Busy

I found enough to keep me busy yesterday at the mall. It was pretty boring, but the time went by. Our daily sales totals are increasing which is nice. My personal sales are still crap compared to last year tho.

I made a post earlier about giving away free stuff. Well, they came & got it. I’m glad to have it out of the garage. If it weren’t so danged cold, I’d try to organize out there a bit. Who knows what else I might find to unload.

I’m wondering if we’ll even get to do photo cards this year. It finally snowed last week, but we have yet to have time to go out & take a fun picture of us. I’m hoping for this weekend. So, they might be late, but nothing wrong with that huh? I guess they could be Happy New Year cards instead. Since I can’t afford to send gifts to people, I really would like to send cards. We’ll see if it all comes together.
What else is new? Remember all the crap with hubby’s mom & step dad over vacation? (I don’t remember if I wrote it all out or not) Well, it goes to show things have not healed for the holidays. His mom made a comment when she called to say she was sorry. She said nothing would ever come between him & her. Never mind his wife. Or family. So she asked what he wanted for Christmas. Not a word about me or Connie, just him. He told her he’d love a Lowe’s gift card. Easy for her. Cheap shipping. So it came the other day. Addressed to only him. But inside were Wal-Mart cards for me and Connie in the amount of $25 each. His Lowe’s card? $200. He was so pissed at the 25 for me. Not so much Connie, but his wife. He said he almost felt like sending them all back. It’s not like they hurt for money at all. It’s just another knife in the wound. Just another confirmation that the words that were spoken during the argument were true.

On a different note, I’ve been wondering what the New Year has in store for me. For my family. For my business. Lots of thoughts so far, but not too many answers. It depends so much on money. Unfortunately. There are some possibilities of things that could happen. Things that might make for a bit of relief for us financially. Things that might change our way of life for a bit. Nothing concrete tho. Just talk right now.

Well, since I can’t shower, do laundry or dishes, I guess I should go run a couple errands. One of them I can’t do tho, until I have a last name. I was part of the Secret Santa we did with our Etsy group. But the lady I got, only gave her first name. And within her shop, there is no evidence of her last name anywhere. So why can’t I do stuff? Because of the frigid temps, our pipes froze. I totally did not think to leave the faucets dripping. We have water in the front bathroom sink & our bathroom sink (cold only). Front shower has no water. Our shower has only cold water. Kitchen has no water. Lovely huh? Let’s hope they unfreeze soon. Sometime today would be nice. At least we can flush the toilet. And we can heat water to take a wash cloth bath. LOL that should be fun for the hubby.

Well, off I go for now.

Sex or sleep? LOL

Wow, the price one pays for some good sex late at night is dragging ass the next morning. Well, only if you have to be up before you’ve had a good 8 hours sleep. It was after midnight when we finally got to sleep. The hubby had to be up at 530. He slept in til 610. So he woke me up to take the dog out because he didn’t have time. It’s about 0 degrees out around here right now. So I took her out & promptly went back to bed. For an hour. Then I found myself hitting the snooze a couple times. Damn.

And why do I have to be up at 730? Because the damned mall opens at 9 now instead of 10. Which, by the way, it totally dumb. We also stay open til 10pm. We have enough trouble finding something to do until 9 during the week because people stop coming at around 8. And to top it off, our people are getting skimpy on the hours so now we have chunks of time where only one person is there. And it’s already been me… man is it boring to not have someone to talk to.

Today I have to be there at 9. I’m there alone till 2, when Amy comes in & I leave. She’s there alone til 6, when Connie comes in. I know one thing for sure, when it comes time to share the consignment money we’ve made, not everyone will get a piece of the pie. Only those who have made a big effort to make sure the store runs.

So anyways, I’m off to get ready. Gotta figure out what to bring with me to keep me occupied for 5 hours. Because we all know nobody goes shopping on a Monday morning.

Started last night, finished this morning . . .

So here it is almost half way thru December already & I haven’t written anything yet. I guess I’ve been a bit preoccupied with all the store stuff. I’m pretty happy with the turnout as a whole. We’re doing well as a store, just not as good individually. Obviously some are doing better than others, but in all, we could all be doing better. The possibility of having a real store somewhere is there. Whether or not I can make it happen, is another story all together.

