It's beginning to look a lot like...

In truth, up in my neck of the woods it's beginning to look a lot like flooding of epic proportions (definitely thinking now may be time to invest in some ark building classes) but it is starting to look like Christmas.

Things have been so busy around here lately, including retail shows the past two weekends (the first one was spectacular and tons of fun, the second one not so much of either) and drop ship orders going out daily, that it's sometimes hard to get into the holiday spirit. Every year I seem to surface right around the 17th of December when things finally slow down a bit only to realize that I'm rapidly bearing down on Christmas. I don't even want to talk about how early Hanukkah was this year - that was patently unfair to everyone and definitely something that needs to be taken under advisory by the Rabbinical Counsel! It was basically "hurry up and eat your Thanksgiving turkey so we can get to Hanukkah!"

But it's slowly dawning on me that Christmas is right around the corner. This year we even got a tree up and lit which is a marked improvement over our lack of any holiday decorations last year. I have some Christmas cookies baking in the oven and this afternoon, if things go according to plan, I'll light the Christmas tree candle (our tree is fake since I hate cutting down real ones so I invested in an incredible fir tree candle from Thymes (thymes.com) to give me that holiday smell) and give thanks to the Internet for allowing me to do all my shopping without setting foot in a single store. Internet shopping is a godsend to enrepreneurs like myself who rely on fourth quarter for 75% of sales revenue!

That'll teach me...

If you haven't done so already, read the post just below this one first.

Now that you've read that - here is how I saw my day going:
1. putter around a bit
2. think about doing something productive
3. get absorbed in mindless internet surfing
4. take a nap
5. go to yoga - congratulate myself on being productive
6. debate what to have for dinner since hubby is working late - seriously contemplate just eating chocolate chips and marshmellows

Here's what really happened. Not 5 minutes - and I'm not exaggerating - literally minutes after getting that last post written I get a phone call from one of my drop ship retailers. Turns out they've been having problems with their drop ship software and I had 27 orders waiting for me. Some of which that have been sitting there since Nov. 24th! I almost laughed out loud given that I had just gloated over the fact that all orders were out the door. Silly girl!

I just spent the last several hours frantically packaging, invoicing, printing shipping slips, printing mailing labels, packing into shipping boxes, and rushing to UPS where I managed to drop off all 27 orders with 7 minutes to spare before they closed pickup for the evening.

Remind me to never ever again revel in the fact that things are quiet. The Universe is just waiting to smack me upside the head. So today - Universe 1 Entrepreneur 0

...tiptoe...

...i'm quietly tiptoeing on here to announce in a whisper (lest the internet gods hear me) that as of right now every single order for the year is done AND i'm all caught up from last week's show and have even made more product in advance of this weekend's show. What on earth am I going to do with myself for the rest of the day?

(here's a few ideas...update the last 3 months of quickbooks, clean my office, make sure all bills are paid...do some work on my book (yep - a book - more on that later)...work on the website for said book (more on that later too)...sweep the upstairs...quickbooks (again - it's that important)...)

So yes, there's things that need to get done but nothing that needs to be done today. I'm debating between working on QuickBooks and taking a nap with my dogs. Hmmm...which way to go on that decision?

Silent Night

I'm officially taking tonight off from work of any kind (well - except perhaps housework). It's been a whirwind week between lots of time at the part-time gig and then a big holiday show this past Saturday and Sunday. But man did I have fun! This was the second time I've done this holiday show and it's probably one of my favorites. Just a really fun vibe and lots and lots of customers to talk to (and a good deal of money made too!). But the turnaround from that back into another full and busy week has me feeling a tad exhausted. There's still plenty to do - especially since I have another holiday show this upcoming Saturday - but I'm taking tonight off. Now I just need to find something stupid on tv to zone out to because I simply don't have it in me to read anything of any substance and, sadly, don't have any easy reading material in the house.