Day One is Complete and We Survived with Happy Customers

Yesterday, Day 1 of our Swarovski blow-out, actually went well, even if we stumbled a bit. I had everything ready in case we had a crowd and people needed to self-shop, but people were spaced out pretty well, and they worked really well with Chickie. Our major sale of the day was from a long-time customer who basically pre-ordered because she knew she wouldn't have the time/ability to shop during the sale days because of work conflicts. She spent more than $800, so that made a good day a guarantee. 

There are so many colors and finishes on Swarovski 
crystals, and we have A LOT of them. In addition, there 
are a ton of specialty shapes, and we carry most of those 
also. It's a deep inventory and we'll be figuring out ways 
to sell it through the end of the year. 

Things started a bit slowly, but that was OK too. We had room to breathe. I'll be sending out another email either later today or early tomorrow to remind people about the sale. People ended up being spaced out pretty well. Chickie had put together a loose-leaf binder that was extremely helpful, and the fact that we ended up being able to go one-on-one with our customers was also excellent. I have a ton of items to clean up before we open today, but that's fine. I hope the rest of the week goes as smoothly. 

Ringing customers out with a BOGO sale is 
also a bit tricky, but Chickie managed like 
a charm. Basically, there would have been 
no sale without Chickie. 

Of course DH was of no help at all. He was busy grumping about this or that, and he did cut up some larger leather pieces into sizes that our customers seem to prefer. Still, he had a stack of leather on the countertop, sometimes folded, sometimes scattered, and he would leave it there while he checked on something else, or did something else, for hours! Very messy looking. GRRRR

It could have been a disaster, but people were well 
spaced out, and our one pre-order went smoothly 
as well (and was responsible for more than 50% of 
the day's proceeds). Hopefully the rest of the sale 
will go smoothly too. 

But, the important thing is that we survived our first day of the five, and hopefully we'll be a bit better at helping those customers who come through the door today. I suspect that our Friday and Saturday sales will be much busier, but that's just fine. We actually needed a slower day to get comfortable with what we were doing. I might have wasted a lot of preparation, but then again, maybe it's just fine. We'd rather work with customers one-on-one than just fill shopping lists anyway. LOL Have an excellent Wednesday. Just a reminder, Aearwen, I'm working today so no chat this week. But we'll catch up next week FOR SURE. Slave Ukraini. 

We Need a "Come to Jesus" Meeting with DH - Like THAT's Going to Happen ...

So DH has decided that we will run a one-week sale every month, on selected slow-moving products. It's not a bad idea, but it's an idea that should have been done 10 years ago, not now. At this point it's not going to make any appreciable impact in our inventory quantities, and that's what we really need - a serious depletion of existing inventories. 

I'll work on the email for this sale today, my 
target date is the last week of January. We'll 
continue to work through items every month, 
but that's too little and too late. We need something 
like this every week or two, and even that 
won't make a really big impact. 

Like any business, there are things that will sell a lot (bread, eggs, milk) and things that will sell only when needed - so much slower (brownie mix, spices, beef jerky). Good marketing is understanding the balance of those products - having enough of the top sellers, and not overbuying the slower sellers. We got sucked into the Swarovski whirlpool, and we're paying the price now, as we want to reduce inventory quantities. 

We're starting out with our odd sizes of our best 
selling seed beads - our Delicas. We'll move 
from there to three other groupings of products 
that he wants to move out. That will take us through 
the end of April. I want to be out of business 
by the end of June. Yeah. Right! Like THAT's 
going to happen. *sigh*

Going through our records, Swarovski crystal beads are more than 1/4 of our inventory dollars. That's a HUGE amount. And, since Swarovski has changed both their beads and their marketing strategy, I'm not even allowed to sell them under the Swarovski name any more, even though they are demonstrably their product, in their packaging, and made 100% by them. It's a very fine tightrope that we have to walk with that product now. The days of dear Sonia coming in and buying several $1000's of 8mm cubes, or Patricia coming in to purchase $500 of large bicones and rounds are behind us. Now we've got a LOT of inventory that isn't justifying its' cost. 

We've been an authorized dealer and reseller of Tandy 
leather products and tools for more than two decades 
now. Although we do sell a lot of leather, we never really 
sold a lot of the Tandy products - at least not enough to 
justify the products that we brought in. At that point 
Tandy had closed ALL of their retail sales locations, but 
they re-opened them about 15 years ago and that was 
death for our side business in their products. 

