Woman on a Mission

I have been BASKING in all the comments this week as if they were warm, golden sunshine -- a rare commodity here in the Pacific Northwest. Merci beaucoup to everyone who has taken the time to leave a comment en route to grab Monday's freebie. I've enjoyed hearing how you are spending your busy summer, too!

Now I have to tell a joke on myself....

I have been packing, getting ready for the move as well as doubling up on my physical therapy exercises before I leave my regular caretakers. The Hubby has been working 10 hour days, so I've even been -- are you sitting down for this? -- I've even been cooking!:)

Obviously, listing new items in my shop have taken a back burner. But Wednesday it struck me that in honor of my move I should list a particular card which I've used on my blog before but never worked up as a scan for sell. This particular card shows a Victorian woman laden with items under her arms and in her hands.

SO....Wednesday morning I set out to locate this ONE card. Now, these are not my 'average, run of the mill, everyday 100-year-old' postcards that I keep in shoeboxes to sell. No, these are my stash. Ones I collect with the intention of restoring and keeping. I keep them at arms length in various containers around my desk .... piled here ... and there ....and there.... and there, too:)

I think, OK, this is my chance to get better organized. As I go through the cards, I'll start prioritizing which ones to get listed first, which ones are already scanned but not listed, which ones I've been keeping for my personal collection, which ones are my book material and so forth.

I allowed myself two distractions when I found a couple of scans I just "had" to get listed on Etsy immediately. Remember I wrote about this new thing I'm doing, listing free scans that folks can help themselves to? I know I post freebies here, but you'd be surprised at the number of people who don't read blogs. They just don't. Blogs are something foreign to them. So, I'm trying out this new ploy, uh, I mean marketing strategy, to entice prospective customers. Here's one I listed:

This is the sort of image that I don't feel right about charging for. It's shabby chic to the max -- but I love it! For the right project, I think my Smiling Ghost would be so perfect:) The card has such a "feel" to it and I am touched by this smile lasting through the century...

And then I came across this one:

So simple. It's not French, but it is an antique card and you know I'm crazy about red:) Clone out or cut out the 'good luck' and turn it into a Thanksgiving invitation!

Not only did I get them listed, I even FILED them with my new organizing system:

Well, OK. Two labeled cards do not exactly constitute a system, but .... a humble beginning? [chagrin] In the meantime, I take care of an order from Canada and my first-ever order from Argentina. The South American lady buys a peacock scan and when referring her to other selections I have in my Zibbet shop, I realize that one of them needs to be revised (I've learned so much since I started working in Photoshop!)  I work on the revisions and I'm so impressed with the results, I have to post it on Etsy, too. Meanwhile, back on Zibbet, the newly revised scan sells almost immediately to one of my prized loyal repeat buyers.
Proud and doing my own strutting routine, I'm back on my mission: find that "moving" card. I'm going through the vintage sewing drawer that houses some of my cards and the wooden box where I store others and finally I tackle the big blue toile fabric box....and I'm running out of flat surface space....

I get a lovely order from a fellow Oregonian that takes some time to fill. This is followed by some email exchanges on a furniture painting class I hope to take, discovered through a new blog I found (more about that another time:)  But I'm soon back on track like a hound dog, focused on finding that card. I've gone through several hundred cards and still no sign of my moving lady and I know she has to be here somewhere because how many times have I looked at her, flipping through my piles, and always moving her to the front, to the top pile, to get listed, right?

But stack after stack....she's nowhere to be found.

I retrace my steps and look around through my library cabinet drawers, recheck the shelves on the 3 book cases that surround my desk. 

No moving lady. 

Not even a forwarding address. 

I'm not having a hot flash, but I am just about at my wit's end, wondering where this elusive card could be. I sit back down at my desk befuddled. A couple of my treasured pretties are stacked on my desk corner, waiting for just the right box to be packed with extra care. 

And that's when I spied a small stack of cards under the cigar box, a petit pile of top priorty I had set aside in my previous "get organzied" effort....

It's 20 minutes till 4 and I have finally found my lady!

Yes, but of course! I couldn't see her because she was right in front of me!:)*

And now you understand why this book is on my bedside table:
  "The Woman Who Changed Her Brain" by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young. 

Barbara was in some ways a genius and yet she couldn't tell time. She continually got lost, was uncoordinated and read backwards. But through a series of events, she chanced upon research that led her to invent cognitive exercises to "fix" her own brain. 
I'm eager to see if there are any exercises on helping the part of the brain that deals with organizational functions!

*Moving Lady here in Zibbet for $3.49 or here on Etsy for $3.99.