Yesterday Was a Bit of a Cluster Mess - I Persevered

I had a nice, but very busy day yesterday. I did a lot of cooking, and while moving between the stovetop and the oven, I noticed a few of the small sugar ants that are the bane of my existence. So I killed them. Then, I noticed more in a slightly different place down that wall. Once again I brought death to them, and continued cooking. Then again, farther down. By the end of the day, I had sprayed and killed the damned things completely down the eastern wall of my kitchen. After I killed everything and didn't see any more movement at all, I swept things down thoroughly and did what I could to wash the floor. Note to self ... buy more Swiffer wet cloth packs. I used the last ones on this job. 

I truly hate these little sugar ants. They're a pest, not 
necessarily destructive, but they have to be in one of my 
walls for me to have seen them the three places I've seen 
them over the past few weeks. I did a MAJOR kill yesterday 
in my kitchen. I automatically kill them whenever I come 
across them these days. Afterward, I cleaned and washed 
the floors and the kitchen hasn't looked so good in months. LOL

So, while I was busy with the laundry and the decimation of tiny ants in my house, the time when I would usually talk with Aearwen came and went. I ended up calling her almost an hour late and leaving her a message. She, in turn, texted me later on again, apologizing on her part for missing our weekly chat. I guess life got in the way for both of us. But, we've been chatting weekly for years now, missing one or two happens and life will return to normal once again soon. 

Aearwen and I have chatted weekly for years now. Occasionally 
life gets in the way, and I guess yesterday was one of those 
days. Things happen. We'll catch up next week instead, and 
it'll be a lovely hour of this and that. 

So I guess I'm ready to jump back into the fray today. I did have a chance to make a batch of Ogre Juice yesterday, and I'm switching eating it from lunchtime down to breakfast time. All too often these days I don't have any time for lunch, and we've had no refrigerator at the shop because we've been defrosting it. (It's one of the items we're listing as "For Sale" in our inventory, and it desperately needed defrosting and a thorough cleaning). I don't mind eating my Ogre Juice for breakfast, but I can tell that my body is not happy about a lack of the green stuff, so I'll figure out a way to get it back into my daily schedule once again. 

We have an old Frigidaire refrigerator at the shop, 
similar to this. The city will pick it up at no charge 
and pay us $50, but we'll have to show that it's 
operational, and it has to be at a residence, not 
a business. So, we'll be putting this heavy sucker 
into the truck and plugging it into the garage 
at home to get the rebate and get rid of the appliance. 

On that note, I guess I've rambled off enough. A quick book recommendation if you want something totally quirky and off the track. Try the "Magic After Midlife Series" by Deborah Wilde. It's been a total joy reading about this Jewish magic user who speaks in Yiddish as often as English. It's a great character and a fun series - a good find for my NookBook file. Enjoy your Thursday, I'm off to the swimming pool. Slava Ukraini. 

Things Are Progressing, Snow and a Busy Day

I was able to get the Etsy order downloaded on my home computer, but wasn't able to do it on my laptop at all.  Very frustrating, and an unfortunate delay for my customer. I'll be emailing them today to update them and the order will go out on Thursday. Late. GRRRR. I might just do whatever I can at home today in hopes of dropping it by the post office later this afternoon. 

For some reason I couldn't access that order 
on my laptop at all. But, I was able to grab 
it from my older computer at home. Now to 
get that sent out with apologies! 

It's an early start for me today. We got snow starting just as I was pulling in to the driveway last night. I don't think we got a lot, but I need to get the driveway shoveled before heading to the pool, so I can't chat a lot this morning. 

We didn't get a lot of snow last night, but I still need to get 
the driveway cleared off. Hopefully the streets won't be 
too icy. 

Travis sent me the mockup of our postcard that will be sent to 15,000 people in the Twin Cities area. I actually like it quite a bit. It's very eye-catching, bright, brilliant, and very busy. There were a few small changes we requested which will be put into the final, but I'm happy. I was smiling all day thinking about it. At least some things are working correctly. 

