Category: status update

Overdue status/life update, Sep 2023

COUPON/QR CODES

Simplest thing first. If you got a printout with an order this year saying something like “sorry for the chaos” with a QR code on it offering you a dollar amount off your next order, and if it has a deadline on it to use the coupon code, you can ignore the deadline. I don’t even know why it originally had one – force of habit I guess. But I got rid of the expiration date. The code is good until the end of 2023.

LIFE UPDATE

Now the more complex thing(s).

What I’ve been telling the public is that I was going to split my time between Louisiana and Alabama in order to do research in both places for my Bayou Hoodoo Herbal. That was not a lie. But it wasn’t the whole story, either.

The rest of the bigger picture is that my partner and I were at a point in 2021 where we had to figure out if we could still work as a couple. In January of 2022, we finally determined that we could not, but we had to figure out what we were going to do about that, practically speaking, since we have 10 years’ worth of financial entanglement, plus joint responsibilities for our animals, plus the fact that I need a lot of these plants I have growing here for my work, etc. In addition, it would be absolutely impossible to maintain this place if only one person was doing the work, especially if their day job kept them away from it during daylight hours. And of course I was without my own reliable transportation at the time.

I figured we were adults who could communicate, and we’d known each other for 35 years, and we were both operating in good faith and with a benevolent attitude, so we could totally make this living-with-your-ex thing work. But I also figured we needed to get used to this new reality after 10 years and have some time to figure out what we can and want to do, so my spending time in Louisiana would give us some space for that. So that was the plan.

Y’all, ABSOLUTELY NO PART OF THIS WENT ACCORDING TO PLAN.

The year or two preceding our breaking up had a lot of rough patches. But the time since we broke up? Has been total hell at a level I simply never anticipated or could have imagined. The Dante kind. With, like, serpent-headed mythological creatures and fiery lakes and some shadowy bastard who likes to preach aphorisms at you until you want to punch him in the throat. It has been painful and chaotic and frustrating and unhealthy and a financial and logistical nightmare.

So things have been hectic for a while, and my last stint in Louisiana was *desperately* needed at that point, but then in May, shit basically went off the rails. All my plans got shot up because we had to make some adjustments for some family emergencies. Among other things, there was some stuff going on in Louisiana that essentially meant someone else needed that space I was occupying more than I did.

So I came back to Alabama ahead of schedule on very short notice in May, and I not only wasn’t caught up – I walked into a house that immediately sent my allergic asthma into overdrive, and for a little lagniappe, there was a severe flea infestation that was not being dealt with at all. So that was about 6 weeks of hell and poison and constant vacuuming and laundry, all of which I did by myself, and during which the dryer decided to commit suicide.

No sooner do I get the dryer thing and finally the flea thing resolved, and a storm fucks up a bunch of our trees, fences, and electronics. We lose internet, and getting it back is going to be both expensive and a commitment, one I was iffy about making since I don’t know if I’ll be living here long enough for that investment to be worth it.

Then the fucking AC goes out – you know, in Alabama, during a long spell of extreme temperature advisories. I *had* to get that sorted regardless of how much longer I’ll be living here. But there went my “operating expenses cushion” that I had in business savings – the money I had set aside to ensure that I could absorb the impact of the stray chargeback or paypal dispute and still stay in operation, order supplies, ship packages, etc.

So of course, right on cue, here come some chargebacks and disputes. So I’ve been sitting on a big bin of packages that are just waiting on shipping labels, which I’m printing as I can as funds become available.

This has been… er, well, a real workout! And it’s been going on for like 18 months now. I take spiritual baths like they’re gonna be illegal next week, but I’m gonna be real, y’all – this is some serious uphill battle territory and I’ve been sucking wind. I have been so far behind that trying to be logical and organized about it wasn’t even working anymore – I just ended up running from emergency to emergency, reacting to All the Things but never getting in front of any of them.

I still have a ton of stuff in Louisiana, and about once a week I look for something, fail to find it, and figure I must have left it there so I have to order some more. If there’s some larger cosmic lesson here I’m meant to be learning that I just haven’t convinced the universe I’ve absorbed yet, I don’t know what it is (except I’d bet folding money it involves *living by myself*).