Something else that has come up is saving money in these times. A big way we (me, hubby & Connie) can do that is to live with another family. Amy’s family. We’ve talked about combining our households to save money. So, the hunt for a big house to rent is underway. If the right place presents itself, we all feel it might just work. But, it has to be the right place. There has to be enough room. We’ve already figured out a lot of the details too. All on paper of course. Making it happen, will be a tough job, but with a good reward for us all.

There’s lots going on in my head lately that I just can’t seem to find words for so I have not written about them. Kinda bugs me too, since I enjoy this writing as a tool to look back on.

And then enter a time gap. It’s now 12 hours later. Got distracted last night & then had to go close the mall. Came home & had some dessert & watched a little TV before crashing in bed at just after 10.

This past week I installed Office 2007 on both my computer & the hubby’s. It’s neat. And weird. The new Outlook is taking a bit of getting used to. He is using it for the new program called Groove. I kinda like the new look of the Word thing but as with all new things, it takes some getting used to.

It finally snowed on Friday. Not a lot, but the world is now dusted white. This is late for around here. Typically we have some snowfall by the end of November. We might get more today, or not. Depends on how the temps are. I’m hoping it puts people in the holidays shopping mood so we can make some money at the mall.

I made the mistake of seeing what my sales were up to last night. Ouch. Barely over 400. I should be well over the 1000 mark by now. Damn. Now there is a true sign of the times. As a store we hit the 3 grand mark tho so that is kinda cool. I also have to wonder tho, if part of the problem is being just a part of a store instead of single like a crafter. My stuff is just mixed in with everyone else. Same goes for everyone else. Would we have made more money individually if we had better individual displays? Maybe, maybe not. We are also not using any hard sell tactics. We help people when they appear to need it & are otherwise just friendly, striking up conversation if appropriate. Who knows right? If there is the perfect answer to this, I’m sure it would cost a fortune to find out.

Well, I should stop so I can go open the mall soon. This begins our longer hours. What a pointless thing to do. We now open at 9 instead of 10 and stay open until 10 instead of 9. We barely have any people between 8 & 9 as it is now. And we don’t do much if any business before 11. And Sunday . . . we open at 10 & stay open until 7. Again, pointless for around here. Unless they really push it in advertising, we’ll be open longer, bored longer without any extra sales to show of it.

And off I go to eat something real quick, get dressed & run down to the mall.

'eh'

I think all the 90 to nothing has worn me down mentally. I’m feeling rather ‘eh’ today. With such fun & positive things going on, it feels like I should be all chipper & cheerful & whatnot. Well, if there were sales at the Drop Dead Fabulous store, maybe. If I already had everything in place for the bra event, maybe. If my hubby were not going thru one of his down swings, maybe. If I had even a sale on Etsy, maybe. But, none of those things are happening right now so I’m just ‘eh’.

I just downed a whole Mounds candy bar without any thought. I could easily eat another one if I had it. Thankfully I only grabbed one at the checkout a bit ago.

On the surface I can have the world thinking I’m on top of the world. Sometimes, that gets tiring. Like today. I know it’ll pass tho.

I’m bummed because I can’t find my Avon face stuff anymore. Leave it to them to discontinue the line. Dammit. I’m an adult (or so they tell me) & I still get acne or pimples every now & then, & I have oily facial skin. So the Avon Solutions line of stuff called True PoreFection was great. I used the toner on occasion. I used the face wash stuff on occasion. But I used the Oil Free Skin Clearing Lotion almost every night. I only wash my face with water most of the time. After drying off, I put a bit of this on my face before bed. It really helps clear my skin & it even cuts down on the oil for awhile. Well, my last bottle is about gone. Now I can’t find anymore. I’ve emailed the local Avon lady to see if she happens to have a stash of them. Or if there is a replacement product they now carry. I hope so.

Dang I hate this blah feeling crap. There is so much I need to be doing & I don’t wanna do any of it. I really need to snap out of it.

I think in just a bit I’ll go out & get my flowers watered. I should have done that yesterday. With the warmer weather we’ve had I really have to pay more attention & remember to water them regular like I was doing all summer. I slacked off a little when it cooled down, & it’s hard ot get back in the habit now. Soon as I do, it’ll cool off again.

I can’t believe how fast the year is going by. I’m looking at how soon we go on vacation, and then open the store & it’s scary! No, vacation time is not scary. Being ready to open the store is.