It won't take long to get the driveway shoveled, but I'll 
have to get that done before taking the trash and recycling 
bins down to the end of the driveway. 

Of course, one thing works and another doesn't. He wasn't able to get access to one thing that I had sent to him - an important thing. So, I sent him the link once again, and made sure he had all of the permissions required for him to access the material. Hopefully he was able to do that yesterday afternoon - or someone on his team was able to. I'm sure I'll hear from him if access is still restricted. 

With only one day off a week now, I'm SO busy on that 
single day. Oy! 

And ... today is a "day off". Load 1 of 3 is already in the washing machine, and I need to figure out what I want/need to cook today. I don't have my Sundays any more - they've been spent at the shop getting things ready to go. I'll be VERY relieved when all of this is over. I have no idea if I'll make any money on it, but really, it's impossible to actually lose money on this. So, with that said, I'm plugging in pictures and heading to the driveway, snow shovel in hand. Have a great Wednesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

I'm Very Upset with ETSY Right Now *sigh*

I'm in the middle of fighting with Etsy. It's frustrating. I got a notification that I have an order to fulfill and ship, and I'd love to do exactly that. But, I can't escape from my personal account (I had been looking at a couple of things I might want to purchase for myself early last week). It won't even acknowledge that I have a business account, and, of course, there are no human beings to talk to in "Customer Service" (a total misnomer, if there ever was one). Do any of you have any ideas for me? I'm trying to get logged into my business account, but it's sending me to my personal account every time. *GRRRRRR*

Most people are just purchasing from Etsy. I'm 
both selling and purchasing from two different 
accounts, and it's not letting me switch from my 
personal account to my business account so that 
I can fulfill the order that was placed. GRRRR. 

On the Travis end, I managed to get everything finished on Sunday. It was supposed to be in his hands yesterday, and I uploaded everything, double and triple checked everything, linked the photos to the page and gave him permission to view the photos, and everything should be working well. The store has never looked cleaner, but we're already messing things up because we are an active entity - we actually do sell things, order products and interact with customers. What a concept! LOL

It's a good picture of Travis, isn't it? I'm quite 
sure he looks nothing like this now, but it's 
possible. In any case, it's to his advantage to get 
every dollar out of the store that he can because 
his fee is based on our sales numbers. When we 
do better, he does better. 

Things are in his ballpark now, however. He needs to review the items we'll have available for sale - things OTHER than product, in other words. He's working with the big things - the display cases, furniture, and equipment. I think I ended up with almost 90 items on that list, a good portion of it being various types and ages of metal shelving from the warehouse area. We have a LOT of metal shelving. Some of it is quite old - inherited from his father when we bought the business. His Dad opened his business in 1954, and it's quite likely that some of the shelving dates from that time period. 

We have a LOT of industrial shelving that spans almost 50 
years. It nowhere close to this neat or uniform, but it all 
serves the same purpose - displaying product. We have a bunch 
on our main floor holding our product, and a very large 
bunch in the basement for warehouse storage. I'd estimate 
we have at least 40 shelving units, although it certainly 
could be up to 20 more than that. 

But there's still a LOT to do. And we're actually still buying some product - we're out of a few very specific things that we really do need to have on hand. So, we'll be placing an order with one of our suppliers within a day or two to get back to normal on things that we're sold out of. After all, black beads are essential, and we're actually sold out of black beads in size 11 right now. 

Black seed beads are getting quite low on stock, and 
it's something we know we can sell - no matter what. 
It's an important color, and we really can't sell out of 
it until the last minute, so we're actually ordering 
some more. *sigh*

On that note, I'm heading to the swimming pool. I'm just a bunch of tense nerves, and the treadmill is helpful, but the water and a good audio book can work wonders. Have an excellent Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

It's The Day After the Time Change - Did You Remember to Reset Your Clocks, Etc?