It's that way in a few other departments as well - our Tandy Leather products, our books, and our larger thicker leather. How we're going to sell all of this down enough to close this year is a mystery to me. I can see one-week deep sales bringing IN business, but it won't help us get OUT of business - at least not at the level that I see as mandatory. Frankly, right now, I don't know what to do. I do know that Chickie need surgery and won't work for us more than this year, and neither of us will work exclusively with DH - he's impossible to work with on a daily basis. 

Chickie started working for me during my first 
year at my Mall of America location. She was 
in college at that time. She moved away after 
we closed that store, going to Florida for graduate 
school, and we caught up again when she moved 
back. She started working part-time, then moved 
into full time when her other job fell through. 
She's been with me ever since. She's fabulous, 
and I totally understand where she's coming from. 
Her health HAS to take priority. 

So, as far as getting out of the shop, I'm at my wits end. Totally and completely. I'll do the photography and sales email for our first Inventory Reduction Sale, but I'm not expecting any miracles here. I'll do the photography today, though. I want this sale to run the last week of January. We'll see how we do. *sigh* Thank goodness I'll get to cook a bit today - beef stew! Yummy. Have an excellent Friday and I'll be back tomorrow for my final post of the week. Slava Ukraini and חיים לישראל.

Shifting Into High Gear Starts This Week *sigh*

Saturday's sale was less than desired, but not unexpected. The majority of our customers are seed bead users - i.e., those who use beads that come in containers which have quantities of 500 to several 1000 per tube or box. That type of bead is used for many different types of projects, from accenting needlepoint pictures, to making elaborate pieces of jewelry. It's a method of using beads that's quite different from taking larger beads and stringing them into pieces of jewelry - beads like shaped stone or larger shaped glass pieces. 

The two countries making the majority of quality seed 
beads are the Czech Republic (for more than a century), 
and Japan (since after WWII). Over time, the Japanese 
product has become the standard - they are more uniform, with 
more colors. I carry all three brands of Japanese seed 
beads, and those from the Czech Republic as well. In 
addition to these rounder beads, I also carry the Japanese 
specialty beads, aka "Delica" beads. They are tiny, 
but cylindrical. 

But we were hopping on Friday - did excellent sales even though I didn't see one particular customer I really had wanted to catch up a bit with. It took me a couple of sales to get into the rhythm of the best (and only) way to ring the sale items out properly with the correct discount levels applied to each type of bead. After I got that back into my mindset, things went smoothly and we were pleased with the sales numbers at the end of the day. 

The pattern on the left was done with Japanese size 11o 
seed beads. The one on the right was done with Miyuki 
"Delica" beads - a seed bead that they number as a 
size 11, but we number as a 12 since they are slightly 
smaller than an 11. They are also cylindrical (think of a 
drum shape) instead of rounded (like a tire). Although 
there is one type of bead even more uniform than the 
Delica, it's also WAY more expensive. Delicas come in 
more than 1200 colors, and I carry most of them, along 
with all of my other seed beads. We are small bead 
specialists, and I love working with all the different 
sizes and shapes. 

Saturday was quite different. We were slow, we had plenty of time to gather the items our customers were asking for, and, although I don't know how our sales compared to last year's numbers, I suspect our sales numbers were down. It was slow enough that DH left shortly after Chickie's lunch break. If we had been busy, he would have stayed for the day. I don't even think I had a coupon redeemed until late afternoon - and it was a very nice sale from an appreciative customer. But, I'd call Saturday's sale a bust. 

DH decided on "Sherlock" for our next batch of DVS's 
to watch and I highly approve of his choice. It was a 
wonderful series - ended far too quickly, and won't take 
us long to work through. 

On Sunday, we relaxed and enjoyed a day of hockey, football, and finally, watched a couple of episodes of "Sherlock". We had finished our seasons of "Inspector Lewis", and decided, on a whim, to watch an old favorite - "Sherlock" staring Cumberbatch and Freeman. Delightful, as always, and we're into these now for a bit. Unfortunately, there were only three episodes per season on this show, and only four seasons total. 

It's your final chance to get onto my Holiday Card list, 
or confirm (via message) your address for this year's 
card. I love making them, and even though what I wanted 
for this year didn't happen, it's still a card I'm looking 
forward to sending onward to my friends throughout 
the world. I have a strict numeric maximum, however, so 
make sure I have your address, etc, correct.
Overseas? Not a problem. 

