When you are an entrepreneur, working your business from home, so many people seem to think you’ve got a life of ease.

I still hear the questions / comments “So, you don’t work right? Must be nice to be able to stay home all day.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Well, about the “you don’t work” part anyway. The staying home part is lovely. I’m a homebody anyway, and put in my time commuting and doing the office routine and handling the office politics. Done, finished in a book with a closed chapter, so help me God.

The narrow tunnel vision just amazes me. I consider it my duty sometimes to enlighten people about what I do, and they just shake their heads and then the tune changes to “I don’t think I could handle all that. I don’t know how you do it.”

Truthfully neither do I. Not bragging, not at all. Just stating a fact. Running your business or businesses from home requires a great deal of discipline, a HUGE amount of patience, and a never ending supply of taking deep breaths.

Here’s my scenario, see if it sounds anything like yours.

I create and collect. I create artisan jewelry, and I create crocheted and cross stitched fashions for ladies and babies. I’m also a local antiques dealer and I deal in helping people downsize and sell off their collectibles. I run my own retail website for these items ~ built the website, installed the shopping cart, take all the photographs of products (can’t use the manufacturers photos in my case), edit the photos, create all the quality content on the website, perform all the SEO, marketing and promotion. Monitor this in the search engines, monitor my website traffic stats for various trends, and constantly tweak to make the website more customer friendly.

Then there’s the business website where I’ve utilized every skill I ever learned and was comfortable with over the years and turned this into a viable business services enterprise. There are two types of service providers ~ those who offer their services rock bottom prices because they don’t put a dollar value on their time and expertise, plus they offer many services for free just to rope in customers ~ and then they have a huge problem with burnout. The other type offer the services at a higher cost because they put a dollar value on their time and expertise, thus attracting a different genre of client. I belong to this group, and have to spend good time marketing, promoting and taking courses so that I can offer an even higher level of service to my clients.

I recently re-opened my eBay store again after a long hiatus so that I could once again expand my market for services as well. I like to create an eBay store and listings very carefully because of my preference that things remain crystal clear for all involved. I’m still not done with it after 3 days but am past the 75% mark, so hopefully today should be the finish off day.

Then there are the three blogs I write in, the freelance writing of business articles that I do,  the marketing in all of my Squidoo lenses, MySpace, and I’m opening up a Kaboodle venue. Add to that my own small business forum and a few other forums I belong to, and you can easily see I’m not just sitting around at home!!

Being an entrepreneur is never easy, however, it is rewarding ~ you learn SO much about all facets of running a business or businesses, you learn SO much about people, and it’s great to be able to fulfill customer’s needs and have them come back for more.

I’ve spent most of today, and will be spending the rest of the day, when not on the phone with clients or picking up after my ZooCrew, scanning, editing and listing 75+ vintage collectible postcards in my web store. The scanning went well, the editing is killing my arm, but I’ll get it done. Then it’s time to list them in my web store. Oh joy. If they weren’t in such good shape, the majority, I’d say this was pure drudgery however the pictures are just fantastical.

But that’s not why I’m writing this post. Yes, the first paragraph was to complain. Pure and simple. LOL!

Here is the reason I’m writing this post. I’ve got this spectacular dragonware set to sell for a client. It too will be going up into my webstore, obviously NOT today but one day very soon. You’ve just go to see it though, it is simply splendid.

First the Dragonware Creamer:

Next the Dragonware sugar bowl (note the opaline lid, gorgeous):

The saucers:

The tea cups (can also be demitasse cups)

The teapot ~ absolutely spectacular:

And the set in full:

The colors are brilliant, the 3 dimensional detail simply incredible, and of all the things I’ve had to sell for this client, this is the most beautiful and captivating! She’s got some more stunners but nothing like this!