DH and I had a LONG day at the shop yesterday, finishing up the things we needed to send to Travis before today's deadline. But, despite losing things, measuring and remeasuring again, and raised voices, we persevered, and I had everything uploaded to Travis last night with permissions granted for him to see the photographs. Now, if the permissions actually work, I'm finished with that. The store has never looked cleaner, but we're all packrats and I'm quite sure it will accumulate junk quite quickly once again. *sigh*

We're not hoarders, although we do have WAY too much 
stuff. We can still park the car and truck in the garage, 
and we have places to put our stuff. But we have too much 
stuff, and a good clean wouldn't be out of the question. 

Yesterday was also when Daylight Savings Time kicked in again for our area of the nation. DST is rather odd - it's not universal. There are places that never change their clocks, so when DST is in effect, and you cross the border, your watch is one hour off and you need to remember that. One state that doesn't do DST is the State of Arizona, but the Navajo Reservation, also mainly located in Arizona, DOES do Daylight Savings Time. It can make for some unexpected delays sometimes to find places that are open in the mornings. Since I used to do a lot of traveling through those areas, finding and purchasing stock for the store, every once in a while I'd get tripped up, having to wait an hour in the car for a place to open because I was an hour earlier than the time zone they were in. 

The state of Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings 
Time, but the Navajo Reservation does, and they take up 
a good deal of the Eastern part of the state. So, I could 
go to a Trading Post and it would be open at 9 am, but go
to a small town and the businesses would be closed for
another hour. 

But, I live in a state that has (at least for now) the practice of Daylight Savings Time, so my clocks, etc were changed over the weekend to be appropriate time for my zone. My watch is always a bit of a PITA, but if I get it close enough to my computer or laptop with the correct program running on it, it will recognize the program and automatically change the time for me. It's easy, but I always feel a bit out of synch on days when we change the time by an hour - forward or back, makes no difference. 

Resetting the time on my digital watch is actually quite 
automatic - the watch does all the work - but I have to be 
within a certain distance of my laptop, which also must 
be turned on, for the watch to automatically reset itself 
to the correct time. 

So, because I'm a bit off from the time switch, I'm calling today's blog post finished. Time for me to get moving and head to my shop to start making messes once again (and recapture the stuff from my desk that was simply piled into a box for the photographs. Have a great day and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

 

Monday is a Deadline - Sigh!

It's Saturday, which for many of you is the start of two days off. That's not been the case for me for almost 40 years, so I guess it will be a "new" experience, to have weekends back. The store is getting there - DH was in my face yesterday evening about how I was dealing with the photos, while I was trying to make sure that I had every photo needed, and in the correct format and size. I finally grouched at him enough that he went to bed early, which allowed me the time to go through the complete photo file of slightly less than 50 photos, make sure they were the sizes needed, and identified appropriately, and I now feel much more confident about uploading all of this on Monday morning. 

We have a LOT of photos that we'll need to upload to Travis. I 
sent him a quick message yesterday to find out if he had a 
preferred service for that. There are two I'm familiar with, 
one that we've used in the past, one that we're a bit less 
familiar with. But they both work well. Then it'll be up to 
him to resize things as needed. 

But, I also realized there are a few photos that still need to be taken - mostly on the main floor. The various displays we use for our beads might have some resale value ... or not. Hard to say on that since we made the displays that we use. There's also the main desk that DH and I share - it's old, probably purchased from the used office supplies company down the street - but it works just fine and I'm quite sure there is some resale value. I'd love for someone else to deal with getting it out of the place, in any case - LOL - it's REALLY heavy. There are a few other small things to add to the list, but in the main, we've caught everything and have them measured, photographed, described and ready for upload. 