But I’ll tell you two things I know for sure:

Splitting your time between two different states when you are running a business that isn’t super portable and you don’t have your own transportation? Recipe for disaster.

Living with your ex? I’m sure the people exist somewhere who are mature enough, level-headed enough, compassionate and forgiving and patient enough, for something like that to be genuinely workable and not involve constant misery for one or both parties. But it turns out that we are not those people.

So that is why I have been a total disaster of a human being for a while now — basically the long, drawn out, and painful dissolution of a 10-year partnership and the loss of everything I’d poured all my money, energy, sweat, and time into for so long, as it became clear over the course of 2022 that I cannot continue to live on this land, followed by my hopes for Plan B — aka Louisiana — going up in smoke (though not until after I had spent a significant amount of money and time getting the “field office” set up over there).

As for internet, I’m limping along, though it’s slow going. Obviously I have a phone, but all my platforms and data are in the cloud, and a lot of them don’t work all that well or have full functionality on mobile. So I’ve spent a nauseating amount of money on data trying to use my phone as a wifi hotspot and a significant amount of time researching other options. And I think I’ve finally found an affordable data plan that I can have in place by the end of this month.

And I should have a vehicle that runs and is legal pretty soon.

I still don’t know exactly when I’m going to have the means to move or where I’m going to live when I finally do. However, I’m definitely not even going to consider splitting my time between two different places, never mind states, until I’m finally, totally caught up.

Getting Caught Up

At this point, what I need in order to get caught up is a much more reliable cashflow, a clear head, time, and the lack of any more unexpected expenses for a while. Not all of that is within my control or is something I can order off Amazon, of course 🙂 but I do have a couple of ideas I can put into play pretty much right away.

Phone/chat appointments to take care of the backlog for readings and consultations. With how crazy everything has been, it’s become painfully clear that if it’s going to happen, it has to be scheduled and that time has to be locked in. The days of my fitting a few email consultations in when I have a few minutes are apparently long gone, because those “few minutes” simply never exist. Sonia and I have been working on the logistics of how folks can sign up for appointment slots and how to manage the actual phone calls or chat sessions or whatever. I should be making a decision and getting the signup links to folks with existing bookings over the next few days. But I am still totally clueless about a lot of the new apps and tech that exist now, so if any of y’all have any recommendations, I would love to hear them.

Support me via Ko-fi. If you would like to help me get this ship floating right again after the storms it’s weathered — or you’d just like to see me have the time and headspace to write some actual blog posts instead of just stuff like *this* — you can make a one-time or recurring donation to support my work via Ko-fi. In the near future, I plan on establishing some rewards and early access bonuses to thank my supporters, and I’ll announce that once it’s all in place.

Order backlog. This is a problem that only money can solve, so I have the funds free to order materials and supplies and to buy shipping labels. But one thing that would help is if people would stop with the disputes and chargebacks. They are 7000% a violation of the Client Agreement and Terms of Service and they fuck things up for the customers and clients who are patiently waiting their turn.

Packages going out late have little cards in them with a QR/coupon code good for a dollar amount off a future order. Ignore any expiration date on there – you can use it all year. If you run into any problems using it, contact us and we’ll figure it out for you.

Light setting reports. I have finally cobbled together a system that mostly works pretty well to avoid any more problems with getting different apps and platforms to talk to each other, so photographs are matched up to their respective order numbers much more easily now. This has been such a giant problem that light setting reports are in some cases so late that the report itself will probably be of very little use now. In those cases, I will be sending the pertinent photos along with a very brief summary and a gift card to make up for the fact that you didn’t get a report you could use within a reasonable amount of time. Those have already begun going out and will continue to go out until I’m caught up them.

Status update

Still no internet at Seraphin Station — this has been going on for weeks now– but I have reason to be slightly optimistic about both a new modem and an appointment with a tech person being in our near future finally. So I am hopeful that this will finally be resolved before the end of next week. Cross your fingers for us!

status update

Alabama’s had some nasty weather lately, including some storms that brought some tornadoes, knocked out some of our electronics, and knocked down some of our trees. We’ve been without internet and I have no idea when that will be remedied. I’m doing what I can using phone data, but everything takes 10 times longer and is just hella frustrating.