So there you have some random babbling from me. Not much else going on that I feel like writing about today. Guess I should put on the happy face so I can positively promote the bra thing again. Off I go.

Where has the time gone again??

I can’t believe I haven’t written a regular blog post / journal entry since the first. Allot of my time & energy has been in getting this bra collection thing off the ground. I haven’t even thought about writing just because. Weird. That I can recall right now, there isn’t too much in the daily life to write about. More of the same for the most part.

We had our first meeting of the minds for the mall store on Saturday. 2 of the girls who did show up only stayed a little while. The other girl, Amy, stayed beyond everyone else. We ended up talking about many other things after we went down the list of things for the store. I’m kind of bummed that not everyone showed. This has been planned for a long enough while that if this was important enough, you think they would make the effort. I understand why 2 of them didn’t come. They both contacted me to let me know too. One other one … just didn’t even bother contacting me. She called long after & asked how things went & all that. Sigh. I know things will be fine in the end tho. I’ll have to work on some things for that this week sometime & get them out to everyone.

Connie & I went down to the market again Saturday morning. This time we were on a mission tho, to help recruit people for the Safeway craft bazaar thing she is helping organize. Was nice to see everyone again. Next Saturday is Taste of the Harvest. That’ll be fun to go to, as a spectator this time.

My friend Joe has worked on getting him & the groups he supports into more local events & functions this past week. He got into not only the Taste of the Harvest, but also Wings & Wheels. So that is very cool for him. While I was taking him a few places one day, we ended up in the office of Annette Pennington. She is someone I know I’ve mentioned when I was still all involved in the market. She really is a nice lady. She was happy to help Joe, & knew she knew me from somewhere. I told her where, & then told her I was no longer affiliated with them at all. And of course, after asking why, I told her. She was in complete agreement that there are WAY too many politics going on with the market & the board. She was amazed at the amount even. For such a small town, it was unreal. I agree. But anyway, she told me that I should be selling my work down there. I told her I couldn’t afford it. She offered to give me a better rate, but I declined. I have too much on my plate to spend the money on a booth in hopes of making some money. We’re looking forward this year, to being just people for that weekend.

I now have a lot of my stuff in the Drop Dead Fabulous shop. Laura is so excited to have me there too. She’s been such a wonderful & supportive person not only with my photography, but with the whole bra thing. It’s fantastic.

I worked hard to get 100 samples made for a Pagan Pack event. I made 100 magnets, like the ones I made ofr the Friendship box our Etsy team is doing. Only for this one, I wrote Blessed Be on them all with a silver sharpie. They look cool. I also donated a couple 8x10 matted prints & a few cards. The big event is the Salem Witches Ball in Salem, MA. It is the biggest event of this nature in the US. Let’s hope my sites see some traffic from these things.

My mind is racing but I don’t know what to say. Figures. There is more I could write but it’s a lot of stuff business related. I know that gets boring. And .. I’m working on keeping some of that stuff separate so I can post about those things in my Blogger business blog. As for personal stuff… money is tight. The dog is weird as usual. We’re getting excited about the trip to FL. Love is good. Time is going by too fast. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get things done.

With that, I’m done! I’m tired today … could be from the afternoon fun . . . Or just cuz I’ve been going 90 to nothing all week.

Just Monday ramblings

Why is it that when people don’t reply to your posts you feel lost? Or forgotten? I don’t know. Really. Most people I know who have an online journal, write for themselves. So who cares if anyone replies? Allot of people tho, blog for interaction with others. I think I’m somewhere in between. I enjoy the interaction with my online “friends” but I also write to get the thoughts out of my head. It allows me to keep track of the daily goings on in my life where I otherwise might forget them. Then why do I get the little feelings every now & then of … why do they get all kinds of comments & I get none? Am I an outcast with my online people too? I know, it’s dumb. Sometimes I envy the fact that it appears that several people seem to have a real connection with the people on their friends list. I used to feel that way about a few. These days, it seems I am all alone again. How sad is that?

I have been doing way too much thinking lately I guess. Way more than I could ever take the time to write out on here for the world to see. But anyways ….

So the weekend was alright. We ended up not doing the market Saturday morning. Photography & rainy weather are not a good match. We ended up down there saying hello to several of our people & they all commented on the bad weather in the morning. Glad we skipped it. Was nice to stop & visit with some of them tho.