Now we start our 7-day weeks. We'll be open on the next three Sundays from Noon until 4:00 pm. Sucks! But, if we can save the holidays for someone by being open, I'm fine with it. Usually, however, the extra days are a bit of a waste of our time and effort. I'm shifting into high gear for holiday cards, now. I got my "gift" for each of you packaged while cooking my turkey meal on Thursday, and tested out my envelope design this morning. My task this week is to get the interior design of the cards completed, and then I can start the addressing and mailing. So ... THIS IS THE FINAL CALL OUT FOR CARDS. If you want one, make sure to let me know. If you've had an address change, make sure to let me know. I have a strict limit of 50 (which is down to 48 because of technical issues), so that's what I'm working with. I always save one completed card for my own records too, so that means 47 cards are available. Let me know NOW. 

Have an excellent Monday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.

One Day Down, One to Go - I Will Survive - LOL

Just a short post today to check in, I'm running a bit behind time, and I'm exhausted from yesterday and not really in a good head space for today. I need to just sit quietly for a bit and get grounded once again before dealing with the next batch of customers. Fortunately, or unfortunately, our Saturday products aren't as popular as our Friday offerings, so we won't be quite as busy today. 

We don't do sales all year, we reserve the big 
sales for the Holiday season. Although we always 
have different bargain bins, the only store-wide 
sales I do are these two days - days when everything 
in the store is on sale. Ninety-nine percent of my 
sales on these two days, however, come from my 
beaders picking up new product for their stashes. 

Yesterday, however, was very busy. Which was great. It was fun to see a lot of our customers again - some of whom were in only last week, others of whom we only see a few times a year. We didn't see a couple who I really wanted to see - Joyce in particular, a good friend over many years who's totally bead addicted. She gives the BEST hugs, and she was MIA this year. I hope everything's OK with her. Her husband can be a "bit" overbearing at times. 

We usually have our long-time customers purchasing 
from this sale - people who've been shopping with us 
for 10 years or more. But, we often will also pick up 
a few new customers through it too, so it's worth the 
effort to hold it. Our customers certainly appreciate 
it, and we always need the extra boost of income. 

Sales were busy all day, and we ended up only a couple of hundred less than last year, so totally OK. It would have been nice to surpass last year, but I'm pretty happy with the day's totals. We'll see how today does. Today we offer "larger than seed beads" only, and pull in a totally different group of people for that one. It's never quite as well attended, but it's a bit more labor intensive in some ways because we're always getting into each other's way while pulling product for people, and we have to be very up-to-date on returning samples to the sales floor for the next shopper. 

I have a small staff - DH and Chickie and me. But 
we're all VERY experienced at helping customers 
get exactly the product or color they are looking for, 
and warning them away from products that may not 
last, may fade, or may cut their threads in some 
applications. We work with our customers intensively 
to make sure they're getting the BEST product for their 
projects. It's Labor Intensive in the best way. 

So, it'll be another busy day today. I might have messed up and given a bit more discounts on a couple of early sales yesterday, but I'm hoping I got that under control quickly. I can't afford to make a lot of mistakes when we're offering the deep discounts we offer on these sales days. I'll come home tonight and collapse. I plan on having a VERY lazy Sunday to recover before we begin the last week of November. The holiday decorations are up, and we're playing Christmas songs on the radio, we're almost ready for the holiday. I guess I should see about getting some gifts for DH. I have NO idea what he'll want, but I'll figure something out. Have an excellent Saturday and I'll be back on Monday. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.

Thanksgiving Was A Lovely Day - Food, Football and Holiday Cards

Thanksgiving turned into a very productive day. It was warm enough (barely) for DH to finally attack the gutters around the house, clearing out the leaves so that we will have less ice buildup over the winter. He was chilled and grumpy afterward, but also glad he got it out of the way since he's been wanting to get that done for a few weeks now. 

Our turkey looks slightly overbaked, but it was 
absolutely fabulous. The skin was crispy and 
perfect, the interior was juicy and flavorful. It's 
one of the best turkeys I've ever roasted. Yippee! 

I, on the other hand, started working on my turkey at 7:00 am and had it in the oven by 8. I followed the directions of my favorite on-line turkey guru to the letter (almost) and even added chopped rosemary and thyme into the melted butter that I put between the skin and the meat of the breast.  Then, uncovered in a VERY hot oven for 20 minutes (although I forgot and left it in that very hot oven for 40 minutes instead), and then covering the whole with foil and turning the temp WAY down for the next few hours. 

