Welcome to Crazy Town...

Hello!  Welcome to Crazy Town, Population 2.

Life is getting interesting around here, and if the past few days are any indication, it's going to be a wild ride the next month or so!  I think the holiday rush has arrived, even though it still feels a bit early.  Things have certainly heated up at the very least... 

This month, Eliot and I have had a lot of orders streaming in.  Things are still kind of hit or miss with mouse ear sales on Etsy, but we continue to stay way ahead of last year's numbers at this point so that's been really encouraging to me!  Desk accessory sales have exploded in the past few weeks.  We don't even know where it's come from, but we're assuming it's holiday orders since many of them appear to be marked as gifts.

Of course, with lots of orders there's lots of income, followed by a lot of hard work.  But it's been nice to see the fruits of our labors.  Both of our Etsy shops have had great deposits the past few weeks and Snowblade Creations had a really great deposit this week!  On Sunday, Eliot and I accepted a large special order from our best Happily Ever Hatter customer.  Both of his invoices generated a larger sum of money.  Plus, I also just got the travel agent check from our Disneyland trip in September, so that was a nice addition.  It's nice to see the hard work pay off in our bank account.

But like I said, there's a lot of late nights and hard work that follow those deposits.  And I have been pushing extra hard knowing the holiday rush would arrive at some point.

I have to admit, our hard work and my relentless charging ahead on printing products has us way ahead on orders.  Eliot probably considers me a tyrant, but we currently have 24 orders in our Snowblade Creations "prep" folder- which means the bases of the items are all printed and everything just needs to be assembled.  I've been trying to assemble most of it while he's at work and today I got a good percentage of those 24 orders completed to mail out later this week.  (Tomorrow, I tackle the rest!)

Eliot and I are also in pretty good shape with mouse ear orders.  Happily Ever Hatter's production time always takes longer since there's a lot more to assemble.  We don't have as many outstanding orders for that since we pushed really hard a few weeks ago.  But there are a few bases we still need to print and orders we have to finish printing pieces before assembling.  Then, there's that huge order we just accepted.  It has a pretty quick turnaround in the scheme of things, so staying on our print schedule and being disciplined will be critical over the next two weeks!

On an exciting note, Eliot and I have a few new products that we've quietly finished in the background when we've had time.  I'm trying to find some time (and good daylight) to take product photos so I can list those in both of our shops sooner than later.  I've also still got that giant pile of mouse ear samples to keep working on.

Speaking of ears, I took some time on Monday to make a pipe dream list of mouse ears to take to Florida with us in January.  I'm sure that we won't be able to make all of them, but we might be able to make a good dent on them if we plan ahead.  Eliot and I haven't been to Walt Disney World in almost three years, so it's been a long time since we took product photos there.  I'd love to get a bunch of photos taken- especially since we'll be there for the holiday season, Festival of the Arts and race weekend.  It's the perfect opportunity to take photos during all of these special events!

On top of all that, I'm trying to get the house cleaned up a little.  Things are only going to get busier as we creep towards the December 17th holiday shipping deadline.  I'm hoping that if I can get a few things put away or organized, I'll feel a little better about the state of the house.  Every holiday season, it ends up looking like Santa's elves had a tornado in their workshop.  Obviously, getting orders out the door is our top priority, but I'd like to attempt to have an ounce of order this time around.  A girl can dream... 

Finally, if all that wasn't enough, Eliot and I have been spending some time this week finalizing plans for our January Walt Disney World trip.  Eliot and I have got so much planned for the 15 days we're down there.  Right now, we're finalizing the plan for each day- which parks and what other activities we're going to do.  We have also added a few activities that we hadn't originally planned on doing, so now we're checking on ticket prices and trying to figure out semantics around the rest of his family's plans.

Thus, with all of this going on behind the scenes, I've gotten behind on blogging.  As of right now, I have six posts from the end of October through now that I haven't been able to finish.  But I'm still planning to finish writing and post them when I'm able to... I'm just not sure what that will actually be!  But I'm determined to get them finished!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that things are a bit hectic here, as to be expected this time of year... but they're good.  Really good actually.  I just felt compelled to check in while I had a moment to let you all know that Eliot and I are both doing well and that I'm trying to pop in to post here on my blog whenever I have time.

If my blog posts for the remainder of this year are posting out of order, a few days late, or suddenly show up out of nowhere... just know that behind the scenes is a woman juggling many balls and trying not to drop any of them.  Overall, I'm feeling good about where we're at, and I'm not at all stressed about being behind on blog posts- probably because we're in good shape with the businesses.  It's a fluid situation, but I feel ready.

So bring it holiday rush... the mayor of Crazy Town is in.  °o°