Monthly Catch-up and My Latest Stumbling Blocks

So the month of August wasn't a complete waste in the weight-loss/physical fitness area - I did end up three pounds down for the month. But I'm heading into a week of eating out while Sharon is here, and a solid week of restaurant, State Fair and Renaissance Festival food will be deadly to my weight. I'll try to make good food choices, but sitting in the Frontier bar, watching the people walk by with a glass of beer or ale and some fresh french fries being shared by all three of us is ... well, it's just one of those mandatory things. Good part is I'll have the rest of the month to get the weight I gain back off and then I'm back to normal. Bad part - no gym while she's here. Good part - lots of walking, so the exercise will still be there. Bad part - no swimming for almost a week. Screeeeech!

The Corn Roast at the Minnesota State Fair is a must! I have no idea
how they get their corn to luscious and perfectly roasted, but it's
totally addicting and I MUST have corn! 

Meanwhile, experiments are still being made for my holiday cards and components I've decided on are being made with new things coming to me in the mail soon. I've had this year's design perched in my mind for more than two years now and finally think I can manage to make it happen. Everything has to click into place on this, though. No fudging. I think it may well be the most complex design I've ever come up with - not what I was thinking about initially, but what it's turning into. I wish I had started this a couple of months earlier *sigh*.

Among the many other things I'm dealing with for this year's holiday
card, are envelopes. I want to include a small custom gift for each person,
and need a custom envelope for it. That's turning out to be more difficult
than I had thought it would be. 

Have you received your new chip enabled credit cards in the mail yet? For those of you in Europe, this is old news because you've had yours for a while, but here in the USA, we're just catching up now. Beginning in October, I need to be able to accept chip cards at my credit card terminal or I could be responsible for any credit card fraud running through my system. We tried a quick check on one late last week and it didn't go through the way it needs to. I'll be on the phone with tech services this morning to find out why, and what I need to do to activate that part of my credit card terminal. The joys of small business ownership.

The USA is switching over to EMV cards by October 1st. I have a new
credit card terminal (recall the problems with such earlier in the year) and
it is EMV card capable, but so far they aren't being accepted. Now to find
out why and what I need to do to get this operational. 

We also need a store supply that we haven't had to direct order for several years, having been fortunate enough to get stock from other stores leaving the business or a few vendors who carried sizes we needed. Turns out, the company we used to get these items from has been bought by a different company and now I need to phone them and find out what in their products list corresponds to what we used to order. We don't have a lot of fudge room on this component. I think I'm going to really need the "relaxation" of Wednesday and Thursday housecleaning before Sharon arrives Thursday night. Happy Tuesday, all!