Just Words

I seem to already be settling into a new daily routine. The new balancing act now contains the tasks of cleaning and packing things away. I'm trying for 'a little a day' approach. I figure this is the least likely to interrupt daily living, for anything that upset the kids schedule too much, destroys. We dropped off some updated paperwork at the loan office yesterday and out real estate agent tells us escrow will open any day now. So aside from moving into a different phase, we are still basically in the dark, waiting.

I've been very fortunate during my sale to sell a good many large pieces, masks, chokers and whatnot. This does put me in the position of having to decide whether to relist even more pieces as custom listings or simply wait until I have them remade. I hate listing because then I have to work on demand, normally not a big issue, but with current events can be a bit too stressful. Then again, I hate not having those signature pieces listed because they can't sell if they're not listed and I doubt many people troll the sold items looking for things to buy no matter how many times I make that suggestion. I will probably opt for a combination of the two, some listed, some waiting and hope that I choose the right ones to relist.

The end of my knitting project is in sight. I haven't gotten any in progress photos mostly because it's my bedtime project. Not much desire to get up and fetch a camera at that point in the day. When it is finished. I'll get some pictures for the blog. I have been horrible at adding images here lately. It must be awful boring to have all these stark works filling up the page, but I hate adding pictures for no good reason. Since I haven't made anything new, there's just not much besides family stuff on the camera. See, I just looked for something and couldn't find a thing. One of these days I'll do one of those wordless posts or something and you'll all be confused.

Undone

It has begun. The slow, steady dismantling of the house we've lived in for three years. The pictures and figurines are coming down and I'm filling in the holes in the wall. It's already feeling less and less like we live here. Of course I am still avoiding any 'real' packing. Our loan agent has finally contacted us for updated paperwork making everything just a bit more real, though we're still waiting for that 'pending' or 'sold' sign to appear in front of the house for further reality checking. That hasn't stopped us from the train of detail worries we're thinking about, everything from how to move the huge desks we put together here to where we're gonna put the kitty litter boxes. We have extreme busy brain and there shows no sign of it slowing.

The sale I spontaneously put together last week has been much more of a success than I could have imagined. Really, it is quite odd, until this point my sales have created no more than business as usual. I keep saying I wish I knew what the secret ingredient was in this one so I could clone it and share the wisdom, but I've really no idea. The discount isn't too large, I'm only pimping it out on the twitter, here and then there's the store announcement. I haven't left links anywhere, haven't tweeted about it non stop. So if you see that little spark of genius in it, please let me know. The sale will continue until Thursday, since we'll be off to our anniversary trip on Friday with the kids in tow.

Oh and just a heads up, as our impending move gets closer, I'm likely to close up shop for an undetermined length of time. Moving utilities is always a crap shoot and I'd hate to be without Internet and have sales or questions sitting unanswered and unexplained. I imagine that blog posting is likely to suffer as well, so please be patient with me. We still don't have a confirmed move date and the way people keep going on about the horrors of closing, I fear we won't know until it is upon us either. See how I can't stop thinking about this crap...aarrgghh.

I am still managing to get in some good tatting time. I've actually been mulling around a few new ideas recently which means I must be hankering for a bout of creation. Though I think that I will have to keep it simple for my own sanity. If I even get a moment to work on them. I'm also almost done with the scarf/wrap I'm knitting up and I'll show that off when it's complete. So check out the sale while you can, the details are in my last post and I'll see you tomorrow.

Anniversary Sale

You guys are ridiculously sweet, seriously people. I did not post the naked face pictures to fish for compliments, but that's what I got, so thanks! I did have one problem to work out yesterday though. My dilemma was a need to break a no sales streak and get some sales to make sure our families Monterey trip doesn't cost the family budget too much. We visit every year for our wedding anniversary, first as a couple, now as a family. Some years we make just a day trip, but we try hard to stay a few days to actually relax. With the impending purchase of a house, we really can't dip in to the budget. So, I presented this issue to the twitterverse and they indicated that if I offered some incentive to shop along with perhaps a sappy love story, I might get more sales. So I decided to follow the advice and offer a spur of the moment, it worked and I hope it continues to work.

The Sale

To celebrate my 11th wedding anniversary on the 11th, take 11% off everything and free worldwide shipping. Sale will end 7.9.9. Pay as normal and I will refund the difference through paypal.

Husband is off work today, so we'll do a little family time. I do have a little tatting to get to, but I've been using the down time to get a few of the custom listed pieces made already so I'm not behind on anything. I also got some packing started yesterday, the books. It's been three years since the last time we moved and we have acquired many more things in that time that will need to be moved as well. It is a bit overwhelming, but if all goes well, this is the last time I will need to do it. I think that's it for now, visit the sale and enjoy.

Naked

Well, what do you know, we heard back yesterday regarding the house. I don't know if they were waiting for the first of the month, the end of the fiscal year or if the timing was just coincidence, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. We don't have a lot of details yet. We were only told that both banks have approved the deal and would like us to start on our loan to close by the end of the month. So all that stress created by not knowing has been immediately replaced by the anxiety of, 'Oh, my gods, we're actually buying a house'. This anxiety will likely plague us for the coming month, so I apologize in advance if I drone on about it repeatedly until you want to harm me.

In other news, I fell victim to peer pressure. That's right, I did...so, umm it's not my fault blame them. Oh, yeah, a few of my friends from the twitter are fashion bloggers at The Demoiselles and there has been much discussion regarding some photos on the cover of the French Elle with a makeup-less Scarlett Johansson. The discussion resulted in a few of them posting photos of themselves without makeup. Now, honestly I am addicted to my eye liner. I do not like to leave the house without it, but this was peer pressure remember. So here they are, fresh out of the shower, my makeup-less photos.I was going to do them in black and white to better hide, well...everything, but I opted for just a bit of a fade. My hair is still wet and is in serious need of a freshening of color. They aren't as bad as I thought they would be, but this is definitely the only time this is happening, so enjoy.

July

Wow, July, huh? I'm been caught up in so many different things recently that time is just flying by. That, however, is not necessarily a good thing. It occurred to me only this morning that we're going on day four without a sale in the etsy shop. I know, many of you are cursing me for that complaint, but it's not so much a complaint as it is surprise at not having noticed sooner. I have gotten back to tatting up sold pieces. I finished up a Voodoo mask and started a pair of barefoot sandals yesterday. I should finish up those and then I'll get on something with yarn. It might be hot as Hades here, but its fall on the flip side of the planet so it's not that crazy of an idea.

I know I have mentioned that I love the Internet. Sure, it's full of creepy people and bizarre gossip, but where else could I mention a problem and receive helpful and well thought out support from people on the other side of the country. So, thank you Internet for allowing me to connect with other people. Between my blogs and twitter I feel like I have a great network of people to call upon and as a stay at home mom, I really need other adults during the daytime. I do have a great husband and a helpful family near me that I would never trade, but boy does the Internet fill in the blanks.

Not much else to share, I'm afraid. Since the store is slow, I've decided to put off the new corset purchase. We're going to Monterey on our annual anniversary trip and I think affording that is more important that buying something that's just meant to skinny me up a bit. I'm still wearing this one about 23 hours a day. Sleeping in it is easy and comfortable and though I think this size has done all it can do, wearing it will at least maintain until I get the smaller one. I'm certain to share when I get the next one and start the tightening process once again.