2020: New Era, New Space

2020 is a tough year for everyone. I'd never have imagined that a virus could have such a huge impact on a global scale. It feels like life is on a stand still -- shops are closed, work halted, projects on hold, and yet at the same time, life goes on.

I'm not much of a worrier, but this time, my anxiety levels are definitely heightened. After several years of resting on my laurels, this pandemic made me realize that I don't really have much laurels. Haha! With our The Craft Central stores closed and still with a payroll to support, it is definitely not a beautiful situation. To be honest, we had our fair share of cut backs too. My heart goes out to the people who lost jobs or are unable to work because of the pandemic. It is tough to be a small business owner, it's tough to be a daily wage worker. It's just tough.

This year has taught me to "Ignite the Hustle". When I started to work on Ink Scribbler in 2013, I would not sleep at night trying to build the business after my daytime job. I'd missed trips with friends, and would occasionally feel the physical fatigue. That was a different time though, I was still young (haha!). Now that I'm at a challenging point in the business, I realize that I need to ignite that hustle. I know that I still have it in me. This time, I will juggle it with taking care of my 5-month old baby Savannah and working from a distance here in Singapore. Times have changed, but the call to work hard and show creativity is still the same.

So with that, welcome to our new website. I've decided to migrate from Wordpress because of 3 reasons:

1. Because it suddenly doesn't work, and I'm not knowledgeable enough to fix it (and don't want to spend time learning it anymore)

2. Our old website has become cluttered. We now focus on different products and services, and starting from scratch might just be the same effort as revamping it

3. This is more cost effective. Previously, I'd pay for hosting and a base domain. Now I can get rid of having a base domain. Hosting will be replaced with my shopify subscription (cheaper by ~1.50usd). So all in all, I'd save about 10USD a month. Every single peso counts! :)

As I take on the challenge of the new normal, I want to embrace having this new space to explore. It's like a clean slate where we will keep what works and experiment on new ideas. I am excited for what doors this new move will open and what ideas it will inspire. :)

Sharing with you my quarantine / WFH look :)) Savannah at 4 months old.

Thank you Lord!