Winding Down and Holiday Cheer

The Holiday Season is winding down.  Chickie is busy making leather items for her friends, I am busy making a last couple of gifts for friends of mine, and the shopping panic has hit the general public.  We've been getting a lot of customers (for which I am very thankful) spending more than their usual amount (for which I am also very thankful) because the realization that Christmas will occur in less than a week has finally hit and panic has struck.  We are selling craft supplies because people are still making things (some of them are absolutely wonderful in conception).  But we are also selling finished product - rings, earrings, pendants and bracelets as well as tools and books and lots of Gift Certificates.  And I am very grateful because this is the quantity of people and the general interest that I have been missing this year. 

These crazy reindeer antlers stay on my head no matter

if I have to bend down to floor level or lean over a countertop. 

The store, which has been in our current location since 1993, has been our main method of making a living for the past 25 years.  It either makes it or we have to find other employment.  Given that the employment picture is bleak because of our economic condition in the world today, we rely on the shop to pay our expenses and those of our employee.  This year has been a hard one, but this week at least gave me hope that under the right circumstances we can still be busy and happy helping customers find products to make the perfect item.  That's fun for all of us. 

Chickie usually wears a hat year-round, but for the Holiday
Season she wears a jester hat with a snowman pin. 

We get into the holiday spirit in a variety of ways - we have our frenetic Christmas tree who's lights flash on and off in a completely unpredictable fashion, we have Christmas carols on the radio (and often sing along with them because we know almost all of them by heart) and we wear our holiday gear.  I have the set of reindeer antlers in the first picture.  They stay on my head even if I am bending completely over to get something from a lower bin - I have never found another headgear that fits me as well.  And Chickie wears her jester hat with a Swarovski snowman pin.  I wear a larger version of the Swarovski snowman as a necklace.  If you don't have fun with the holiday season when you're working retail, it can really get to you.  So we sing, we play, and we try and make the lives of every customer a little more festive.  As we enter this final week of the season - Solstice for me and Christmas for many of you - I thought I'd share a little Stormcloud Trading holiday cheer with all of you. 

Is It Over Yet?

I'm starting to wind down.  My energy levels are crashing, my exhaustion is rising, and the sound of ringing bells in my ears (at work) are ubiquitous - they are on my reindeer antlers that I wear during the holiday season.  But they do start to creep into my skull by this time of the holiday.  Eight days left - seven work days.  That phrase echoes in my mind.  I still have to arrange for a cake for the 26th.  My DH has his birthday on the Day after Christmas, making presents and poverty a double blow.  I have two pairs of pants being made for him, and I also got him a really nice leather "man bag" that he's been wanting to be able to carry his chain maille supplies, newspaper, and cell phone to and from work.  We'll see how much he actually uses it, but it wasn't super expensive and it is really nice.  I'm pleased with that purchase. 

DH's cake won't be this fancy, but it would be fun if it was.

I also bought him coffee and some of his munchie mix that he likes to eat at work.  But I don't really have a "wow" gift for him this year.  Of course many of my "wow" gifts have not worked out well in the past, but I keep trying.  I don't have the money to spare for possibly wasted gifts this year though, so I'll just continue to do what I can.  I'll probably get him a few pairs of underclothes and socks and maybe some basic toiletries to fill out his stocking.  Oh, and chocolate.  I wanted to clean the den for him for the holidays and getting that done is still important to me, but my energy levels are low and I just haven't found my way to it. 

Isn't this a lovely tree?  It's not mine, of course, since I

don't put up a tree at home - I'm not home to enjoy one.

I've got everything else complete though, so if I only have DH left, it's not a horrible thing.  I still need to drop off his sister's gift to her at her workplace - another Wednesday errand.  And I think I will be able to relax and celebrate Solstice and the renewal of life for another year with joy and without worrying about things still left undone.  I will have, at least, done the best that I can. 

Back to Schedule

It was so pleasant to have my day off.  I bought a couple of magazines for holiday gifts and dropped off one gift for a friend.  I was supposed to clean, and I didn't.  But I did spend an hour at the sewing machine doing some mending - my husband's pants and three skirts of my own that had developed tears.  His pants are really on their last legs, but I have the tailor making two pairs for me to gift to him for the holidays.  I'll be picking them up next Wednesday.  Today, it's back to the grind.  But the holiday schedule is winding down. 

Mending clothing.  I don't really enjoy hand sewing (unless there are
beads involved) so I usually use my sewing machine. 

I did spend a fair amount of time on the computer yesterday, writing and exchanging with friends that I have on Live Journal.  I usually copy my blog over to there in the mornings, but I have also had a unique amount of fun with them by adopting an elf for a day, spurred on by my friend Sian in England.  It's been a lot of fun, something that I will continue periodically.  And it has proved to be quite funny for both my readers over there and myself.  And no, to bring those posts over to this blog would not make a lot of sense because many of the characters I am talking about in those posts are AU (alternative universe) and don't appear in actual Lord of the Rings or Tolkien writings. 

National flags can inspire such strong feelings.  The US is
remarkable in the number of national flags that are displayed

throughout the country. 

I have a unique group of friends over on LJ who are stretching my mind in ways that I would not have contemplated.  I have a friend who often will put Latin quotations up with translations.  I haven't worked on my Latin since the late 1960's but I am having a wonderful time reading and independently trying to translate the words before reading the "official" translation.  I have such a multi-national group of friends over there that I feel expanded and far less insular just by sharing with such a diverse group.  So, since they will read this also, I'll just say "Thank You" to all of my LJ friends for just being there.  It has really meant a lot to me. 