The 9th is a hard deadline for us, and we've been working 
to have things ready for that date for the past six weeks. 
It's been a LOT of work, but without the deadline, we would 
still be running in place. At least I feel like we're starting 
to get somewhere now, and if the deadline tasks go smoothly, 
I'll be extremely grateful. 

Since I'm on a Monday deadline to get everything uploaded, and I don't have Chickie helping me in the store on Mondays, I'm trying my best to be ahead of the deadline, maybe uploading tomorrow instead, when I'll have time to fix things if they don't go smoothly. 

Once again there is war in the Middle East, and this 
time it was the USA who started it. WTH??? Why? 

And, of course, there is war in the Middle East once again. I know that contentiousness and territoriality is built into human DNA, but all too often it's an excuse, not a driving factor. Such and such an area is important to religious beliefs or a nation's history is often a good excuse in the Middle East. Also, the total lack of faith in each other over the decades. Add in that the fact that the USA bombed the Middle East ... well, I think we overstepped our bounds unless we were specifically asked to help Israel or another nation of the area. But I'm a "peacenik" from the days of Vietnam, and I don't see myself changing my internal guidance anytime soon. 

Deadlines - we need them, but they're not fun to have 
on the receiving end - LOL. 

So, have a really excellent weekend. I've got a TON of stuff to still get ready for uploading on Monday, and a few bills that I need to get paid. The tension/pressure of all of this is building a large and high fence between DH and myself for the time being. We'll see how we come out of all of this afterwards, but right now, deadlines loom. I'll be back on Monday, although it might be a quick post. Slava Ukraini. 

It Was a Busy Day and I Was an Idiot

Back to the shop today. Apparently DH pulled out a desk drawer from one of the desks and is unable to actually get the sucker back in, so that'll be a job for me. Also, I need to get the freezer defrosted on the ancient refrigerator that we have in the framing studio. It was in the place when we moved in, and it'll probably be here when we move out. I can't imagine someone wanting to purchase it, but ... if they want it, they can have it. It'll be up to them to get it up the stairs and out the door. The same with our huge safe on the main floor. I got that from the KTCA Public Television Auction at no charge - they were getting rid of it when they were moving to their downtown location and no longer going to hold the auctions. So, we've had it for a long time now. It's not super secure - a simple bike lock is what we've used for decades - but it also doesn't hold a lot of valuable items either - LOL. 

I use a simple combination lock at the gym. My 
valuables - car keys and cell phone are in their 
wall lockers which are keyed, but the rest of my 
stuff is in the gym locker inside the dressing room. 
I try to never carry valuables in any case. Not 
really needed at 5:00 am after all. 

So I guess I'll get dirty and dusty working at the shop today, and Chickie will mostly be on her own. I do have her holiday gift, however. I had hired my "nephew from a different sister" in Oregon to paint two Dungeons & Dragons minis for her characters. Of course, he packed them poorly, and one arrived broken. I glued it back together yesterday and sprayed a protective finish over both of them, so they should be good to go. I'll try to take a photo of both of them today, but right now they're in my backpack and I'm very short on time for the pool. So ... that will have to wait. 

My dear "nephew" apparently understands 
NOTHING about shipping because he didn't 
put any packing materials into the box at all! 
It's a wonder that only one of them broke, 
and lucky that I was able to repair it easily. 

And yesterday I was a complete idiot. It's a good thing that Target is relatively close to where I live. I needed a new set of jeans, so went to Target yesterday morning early. I tried on a couple, and ended up with two size 6 sets, but decided, after trying them on again in the comfort of home, that I'd rather upgrade to the size 8 instead. So while out on afternoon errands, I dropped back by Target and returned the incorrect size. I went to the display for jeans and decided which type I wanted, then picked one from the size 8 pile. It wasn't until I got home that I realized it actually was another size 6. *sigh* I'll try to return these later this week or maybe next Wednesday, and get the size 8 I really want. I don't need to be squeezed into my jeans, I like them to be comfortable,  not constraining. 