We like a well-basted turkey, so I was up basting it every half-hour or so. I had my digital thermometer inserted, so wasn't worried about anything else. I turned it around 180 degrees mid-roast and re-inserted the thermometer in a different location which did seem to need more heat, so it was good that I did that. DH started making his side dishes and I pulled the turkey out to sit and rest for 20 minutes while he cooked. Finally it was ready, and it was absolutely AWESOME. Very flavorful (the thyme and rosemary were an excellent idea) and yummy! I steamed some fresh green beans and had a large salad, DH had his stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy and corn. The best part of this meal will be the leftovers. 

I love my Tim Holtz Distress Inks. I don't have 
this many, but I do have a very nice selection. 
I'm going to need to start buying the refills for 
them, so I'll have to start a list of which ones I 
own and which refills I've already purchased. I 
think that will make a nice holiday gift for 
myself - one that DH would never think about 
getting for me. 

I spent the majority of my day, however, working on painting my holiday cards. I got about 2/3 through the fronts of the cards, and then I'll tackle the inside of the cards on Sunday. I'll (obviously) finish the fronts first before starting the interior image. It's been fun to pick up paint brushes again, it's been a few years since I've painted my cards so it's a nice change. It'll still be a bit before they're finished and ready for mailing, but I'll tell you when they hit the mail so that you can watch for them to arrive at your homes if you've on my list. 

DH did a great job with the store tree on 
Wednesday. I ended up going over to the 
shop Wednesday night to spend an hour or 
so getting the garlands up and the wreaths 
on the door and front case. I have holiday hours 
signs in my laptop bag to hang on the door and 
windows today, and some handouts for the 
bags of our customers. I think we're as set as 
we can be for our Two-day Sale. 

Other than that, we watched football for the day. Some really good games were played yesterday and apparently, the Minnesota Vikings ended up winning their game. (Since it was the late game, I went to sleep before halftime.) Still, all in all, it was a lovely Thanksgiving. Today and tomorrow is my Two-day After Thanksgiving sale at the shop, and Sunday is the last Sunday I'll have off from working until Christmas Day. That's a rather depressing thought, all around *sigh*. Have an excellent Friday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

Thanksgiving Thanks A Day Early

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the USA, and in case I don't get a chance to go on-line tomorrow, I want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. 

Thanksgiving Day dinners differ by the family, but often feature a roasted
turkey with stuffing and lots of side dishes. Every family seems to have
their own "must haves" for their Thanksgiving Day meal. 

I'll be doing the usual - cooking up a very large (16.5 pound) bird in my small oven, then adding side dishes like stuffing, cranberries, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn and green beans for a wonderful, calorie-filled meal. We'll have pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert. Then we'll just roll ourselves downstairs and probably play Lord of the Rings Online for a few hours while we digest. 

Our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales cut our prices down
even more than usual. Savvy customers know that they get a bargain
on these two days, and each of the days offers discounts on different types
of items, so often they come to shop each day. 

Friday is Black Friday and Saturday is Small Business Saturday. I only offer two store-wide sales a year, and these two days are the first one. My customers have grown accustomed to seeing our sale e-flyer in their in-boxes and we're usually nicely busy for the weekend. We count on this sale and our after-Christmas sale to bring in sales dollars and end our year on a high note. I'm hoping we'll have a good two-day sale again this year. 

The knotted pearl strand my customer is having me redo for her
is quite lovely and 42 inches long. That's a lot of knots and a
lot of restringing. It took me 2-1/2 hours to cut the old strand
apart pearl by pearl to pre-string them in preparation for
knotting a new necklace together. Repairs are fun, but this one
is time consuming. Still, I'll get some decent money for the repair. 

But today is Wednesday - my "day off" and while doing my many loads of laundry, changing the linens and picking up the pie for tomorrow (no - I don't bake because Baker's Square makes such a fantastic pumpkin pie), I'll be working like mad on my holiday cards. There's still so much to do and I'm totally running out of time. I also have my basement crossed with stretched silk and pearls for a pearl restring of a 42" knotted pearl strand. It's a bit dangerous to be walking around my basement right now with so many feet of fine silk stretched across the room just above head height. Laundry might be made more interesting because of that particular repair. 

Thanks to each of you for being a friend. It means a lot
to me that you take a few minutes of your day to read
and sometimes comment on my silly daily blog. *hugs*

I'm thankful for many things, but among the top few are all of you - my on-line friends and daily companions. I write my blog to wake up, bring my thoughts into order, and start my day productively, but the fact that it also gets read, commented on, and sometimes touches across the miles makes me very happy. Thank you, all of you. 