I just didn’t want anybody to think I was lying around sipping mint juleps and deliberately ignoring them. It’s just been nonstop fun since I landed back in Alabama (a few weeks earlier than I’d planned due to a family emergency) and was met with a raging flea infestation and a dryer that decided to commit suicide right when I needed to wash All The Things All The Time. (And my tentative declaration of victory against the fleas was a little premature, heh…)

But I am going to stay put — no more traveling — until I’m actually, truly caught up. The working-from-two-states-without-a-reliable-vehicle-of-my-own thing was, bluntly, a disaster, so I’ll be operating out of Alabama only for now.

And hopefully there’ll be some good news about internet in the next few days, God willing.

Status update

We have internet going at Haphazard Station now, and the laptop works when I hold my mouth right and the stars are aligned. The printer is working and I am finally pretty close to completely stocked on herbs. So I’m shipping orders out from here and catching up on the godawful backlog.

Folks who have been waiting way beyond the published processing times on orders, I am either sending you cool goodies along with your order if I’m sure you’d like them, or I’m sending you the means to pick out cool goodies yourself, so don’t just toss your packaging without looking at everything – there could be a coupon code in there.

I’m really sorry things have been so chaotic for so long now, but I am finally getting my feet underneath me again, for real. It hasn’t gone as smoothly as I would have liked, to put it mildly, but it *is* going 🙂

I am so grateful for y’all that have stuck by me and been more patient than I could ever have any right to expect. For real. It’s been a rough year, but y’all make it worthwhile. Thank you.

Status Update – Shipping & Response Delays

I’ve been in the process of setting up my “field office” at Haphazard Station in Louisiana, and in fact just about had it effectively set up – I shipped a number of orders from there last week.

Last weekend, I headed back to Seraphin Station in Alabama to catch up on things that had to be done from there and pack up another carload. I made it to Slidell, just shy of the LA/MS state line. Then my car died.

Finally got the mechanic verdict: I no longer have a car.

Then of course somebody did a chargeback in the middle of all of this, so they got a bunch of free stuff and I got fined by my payment processor. So I took a day and a bit to hang out in Slidell stranded, have a meltdown, and finally marshal what was left of my sanity to figure out my next move.

Long story short, this week so far has pretty much been nonstop stress, chaos, and frankly devastating expense as I’ve been figuring out how to roll with this new situation that effectively means my stuff is spread out across three states. So I am incredibly grateful for your patience and understanding right now.

I’ll be honest – I got knocked down for a minute there. But I’m not staying down. Rest assured no orders have gotten lost, and I promise I am not ignoring anybody on purpose. I’m busting my butt to get a grip on it and adjust fire with my agenda and plans. I’m currently back in Alabama at Seraphin Station and as of today, I have a big bin of packages ready for the next batch of shipping labels, which I should be able to print after I get done prepping for the freeze we’re gonna have tonight. Which I needed to go out and start ten minutes ago.

Y’all who observe such, pour one out for those trickster gods for me if you have a sec 🙂

Contact and intake form update

I’ve fixed the problem with the contact and intake forms.

The contact form issue was resolved by going back to the old form and the old form host. Important: This means that the host we were using to exchange messages after your initial form submission *no longer works.* I still have the record of the convo, and I will contact you without going through that platform if I need to reply. If *you* need to reply and hitting “reply” doesn’t work, just send the email to support @ seraphinstation.com instead.

The intake form issue was resolved by getting rid of intake forms entirely. Now, when you want to book a service or need to provide customization info, you should see a form right there on the product or service page that you will fill out *before* checkout. This means fewer boxes to fill out, as well, since the whole thing will be part of your order and so I don’t need you to retype your name/email/etc. or look up your service order number.

This is pretty much what I spent last week doing (sigh) so I really hope that *this* time, I have found a solution that will work and keep on working for more than a minute. But if you run into any issues, please let me know so I can figure them out for you.

As you can imagine, I made very little progress on the backlog due to having to put out *this* fire, but I’m back to working on the backlog now 🙂