The 3 of us went out & hit a few yard sales instead. What fun we had. I think we all found a few treasures for way cheap. Been a long time since we got to enjoy going, much less actually finding fun stuff for cheap.

With Tim now being online, we didn’t spend much alone together time Saturday. It’s okay tho, I know the newness & novelty of the computer will wear off for him in awhile. He now has a Facebook page tho. I’m wondering if MySpace is next. We’ll see. He does enjoy being able to chat with his friend Joe on there. Next thing you know, they’ll be playing the Flight Simulator game together. We just need to get him a better system put together from the parts around here to handle the gaming stuff better.

We got a little of our alone time on Sunday. Wasn’t the same, but nice. We totally ended up not doing much of anything all weekend other than the Saturday morning outings. In a way, it was nice.

On the house front, the news is not promising. Well, not in the way we’d hoped. We got all the info to the mortgage guy. He ran credit reports, numbers & figures. We can’t go VA like we’d hoped. We’d have to go FHA. To do that we’d need at least 3% down. There are 2 programs that offer assistance with that. We’d have to get the seller to agree to stuff to be able to use that. You know how the legal mumbo jumbo goes. Funny thing.. with our combined incomes, we can qualify for that house we’re looking at. The house payments would be .. are you ready? Oh, only about 1300. Yes, One thousand and three hundred dollars. A month. I don’t think so. Nice to think the bank thinks we can handle it tho. That in itself is actually cool. To get the payments down to where we’d feel comfortable, we’d have to get the sellers to come down about 40 grand. And pay the closing costs. Right. I don’t see that happening. I know it’s been empty a long time, but I don’t think they’ll come down that far. But …. You never know till you ask I guess.

So, we’ll either keep looking for another place that’s smaller & cheaper, or just tough it out here until the place that Kati has is ready. I’ll email her about it again tonite too I think. We got the letter that says our rent went up effective with the September payment. Another $25 a month. May not seem like much, but when you watch the units around you get remodeled, and you still have the same old crap … it doesn’t feel right to pay more. I really would understand the yearly hikes if we got some improvements.

Oh, to make today a real Monday, I had dryer issues. Yup. Did a load of the man's work pants. Went to put them in the dryer. Closed the door. Hit the start button. Nothing. After finding out it was the washer we had the extended warranty on, I made an appt with the place we bought them from to come out & fix it on Tuesday. Told the man when he got home. He says let's see if we can find out where the possible part is that could be the problem. get online, Search. Find part. He proceeds to try to remove it only to have it be the wrong part. Hehe... I show him what looks like the right part. He gets that out. we try what another repair place said to try. Nothing. Dammit. So, canceled the appt with the first repair place & made one with this other guy. The other guy was much more helpful even on the phone, and more friendly. Oh, and cheaper. So yeah ... I've listed a few things on our local craigslist to see about trying to get the cash to cover the repair bill. We're all in the wrong business. They get anywhere from $80 to $100 just to come to your house. Finding & telling you what’s wrong, is more. Installing it .... more. Geez.

I’m really getting hopeful about the whole mall store thing. I hope that I can sell a bit more before then to make some cash to buy more stuff to make more stuff with for the holidays. Think positive …

I’d love for any of you who read this far to go check out my Etsy shop. See the stuff I’ve listed… do some shopping? Tell your friends? I’m working on promoting … it’s hard on a $0 budget tho. Free is good, but without it seeming like a full time job in itself, it’s next to impossible.

Ok, enough for now I think.

I think the summer temps have finally found us up here

So Monday we celebrated my honey’s 33^rd birthday. I made a nice pork loin in the slow cooker for dinner. It was super yummy. Connie & I got over to Joe’s to pick up the toolbox that morning. He already had it out of the shed & even cleaned up a bit. Cool. When Tim got home & saw it he pretty much called us sneaky brats.

Tuesday Connie & I spent some time in the garage cleaning it out. What a chore. But it was getting so bad, we barely had room to walk from the front to the back & into the house. It looks much better now. Not like a well organized garage could look, but better than it was before. Besides, we wont be here much longer anyways ….

I’m not sure what else I wanna ramble on about. I think I’ll make the house stuff it’s own entry.

