Cheers to you, faithful followers!

31 days ‘til Christmas

Have you started your Holiday Shopping yet?  I have my shopping list made out but I haven’t bought a single present yet.  I guess I’m still looking for my motivation… I have bought a few toys to add to the Toys-4-Tots boxes at work – but those don’t really count. (Just like calories consumed on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day don’t count.)

While I haven’t yet started my shopping, I have continued to create items for the Boutique. I continue to be encouraged by special requests and seemingly random sales.  So as you are making your lists, think about shopping at the coolest collection of on-line stores ever: Etsy. You can find something for everyone and you’ll be supporting small & home based businesses. (Not to mention bringing joy to someone’s day when they get that awesome e-mail that you’ve purchased something from their shop!)

So why haven’t I started shopping yet? I keep thinking that I’ll just stop by a store at lunch or take the easier route and just order on-line – yet still I haven’t managed to do anything.  Can you believe that I’m too lazy to even shop on-line? (Yes, this from the girl who already sent out her Christmas Cards – much to the shock of EVERYONE I know…) Obviously they aren’t yet faithful followers of my blog, like you!

So here is my vow… I will be done shopping for all extended family members (leaving only one lucky winner of the name draw, Mom, hubs and son) before Thanksgiving.  With 14 nieces, nephews and cousins it sounds like a tall order, right?  Eh, not so much. The hard part (deciding what to get everyone) is really already done. That’s why I love online shopping – just a few clicks and you’re done. No pesky parking space searches, rude retailers or strange shoppers to deal with.

So cheers to you, faithful followers!
Have an amazing Thanksgiving and happy shopping!

Call me obnoxious

36 days ‘til Christmas

From what I understand, the ‘early birds’ send out Christmas Cards Thanksgiving weekend. In my limited research this past week I have been told of people who won’t even open cards until December 1st. (Personally, the suspense would kill me – I don’t even like to wait until the hubby gets home open them.) I even had one person say that it’s obnoxious to send them out before Thanksgiving: ‘It’s just obnoxious to send them out so early, it’s like rubbing our noses in how far behind we are.”

So call me obnoxious – I mailed out my Christmas cards today! :)

I’m feeling a little superior about my Christmas Cards this year. First of all, I’m usually more of a last minute person on the Christmas Cards. I’m not as bad as the folks who send out ‘New Year’s Cards’ because they couldn’t get it together before Christmas (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But I typically send them out about a week before Christmas. A few years I was really pushing it because I handmade all my cards. Very cool, but definitely some preplanning is helpful.

And second of all, this year I decided to try my hand at designing a photo card. No, I didn’t just upload a few pictures to a predesigned card on Walgreens.com. (Not there's anything wrong with that - I've seen some very pretty cards with that method.) I actually DESGINED it. In Photoshop. It was surprisingly easy – and it only took me about 2 hours (I was thinking DAYS when I started). When you consider that the back of the card has 25 photos that I had to size, crop and jigsaw to fit on a 5x8 flat card it’s pretty impressive, if I do say so myself!

So maybe I am rubbing it in just a little…

Here’s to the Monday blahs

40 days ‘til Christmas

3 Holiday Sales

I don’t know about you, but I had a rough weekend. Xan-man was grounded and so he had to miss my company’s ‘Family Movie Day’ where we rented a theater to show Megamind and then Santa came to visit and take pictures with the kids (poor kid cried for hours asking me to change my mind). What was even worse than him not being able to go was the fact that I had to go to help out (joys of being in HR, my friend). So he got to spend the day having fun with Gramma, where the rules of grounding aren’t so strictly applied – I’d say it worked out OK for him anyway. ;)

That fun was then followed by a baby shower. It was way better than I expected (even kinda fun) considering I didn’t think I’d know anyone (wrong) and I expected to have to play one of those awful games where you have to taste or smell mysterious baby food, sniff diapers with melted candy bars or embarrass the mom-to-be by guessing how big around she is. Thankfully there was none of that.

The day is going so well (you can hear the sarcasm, right?) that it can only improve… So I thought. Unfortunately then I got a flat tire. Lovely.

I could go on about the crazy weekend (including a twice-twisted ankle, a broken iPhone, a disorganized trivia night, a wasted trip to the mall and a potty accident) but really, I think that you get the picture and I’d much rather move onto happier thoughts. Such as: Yay, It’s Monday! (Really, I’m just thrilled to have made it through the weekend!) And after all, I did wake up to another nifty e-mail telling me a sold a rosary!

So no Monday blahs for me. Instead I say, “Three cheers for Monday!”
Hmmm, maybe that’s going a bit too far…

The Joys of Etsy & Holiday Sales

I’m still pretty new at being able to sell the things that I make.  With past hobbies or crafts (stained glass and jelly making to name a few) I’ve gone all gung-ho and made as many things as I can to give away to family and friends and then having nothing else to do with the fruits of my labor, moved on to the next obsession. So now that I’ve got a shop on Etsy, I’m able to put rosaries and other jewelry up for sale. As I said, I’m still relatively new at this but I get an extraordinary burst of joy when I see the e-mail from Etsy saying that something has sold.  It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s a small or large piece.


