Sunday Was A Winning Day

I resolved the "made by" section on the back of my card by scanning and shrinking the image I had painted for the envelope, and adding text. It's now quite a bit smaller, and will be perfect for the card application. I'll get them cut apart at the shop today and will start the final stretch on Wednesday. I reworked and updated my final address list for this year's cards, dropped a few people, added a couple of others and updated addresses for those of you who have moved over the past year. I think I might be up-to-date. 

The Denver Broncos v Pittsburgh Steelers game was excellent
with the lead being passed from one to the other throughout
the game. In the end, though, the Broncos pulled off the win. 

It's rare that I have an opportunity to watch my football team on television - Denver's team is in a totally different division and televised games are usually chosen for the regional interest. Yesterday, however, I got lucky. The Minnesota v Green Bay game was shifted to the night game so the Denver v Pittsburgh game was broadcast in our area. Great game!! Even better ... Denver won!!!! Go Broncos! 

I actually rather like the Broncos Ugly Christmas
Sweater. The lights on the front blink on and off and
it plays holiday music too. LOLOL

I just had to take a look at the NFL Store on-line. They have "ugly Christmas light-up sweaters" for each team. The women's version for the Broncos costs $89! Ouch. That's a bit more than I have to spend on something so ridiculous. But I really loved it. I guess every team has one, so if you're a team spirit kind of guy or gal, you might want to take a look. 

It's time to think about putting up trees and listening to Christmas carols.
I know my BFF Sharon is busy practicing the year's concert with
her church choir. I'm sure it will be wonderful to hear for the congregation. 

Thanks to all of you for your positive thoughts over our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday sales. We were very busy, but not swamped, and we pulled in the sales dollar amounts I had hoped for. I'm extremely grateful. Now to get on with our Holiday lives. I'll be working 6-day weeks for the next three weeks beginning today. Thank goodness I still get my Wednesdays off - I'd go totally stir crazy if I had to work seven days a week for almost a month! 

DH will be happy because his Minnesota Vikings also edged out
the win against their arch-rivals, the Green Bay Packers. It was
a win-win day for both of our teams. Huzzah! 

Here's hoping you get everything purchased that you need for your holiday today - it's Cyber-Monday sales day and I'll be checking a few things out to see about extra savings. I did break down and buy two swim suits and caps at a reduced sale price late last night - I try to buy ahead when I can. Speaking of which, time to wrap this up and head to the pool. Have a glorious Monday and I'll return tomorrow. 

Rain in Late November is OK

We're in that in-between time when snow and rain each seem to have equal footing. Last night and throughout the day today it will be rain because we're just a few degrees above freezing. That's just fine with me. As long as the wet stays above freezing and I don't have to drive on iced-over roads, I'm a very content person.

I love falling asleep to the sound of falling rain. 

I finalized my holiday card list last night. If you were on the fence about asking for one to be sent to you, I still have a few slots open, just message me and I'll add you to my list. I'll be printing up envelopes and doing the final interior designs this week and, if everything goes smoothly, they will start to get mailed during the first full week of December.

The best thing about Thanksgiving is that one large bird can give us a lot of meals. We had our main meal on Thursday, then ate hot turkey sandwiches on Friday. DH had more sandwiches on Saturday while I opted for a day off from turkey and did Chipotle instead, and on Sunday we made new mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy and had another Thanksgiving meal. The carcass has now been denuded and is in the trash, and there are two zip bags of turkey still in the refrigerator for DH to munch on and have for more sandwiches. That's a lot of eating for less than $17. Gotta love it.

DH loves his hot turkey sandwiches. He'll end up finishing all
of the leftover meat by the end of the week. 

Our Friday and Saturday sales went really well. Thank goodness. I think I picked the right items to put on sale and quite a few of our customers came in on both days to take full advantage. Now I can relax again until Christmas and our after-Christmas sale. Guess I'd better start thinking about what I want to feature for the last days of the year.

I don't run Cyber-Monday sales, even though I do have an on-line
presence for the shop. I'm not selling DVD's or TV's. My line
of product works much easier in person. 

I hope all of you have a wonderful Cyber-Monday. I glanced at the advertised sales this morning, but there really wasn't anything that I need, so my bank account will be happy. It'll still be a busy day, though, since Chickie is off on Mondays and I work the sales floor solo most of the time. Have a wonderful Monday, I'm off to the pool. OH, and I just realized, TODAY'S POST IS NUMBER 2400! Yeah me - LOL!