Oh, we got the signed contract back from the mall today. That’s cool. Now we can get excited about that. We peeked in there today & the display stuff we get to use looks nice. Having something like that already in there will help make whatever we put on shelves & walls, look much better. Display & presentation is half the battle right? I’ll get back in there prolly around the first of September to take some before pix and reference shots so we can figure out whose stuff will go where.

After 2 weeks away from it, I’m not super excited about the market this week. I’m going, just not with bells on so to speak. I still feel like the outsider, so we’ll see. There is a part of me who’d be fine with not going back. But, I’d like to do the Taste of the Harvest in September. To do that, we are supposed to be “regulars” in the market. After that, I may not do much more, but we’ll see how life goes.

The hubby is enjoying his new found internet freedom & email stuff. It’s just funny to watch him. The man who used to come home & just relax watching TV, now goes to the laptop & checks his email. Then he wanders aimlessly for a bit till dinner is ready.

I’m slacking on my Thoughts on Whole Living stuff. Figures. Life distractions will do that I guess.

After getting Tim set up with a Yahoo ID & matching Gmail account, I started thinking about my own. I wanted something that matched too. I was tired of my Yahoo name. Having many emails is getting old too. I like using Gmail more than the emails that came with my domain too. I don’t have to worry about storage or anything either. So, after a week of thinking & trying to find a name that worked in both … I came up with HerbsnChocolate. That’s me. I’m into herbs allot … & does the chocolate part even need explaining? So now I am slowly working on changing things online. I was even thinking of changing my LJ to match. But you gotta pay for that huh? Not sure I wanna do that then. We’ll see. I kind of like having a Blogger blog. I don’t like the whole lack of community thing there tho, so I’ll keep LJ for that aspect alone. I’d miss my friends.

It's easy to write when the words just flow ...

Here we are in the dog daze of August. We have had some of the best weather this past week. Guess summer is coming this week tho. I hear the forecast is calling for triple digits. Fun. I have enjoyed having the windows open so very much. No A/C. No having the house all closed up & keeping the stale air in here. We’ve had some nights so cool, you wake up chilled. Yup, nice. Guess it’s coming to a temporary end this week.

So Saturday we packed up & went to Ellensburg for the first ever Etsy craft show. I could focus on the one bad thing & be bummed. Or, I can look at the positive that came out of it. The main reason we went was obviously to make some money. This was the area were unsuccessful in. Connie & I shared a bigger than normal space. She had lots of people look at her things, but sold nothing. I had lots of lookers as well, & managed to sell $40. The space cost us a combined $55. The gas to get there was … I don’t know exactly. It took about a half a tank (fully loaded Escape, 90 some miles each way, from elevation of 600 to 2600 and back down some). In the end, money wise, we’re in the hole.

On the flip side tho … we got to see a new town. Ellensburg is about an hour and a half away from here. The drive was a pretty one. We even got to see Mt Rainier in the distance when we made a quick potty stop at a rest area. It looked beautiful in the early morning light, but we were on a schedule to get there, so no pix. While we were there, Tin got to experience some of the wonderful small town feel by exploring the local farmer’s market, a few galleries & a museum.

Connie & I walked away for some lunch & also got to wander quickly thru the market. Nice. I wish we had the support of the city that Ellensburg has. They set up on either side of a local street, & the city shuts it down for the time the market is open. Wonderful! We got to check out the local Safeway supermarket. This is where she works (here in East Wenatchee) in the deli. It was somewhat of a shock to see the difference. She was amazed at how sad a few of the hot case items looked, & at how much smaller the deli in general was. Yet, the Starbucks seating area was ALLOT bigger. Guess that’s what happens in a college town.

We got to meet some of the people we have only known online that day. Most of the vendors there have a shop on Etsy & are part of our Eastern Washington Street Team. We all finally got to put a face with a name. That was a fun thing.

Most of us got to expose ourselves to a whole new venue of people. Granted, this would have been a lot easier if more people had actually shown up. The time of year for this was just off. School was not in session (it’s a huge college town) and there is no real reason to go to a craft show in August. So, they’ll try again no November 15^th. This will be geared as a holiday show & should do quite well. Unfortunately, I won’t be at that one. That’s the time to open the mall store.

I got to talk with the lady set up next to us. She paints some really cute birdhouses & stuff. Nice work. She lives in Wenatchee. How cool huh? Well, we got to talking & I told her about the mall store. She may be our final person to “buy in”. That’ll give us 7 people & bring our cost down to $215 a person. She’s really excited & we’ll talk more about it this week.