Have an excellent Wednesday and a glorious Thanksgiving Day tomorrow. I'll be back on Friday, groaning from eating too much on Thursday, I'm sure. 

In One Ear and Out The Other

In one ear and out the other. How often have you thought instructions or words were just bouncing off the person you were speaking to? How many times have things been repeated over and over again and either occur again, or are never put into action at all? Sometimes it's like hitting your head against a brick wall, other times you're suffocating in a sea of "yes" that actually mean "no" or even worse, "whatever". *Sigh*

I'm usually pretty forgiving about errors, but I won't
allow things that might make a customer uncomfortable or
that might cause a customer to second-guess their shopping
experience with us. 

When mistakes are made over and over again, and they are little mistakes, or things that only impact you, it's not a big deal. When they are mistakes that impact others, it can become a big deal indeed. Did you know that most stores have a cushion of cash that they allow when closing out registers for the night? Your larger stores that have central cash-out areas or purchasing areas located within each individual department, often allow a small percentage error when settling their cash receipts at the end of the day.

Do you think about the other side of any sales transaction?
At the end of the day, that cash drawer must balance against
the register recap and the transaction terminals. 

It's a minor amount, usually 1%-2% total, but in a busy store, that small percentage can add up to $100 or more within a department or on a sales floor of your large department stores. As a small business, I insist on 100% accuracy. I don't have a cushion percentage. My allotment for error is $0 and staff pays from their own pockets if they make an error on a cash sale. Credit transaction changes are a bit more challenging.

It's common sense that the actual amount owed for any
transaction will include whatever applicable sales
tax the city or state requires. In our case, it's an add-on
of 7.265% for state, city and transportation taxes assessed
to each sale. It's automatically calculated and added to
the subtotal owed by the customer. 

Yesterday evening when I settled for the night, I was off less than $6. It's not a major amount, but it happened because my co-worker charged the credit card based on the subtotal of the sale instead of the total. That meant that the sales tax hadn't been added to the charge, even though the itemized receipt and the cash register screen would have stated the larger amount. The cash register EOD tape and the charge terminal amount collected didn't match. That was a problem.

It's not easy to make a change to a credit card charge amount. In today's world of extra security, I can't just go in and adjust the amount the way I used to be able to do many years ago. I had to phone customer service and they had to retrieve the credit card information. Then, with their assistance, I was able to change the amount charged to the correct total. The customer was charged the correct amount (the amount on their itemized sales receipt) before I settled the daily batch, but changing it was time consuming and totally unnecessary.

I hate confrontation, and I hate having to discuss things
that have been discussed before. I know what the
reaction probably will be, and I'm just NOT in the mood.
My customers come first, though. Accuracy is imperative. 

I've discussed this problem with my associate several times in the past, the last time within the past three months. Avoiding this is a simple fix - push the TOTAL key on the cash register before finalizing the sale to show the total amount owed on the screen. She didn't do that and it caused a mess. I'm hoping the customer won't be coming back asking why the amounts are different, it's embarrassing to have to explain an error like this. I don't like my customers to be uncomfortable or hesitant about any transactions they have at my store.

Something's affecting her attention span. It's time
to get her head back into the game. 

I'm upset with my co-worker. She knows better. She's worked for me for more than twenty years and has done thousands of sales. Lately her head hasn't been in the game and I'm not sure why. I guess it's time for another chat, and I'm really unhappy about having to do that. Routine can become rote. It's time to wake up.

I hope your Wednesday is fabulous and fantastic. I'm going to try and get some work done on my story for "Revolution" today. I'm within the story line, know where I want to go with it, but don't want it to be massive, so some serious changes in direction are mandated. But first, the gym and the pool. Yippee!

Snow May Bury My Movie Plans

Yesterday was crazy busy - no real time at the shop to do anything other than process mail orders, help customers, check in the large order that arrived around noon, and work on my Black Friday/Small Business Saturday email sale notification. I finally finished up the email late last night, will take one more look at it this morning, then send it off. Hopefully it will work some magic and we'll be really busy on Friday and Saturday.

Although many people shop early sales or on-line, we usually have pretty
good response to our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales.
Of course, we only run two sales each year - one after Thanksgiving,
and one after Christmas. 

Because of all that, however, I didn't get a chance to answer a lot of you or acknowledge your responses to my final card call-out or individual requests. Sorry about that. Today should be a bit better.

