Love & Blunder

Way to go Government! This is Olivia’s explanation of the situation:

“The government wants to tell Mom that she’s not allowed to sew. They made a mistake in their law and Mom needs to write them a letter so that they will let her sew again.”

The new law, H.R.4040, to go into effect on February 10th will make it so that I will not be able to sell my hand made clothes, dolls and slings without submitting each batch (every item being individual means each item will be a batch) for 3rd party lead and phylate testing. I agree that these items should not be in toys and clothing. That’s one of the reasons that I prefer to buy handmade and wooden toys. The other reason being my support for small and cottage businesses like my own. But H.R.4040 will place such stringent requirements on these businesses making it almost impossible to operate. You can find out more about this law and its possible repercussions here.

I’ve already contacted my Congress Person and Senator requesting a provision in the law to protect small businesses. Sherrod Brown (D- OH) has replied, though not very satisfactorily. If anyone is interested in his response leave a comment and I can email it to you. My biggest frustration is that no one is offering a step by step solution for how to bring my goods into compliance with the law. As it is right now I have to decide whether I’m going to quit selling slings and children’s materials or if I’m going to be a quality-goods bootlegger. Please contact your respective elected officials and emphasize the need for a simple way for small and cottage businesses to comply with the law.

Like I said, way to go Government! Way to make criminals out of people just trying to make their own way.

Olivia was trying to play an imaginary game with Elise. It involved a bunch of random figurines of which Elise was assigned a painted dinosaur. Obviously she wanted one of the cooler ones, like the T-rex or maybe the horse and fairy. Some argument ensued and then Olivia came and said to Rob:

“Dad, I gave Elise two choices– play with the painted dinosaur or wear a hat. Can you make her do one of them?”

I think we’d been married 2 years when Rob read Getting Things Done by David Allen. He was moved and inspired and insisted that I read it as well. I couldn’t even understand what the guy was talking about. Write stuff down to get it out of your head? If it takes less than 2 minutes do it right away? I’d be running around the house writing fractured thoughts and folding socks and sweeping the porch and folding more socks in succession. It wouldn’t be any different than the way I already am only with added guilt that I was supposed to be organized now.

So I spent the next 3 years ignoring Rob’s suggestion for programs and habits that will get my frenetic brain under control. NO way! You organized people cannot help Head-in-the-clouds people like me. You’ll just squash my creativity!

Well, he showed me how to use Google Reader and I was OK with that. Now I could remember who’s blogs were fun to read without having to follow my old rabbit trails. That got my defenses down.

Now he’s got me using delicious. That’s not too bad, it keeps pages organized for me, I just have to tell them the Tag that goes with it and I don’t have to think about it again until I need it. Passive organization.

Then something I never thought would happen has just occurred. I found myself laying out my planned blog posts for my craft blog in Google Calendar. Woah. That can only be real planning. Real organization. Rob has taken me to the dark side. I’m sure it’s a passing phase…