I totally messed up with this one. I'll be returning 
it later in the week or next week, and getting the 
right size this time. LOL

So, on that note, I'm off to the pool. I hope you have a great day, we'll see how mine goes. Lots of frayed tempers as we're under deadlines with Travis. Enjoy your Thursday! Slava Ukraini. 

GRRRR - And Once Again, A War

It's Wednesday, my "day off" and it's going to be busy, busy, busy! I awakened early - 2:30 am instead of my usual 3:00 am, and I decided "what the heck, I might as well get up now and be unrushed". So, I went ahead, watered the fountain and settled down for my morning meditation. Half-way through, DH awakened and suddenly my calm was disrupted, although he knows to not bother or interrupt me when I'm doing my "morning thing". But, he's the TV addict. When he's awake, the television is on. Let me tell you, there's nothing more of a downer than awakening, calming my body and mind, and then going down to collect the laundry when he's up. The TV was on, the news was all bad, the volume was high because he's hard of hearing, ... generally speaking, I'm not on rhythm this morning. 

*sigh* I really do hate listening to the news on the TV 
first thing in the morning. And, of course, DH is also 
hard of hearing, so the volume is up. GRRRRR

But, despite that, my first load of laundry is currently in the washing machine, my shopping list is almost ready for the day, I've got bills to pay, I've got food that I need to cook, and in general, it'll be a very busy day. Of course, the big news story is the war in the Middle East. I'm very much on the fence for this war. I don't disagree that Iran was rather like an infected wound - supporating and infectious. However, warfare these days takes the personal out of combat and puts the button pushers into it. Yes, we have actual people involved and have already had casualties, but the vast majority of casualties are innocent people. I have big problems with that. My personal preference is direct hand-to-hand combat, not missiles and rockets. I certainly understand modern warfare, but it really makes war rather impersonal, doesn't it? It doesn't seem that a person is killing hundreds of people if you're hundreds of feet in the air pushing a button. 

War is war from a distance now. Missiles are used instead of 
hand-to-hand combat (these particular missiles are from 
North Korea, but every nation has their own arsenal). The 
act of actually being responsible for the life or death of another 
person is less immediate if you're pushing a button instead 
of swinging a blade. 

Generally speaking, I've been a "peacenik" since I was young. I was protesting the Vietnam war in the 1960's and 1970's and have been sickened by the conflicts continuing in the world ever since those days. War is never a pretty thing. The USA has been lucky over the centuries. Our wars have been fought by people in our area against other people in our area. The battles were much more personal. The casualties have been horrific in some cases - just think of the death toll from the Civil War as an example. But the majority of wars the USA has been involved in have been overseas. Then again, we're also using air attacks - so not direct hand-to-hand combat (which probably has rarely been used since the Middle Ages to be honest). 

Peace doesn't seem to be in the genes of humanity. We 
automatically strike out at others. We're a contentious 
lifeform, inclined to strike out rather than work on ways 
to join together for a common goal. Just looking at 
conflicts the USA has been involved in since my birth, it's 
an impressive list - Vietnam, the Lebanon Crises, the Bay 
of Pigs Invasion, the Granada Invasion, the Panama Invasion, 
the Persian Gulf War, the Somalia Intervention, the 
interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, the War in 
Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libya Intervention, the 
Syrian Civil War (ongoing), and Yemen (ongoing), 
and now we're involved in another conflict. Want a job? 
join the armed forces. There's always a battle somewhere for you. 

But, I'm a "Give Peace a Chance" person. I participated in many protests about the Vietnam War. (Since every war we've been involved with since then have been titled "conflicts" rather than "wars", I still think this is a matter of semantics.) In the middle of this war, we've still got a nation that's pulling apart from each other instead of bonding to one another. Welcome to the Second Trump White House. GRRRR Despite the news, I do hope you have a good day and look for the good in people and your environment today. We all need positivity to help balance the fear and hatred around us right now. I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini.