Think I'll buy me a football team

Long time no post, because I was running around like a crazed woman trying to finish custom jewelry orders for Christmas, and also get ready for the craft show I did at REI headquarters yesterday. Super-busy week!

We also got some sad news from TJ's family last week, so it didn't seem right to post a light-hearted post right at that time. Please send happy thoughts their way.

Anyway, back to less weighty topics. (Pretty much everything here is a less weighty topic, isn't it?) I got 5 of my 6 custom orders done last week, and have 3 currently on my plate, though one of those isn't for Christmas and I still need to order supplies for it.

On deck today is just 2 pairs of earrings. One is a custom order from a friend, as a Christmas present for someone else, and the other is from a woman at yesterday's craft show. The awesome part is that she already paid for them!

I made a pair of earrings and a matching bracelet on Thursday to beef up my inventory for the show and they are some of my favorites. Unfortunately, I was so rushed I didn't take a picture, so I'll just have to recreate them sometime from my imagination. They had bright orange carnelian, tiny brown freshwater pearls, and just some sparkly silver accents - very small and delicate.

The earrings got snapped up pretty early in the craft fair, and the lady who bought the bracelet also wanted the earrings, so I told her I'd make her another pair. Hope I remember what they looked like!

Anyway, the show was pretty good for me. I sold many of my magnets, though not the water molecule GeekMagnets. I was smart to bring BeagleMagnets and NatureMagnets, both of which were a big hit with the employees. It also helped that I offered them individually at $2 so I had a few people buy just one magnet. I also sold 2 bracelets and 2 or 3 pairs of earrings so it was a pretty successful day for me. A nice way to end the season. I'd do this one again if Wendi asks me (you have to be sponsored by an employee).

But in general, I'm down on craft shows. It's a lot of sitting around, hoping someone will buy stuff. There's always a ton of jewelry vendors. And it usually eats up a whole weekend day, not to mention all the prep time beforehand. So I might stick to the Internet and custom orders for friends. Or be more choosy about the shows I do participate in. This year, as a learning experience, I did anything that was less than $20 for the booth. Two shows were pretty good and two were *really* bad. You never can tell up front, but I did learn that I don't really like sitting around all day and it just imposes way too much deadline stress on me. So maybe one or two a year will be enough.

After the show yesterday, Wendi and I went to Nordstrom Rack. I love the Rack, and Wendi is a marathon shopper like me. I can tell we're going to be good friends :) If only she didn't live so far away! I bought three black dresses. Really, they are all different!

Actually, I will probably return one of them today. I bought it to wear for our New Year's Eve dinner at Canlis, but it needed some slight alterations and my usual seamstress is out of town until then. I also didn't *love* it. I could wear it as-is, though it's a little big. So I'm going to see if there are other options for me today, at Macy's and the Factoria Nordstrom Rack. If I don't find something else, I'll wear the one I bought. It's black, and sparkly, and nice, but just not *the* dress.

Though currently I'm pretty unhappy with how clothes are fitting these days :( I need a good kick in the (extra large) pants to start eating right again. And make sure I'm getting my 10000 steps in each day (at the very least). Shopping with Wendi, who's a size 6 and several inches taller than me, underscored this fact. She's that person who can wear the cute little Audrey Hepburn straight-cut black dresses. I remember the (brief) time when most things I tried on would fit, and I'd just have to decide which ones I liked best. Instead of now, where if it fits at all, it automatically gets tossed in the "maybe" pile, just for that reason. Sad.

And quite honestly, what it comes down to is how bad I really want to lose weight because it ain't gonna come easy this time. I'm still kidding myself that walking more and just eating less crap is really going to effect a drastic change. But I'm also not mentally ready to make a wholesale change. I love going out to eat in Belltown at lunch. I'm still in a very anti-green-leafy-vegetable phase. I hate salad. But I'm not getting any younger. Yuck.

Grumble, grumble.