Sometimes life doesn't go as you planned for and wanted it to. In this case, Eliot's three days off have been more "adaptation" than vacation. I thought we'd be getting a bunch of stuff done around the house. Instead, we've spent so much time working on finishing orders. I should have known when we were already running behind... but still, I have to admit that it's thrown me a little. At least we have been really productive.
On Wednesday, it was 92° so cleaning and yard work weren't an option that we wanted to pursue. Instead, Eliot and I focused our energy towards working on orders for both of our businesses. We wanted to get caught up as much as possible so we basically spent the entire day printing pieces and finishing orders. But it was totally worth it! By Wednesday night, we had a huge stack of orders completed, with shipping labels printed and boxes packaged up... all ready to go to the post office the next morning.
Thursday was much of the same. Eliot and I worked on orders in between other small projects. I would paint a coat on some pieces for ears and then I would do some computer work. Then, I'd paint some more and find something else to do. We stopped in the afternoon long enough for Eliot to make one last trip to the post office before they closed. After Eliot returned, he set up the 3D printers and went outside to do some yard work. While he was outside, I painted a few more pieces.
When Eliot was almost finished mowing the front yard, we decided to go into town to get food and run a few errands. We got cleaned up, changed and jumped into the truck. Eliot call Amato's so our food would be done by the time we got there. We were really hungry at that point, so we ended up eating in the truck in the parking lot. Then we headed over to Target to pick up the stuff we needed.
First, we walked over to the TJ Maxx which is right next to the Target in Biddeford. I've never been in that one, but I've seen other people find some Disney stuff there. We made our way through the store and we found a few Disney kitchen items. Sadly, they didn't have the welcome mats I was hoping I'd find. However, they did have some cute Mickey and Minnie garden statues. We also found some cute Snoopy dogs beds for a great price and two of them ended up coming home with us.
After dropping the dog beds off in the truck, we went to Target to get the storage cube units I wanted to get for our hallway. Then, Eliot ran into Walmart quickly. We made our way back over to the storage unit but it closed less than 5 minutes before we got there so we just missed our opportunity to unload the bookcase from IKEA. Instead, we drove home, worked on ears while listening to hockey and went to bed.
By this morning I was getting restless, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I thought we'd have gotten tons of stuff done around the house during Eliot's days off, and so far, we had absolutely nothing to show for it. We made our way downstairs and went back to work on mouse ears. Eliot left to go to Dunkin Donuts when it was 1:00 pm and it was apparent that we weren't going to be stopping anytime soon.
We spent the rest of the afternoon finalizing a bunch of mouse ears. Eliot went the post office at 4:30 to drop off everything we had done. We had two more orders that were almost finished... but we ended up running out of time. Eliot returned a few minutes later and said the ladies at our post office told him they usually are there until 5:00 so if we showed up with mail that was already paid for, they might be able to add them to the truck even if they were "closed". I sprang into action and the next few minutes were a flurry of us packing the last two orders. Thankfully, Eliot got back in time and they added them to the rest of the packages going to the sorting facility!
I felt a lot better after getting all of those orders complete. The ones we mailed out today were some of the ones that we've been working on for weeks. All of the designs had to be tweaked a little. Then, Eliot had to update the print files. They also all included a bunch of pieces and they all had to be painted in some form. Thus, they take a lot more time to put together than some of our easy designs.
I spent a few minutes messaging our customers to let them know that their packages were on the way, then I took a quick break to munch on a few graham crackers. Then, I showered and got dressed to go up to Portland. I had an online order that I needed to pick up at the mall and I was nearing the end of my window to get it. While I drove the truck, Eliot ordered Chipotle and told me about playing with his new drone. (He was doing that while I was showering and he got some fun photos of our yard!)
We went to the mall and headed to Torrid. My pink sundress was waiting behind the counter. Then, Eliot and I walked over to Hot Topic. I was excited to see a few items from the Disney Rainbow Collection there! They had a lot of the items that were online... and I also found a few that I hadn't seen online! I immediately grabbed a big Mickey rainbow flag banners, as well as a cute desk sign that says "Think Happy Thoughts" in rainbow front with little pixie dust sparkles and Mickeys all around it.
Eliot went right to the Funko Pops where Hot Topic was were running a deal to buy one get one 50% off. I was so excited to that they had a bunch of the rainbow ones! Eliot had already picked a Stitch that he liked. Then, I helped him select a Rainbow Wall-E and two Rainbow Mickeys. We had four so our count was good for the deal, then one of the sales ladies brought out three Stitch Pops of him in his spaceship. Eliot wanted one, so I helped him pick the best of those. (We had told her we were "Disney people" so she wanted us to see those since none were on the shelf.) Then, he picked out one more to make the count even and we made our way to the check out.
We walked back to our car, but had to take a little detour as JCPenney apparently closed at 7. Then, we decided that we'd waited long enough that our Chipotle might actually be finished. (We'd set it up for a 6:40 pick up time.) We rolled into the Cracker Barrel parking lot at 7:15. We said hi to a golden doodle on the way, then we went inside Chipotle and we were one of the few orders complete! We sat in the truck and ate our dinner. Then, we decided to head home because we had so much stuff to do.
On the way, we made a quick stop at the storage unit to drop off the bookcase from IKEA (finally). We're supposed to get rain tonight, so we wanted to make sure it was out of the truck. Then, we continued home. After bringing everything inside, Eliot set the printers up to keep those cranking out orders while we turned hockey on. Right now, I'm finishing this post while we take a breather. We'll be back at it tomorrow.
While it hasn't exactly been the home project completion vacation that I was hoping for, we have been really productive. And I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining about our businesses, because even though the past few days have been a little frustrating, they have been incredibly rewarding too. I'm relieved that our list is getting shorter and that we're getting caught up. We're so grateful for all of the orders we've had! I'm just frustrated that we didn't get them done before Eliot's vacation... if we'd gotten them done earlier, we wouldn't have had to work on our businesses as much right now.
Still, Eliot and I have had a few moments of fun and relaxation! My family will be arriving tomorrow afternoon instead of tonight, so we were able to get more stuff done today. Plus, we'll have until mid-day tomorrow to get stuff done. (I'm planning to get a little bit of cleaning done before everyone arrives!) Then, hopefully we can have a bit of fun with my family and get some stuff done around the house before the long holiday weekend ends! Here's hoping we get a few house projects done anyways!!! °o°
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