Tired, Tired, Stressed and Painting

I usually don't feel this exhausted until later in the week.  I am not a young person any more - at least not in body (I can't speak for my mind ), but I am used to my crazy schedule and my general lack of sleep.  It is the penalty that I pay to be able to keep in touch with my on-line friends and to read my fanfic stories.  But today I am exhausted. 

I suspect a great deal of that is pure stress.  We are getting a sufficient number of people through the door of the shop, but they are spending more than 50% less than they usually would.  The lack of income this generates is presenting us with uncomfortable choices and decisions and we keep hoping that we can push those decisions off.  But we may be running out of time and room to maneuver.  My poor DH is super stressed out about all of this.  I am, as usual, placing my future in the hands of the Goddess and having faith that she will allow me to land on my feet.  She has always come through for me in the past... 

Apparently Monday night my DH dreamed that we were in Paris for a romantic vacation.  I would love to be there - I want to see The Louvre and Notre Dame Cathedral and so many other places.  But in his dream, I spent the entire vacation painting and we didn't get to go anywhere.  Apparently I was very happy though, and what I painted was quite pretty.  Still, if I'm in Paris...I'm going to The Louvre.  THEN I can paint - LOL. 

Holiday Star

Well, our holiday season is starting out slow.  Last Sunday was quite busy, but this Sunday was slow.  My sales goals for the day weren't reached, but I did bring some beadwork with me to work on and I got a lot done with that.  I usually would never work on personal things at the shop, but Sundays are a day out of schedule and I don't have a problem playing with beads or other images if I want, as long as I'm back to work on Monday getting things accomplished.  If you end up with one of these in your holiday gift box - sorry for the spoiler. 

It is more vibrant in person, but it did
turn out quite pretty.  I'll continue working on
more of these. 

I was trying to complete a Holiday Star pendant.  This project, printed in the latest issue of Bead & Button Magazine, intrigued me.  I rarely do other people's projects, but I liked the look of it and was hoping that it might make a nice holiday gift for some of my friends.  It is neither as easy or fast as the magazine text promised, but I did succeed and it is quite pretty.  It takes about eight hours to make one from start to finish, so I won't be making this for many people.  There are a few, however, who probably do deserve something pretty and sparkling for their Solstice gifts. 

Now I have to get working on my E-newsletter for the shop.  We are going to be running some very substantial sales for Black Friday and Small Business Saturday next week, and I have to have the copy pounded out and proofread by the end of the week.    I really have to get into the holiday groove, and I'm just not focused.....

Saturday Snowfall

Late last night we had the beginning of our first snowfall for the season.  We are getting a real snow, not just a dusting.  I can tell that we did get some snow overnight because of the feel of the world outside my walls.  When the snow falls, it is a sound damper - a hush falls over my world.  It is like snuggling down into a warm blanket - sound is distanced and I can curl up with my dreams.  We were expecting up to two inches of snow overnight with another 4"-6" falling during the day today.    Winter has decided to move in for a few months, and even if this snowfall melts and we don't get any more for a few weeks, we still won't be out of the snowfall time for another five-six months. 

Snowflakes are so beautiful.

On these snowy days, I dream of studio time.  There is nothing much nicer than having cold temps, blowing snow, and icky roads, while knowing that I don't have to be outside of the house and can work at the kiln, melting glass for the day.  Unfortunately, that is a luxury that I won't have until 2011 since my Wednesdays will be tied up making holiday gifts until the end of the year.  I'm also working on holiday gifts at night when I get home from the shop, but my eyes just give out after a while and I simply can't concentrate so I don't get as much accomplished as I want/need to.  Therefore, I know I'll be running into some crunch time - I can guarantee it.  I just wish things would be a little easier sometimes, but each thing comes in it's season and I couldn't start on holiday gifts until after Chickie's party was complete. 

Instructions Bru-ha-ha

I don't particularly enjoy doing projects that are designed by other people, but I don't have the time or clarity of thinking right now to design my own and a couple of projects had appealed to me.  The second of these projects has now reminded me of why I don't enjoy doing other people's designs.  Aside from the really poor directions which only work well for the first half of the project, they also are lying like crazy when they say that it "works up quickly".  Now, I've been a beader for more than 40 years and am considered to be very good at the craft.  I know there are people out there who are better at it than I am because they focus on beadwork as their major craft.  I do not focus on beadwork exclusively and my skills, therefore, are not directed towards a single goal.  But I was feeling a bit frustrated with the directions in this project when I got into the second half of it, things were anything but clear.  Then, discussing this with my co-worker, I heard that one of my customers who is a very accomplished beader had come into the store on my day off and had complained about the very same thing - that it was neither quick nor easy.  I suddenly felt better.  I do want to do the project, though, so I'll string up beads again tonight and try for a second time.  I'm sure it will go together easier...at least until that second part. 

E-newsletters are SO much easier to prepare and send.