Then, on the way out of town, we passed a rock & crystal shop. With a quick turn around, we were off to ooh & ahh over rocks. Oh the fun we had looking around. Tim didn’t find any that really spoke to him, but Connie & I both found a few treasures to take home.

See? In all, we had a wonderful day. We just didn’t accomplish the main objective of making money.

So last night we celebrated the good of the day & went out to eat. Came home and relaxed a bit & Tim & I were in bed by 1030. Long day.

Today has been relaxing. We had a nice breakfast before Connie left for work. Tim & I went to Costco to get a couple things like doggie food & TP. Then over to Big R to get him some more work gloves. I’ve spent time just laying around napping or watching some TV & poking around online. He went off to see Joe for a bit. It’s been a nice weekend.

I hope tomorrow Connie & I can get over to Joe’s & get the toolbox for Tim. It’s his birthday. On a Monday even. Joe is selling a craftsman toolbox. Tim could use it but thinks we have more important things to spend the money on. So, Connie is buying it for his birthday. I hope he likes it.

Ok, I think the words have ended their flow for now.

The last quiet evening of July

Well here it is the last quiet evening of July. It’ll be August in an hour. Where the heck has the year gone? I really am amazed at how quickly time goes by these days.

So on the mall front, we’re just waiting on the contract/lease papers to come back from the mall big wig to Stacey. I’ll go sign them & we’ll be all set. After a couple more emails earlier this week, we got things straightened out. I pointed out a few things she could not ignore, & told me we could do it my way for this year. This year is all I’m asking for. We don’t know what next year brings, so I’m not gonna worry about it now.

Vacation. I got the tickets bought for the trip to FL. In the week we took to get things in order, the prices went up. Thankfully not over the money we got. I had to check carefully because several airlines now charge you extra to bring ANY bags with you. Pfft. I don’t think so. So I found some that only charge extra for the 2^nd checked bag. That should work for us. We fly out on Halloween in the evening. We’ll hop over to Seattle, kill about an hour, then catch a nice long flight to Atlanta. We’ll arrive in Pensacola at 9am Saturday morning. Should be cool. We’ll be there until the following Sunday morning. Then we leave FL at 9, get home to Wenatchee at 630. Fun. Hopefully it’ll be a good time.

For the first time in quite awhile, I’m not nervous about a show. I’m excited about it. I’ve never actually been to Ellensburg, so that should be cool too. I’d really like it if we can have the profits pay for dinner before we head home. That would be fun. I’m really looking forward to meeting some of the Etsy team people too. I spent Wednesday making a bunch of bookmarks. I finished up this morning then worked on some slight sign alterations. I’ll get them printed from Office Depot on Friday. Then I’ll get all my containers out, go thru them, see what needs to come, what stays, & get them packed to go.

We finally got my honey set up with a Yahoo messenger ID and a Gmail email address. Look out internet world here he comes! Until we get him a system built from the 3 towers we have, he’s using my laptop. He’s pretty happy.

Hmm .. what else? Guess my brain isn’t wrapping itself around much right now. So I’ll close for now, get this uploaded, & unwind a bit before bed.

Life ramblings, again

Funny how fast life changes. Didn’t I just recently say that? Well, here we go again.

Tim came home Thursday & said there will be no swing shift, for now. Just when both of us had made peace with the fall out it would present. So, never mind. Right. Guess it’s a good thing tho, in the big picture. One crisis averted.

So then comes all the mall stuff. I made brief mention of it. Tuesday Connie & I got to see the inside of the store at the mall that we hoped to turn into our own store for the holidays. We want to open a all hand crafted, made local store. Most of the people participating will be people who also have a shop & sell on Etsy. The thought of Wenatchee Valley Etsy was born.

I talked with the Asst. Mgr for the mall, Stacey. We know each other now, from the “crafters corners” the past 2 years. I asked how much the store would be to rent, for either a month, or 6 weeks. She asked how many people I was thinking, I told her possibly 4 or 5, maybe more, depending on a price. So she quotes me a price of $1500. Insurance & power included, for a full 6 weeks. Wonderful. I began to get in contact with people. We all figured, the more people we have, the less per person it would be. In total, it looked like we’d have 7 of us.

