Organized Chaos (Patreon)

Today is a huge day that I’ve been working tirelessly for since mid January.

Today is the day that our online store gets taken over by a 3rd party shipping company!

Since I introduced apparel to the store in early 2019 I have been a slave to packing and processing orders everyday. I hate to complain because I’m so lucky to have this form of income and to be able to work from my own home. The store has opened up so many opportunities for growth that I would simply have not been able to attain without it. I’m able to fully provide for every animal here without any inhibition. If I want to expand an enclosure which costs thousands of dollars, I don’t think twice. It has funded so much for the animals and myself over the last few years. I’m beyond grateful, but it has taken over my days. Even on days where the work load is less, I feel anxious to work instead of rest because I know if I rest there will be twice as much work tomorrow.

My routine each day has revolved around fulfilling orders, managing the shop, and animal care. Most days go something like this:

-Wake up

-Check Animals

-Check messages regarding orders and spend my morning responding

-print shipping labels

-pack orders for multiple hours

-clean animal enclosures and rooms for multiple hours

-prep animal food

- drive 30 minutes to the post office to drop off orders (most days) and 30 minutes back

-try to make content for socials and patreon

-enrichment time for the animals

-feed everyone

-give everyone fresh water

-make myself dinner

-take the dogs for a walk

-check emails

-let newt and howie play in the room supervised

-time to myself from 10pm to 12pm

-bed

Between the animals and running this business I have been left with very little human time. Even on days where the work load is less it only means work in another form. When I wasn’t packing orders for hours I needed to do inventory, update listings, troubleshoot any issues customers had, organize the packing areas, restock items and materials that were rubbing low, etc. It helped so much when I had the help of my brother and my two employees. However, my brother took a trucking job in March of last year and shortly after one of my employees went back to school and the other quit without notice the same day. Since I do this all from my own home I’ve been hesitant to hire anyone else. It’s difficult having someone in your home everyday working around you; awkward really. They would also need to be someone I trusted and not just a stranger because of the safety of my animals. I was even more hesitant to try to move to drop shipping because it would mean less income for the sanctuary. I really didn’t want to take a hit financially because I’ve been saving to buy more land for future expansion. So, since July of last year I have been managing everything on my own again for the first time since early 2019 and now that I have more animals and the store grew rapidly it’s been extremely unrealistic for one person to do. I’ve done the best I can, but things have definitely taken a decline in all areas of business and in my personal life. I realized in January it was finally time for a change regardless of if it meant less profit. My time was more valuable. So I started looking for fulfillment companies.

So today feels like the world has been lifted off of my shoulders.

The shipping company just hauled off all of our totes of merchandise and now I feel like I’m finally going to have time to be peaceful with my little loves, mental space to be creative, time to finally finish renovating my house, and slowly but surely continue to expand the sanctuary.

My body is so tired from all the moving, lifting, and organizing, but I couldn’t be happier right now.