I really want to see this - really a LOT! I'm hoping that we'll
miss the worst of the snow so that I'll feel comfortable
driving home on the roads. If so, I'll be watching tonight.
If not, I'll have wasted the $5 pre-purchased ticket price. 

Speaking of magic, I want to be in the audience watching "Fantastic Beasts" tonight. In fact, my ticket is already purchased. But a snowstorm is rolling in and supposed to hit just about the time I would leave the theater after the movie. I don't want to be driving in bad road conditions, and DH has asked me to postpone the show if the weather comes through as predicted. So right now I'm on the fence about my evening plans. I suspect, though, that I'll be paying Chickie the $5 for the movie ticket, but will be skipping it. I'll just have to catch it another time with better road conditions. They are predicting up to five inches overnight tonight, starting at 6:00 pm and going through 6:00 am. Getting to the gym tomorrow may be as adventurous as I want to get.

The world of Harry Potter comes to the USA in this
prequel of the beloved series. It hits all my loves -
magic, the Harry Potter universe and art deco. 

I was out at the White Bear Lake pool yesterday since my Chiropractor is near that location. The pool heater was malfunctioning and the water was really cold! It's the second time I got caught there with a broken heater and it was just as uncomfortable as the first time, i.e., NOT fun. Thank goodness I'll be back at my regular pool today. They were working on the heater as I left the gym yesterday, but it's a lot of water to heat, so things may still be a bit on the cold side today at WBL. I'm sure my little Shoreview pool will be much warmer and I'll be much happier.

Have a great day. I'm really hoping that the worst of the slow bypasses us, but predictions put us right in the center of the storm. Damn - really want to see "Fantastic Beasts". Enjoy your Tuesday!

Final Call-Out For Cards and Shopping/Shop Stuff

It's Thanksgiving week and I'm going to have a very busy computer day today. Of course, I'm also expecting a large shipment from a vendor which means my store computer will be monopolized to check the order in, update the inventory, and print out price tags. I have mail orders to fill, invoice and ship, and I also have our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday mailings to compose and get ready to send out. Basically, today is a mess because I'm also the only person on the sales floor. It might be a really late night for me and tomorrow will be packed with a ton of finish-up work so that my mailings can get out on time. Can you say "last minute"?

I'm having to redo a lot of my email sales notifications because I want
them to be mobile friendly. I'm thinking about sending two separate
emails this year - one for Friday and one for Saturday - since I put
different products on sale for each day. 

I did manage to cut and glue the next ten cards worth of embellishments during the football game yesterday (DH's team won, so he was happy). That leaves me with a dozen more before this stage of manufacturing is complete. I'm right on track for a Solstice mailing, and as as long as each stage goes smoothly, they'll be out on time. Of course, there's always that hidden log to trip over in the woods, right? But I'm being cautiously optimistic.

I have small pieces of tissue paper making my trash bag very colorful. It's not
this style of collage, but this looks like fun. If I can stay on schedule, I may
have this part of my holiday cards completed by the end of the upcoming weekend. 

This is my final call-out for Holiday Cards. I'll be contacting some of you individually to see if you would like a card since I haven't heard from you, but if in doubt, just message me your address. You won't get two cards, guaranteed, but you won't get one at all if you haven't signed up.

Saturday was crisp after our snow on Friday. The roads were (and still are) fine for driving, but the grass had a nice dusting of snow and the wind was blowing so it was cold. I transferred my pocket stuff from my bomber jacket to my long parka and was ready to face the elements. Except - I realized that the zipper on my parka was broken and that it was about two sizes too large, so wouldn't really do much to keep me warm. Argh!!! Time to shop.

I think I'll be quite happy with this long parka. I did
get it in the grape color, the "fur" collar is detachable
for washing and it's rated for comfort as low as
-50F. Although we don't get quite that cold here,
add the wind chill, and it can be quite crispy. 

After looking at various on-line choices for a new parka within my limited budget, I scored the one above which will arrive late this week or early next. The coat is from Land's End and originally was priced at $219. I hunted for a coupon and found one that brought the price to $131.40 and had free shipping! That I could afford, so order placed and coat anxiously being awaited. It will be nice to be warm while I wait for the gym doors to be unlocked in the morning.

Have a good Monday, all. I hope you won't be quite as busy as I'll be today. But then, there are worse things than being busy at this time of the year.