Now, our plans for the store, which I made very clear to Stacey from the get go, was to not have individual marked off space, but intermingled displays, like any other retail store. In the “crafters corner” we all had our own 10x20 area. This is definitely not the case with our plans.

So all of a sudden Stacey tells me I can only have 5 people. That makes it 300 each, which was keeping it fair for the others. Well, the “others” are all a part of the “crafters corner”. We are not. I tried to tell her that telling me I could only have 5 people was like telling any other tenant how many suppliers they could have in their store. All she could come back with is that it wasn’t fair to the others. It’s not my fault! We came up with this idea on our own.

We were going back & forth via email yesterday. We left it unsettled, as she is out of the office today. Come Monday tho, we have got to find a way to settle this.

What else?

I’m playing hooky from the market this Saturday. We’re going to go out & get away for a day. We’ll be taking Connie & friends, but it will still be nice. About an hour or so away from here is a waterfall. Snoqualmie Falls. I’m looking forward to it. I hope I can do justice in pictures like other photographers have.

Saturday evening we have the opportunity to go to a party. Not sure if we’ll go or not, as Connie was kind of not invited. So, we’ll see.

Last night (Thursday) I finally got to spend some time with an old friend, Leah. Someone who we all thought had become a horrible person, thanks to someone else. Wow, the pull some people can have on others is amazing. I was one of them who got pulled in. I'm still not sure I understand it all, but anyway. I’m so glad I got to clear the air with her and begin to mend fences. It was good. I had intended to stay for maybe 2 hours, as I knew she had to get to bed. I got there just after 8 & it was after 1130 I think when I finally left.

So the work news started out bad & fixed itself. The mall thing started out great & is running into brick walls. Mending fences with a friend. Working on another line of bookmarks. Being excited about the show next weekend. Feeling close to my honey. With good thoughts, I hope everything works out for the best.

Oh yeah… our November vacation. Almost forgot to mention that. Another one of those things that we had planned for one way, that’s turning out to be another way. Sigh. But I think we both will be okay with it. Guess we kinda have to be.

We had planned to have this be a true vacation. We’d stay in a motel, rent a car, & be free to do what we want. Sounds doable right? Wrong. Tim’s mom & step dad had offered, way back when we first mentioned this, to pay or help pay for our tickets down there. Awesome. That meant our savings would go further. Well, with that said, it was made known that since they were pretty much footing the airfare bill, they expected us to stay with them. After all, they hadn’t made the trip out here this year, so they wanted to be able to see as much of Tim (& *gasp* me) as possible. We made mention that if we had planned to stay with anyone, it probably would have been Tim’s dad, since Tim had not seen him at all since we moved up here. Well that didn’t fly with his mom. Neither did staying in a motel. She said that if we’re going to go somewhere where there is family, it’s just not right to stay in a motel. Then the sob story of Chief’s (Tim’s step dad) health got thrown in. No telling how much longer he’ll be around. We’ve been hearing this for over 3 years now but anyways … It would mean so much to him just to know we were sleeping in the same house. So, of course, we had to give in. We’d never hear the end of it if we didn’t agree. Dammit. Sleeping at my in-laws was not even on the list of things to do on my vacation. Tim said the same thing. But he’s such an easy going, pleasing guy… he just goes with it. Ok. Whatever.

So, once we know money is there we’ll buy the tickets. We’ll be leaving here on Halloween, and returning the following Sunday. This week was chosen to make it easier to get the mall store going & open earlier. So, I may wait a week to buy the tickets to see if the mall thing can be ironed out first. If it turns out it wont work, we may move the vacation to a week later.

Ok, I think that’s all the thoughts I wanted to get out. You get a cookie if you’ve read all this.

Just when you think life is good ...

Funny how life can change in an instant. Just when you think life is going along just fine, wham.

I should elaborate.

Life has been going along the past few weeks on fairly positive notes, with a few kinks here & there. It seemed the kinks were nothing any of us couldn’t handle.

