Fall Planning

It’s been a very slow summer in regards to making pottery. I had hoped to produce more, but happily traded productivity for pool time with my kids. Monday they will both be back full time, and I will then have some hours in the day to do something with, I figure about 30 hours a week.

Here’s my estimated breakdown, which coincidentally does not add up to 30 hours:

• (8-10 hrs) My fall graduate course “Introduction to Land and Water Engineering” has jumped up to eight students, so that will certainly take a chunk of my week to grade assignments and help them with the problems.
• (6-8 hrs) Pottery at Pullen two days a week would be something reasonable to shoot for. I could spend one day making and one day finishing off the greenware. I glaze and fire at home.
• (5 hrs) Lunch/nap/relaxation
• (5 hrs) Housework and meal prep/grocery shopping
• (3-5 hrs) Exercise is something I need to be regular with. I can combine exercise and computer work into one daily trip to the YMCA.
• (2-5 hrs) Volunteer at school

Chances are that a decent bit of school work will be done in the evenings after the kids are in bed, so my day hours will have a lot of flexibility. There’s also a good chance some days will be completely blown piddling around the garden or just crashed on the couch. That’s allowed.

While I didn’t get around to pumping out pottery this summer, there are five new oval fern platters listed on my Etsy store. I’d love to put some focus into the business side of things — seeing which pieces generate the most interest and at what price point interest converts to sales. I have ZERO marketing or business training, and up until now, I haven’t been able to really consider that an option. I’ve fallen back on “Oh, it’s just a hobby,” but now that I have a little more time, I could attempt to grow it.