stationery Show.  It was the perfect finale to an amazing day for us.  Thank you, Grant and Thomas!

Hugs and kisses to all the little ones who played along at the photo shoot, too: Lucy, Thompson, Emma, Stella, Brodie, Annabelle, McAlpine, and Sabine- although McAlpine (my 2.5 year old) wasn't really in a participatory mood, and Sabine was sleeping most of the time (she can't help it- she's only 6 months old!) For the record, that is adorable Lucy holding McAlpine's plate in the photo above.

Stay tuned...the next segment will be all about the National Stationery Show and the great time we had in NYC! -Kelly

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