I’ve mentioned how I feel like the red headed step child when it comes to the market. Well, Saturday things went rather well on a personal note at the market. No, I didn’t have anything cool like record sales. I did get some of my new bookmarks made. I even sold one. Got many compliments on them as well. My day was good for a few reasons. I saw the cold shoulder I was getting from “them” but it didn’t matter. I was in a fantastic mood for no particular reason. To start the day, I located my assigned spot, which was on the opposite side of the row from normal. Wow. I wanna be on this side always. The energy on this side felt so much better. A record number of people came into my space. People noticed, commented on & asked questions about my coasters. I sold 2 smaller sale prints, one new book mark and 8 of the other ones! It only amounted to $36, but I was happy. Along with the sales, came some nice conversation, visiting with my market neighbor who turns out we have allot in common, some friends came to hang out, the sun was shining… a good day. Money wise it still wasn’t worth my time, but all the rest more than made up for things.

One of the things I got to talking about with my neighbor there was the idea of having our own store at the mall for the holidays. All Etsy crafters. She loved the idea. Mention was made to another fellow Etsy crafter who also sells at the market. She loved the idea too. Both are ready to take part, give the time required and the money. Things were ready for me to move forward with. This felt great since Connie & I had sat & brain stormed about the thought of this last week. We talked about details, big things, options, everything.

After the market, we (me, Tim & Connie) went to a newly discovered, small, hippie vintage clothing store. We brought along 2 of the friends who had spent time with us at the market. It was fun. I didn’t buy anything, but Connie & one of the girls we brought did.

So … I had a wonderful weekend. Saturday evening was … Oh My Goddess good.

I spent allot of time recently thinking about how things have been going. I was looking forward to talking to the people at the mall. I was happy to have such a positive response to my new book marks. I was making new connections in various things. Life was good. We’ve even been thinking about truly checking into the house next to our friend that has been empty & for sale for quite some time. He seems to feel he has some connections that may help us out.

Today was a good day too. I was again in a good mood for no particular reason. Things were going well. Life was good for the most part. Connie & I went & ran some errands this morning before heading to the mall to meet with Stacey. We got to go in & see the space, walk thru it, & ask questions. It looked like everything was falling into place & going to work out well.

We came home, relaxed a bit & I headed out to water the plants. Moved a few from the too sunny back deck area back to the side & front where the rest of the potted plants were. Cleaned up some that were dying, in hopes that they are salvageable. Got the hose out & watered the heck out of everything. Connie came out & helped to get the huge hollyhocks cut back. We have a bunch of seeds saved for next year when hopefully we have our own yard to plant them in. We have plenty to even share with friends. This is the only way our big ass trash receptacle ever gets full. We put bunches of stalks in there. So in cleaning everything up, we found that there are new shoots coming up!! YAY!! What a fun surprise. We cleaned things up so that some of the self seeded sunflowers could have room to grow.

Then as we were cleaning up … Tim came home. Our lives were about to change. Fast.

After the typical Hi honey I’m home stuff… he asks me how I’d feel about him working a swing shift. Possibly from like 2 to 10. Sounded good to me. But … what about all the overtime?? No more. No more overtime. Gone. 3 months before we were ready. We knew that come late fall, the overtime would pretty much disappear until spring. But we had plans in place for that. By the time the OT went away, the mall money would cover it. Then income tax time comes to help us thru till the OT kicks back in. Well. Guess not.

I’m kind of in shock. I haven’t spoken more than a few words all evening. To anyone. I know it’s not his fault. Whether he went to swing shift or not, the overtime was going away. Now, they are trying this out to see how it works. Neither of us can see any reason why it won’t work. They have some huge jobs that need to be done so they are hiring 3 new guys and splitting everyone up into 2 shifts. I asked if he asked for a raise since he was the one out of the group who was turning his life upside down with the shift change. He said he hadn’t asked. I said he should. So he says he will. He even felt it was worth a shot to ask. Even a $2 an hour raise won’t make up for the OT he’s been getting but it would help make the transition a bit easier. We’ll see.

Right now I’m ever so thankful we have Connie here to help. Without her help, within a month we’d be up shit creek, without any paddles.

I know something has to change. I just have to figure out what & how. How do I find work that’s temporary … since the beginning of November we are supposed to go on vacation to Florida, and then I’m supposed to do the mall? So I look for something and say I just need something from now till the end of October.

One thought is to actively pursue the Leavenworth Art in the Park. But I don’t have enough stock to get started right now. And obviously, don’t have the money this moment to make more stock. This rock & hard place crap is getting old.

Somehow, this has happened for a reason. Somehow, we’ll make it thru this too. I’m just not sure how right now.