So I know that I keep mentioning it but do you know about Etsy?  It’s really an amazing place to shop.  Everything for sale is either handmade or vintage (or a combination of the two). There are sellers from all around the world and you can buy just about anything you could ever imagine (and some things that you never could). For example there’s the weird, the wild, and the huh??? There’s also stuff that you wonder how you ever lived without it (like fabulous lip balm)…  you know you need a new flash drive, right? and who doesn’t love popcorn?


So I’m hoping for an influx of sales as we enter the holiday season (so head over to Beatitude Boutique or Jewels from Jules and take a look… hint, hint). Right now I actually have all items marked down by 10% in my stores. In fact, many Etsy sellers have started thier holiday sales early for Black Friday/Cyber Monday - if you search for ‘etsyholidaysale’ you get a list of all items that have special discounts through November 30th!

Happy Shopping!

Lord give me patience...

So I suppose that since we’re still getting to know each other here it makes sense to tell you that my profession of necessity is human resources. Now I say necessity not because I don’t enjoy it sometimes, but if I had my true choice in a profession, I’d be an international traveler and philanthropist using my limitless funds to experience the world and to make it a better place. (Perhaps I should start playing the lottery…)

I suppose that if you are lucky enough to be in the land of the employed, you either have already or are preparing to make your benefit selections. What that means in my world is that it’s time for long hours and many questions from employees. It’s incredibly tiring and not something that I love about my job.

I really dislike it when people say that they wish it was the weekend (although I’m guilty of that more often than I’d like to admit). You’re just wishing your life away and someday you’ll wish that you had those precious moments back. So in lieu of wishing that we were at a certain date, I’m asking for the patience to complete this benefit enrollment process and help everyone that needs it with a smile no matter how mundane or complex their questions or problems might be.

Employment aside, I am lucky enough to have a family that I love and a hobby that not only pays for itself (most of the time) through my shops on Etsy and allows me to make donations to worthy causes but makes me feel closer to God as I create pieces that are inspired by Him.

I mentioned in the last blog that I made granola bars for the Xan-man to take to school for a snack. I feel I must relate the one-sided conversation he had with the assistant principal as he was getting out of the car the other day. He says ‘My mom made yummy granola bars and I have one as my snack today. I don’t really like the chocolate chips in them but I’ll just deal with it.’ She just laughed and he went on his way as I drove off. I’m sure she was thinking that I certainly hadn’t made homemade granola bars, I mean who does that? But I really did and they were both easy and yummy. I’ve gotten a few requests from friends so I thought that I’d share that recipe from the Meal Makeover Moms here. (Though I haven’t tried any other recipes I love that they makeover recipes to be healthier.)

Not such a great start eh?

So here I make this big commitment to be funny and whimsical in blog form and then...radio silence...5 months later here I am finally sitting down to pen blog #2. So I guess I didn't get off to such a great start eh?

So lots has happened in the last 5 months (that's not an excuse for not blogging - I was just plain lazy) so forgive me, but I'll take a few moments to catch you up.
The Xan-man started Kindergarten in August and that's sure been an adjustment for all of us. Apparently he likes to talk. a lot. non-stop. Not really a surprise to us, after all, we live with him. Also, since he was an only child, primarily watched by a loving set of grandparents who spent hours on 'schoolwork' with him he is used to being the center of attention and is far ahead of the other students on the intellectual side of things. Thank the Lord that we are sending him to a Catholic school where the curriculum is much more advanced than the public school near us. Otherwise we’d have had to skip a grade (and behaviorally, that wasn’t a great option for us). So we get regular calls and notes from the teacher (another plus for the private school route) to inform us of his misbehavior and trips to the timeout chair. (And at one point his actual desk was moved to the time out area for a few days in an effort to keep him from disturbing other kids.) The biggest problem is that he finishes his work so quickly that he doesn’t know what to do while the other kids are still working.

Things I like about the Xan-man being in school? He loves playing with the other kids and all things that he’s learning. (His favorite ‘subjects’ are music, religion, lunch and recess.) Also, since his days are so full he's ready to go to bed at 7-7:30 without any issues, leaving time for me to catch up on my favorite TV programs that are not kid friendly. I’m also having a blast making lunches – I know, I’ll probably be really sick of it within a few years. Last weekend I made granola bars for him to take as a snack. They were super easy, taste great and oh wait… they’re healthy.

I opened up a new shop on Etsy called the Beatitude Boutique. I think the name is more fitting for the items that I hope to sell. While not everything will be religious in nature, I feel like they are all inspired by God and I hope that others will enjoy wearing them as much as I enjoy making them. I’m still working on getting all the kinks worked out, but soon I’ll have a real website to direct people to! That combined with this blog (if I can stay on target) should allow me to really feel like an entrepreneur. (No thanks Mr. Trump, I don’t want to be on the Apprentice… I’m not that motivated… did I mention I’m lazy?)

So stay tuned for more fun from me. I promise that you won’t have to wait another 5 months.