And Another Thing . . .
And Another Thing . . .
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Sunday, February 15, 2004 I'm feeling kind of blah today - no energy, no enthusiasm. I don't know if it's a Sunday thing, a winter thing, a sleep interruptus thing or just one of those things. I usually try to take this as a sign of needing to recharge. So I kind of did that too. Steve asked me to accompany him downtown at midnight last night to pick up his daughter Lizz & her boyfriend after a Valentine's Day dance. I said yes of course because he has very kindly gone with me to Bristol to pick up the boys after snowboarding and that's 1-1/2 hours round trip. Plus I'm sure there are some picking-up-Simon-and-date opportunities sometime in my future and I'll appreciate his company then. We had our "date night" last night - read for a while and got caught up on our taped shows. I even power napped on the couch twice before we had to leave. But still, I didn't get to bed until 1:00 AM - you heard me - 1:00 AM! I can't tell you the last time I saw 1:00 AM. I slept in until 8:00 (go me!). Whatever. It feels more like a mind thing than a body thing today. I think it's stuff on my mind: weight and money. Yep, join the crowd, I know.
I worked at Village Gifts yesterday - had a fair number of customers - still very slow as expected. I read an entire book! (See below.) I thoroughly digested my new magazine, Country Business, which is a trade publication for gift shop owners. I spent some time today online, ordering catalogs and checking out a bunch of the companies. I'm still considering buying some things wholesale to resell in my space at Village Gifts. I stopped on the way home and picked up pizza and wings for a Valentine's Day treat for dinner. I'd also made a heart shaped cake for Steve. I used to do the square and circle cut in half kind of heart but I found a heart shaped pan on sale a few years ago so I use that now. I just used a yellow cake mix and canned dark chocolate frosting - two things I kind of wanted to use up. And of course I loaded it up with sprinkles. Why? I love rainbow sprinkles! (Can you believe I forgot to take a picture until after I cut it?) Speaking of Valentine's Day - here's what Steve had sent to my office on Friday!
And he wrote something really nice on the card - and I didn't even ask him who suggested it! He actually goes to the florist and picks something out, which always kills me because any time I've ordered a plant or flowers, I just do it over the phone. And he always looks for something unusual, which I love. I never knew he paid any attention to what I like. You know what I mean. He seems so unobservant half the time - who knew? (He would admit to being unobservant half the time, I'm pretty sure.)
Today I went to my first trade show - a gift show for Western New York buyers. They have it twice a year I think. Most of the stuff was not what I'm into but I found a few cool things that I'm definitely going to look into. I think I'm having the same problem one of the our most successful vendors was telling me at the store yesterday. This time of year is so hard because we're not making much money but need to be spending money to get geared up for the coming spring/summer season. I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and do it - but that's what's been holding me back, I think, from taking this next step. When my PTD bank account is healthy, I don't seem to have a problem buying more stamping stuff, for instance. I'll work it out. Oh! Thinking outloud here. I think I'm thinking I need to make the perfect choice in what to buy & resell. But that's impossible. I just need to take a stab at it and see what sells. I won't know until I try. Interesting. Yeah, I better get over that. I'm considering getting more into jewelry. I sold about 1-1/2 dozen of those heart pins. I worked on a new pin the other night that has an American flag stamped on it. It's not quite right yet but I've made some progress. And I have some other ideas for pins to make plus I've seen a few lines I'd like to try reselling. Along with the cards. I even found a line of cards I might try reselling. They are very different from mine - they are so cool, I really wish I'd thought of them! Anyway, today was great in that I had a totally new experience. I had to prove I was a legitimate buyer in order to register and was given an official badge to wear. (At the end, there was a box in which to recycle the plastic badge part, which of course I'm all over, but I quietly slipped my paper badge out so I could keep it. It kind of makes me giggle that such a little thing thrilled me.) Most vendors required your business card in order to give you their catalog - and bang-zoom, there I was, all carded up, ready to go. I was walking around at one point and was very conscious of two feelings at the same time. 1. This is kind of intimidating and overwhelming. It's such a new world to me, it feels weird. 2. Gosh darn it, I do belong here! I'm doing this - this is real! It was fun! I had to make about 52 other stops on the way home and was pretty sick of getting in and out of the car and too much ice on our driveway and too much packed snow near my side of the garage. I was a tad cranky by the time I got home. Here comes the recharging part - so when I got home, I flopped on the couch and watched the Oprah show about the 2nd part of her 50th birthday celebration. Now normally, that much excess, would turn me off, especially if I'm feeling a little hinky about my own finances. But I just enjoyed it for what it was and how cool it must be to be her sometimes. That's the weekend recap. I'm actually caught up on my desk work here at home and plan on going to bed early to get back in the proper sleep cycle. I even got on the treadmill this morning and think I'm going back to exercising for 30 minutes every morning with Steve. For the last couple of months, I've still been getting up at 4:30 but I've been doing Pine Tree Designs stuff instead. I was getting totally bored with the exercise stuff and this was back in December I think so I was really crunched for time PTD-wise. Break's over. That will help me feel better. I can't not exercise.
Dinner: Steve and Simon had baked potatoes with lots o' toppings and I had a big tossed salad - with Valentine's Day cake and ice cream for dessert. Reading: A Year of Trading Spaces, Paige by Paige. I was on the hold list for this at the library for at least a couple of months. I'd read a few pages while waiting for a prescription to be refilled one time and thought it looked fun. I read the entire thing while working at Village Gifts Saturday. That tells us it was a slow day - and it's a fast read! A nice, fluffy, fun read. And I don't even watch Trading Spaces all that much and I enjoyed it. Listening to in the car: ...And Never Let Her Go, by Ann Rule.
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