- I find the barest of information from our Textiles designers on a server in Germany (thankfully it's in English -- well, Germish).
- I copy and paste the basics into the Excel template I need to prepare. Easy step.
- Based on the Textiles info, I then write the Product Description (at least 75 words), taking care to included proper keywords; the Meta title (65 characters); the Meta description (155-320 characters); and 5 bullet points (Unique Selling Points) for each of 50-100 styles per season, once in fall and once in spring. If I'm lucky, I have a set of physical samples of the products that I can look at to ensure accuracy.
- If there are any color extensions of previous styles, I have to add those in. Half the time I don't know where to find out. Check for any particular USPs for new colors; edit meta fields to include correct new colors.
- Do a huge spell check and format the file correctly.
- Do a huge Find/Replace from US to UK English (I'm supposed to provide the UK version, even though I live in the US, lol. What's worse is that, once it's uploaded to the US site, the person in charge of the US site doesn't ever change those spellings back, so we have "colours" and "favourites" and "accessorise" which makes me crazy.)
- Send it off to the e-commerce guy, who doesn't even look over it before he uploads it (I assume).
- (I don't even know how the translation to German, French, Danish, Spanish, Dutch and all the other languages takes place.)
After that, I hear all kinds of comments about how this or that isn't accurate, or this style has been cancelled, or this new one has been added in, and I take it all personally, even though I've done my very best.
I both love it and hate it. I love it because it's a good lot of work and keeps me busy, and makes me feel like I know things. I hate it because of everything I said above.
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It helped me to type all that out, so thanks for reading or skimming -- or skipping -- it.
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We spent our Christmas in Savannah. Well, just a couple of days of it. Drove down on Saturday morning, and came back Monday (Christmas Day) in the afternoon. I don't know how I feel about it. It was lovely in many ways -- Christmas Eve dinner around Nanny's table was particularly poignant and nice.
I do love my mom-in-law and I feel bad for her, she's had a really tough run of it lately. Since about 2013 when my FIL got sick, and probably long before that, to be quite honest. She's so kind and sweet and good. She's got some habits that drive Shawn and me both crazy, and, as is usually the case, they seem to be getting worse as she gets older. She needs help around the house and my BIL refuses to help her, though he lives only half an hour away. We feel like he should be at her house at least a few times a month, especially since October 2016 when Hurricane Matthew dropped a tree on her roof. She hasn't lived in her house since then, until just this past weekend, because we were coming to visit. When we arrived, she and the friends she's been living with were in a frenzy of cleaning. Vacuuming, dusting, bathrooms, mopping -- because of course she hadn't gotten around to it yet. We definitely caught them all off-guard by arriving early, and I know she was trying to make it seem like she was ready all along.
We presume that she wouldn't have moved back at all if we hadn't said we were coming. And maybe that would have been easier for her, but we thought we were doing the right thing, going to see her out of love and respect. You know? We don't want her to feel unloved by us, or lonely. She can't or won't come up to visit us, for some reason. It's really hard to know what to do, and where it's all going to go next. We probably should plan some more weekend trips to help her put things away (including her mother's things, who died this year, another emotional blow) and/or sell/trash other things... but we also have our own lives here, with plenty to keep us busy on weekends, and not a real huge desire to get involved in her mess down there -- it's not much fun. Of course, we're called, I guess, to GET INVOLVED IN THE MESS, as Christians. God got involved in our mess down here on Earth at Christmas, in fact (I learned that from an Advent prayer program, didn't think of it myself. It convicted me a bit, I'll admit!)... but it's hard. I love you, Shawn, and I love your Mom. I want us to do right by her. It's hard to know what to do, though, isn't it?
The kids had a good time in the two hours we visited with their little cousins. There wasn't enough time to visit with their Gammy, but I know they were happy to see her. And they enjoyed the opening of presents (Santa made it). Shawn said at one particularly frustrating moment, though, that 'we won't be going down there for Christmas again,' and... I was not sad he'd said it. I'm not sure I want to send the kids to her house for a week in the summer, either; I just don't know that she can handle it, or that they would have a good time sitting in her house mostly, with the secondhand smoke.
So pray for us, that we know the next right thing.
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It helped me to type all that out.
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We have no major plans for New Year's, except that I get to have Jan. 2 and 3 off work. So next week will only be a 2-day week, hooray! I don't mind working THIS week since I get so much of next week off. I mean, I would RATHER be at home enjoying the rest of the holiday, but I'm okay here.
Better get back to my descriptions so I can get them done before the deadline (Jan 8).
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