I have held a Black Friday sale for almost the entire time Field of Dolls Studio has existed. They have changed several times over the years. Somewhere around 2019 or 2020, maybe slightly earlier, I decided to go with the live sale format. It was fun and interactive. It also potentially took a really long time. The live sale itself has gone through several versions, including the newest, which is several years old now, the semi-live sale. This year I was happier than ever to not be fully live.
I spent a lot of time waiting for my connection to come back as it waffled in and out. This, among many other things, was very frustrating for me. I was also frustrated by my incredibly perimenopausal brain. Now if that topic makes you uncomfortable, that's just too bad. Perimenopause makes me uncomfortable. I can go from hot to cold in the blink of an eye. I lose my train of thought often and sometimes spectacularly. I have managed to mostly knock out night sweats but I have plenty of other life interrupting symptoms. For those of you who are tempted to say "you're too young" I am actually older than I look. Evidenced by how many people who seem genuinely shocked when they find out how old I am. For reference, I have 2 grown children. Elecktra is close to 30 than 20. Just saying. Anyway, Friday was the absolute worst for perimenopause brain. I don't think I have ever been that scattered or forgetful. And while I told people to go ahead and laugh at me because it's funny (it is funny) it's also not really funny at all. I really wish that medicine would catch up with the fact that while this is natural and happens to almost all women, there really should be more things that are taught about it, so everyone knows what to expect, or what they might have to deal with. And it would be super if there were more things to help with it. I used to be incredibly smart. Some days I still am. Some days are apparently like last Friday.
Not only was I super easily distracted on Friday, but I seemed to almost completely lose the ability to multitask, something I am usually very good at. I had managed to pull out the prize wheel, and I even found the bag of prizes, but I forgot all about them. So no prizes happened. If I had thought about it before right this second I might have just added a little something to everyone's package. But I forgot. Did you ever forget? It happened to me. A lot lately. But anyway, in a semi-live sale I spend a lot of time looking down (all the better for you to admire my awesome lashes) but this time around there was even more of it because I kept forgetting to check the page, to write on bags. Sometimes I was trying to gather thoughts. They were quite elusive. It was quite frustrating.
Not a lot of people watched the live portion of things, which was fine, since nothing of importance was happening there. This year it was really watching me work and watching me try to get through a single thought. Some of those thoughts took about 20 minutes to get all the way out because I kept losing the train. But there was a bit of interaction, including someone complimenting my hair and me showing more of it. Even as frustrating as the live was, I still enjoyed it. I won't abandon them just yet.
So Friday was pretty rough but now I seem to be doing better. I can hold a thought, or find it again fairly quickly if I lose it. I managed to do all of the invoicing yesterday, packed every package, and everyone that paid got postage put on their package. Tomorrow I will bring everything that is ready to go to the post office. And the last few packages can go in my mailbox with the flag up (yup, I am old enough to know that trick) when they get paid for. And then, just like that, my 2025 Black Friday sale will be over. They take so long to plan and prep and then some hyper-focus for a couple of days and then... done. And back to regular doll making and listing.
I don't do a lot of random posting on line and I don't usually talk much about my personal life. Some people who read my blog thing I am very open and share a lot. I really only share a tiny sliver or my life. Right now though I decided I just don't care and I am going to share a little bit more. Perimenopause sucks. It is hard. Our society makes a lot of jokes about it, and most of us join in because really, laugh or cry I guess. But there are times when it is very hard. Last weekend it was hard to get off the couch. I didn't want to do anything, including read (I love reading, BTW) so I ended up either watching crap on my phone or watching TV. And then being mad at myself about it. Friday I was the most scatterbrained that I have ever been. And it was awful. I try to remember to do a post at least once a month, and sometimes, I am sure, I have slacked on that. I don't seem to have a lot of time. I keep cutting things out that at one point were incredibly important to me. Like journaling every morning. Now I do that maybe once a week, or just twice a month. Sleep is more important than that, even if I am not all that great at sleeping anymore.
I don't really know how to wrap this up so I guess I will just say, thanks to everyone that bought anything during my Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales. Thanks for coming to the live portion, even if it was just for a short bit to see what was going on. Thanks for reading my blog and continuing the be supportive of my work. Have a great Sunday!