Moving Ever Closer and Holiday Cards

I am still getting a few friends who are exchanging addresses with me for holiday cards and I'm delighted with the requests.  I have been getting great cards from friends, both old and new, and I cherish each one at this time of the year.  They are small pieces of bright sunshine for the next year - reminders that I don't walk this earth alone but that others who share my interests are there walking next to me in spirit.  That's just huge for me. 

I wish I had good handwriting, but my handwriting really sucks.  Maybe

if I had good handwriting I would enjoy the physical act of writing more?

I keep being tempted by the open page.  Since so many of my friends are authors, I keep being tempted to put pen to page and write a short story or two.  But I know I am no author, even though I can see a plot and even though I sometimes can turn a pretty phrase.  I actually compose better while behind the wheel of my car.  I have a digital recorder at the shop that I bought a couple of years ago to help me with a specific task.  If I remember when I drop by the shop to label the mail I am shipping today, maybe I'll grab that and take it along with me.  I can try things on my own and never let them see the light of day unless I am happy with them.  So, I'll be patient on this because I have enough things that I play with.  I don't need to add another thing to my already overflowing plate. 

Solstice, no matter where it is welcomed, is
always a day of celebration.  When the sun

returns, it is magical. 

And today is my "studio day" so I have errands all over town.  The roads have improved, so I don't think I'll have any great difficulty in getting to and from the places that I need to go, but we'll get another 2"-4" of snow later today.  I need to be focused and get my errands completed so that I can everything completed properly since Solstice is next Tuesday.  My DH says that celebrating Christmas gives him a few extra days that he will happily take, so we celebrate both holidays, but my heart is with the rhythms of the universe, not arbitrary dates. 

One More Day

Today, Tuesday, is the last day we have to dig out before our next snow will hit.  I have been checking the weather, but there is no decision on how much snow this next storm will bring.  I have heard everything from one inch through eight inches.  I'm hoping that the one inch is more accurate. 

Maybe next year I'll buy some Winter Solstice cards.  A Google

search yielded a nice selection of cards including this nice image

of a woman greeting the sun for Solstice.  I like the standing stones

to her left.  Very nice. 

The last of my Solstice cards was sent out yesterday.  My sister finally sent a card to me giving me her address, and I finally got an address for one neice (I thought I had her address in my PDA, but when I looked, it wasn't there after all).  I ended up making 28 cards this year and buying one box of holiday cards (very cute, with a baby penguin on the front) for the other 10 cards that I ended up needing.  I never know exactly how many cards I will need, and I really enjoyed making my cards this year even though it was actually more expensive and certainly more time consuming.  But I had a lot of fun creating my cards and playing with my "toys" to make them.  Tomorrow I will pick up one gift for my DH and I need to sit down and figure out exactly what I can afford to spend for his other gifts this year.  I know it won't be as much as prior years and I have to be cautious - it's so easy to just buy it, and much harder to justify the cost later on. 

If we hadn't had such a wind along with the storm, the roof
would have been fine.  Apparently we had to pull our people
off the roof because of the wind.  Otherwise they would have
been removing the snow and the roof would have been fine. 

I spoke about the collapse of the roof in the Metrodome yesterday.  Here's a You-Tube video from inside the dome showing the actual collapse.  It's short, but it's fun to watch a catastrophe in the making :-)  This storm has affected so many people throughout the nation - the roads are solid sheets of ice east of us in Illinois and Indiana, and it is moving to the East Coast now where it will mess things up for them.  This was a bad one and I hope that the rest of December will be milder for all of us. 

Digging Out

So, Sunday the main roads were cleared beautifully, and the intersections between main plow routes were also fine.  But the side streets are a disaster right now so many people spent Sunday trying to dig out.  A week that started out with so much promise, only two weeks away from Christmas Day, ended up in financial disaster.  My Saturday and Sunday combined netted us less than $300!  A hard year's financial data was made even harder and I am not looking forward to doing the books this morning. 

 There should be a roof about those cement walls.  The
Metrodome was another victim of our storm. 

This was a extraordinary snow storm, placing in one of our top five of all time (all of which I've been up here for - sigh).  We were supposed to have a football (that's American football) game here on Sunday.  The NY Giants were unable to get to the Twin Cities because the airport closed for the first time in 19 years.  Then, on Sunday morning, the weight of the snow caused two tears in the roof of the Metrodome, collapsing the roof.  The football game ended up being postponed to Monday night, and moved to Detroit, Michigan instead.  It will be some serious work to get the dome back up and functional quickly, but it's been done once before.  I have posted "Before" and "After" pics for you to laugh along with me. 

This is how the Metrodome is supposed to look -
rather like a giant marshmallow rising from a pan.

The snow left after dumping 17 inches of snow in 18 hours.  I shoveled, and shoveled, and shoveled again.  We still need to shovel our smaller house - a house that it still in our family that we've been fixing up to sell.  In today's real estate market, it just isn't worth putting on the market yet, but that means that we have to maintain it.  But it is on a side street and we couldn't get anywhere close to it yesterday.  In fact the streets are so bad that a fire truck couldn't get close to a burning house, resulting in several deaths.  We are hoping that either the East-West or the North-South side streets have now been plowed so that we can get within a block.  We can walk from there and get the snow shoveled.  We'll have to bundle up though, the temps are below zero (currently we are at -6 F [-21 C] with windchills down to -30 F [-34 C]).  I'm just grateful that it is over, that my DH made it home in one piece, and that we are cozy at home even though we still need to pull snow off our roof on Tuesday to avoid ice dams.  This winter is a killer and we have to be a bit careful.