Happy Cyber Monday - Farewell to the Small House

It's Cyber Monday here in the USA (and perhaps also more world-wide). That's the cyber equivalent of Black Friday - deals for on-line shopping that run for one day. I have a few sites I'll check out after dinner tonight, but as usual, I doubt I'll buy much of anything. We're pretty well situated and don't really need anything under our nonexistent tree this year. DH wants to see a movie for his birthday (he's a near-Christmas baby) so we'll do that, but we really don't need lots more stuff to fill this house.

Farewell to the Small House. As of later today, it will
no longer be ours and we will be taking a nice check
to the bank. Huzzah! 

Speaking of house, today's the day. At 9:00 am we meet at the title office to sign the documents that will move ownership of the small house to Ross instead of us. We're very relieved. We should be just in time, too. We're supposed to be getting our first real snow of the season starting this afternoon and going overnight. For the first time in more than 20 years, we will only have our own house and the shop to shovel and that will be delightful!

The small house is small - only 900 square feet of finished space with a full basement (those of you who live in areas of slab housing need to remember that we're in a tornado area here. Basements are essential and can be life-saving.

The two built-in bookcases in the living room/dining room
are really lovely and very antique. They fit exactly around
the old-fashioned archway. 

One of the things I really loved about the house were the built-in hand-made bookcases in the main room. They fit snugly around the archway and can be switched so that the opening can be as it currently is, or into the room beyond. The woodwork in general is superb in the house - hardwood window frames, solid doors, hardwood floors and built-in cabinets that are also hardwood. I'll be curious to discover if they will keep all of the wood when they re-do the house, or replace some of it with more up-to-date features.

There's a long l-shaped attic behind this swinging door.

Across from the one is this smaller attic in what used
to be my sewing nook. 

The final hidden attic was behind this built-in bookcase that
swings out in two ways to open up the way into the hidden space. 

The upstairs of the house has a low ceiling and lots of attic cubby space. There is a house-long attic behind that white swing door in the 1/2 bath, a second smaller one across where I used to have my sewing nook, and a third longer one behind this built-in bookcase in the large room. I always thought it would be the perfect hidey-hole, but we never found any treasure.

I had a Wild Mushroom and Argula pizza. Fabulous! 

DH had the Maximus - lots of meat on this one. He said
it was quite tasty. 

We toasted the end of an era with pizza at Pizza Luce. He had a personal Maximus and I had a personal Wild Mushroom and Argula. They were SO good. Even with pizza and Thanksgiving, I ended up the month down one pound. Of course, that's actually up two from just before my turkey binge, but any weight lost at this time of the year is a win-win. Now to start December tomorrow and see if I can avoid problems during the Holiday Season. Have a great Monday!

Holiday Card Callout and Thoughts on Cyber Monday

I am putting out a "call-out" to any of my cyber friends who might want one of my holiday cards. Get your addresses in to me! Send them to me via Email or PM on LJ or ask me to contact you for your address, but please add your name to my list! I love making my cards and would be thrilled to send one to you, no matter where in the world you live.

I love sending out cards. You don't have to send me one
in return, although I love getting them too...

What is the propensity to designate each day of the year with a unique moniker? Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday, the progression of days move through our year. Does the fact that the days are named make them move faster? Is that what the Catholic Church thought when they assigned their saints to a variety of days - days they were born, days that they died, days that they may have spit into the wind? Yesterday was a 'designated' day - it was Cyber Monday. Did you purchase something on-line? If you did, you allowed the day to live up to its name. I didn't purchase anything, although I did have a couple of mail orders for the shop that were placed yesterday. I was too busy with too many things yesterday to indulge in much computer time at all.

When we got home last night and turned on the computers, they were acting up. They've been futzy all morning too. I already unplugged and rebooted the internet Xfinity connection once, but it's looking as though I will have to do it again because my connection keeps bugging in and out on me. I'm grateful that I'm only writing my blog, not my novel or working on anything that I would hate to lose if it didn't get saved properly. My blog does not constitute such words of wisdom as to cause me great anxiety if the entire thing crashes and burns. If that happens, I'll have a day without a blog update - not a tragedy, just frustrating.