Pray for my sanity

I've been busy, but unfortunately it hasn't been with my Etsy shops Tumus and Pinpinn. It's been with my "9-5". I've been moved to another position within my company that involves converting and testing copious amounts of data. I haven't decided if I really like it or not. It's a bigger workload, more stress and with the same pay. It's not a good trade off but if I want a job then I have to take where they move me with as much gratitude as I can muster.

Despite this I am plowing away at making sure my personalized ornaments are up and listed and that I have some new breeds up. Can you believe I've made a Boxer and Coon Hound too but didn't have time to take pictures of them before I mailed them out LOL! Here's the jack russell.




I've been wrestling with that and making sure Pinpinn is getting restocked with it's best sellers.
It's incredibly hard right now. I don't mean to whine, but I am forcing myself to work harder at Etsy NOW than I was before even at the expensive of sleep. I can't help it. I might break down at some point and have to stop with shop updates or new items just to move thru the Holidays with my fingers in tact, but I plan to make it work.

Our company has forced us to take 2 mandatory furloughs, one the week of Thanksgiving and one the week after Christmas. You can guess what I'll be doing :lol:(well aside from baking 8 doz dinner rolls). It's remarkable any of us who have outside jobs from our crafting businesses have any time at all to eat and breathe.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..........

Thank You Notes

Well, that's that.


It rained. Then it rained some more on the honeymoon. It wasn't perfect in fact there was an incident prior to the ceremony that I didn't find out about till this past Sunday. It involved one of the servers spilling a pan of chicken an hour before the reception and getting Sterno all over his pants thus igniting them (funny but not). So our lovely caterer Renee had to make a mad dash to the ER, swing back by her restaurant to get more chicken to prepare and cook, and sprint back to the reception.

And you know what. I totally didn't know anything was going on. Why? Because my mom is awesome and got the Barn decorated and laid out and somehow still had time to get ready.

It was a fun day, it went by way to fast and good ol' Aunt Flo had to stop by in the middle of the reception which caused me to be absent from it for like 30 min :( I was really bummed about that. I also almost threw up when Chris fed me the cake because I was feeling so ill. I can look back on it and laugh because it's fun memories now, but at that time all I was thinking was, Oh God please don't let me barf.
I cried for an hour the following day mostly from relief and from feeling like I totally missed my own wedding. Ah guilt.

But I don't look too sick here ^_^



I can put on a brave face when I have to.....or a nonchalant, careless pose in a doorway lol.



I'm glad it's over and everyone had a blast even if it rained. Now I have the joy of nesting in my own home with new flatware and a boatload of thankyou cards to write.
My hand will never recoup at this point.

SO Close To a Vacation

I'm literally days away from the Wedding now (10.09.09 eep!), so this is more than likely the last post prior to the wedding craze that's about to commence. I find it hilarious that the forecast has changed about 6 different times in the past 2 days. But as of today it's forecasted to rain, like 70%.......and if you haven't guessed, yes the ceremony is to be held outdoors. THANKFULLY we do have a backup plan because I like to to be prepared.

I'll use the word "prepared" loosely because this is not always the case :lol: but I've been really good at it when it comes to the wedding. Maybe it's because there's a good chunk of change involved in pulling this day off.

I'm going to Target today to nab some ultra colorful umbrellas for me and my sisters aka my bridesmaids because I'll be damned if I'm going to let a little downpour ruin some spectacular photo opportunities. And I want to have FUN! I demand fun. Everyone should.

My AWESOME favors arrived yesterday right on time from my friends over at Whimsy & Spice. They are mini bundles of the Brown Sugar Gingerspice Shortbread cookies, seen here. I'm immensely thrilled and proud they helped me out with all 120 favors :lol: including tying lots of ribbon onto the boxes. It was a long time in the making and I can't believe I managed to get them to do them for me. To me they are like the Elvis of Cookies.

Got lots more to do including finishing sewing my centerpiece squares, putting together the programs, finding the rest of the reception music and generally keeping all manner of cat-kind away from anything tempting.

So keep me in your prayers and I'll see you around the week of October 19th!

A Reprive

Although the shops will be on a hiatus while the wedding madness finishes up I think I can manage to blog a bit here and there in the final 2 weeks I have left before the honeymoon.

Can you believe it? Only 2 weeks left?! Oddly enough I don't feel like panicking.

I'm glad it's officially Fall now though. And I'm really partial to gray, rainy days when the trees are vibrant with color, but I also like the cool crisp air that sweeps in behind the Canadian lows.

I like it because of the ridiculous costumes that come with Halloween, the candy, the cool air, the leaves, the pumpkins, the pie, the sweaters....there's nothing I don't like about it except when it has to leave and the dull boring colors of winter creep in.

I'm glad I made these :)

Forecast: Chili with A Broken Brain

Strangely enough I don't feel nearly as stressed about the wedding as I did nearly a month ago. Maybe it's the feeling of victory nearly here? Meh. All I know is that I'm trying to mend my broken brain and that part is becoming harder than I care to admit.
Curse my worrying mind. I'm almost waiting for some strange package to arrive on my doorstep with claws to mangle my carefully arranged order.

So I made chili. Because it's delicious and it's nearly Fall...kind of...well mostly because it's delicious. But I was evidently out of chili powder (OMG) when I called Chris to start the pot up. I called him because I had to work OT at the "9-5" and he was already home, safe, comfy and I was stuck in diabolical, hellish traffic.
After stopping at the doctor's office and getting some new "fun" things for my broken brain I set off back down the hellish Highway of Doom to the grocery. Bought chili powder, came home and dang it if we weren't short a can of kidney beans.

*apply cold compress or heat pack and relax*

But I made the chili anyways because I'm stubborn and I was stressed and nothing was going to screw with my already wasted evening! Not even kidney beans.

At least I had chili and it was well with the world once more.

Tuesday Tea

I've always liked Celestial Seasonings tea. The story is pretty "hippie" like but still good.

It began when founder Mo Siegel and his crazy friends began picking wild herbs in the Rocky Mountains. By 1969 they had packed 10,000 muslin bags with Mo's "36 Herb Tea" and sold them to a health food store in Boulder, CO.

If you're curious Celestial Seasonings offers tours at their factory and I have it on good authority that the tea doesn't get any better than right off the line ^_^ My grandma and one of my sister's went back in February this year.

I'm a big fan of Sleepy Time Tea and the Tummy Mint

I'm also partial to the art work on the boxes which make them even more fun to pop open to brew a cup ^_^ Visit the site

And it keeps on coming

I'm still around. See? *waves like a mad woman*

Just to give you a heads up, the blog will be going on a long 4 week vacation along with my shops, Tumus & Pinpinn Sept. 25 - Oct. 23 for my wedding.
For my own sanity's sake and those around me I think this is a pretty wise step :lol: Of course Chris thinks I should close this week instead because things are starting to get down to the wire with last minute appointments and meetings with the caterer and cake peoples.

And to top it off Pinpinn keeps selling pincushions entirely too fast. I'd really like to get the shop to 2 pages of inventory, but at this point that's not going to happen. A funny problem to have I suppose.
I listed these two last week and the Blue Bells sold the same night. The Pink and Rose cushion is still up for grabs though!







Tumus also got another front page with the lastest edition of Robins. Someone must really love these guys ^_^