I'm Busy, and I'm Running Behind - Built-In Obsolescence in Life and Holiday Cards

I'm not looking forward to going into the shop today. I'm absolutely sure that I have 100's of price tags waiting for me to enter them into the computer, and a billion other things on my Must Be Done Today list from having been away from the shop for several days. It's going to be a bit of a nightmare. I also have to take the little bit of time I have before opening to work on my holiday cards. It's been one of those years where the time I had in May (when I actually started work on them) and the time I have now (which is with deadline breathing down my back) have compressed, and I have a TON of stuff to do before I'm ready to stick these into the mail. It's not the first Thanksgiving spent working on my cards, but even for that, I'm behind. 

I'm running behind schedule, and that's NOT a 
good thing. Just one more pressure. I don't worry 
too much, I know I'll have my cards in the mail by 
Solstice. But will they arrive timely at my overseas 
friends' homes if I run that late? Hard to say. 

Have I put out a "Call for Cards"? Yes, I think I did put out the first call. Let's make this one the second call. I only push out to you three times (at best), figuring that you'll read one or more of my daily posts and get the idea that you HAVE to let me know you want to be added to my list. So ... if you haven't already messaged me privately to let me know you want a card and to confirm your mailing address, please DO THAT NOW! Next week will be hectic, at best, with our After Thanksgiving Day Sale and our Small Business Saturday Sale. The latest I want these cards in the mail is Solstice, and that's a firm deadline, which I really like to ignore by being much earlier. This year seems to be throwing up roadblocks to my annual card left and right, so make sure to contact me about your address. 

My Computer Guru, Dale, is amazing, genius, laid-back 
(fortunately) and a pack rat. All of those qualities combine 
to lead into a true genius IQ guy who is willing to help 
me out in the worst of times. I pay him, of course, but 
he really should charge me more. I'm quite fortunate in 
this particular friend (and he saves each holiday card, 
which is so incredible). 

I got the invoice from my Computer Guru in yesterday's email. Of course, I had already paid him before I left his workshop on Tuesday night, but he said he wanted to detail everything he had done on the invoice for his own reference, as well as my own. It ended up being FOUR PAGES LONG. Paragraph after paragraph of things we tried that didn't work, or things we tried that did. Pathways we took that led to dead ends, and new parts and paths we tried that worked later on. It's a good thing Dale's a pack rat of old computer parts. We're dealing with a computer from the early 1990's, and that's a hard one when you need new hardware. 

I'm very fortunate that my Computer Guru is a pack rat 
of old computer parts. We ended up raiding that stash 
for several new hard drives, a new fan, a new power 
supply, and other bits of this and that to get my computer 
operational once again. It was a messy repair, both for the 
hardware and the software. I really needed a day in the 
kitchen after the stress of two days of computer repair. 

In some ways, it's similar to how we are, as people. When we start breaking down, we're vintage 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, etc. Getting parts and solutions for those older decades is a really tough thing for doctors to do. As much as we use "planned obsolescence" for our machinery, whatever force of Creation exists has done the same thing for us. We age, we change, and we wear out. 

The one thing that we cannot stop is time - the progression 
of time only runs in a single direction, and we're all 
subject to Time's rule. It's not a bad thing at all, really. 
I don't think I'd want to live forever. The world is a 
beautiful place, but it's also a really messed up place, and 
the politics are causing me to be grateful I won't have 
more than 30 more years of dealing with political 
"leaders" who are doing anything BUT leading. 

So, I have thousands of things that stacked up, just waiting for me at the shop, but I will guiltily spend an hour or so first thing in the morning working on my holiday cards, because that's one more thing I have on my plate. I'd like to be at the next stage within a week, I'd feel much happier about progress if I was. Make sure to message me with your address, have a fabulous and fantastic day. I'll be grabbing some of the lovely things I cooked yesterday to make today a bit more tolerable. It'll be a day for the keyboard, I'm afraid. I'm off to the pool, have an excellent day, Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.