Singing the Fabric Blues

There are never enough hours in the day for my day off. I spent a very productive day working on my budget, printing out materials for my upcoming income tax appointment, and of course having a delightful conversation with Aearwen, as I do every Wednesday afternoon.

The shopping center for my local Hancock Fabrics
isn't very upscale, but they've been there for a very long
time. I remember shopping here when it was still
called Minnesota Fabrics, before it was purchased
by Hancock. They're closing three Twin City stores,
Bloomington, Woodbury and Roseville. 

My local fabric store is closing and I'm quite sad. I happened to be driving by that part of town and saw signage covering the front windows that they were closing. So sad. However - closing also means bargains and I wasn't one to turn down opportunity. So after the groceries were put away and another load of laundry was put into the washer, I headed over there to see what might be on sale that I could use.

That leaves JoAnn Fabrics as my only choice for standard
fabric stores in my area, and that really isn't a choice at all. ICK!!!

The biggest thing I ended up with were several excellent patterns. They were already sold out of the Steampunk patterns I wanted (weeping - they were really excellent), but I was able to get one superb corset pattern, two skirt patterns and a dress pattern. I've been busy washing and putting away long lengths of calico fabric that I've had for years and I wanted some patterns I could use with all of this fabric. 50% off the pattern price (patterns normally retail for anywhere from $16 to $19) was a total SCORE. Add in a few excellent buttons for 40% off and a new thimble and double needle for 30% off, and I walked out with a small bag of deliciousness.

There's also Treadle Yard Goods, my primary source for
fine silk and extraordinary buttons, but they're small and
rather pricey. They almost closed two years ago but were
bought out by one of their employees. 

Of course, the fact that I spent an extra hour shopping (instead of just doing the grocery and the household shopping) meant I had no time to write. I think I've determined where I want to go with this year's B2MeM, though. Hopefully I'll have some time to write this morning. I'm changing my schedule up to have more eat-in breakfasts and less eat-out ones, which gives me more computer time between the gym and when I unlock the store.

There also is SR Harris, but as you can tell from the photo, this
is warehouse shopping - not easy to access and it also is a
serious drive away from where I live. It can be a treasure trove, but
not for me. I'm glad I have a good stash of fabrics stocked up
through the years. Don't think I'll be shopping for material anytime soon. 

Another nice thing about yesterday's workload was a refund I had been expecting. I had purchased and returned an item for more than $100 in mid-2014, but the refund had never appeared back in my account. I found the original email confirming that they had received the returned items and would refund my purchase price and sent it to them inquiring about the money. I received an answer today stating that the money will be in my account within 7-10 days and apologizing for their computer glitch. Not happy about the delay, but will be very happy when I have the money back.

It will be nice to have that money back in my account. I'm not
happy about the delay, but am happy that I caught it and
they were fast to respond. 

Happy Thursday, I'm off to beat the elliptical back into shape (yeah, right! Like that will EVER truly happen). Enjoy your day and be creative!

Too Much Food!

Yesterday's turkey dinner was spectacular. I was good, worked out on the treadmill for a while, but the treadmill isn't my favorite piece of equipment so it was a perfunctory workout at best. Still, it was a bit of sweat and running.

Thanksgiving in my house is turkey, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes
with gravy, and a green veggie, all served up with football. There's
nothing better than a day of football and a well-roasted bird. 

The bird went into the oven at 11:00 and came out and onto plates at 4:30 and it was PERFECT. So good! Of course, we had carbohydrates up the moon along with the bird, and finished up with pumpkin pie, so I'm up three pounds today! ICK!

I knew I would gain - all of those carbs made it a
certainty - but three pounds! Oy! Back to the gym today. 

The gym is calling me, followed by a reasonable breakfast and our Black Friday sale - day one of our two-day after Thanksgiving Day sale. Usually we do well with this sale, and hopefully we won't have additional problems such as computer issues to deal with. If everything goes smoothly, I'll be a very happy person. Here's hoping your Thanksgiving was wonderful (if you're one of my USA friends) and that your days ahead, as we approach the end of the year holidays, isn't too crazy. Happy Friday to all!

Looking Forward to December 31st

This week is the beginning of hell for me - the week of "Black Friday", "Small Business Saturday" and the Holiday Season. Good things do happen - I get to work on and finish up my holiday cards (formal shout-out for addresses will be tomorrow) and send them winging their way all over the world within a few short weeks. But I also have to work really hard to get ready for the holidays and I'm nowhere near ready.

We don't get the huge crowds for our Black Friday sales, but since we
only run two sales a year, we usually do get customers grateful for that
additional percentage off our already low prices.  

