Working With A Baby In Your Lap Is...

… so easy!

Especially when your tasks are tedious and/or require concentration!

I’m kidding of course.

And yet somehow I did manage to get our Spruceton Inn online shop up and running yesterday:

This past week has been a lot of computer chores like that. Including today when I found myself in a clusterf*ck of third party merchant services because my reservation system suddenly stopped supporting the one we’d been using for years without freaking warning us. In simpler terms: all of sudden we couldn’t process anyone’s credit cards. UGH. I fixed it, but seriously, UGH.

The week before was a little more analog in our tasks. We built an entirely new back bar at the Inn with no notice because our 3-part sink was giving us trouble and the new one we ordered was a liiiiittle bigger than the online measurements had said and next thing you know we’re cannibalizing workshop tables from the barn—

Hammock chairs are good for briefly containing toddlers so you can take care of things with both hands (with the baby strapped to you).

…and turning them into back-bar tops with the plumbers—

… because they were there that day to winterize the barn and damn if we weren’t gonna get it all finished before the next guest checked in. All of which required me to take literally EVERYTHING out from behind the bar (that picture on the right isn’t even a quarter of it)—

… which meant a deep clean and paint touch ups and re-organizing it all to put it back but I DID it! Just in time.

Meanwhile Steven has been working away on the third book of his Astronut series, plus the final art for his other middle grade book about being a middle kid, and another book project about which I’m not allowed to say much quite yet but you get the picture; HE’S REALLY FUCKING BUSY TOO.

Not to mention Felix was going through a classic four-month old sleep regression and getting up—no exaggeration—every two hours, so in addition to all this work madness we decided to move her into her own room, trade her basinet for a crib, and swap her swaddle for a sleep sac all while we attempted to teach her to self-soothe (via The Little Ones program we loved so much for Amina).

I know.

Is it any surprise to hear that I’ve left the valley exactly twice in the past month?

It’s nutty. It’s nutty! But there’s still time for tender fun like playing piano with Amina and painting her toes for the first time (she chose two different blues) and getting outside all together even when it’s barely twenty degrees and it takes just as long to get everyone bundled as we spend out there.