Waiting and Freezing and One Piece of Essential Fashion

Normally I would be on-line reserving my swim time for Friday. But the YMCA on-line system is down for maintenance until later this morning, so I can't get into it to reserve my lane. That's going to be darned inconvenient. I'll have to break off anything I'm doing at the shop to quickly log in and get my Friday morning swimming spot reserved. It's a bit of a PITA, and I'm going to have to set an actual alarm on my phone to remember. I'm sending out a virtual GROWL to the Y - why can't they do their maintenance overnight or on the weekends like other places?!? Update - I tried again at 6:00 am and my reservation went through! Huzzah! Crisis averted! 

I have an alarm on my phone set for every half 
hour so that I can go into my computer and see 
when the reservations system is back up and 
running. Maintenance could last as long as 
9:00 am and it's currently 5:30 am. That's a 
lot of alarms that I have set to go off on my phone. 

All of my holiday cards are mailed as of yesterday morning. Now it's out of my hands. I'm not 100% happy with this year's cards, although I'm probably 90% happy. There are still a couple of small details I would have loved to add, but I simply ran out of time. Generally, though, I'm pretty happy with them and I hope you enjoy them in the spirit in which I send them - that of "Thank you for being a friend and have a lovely year ahead". It's always a lot of fun to work on them, and always a challenge to do something new and different. 

Thanks to each of you for being a friend. Some of you 
have been an on-line friend for years, others are newly 
met - all are appreciated. You keep me grounded, you 
listen to my hopes and dreams, and you counsel, on 
occasions needed. I treasure each of you. 

DH has been going through our sets of print drawers at the shop. We have SO much artwork - it's really beyond belief, how much we have. Of course, at one time I was running two stores in the Cities, and my store at Mall of America did quite a lot with artwork. But, I probably went overboard with my purchases. Now we've got to get everything cataloged, photographed, matted and backed, and shrink wrapped. I'll be spending a lot of time in the basement at the shop, I suspect. There's a lot that needs to be done. DH, in the meantime, will be looking up prices, artist history and biographies, and deciding what prices should be put on each one. I don't do pricing - I'm rather awful at it. Then we'll need to figure out the best way to list and sell them - Etsy, a specialized artworks e-store, maybe Shopify. We're undecided. Any recommendations? I'm open to suggestions. 

I have no idea of the best way to go about selling the Native 
American art prints we currently have in stock. We could go 
through a virtual auction, or even a physical auction, with 
dealers who specialize in that type of artwork, but that's 
no guarantee. The websites available for "Sell your art 
online" are directed towards artists wanting to sell their 
own artwork, not the art of other artists. This will be 
challenging. 

We're in the middle of a deep freeze until Thursday. Yesterday it was 10 F (-12 C) outside, with a wicked wind driving the actual feel to -10 F (-23.3 C). Today I don't have the wind, but my phone is telling me our outside temp is 7 F (-13.8 C), so I'll definitely be bundling up. Thank goodness for good boots and a great coat. Those are the things that make it all function. I do feel sorry for my poor car, however, having to sit in the parking lot all day. I park behind a woody multi-branched bush to give her a little protection, but it's not a lot to offer. 

My parka is similar to this one from LLBean. 
The hood is removable, and I rarely wear 
it. My coat is purple, and I got it on sale for 
slightly over $100. New, this is currently 
priced at $250, so I'm NOT in the market 
for a new one, and can save that money 
for something else. It's very cozy, though, 
rated to -50 F (-45.55 C). That's pretty 
cold, and rare up here. We'll sometimes get 
into the -25 F (-31.6 C) range with the wind 
chill, but it's only for a day or so. I have to 
stand in front of the gym door at 4:55 am, 
waiting for them to be unlocked. It can be
a very cold wait indeed. 

I'm going to wrap this up. I want to clear out my emails and see if the next prompt in my Idol Writing group has been posted yet. I think this will be the final prompt for this year and next year will return to the standard format. I haven't played with these writers before, but they're excellent, and it will be challenging to keep my game at their level. It should be fun. At any rate, even if I get "voted off the island", I'll still have prompts to write to on my own. That's the type of challenge that allows me to push my own creativity and helps to keep me sane during the long winter months. Have an excellent Tuesday, I'll  be back tomorrow.