But DH and I had a lovely and relaxed day yesterday - breakfast out followed by watching "Spectre" at the movies and an afternoon of football in which my team won and his team lost. It was nice to have a bit of time to relax. I even wrote a short Tolkien story for this month's LOTRO Community Challenge. I haven't written a thing for almost a year, so it was refreshing to open that doorway, even if it was just a small crack of daylight.

I will happily take any of the cars used in Spectre. Old or new, the
selection of vehicles used in the movie were totally drool-worthy! 

Today I swim, then go to the Chiropractor, breakfast, and then the store. I've been hunting for my staplegun without success, although I know I bought a new one last holiday season. Today is my last day of hunting. If I don't find it, I buy a new one tomorrow. What a stupid waste of money, but I need it for my annual holiday decorations and have no choice. ARGH!

It really bugs me that I can't find the staple gun I purchased last
year. I had it in a baggie with the staples, labelled as
mine, and I remember putting it into a box. That's the problem.
It's somewhere in a box. *sigh*

Here's hoping your week is smooth as we approach Thursday's Thanksgiving Day holiday here in the USA. Have a great Monday.

Cruising Along

What a week! I'm still way behind on getting my store ready for our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales, but I'm at least almost finished with my NaNoWriMo numbers for the month. I have less than 3000 words remaining to make my 50,000 goal for the month. After I get this finished, I'll have to put my book away again for a while. I always dream of being able to continue working on it, but I also know that time is hard to carve out in my daily schedule and I have other things on my agenda that have been put on the back burner while I've been writing my novel for the month. At least I still have plenty of plot left in this novel, so I won't have any problem with next year's NaNo, and I also have my second novel underway and have a strong idea for a third. Now if I could just find the time to write every day my life would be perfect.

I'm almost done. Another day or two and I'll have my 50,000 to compile and send
in for verification. Oh happy me! Then again - this novel is a monster that
is creeping along through the years. Why can't I write succinctly? 

I have to get an email flyer out to my customers and that's the next writing challenge I've got pending. That has to be sent out on Tuesday so that my customers will know what I have on sale for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. We need to bring the holiday tree up from the basement and get the ornaments we have for sale arranged on it, and I need to get my shiny garland attached to my store displays. Chickie is polishing jewelry and I'm still stringing up the samples of the newest beads every evening so that they can be out and on display before next Friday. Too much to do!

I wish our tree would look this cute. We decorate our
store holiday tree with hand-made Native American
products for sale. These small pottery, birch-bark and
dreamcatcher ornaments are prized and quite lovely. 

I think I'm going to try and have a relaxing Sunday. I need one. I hope all of you have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday morning. Oh, and per yesterday's post, it seems that AOL has self-fixed their mail problem. I suspect their software wasn't playing nicely with the latest Microsoft update.

Where Has November Gone?

In a little more than a week we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving! Then we'll hold our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales. I haven't updated our email list for our sales yet, and I haven't composed he text or even decided what items I'm going to put on sale yet. I'm already out of time and it's only the 18th! I have a bunch of new products that have to be strung, labelled and hung out for display within the next week. I have new products that still need to be processed and there's still one more shipment I'm expecting before Turkey Day. I don't think I've entered the Holiday Season this unprepared in many years. We've brought too much in too close to the holiday to easily catch up.

We always run specials for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. We
don't get a dramatic increase in business, but we usually do get enough
to make it worth our while to offer some deals. I used to shop at other stores
on Black Friday just to get into the spirit of the holiday, but probably won't
bother shopping much this year. 

Having my eye surgery tomorrow also isn't going to help this schedule. I'll want to rest and recuperate, but I won't have any time to indulge in that. My timing couldn't be much worse. I'm keeping up with my words for NaNoWriMo, but Wednesdays are usually a good catch-up day for me and I've got the surgery instead. I'm going to have to figure out really quickly how to work on my laptop with a backup copy, then pull the backup back into current text. I know it can be done, I've done it before. But I wish I had a bit more time for experimentation.

I use Scrivener writing software for NaNoWriMo. I confess that
I totally love it, although there is a definite learning curve. I started
out several years ago using a different, less expensive program, but
switched to this two years ago. I recommend it to any serious
author. And if you're doing NaNo, you can get it at a reduced cost. 

But, whether I want it or not, tempus fugit. I hope all of you have a wonderful Tuesday and I'll be back with another short post tomorrow.