After working on it for several days, I think I have my E-newsletter for the shop pounded out.  I printed two copies out last night to run by my Manager and the Chickie and we'll see if they agree with what I am saying and my time schedule.  Everything that I had planned to have happening this weekend has been pushed off to next weekend.    I'm just not timely on this one, but I also knew that I had a bit of time.  However, I have a quick and dirty one that needs to go out the week after this for a special one-day sale and I have to get to work on that quickly.  Then I always send one for the Holidays and that's the next one to work on.  I really need to send this more regularly, at least one a month, so I'll focus and do writing that has nothing to do with Middle Earth - a bit unusual for me over the past few years.  Have a wonderful and creative Friday. 

Sense of Accomplishment

I didn't get as much done on my day off as I wanted to, but I did accomplish a lot.  Primary among what I did was get my smaller scanner unpacked from my secondary desk.  I want to bring it over to the shop since the scanner I have used for years over there is no longer working properly.  Unfortunately, the space that I have available is extremely minimal and I'm not really sure how I'll make it fit.  Somehow I'll make it work, however, because it is absolutely necessary.  It's not that I don't have a ton of other work to do, though.  Today I have to find some computer time at work to finish working on my E-newsletter.  I originally wanted my sale to run on Friday, Saturday and Sunday this week (well, let's be honest - I originally wanted it to run those days LAST week).  But instead it will be scheduled for next week and our Black Friday special will also be added to the same newsletter.    I try to be on time, and if it was only me, I could send this without any problem.  My problem is that I have to print it out and show it to my Manager before I release it, just to make sure that we're all on the same page with the sale. 

Natural foods are often thought of as vegetables, but
don't forget meat and milk without added hormones. 

Today they announced that more than 20% of all children have ADHD.  That's a huge increase.  I wonder why this is the case.  Certainly people are recognizing the symptoms with greater ease, but I wonder why the numbers are increasing.  I don't think it is just recognition.  Something is actually causing this.  I come down on the side of added chemicals in our foods and beverages.  We don't eat a diet that is full of natural foods anymore, and when we do, sometimes even that food has had chemicals added to it.  I'm not advocating a 100% organically-raised diet - in fact, in today's world, I don't think that is even possible.  But I do think that our diet is more harmful than we think.  Of course, me...living on fast food, microwave dinners, and lettuce - I'm a fine one to talk about a healthy diet :-)

Yippee! It's My Day Off !

It is rather silly of me to look forward to my day off so intensely, especially when it is not that different - I still get up between 3:00 am and 3:30 am, I still go to the shop around 7:00 am to turn things on and wrap things up from the prior day, and I have chores to do such as trash, recycling and laundry.  So why do I look forward to it so much?  Simply because I can do what I want for a day without dealing with customers all day.  Don't get me wrong - I love helping my customers.  It is the reason why I have a store and have had a store for 25 years.  But it is a blessing to concentrate on some me-time. 

Making Holiday Gifts

I have a new Andy Goldsworthy book that I received last week to read while I have breakfast, and I've been looking forward to breakfast at the Twisted Fork for a week.  I'll drop by my box store and see if they have any of the specialty boxes that I so love and I'll get some groceries from the store - I need lettuce, water, actually quite a few things.  I'll also work on my beadwork because I am trying to see if one project will make a good holiday gift for people on my list.  I still need to clean up my den a bit more, and I need to make the paper pattern for my DH's pants.  I want to make him at least two pairs for the holidays.  He desperately needs them and since I already own the fabric, I won't have to spend any money on this. 

Destroying a computer.

It took two more steps in the evening last night to get rid of the last of the higher version of AOL that I was trying yesterday.  I still had to actually delete the program, and then I ran a disk cleanup last night to gain back any space that I could.  I knew I wouldn't get a lot, I actually run utilities on my computer regularly, but I did get a little bit.  Every little bit helps at this point. 

Newer is Not Always Better

I am a rarity and really like AOL for my Email.  It is easy for me to check each of the Emails I use daily in a single screen, they save my Emails forever on their server so I can find deleted mail back 6 months or more, and their interface works really well for me.  Of course, I've used it since 1996 - so I'm pretty familiar with it.  I decided to upgrade my version of AOL this morning.  Big mistake.  Not that the software doesn't run fine - I have it on my laptop and I have no problems with it.  Rather, it takes too much space for the space remaining on my 160 GB harddrive of my desktop.  I only have 17 GB left open - not a lot.  I really need to look into upgrading to a new and larger hard drive, but I also know I'll need a new desktop within the next 12-18 months, so I'm a bit divided.  I should talk to my computer dude and ask his recommendation.  In the meantime, I'll set a disk clean to run overnight tonight and see if I can recapture any space that way, but I know it won't be a lot. 

So, after spending almost two hours downloading one program that refused to operate because of a lack of hard drive space and then finding how to download the old program again, installing that, and getting things re-set, it has been an eventful morning of spinning my tires in mud.  In other words, lots of action that was going no-where.  Ain't life grand?  At least today is the last day of work before my day off.  I'm really looking forward to a day for myself.