Stress, stress, stress!

Stress, stress, stress! I hate change and everything seems to be changing and stressful this week. Hubby finally has a weekend off work so he is going to help me get on top of everything over the next couple of days (that's the plan but the list that I need help with is very long). My website guy is working on changing the entire set up of the tarantulas. He will be uploading it this weekend so fingers crossed that goes to plan. It is pretty complicated for us but should make it much easier for everyone to find exactly which species and size I have available. At present I have the tarantulas listed in alphabetical order according to their common name but this needs to change, common names really don't mean much. One spider may have several 'common names' but only one scientific name.

I have been on the phone and exchanging emails with Worldpay this week, I will probably be adding their services to my current payment options but again it is complicated. I have been sent a huge number of terms, I couldn't possible read (or understand) all of them but we will be sorting this out too at the weekend. PayPal is great but I would like a separate card payment option to run alongside it.

We have bought a new super duper label printer, it was getting difficult to find the labels that my current printer uses. The printer is several years old which is very old for technology. The new printer is made by Dymo and can do lots of things like printing both paper labels and the plastic labels that I use in my bug room. It's a bit like "Magical Merlin" (my iPhone), he can do everything but I struggle to understand much of it. I wanted to record a strange bird song in the woods opposite our house recently so I requested 'record', my phone clearly didn't understand this request and decided to play my playlist (records?) full blast. I was collecting bramble at the time, it was early morning and I couldn't shut it up quick enough!

I have been busy trying to simplify things in my bug room this week. It is only just over two weeks until we go on our 'winning' cruise. My daughter did pretty well when we went to Cyprus last month but I realised that a few bits and pieces needed to change. I never have enough room but somehow I need to shift everything that needs daily care into one area. It would be even better if I could sell some of these animals but who knows what will sell next week. I have lots of offers running but there seems to be no way of influencing peoples spending habits. Last week I had loads of orders and this week just a few. It is often a struggle to keep everything going, I spend hours each day caring for the animals (the cleaning and feeding is constant) but I don't make any money unless I actually sell some. It is very difficult to keep up the momentum when orders are thin on the ground. I love my bugs but nobody would choose to look after this many! I often think about what else I could do but when looking in the local paper I don't think I am qualified for much. I will have to just keep going and hopefully the current changes to my website will help. It is difficult for me to know when people are having problems navigating my website because few people give any feedback. I really appreciate it when someone takes the time to point out a problem because if I don't know something is wrong then I cannot fix it.

I made a big mistake this week when I moved my Black Beauty and Malaysian Green Jewel stick insects into a large Exo Terre vivarium. They both feed on Privet and I thought it would be easier for my daughter if they were in a more prominent position in the bug room and condensed into one easily manageable cage. Unfortunately the Black Beauties like to roam around at night and decided to break out. I hadn't realised that they could fit through the tiny cracks in the door and lid. The lid I have blocked up but there is nothing I can do about the doors as I need to be able to open them. I have recaptured as many nymphs as I could but most have sadly perished at the hands of the multitude of spiders who flourish in the warmth of my bug room. The Malaysian Green Jewels are fine though and growing rapidly. They are beautiful stick insects. The recaptured Black Beauties are now back in their old cage but the worst thing is that I tipped all the emerging eggs into the new vivarium and I have no way of getting them out so I will be checking the cage regularly for newly hatched nymphs.

I have recently received several orders from new customers who do not provide me with a phone number when registering on my site. One day this is going to prove a real problem. I sometimes receive orders where the customer's email address is incorrect. It only takes one slip on the keyboard, the address registered is what I see on my site and I therefore cannot contact this customer as all emails will bounce back. If I don't have a phone number either then I have absolutely no way of contacting the person. Only this morning an order has come in with an incorrect email address. I think it is just a keyboard slip as I doubt the address is Mario spelt Maario but I have a phone number so I can text a 'despatched' message. With no contact details this person would not know when to expect delivery of their order. Another thing to try and tackle this weekend!

Well I had better get a move on. I need to sort all the paperwork on my desk today in case everything goes haywire and I can't get into the computer at the weekend!