Thursday, December 15th

Our friends Laura and Chris has their new baby this week. Jaz also has an older sister, Chloe, who thinks he is “beyond awesome.” He’s also now missing one fat cheek because I ATE IT. That’s OK, he’s a healthy dude; we were joking last night that Lala actually gave birth to a 3-month old.

Yesterday was busy (wait, who’s surprised?!). I got yarn died, yarn rewound, orders processed, bisque glazed, errands run, friends hung with, a wee bit of yarn spun, items listed, Chex Mix bagged, cats and dogs paid attention to, laundry done (but not folded), and dinner eaten.

I’m tired again just reading that!

Speaking of working hard, and being tired… I may need to take some time off in the next couple weeks. Well, “off.” Meaning I still work but just don’t talk about it every minute of the day, and don’t list new items for a couple of weeks. Rusty, old family friend and grandfather stand-in, has had a long year of health problems. The end result is that next week he’ll be moving into a nursing home here in town. I’ve already been there and taken a tour, and while I’m sure I’ll feel some guilt about him being there, it won’t be guilt about the place being skeevy — it’s actually very well-kept and I got a good vibe from it. I’d be happy to go into that later, in a different post. Suffice to say that I went in expecting the place to be some sort of 18th-century sanitarium of which horror movies are made, and came out thinking that it was more like a luxury hotel. Anyway, my point was that even though I’m sure Aunt Gay will try to shoulder all the work (gee, I wonder where I get it from…) I want to be able to free up the next couple of weeks to the point where if I have to drop everything one day, or two days, that nothing will suffer.

So I’ll continue to work on current custom orders, but would appreciate if anyone wants anything specific that they hold off on talking to me about that from the 20th to about January 3rd (Timmy’s birthday!). And I’ll leave the shop open, selling things and shipping, but I won’t be restocking or adding in any new items until January. In addition to giving me time for my family, and time for the holidays, this will give me a spot of time to do inventory and evaluate how some things are selling, and think about what I want for 2012 (like an online shop of my own).

Here’s a picture of me and Rusty from a New Years (I can tell because of my pretty yellow dress) at my grandparents house in Merritt Island… maybe around… oh, I’d say between 1979 and 1981. That’s the hairstyle I had when I was about nine/ten, so… let’s call it 1980, then.

OK! This coffee cup isn’t going to refill itself, and those dye pots aren’t going to turn themselves on. Off to work, hi-ho, hi-ho!

PS. Before I forget, my mom is awesome! We got a box of candied nuts, cookies, and two kinds of marmalade yesterday, all home-made by my mommy. You may commence being jealous.