Post-xmas Post -- I Survived!

Oh my goodness, the month leading up to Christmas/Xmas/Present Day is always complete chaos over here. It's the kind of chaos I like, though -- order after order after order rolling in, spending all day packaging and taping and shipping bag-fulls of jewelry to people. Once January hits, though, it slows down tremendously, almost to a grinding halt, and it's hard to figure out how to fill my days without becoming entirely stagnant.

I'll admit it though -- many a day has been spent in bed for way too long, only to transfer to the couch, wrapped in my warmest blanket, sipping on Baileys and watching movies.

The kids don't mind lazy days.

I did have a little birthday thing at the end of the month, and I took that day to do something terribly old-folk -- I went to IKEA, and I bought curtains. Oh, the excitement! But the curtains do look nice...

New Years Eve was spent bowling in the afternoon, and at a Chicago Bulls game that evening. For all of my complaining about hating basketball, it was completely different in person. I didn't just tolerate it, I actually enjoyed it! It really wasn't a good game... but still, I'd like to go back, it was a lot more fun than I expected it to be.

We've had a snow event, if you will, over the last few days, so that left me feeling nice and cozy, roasting butternut squash and finding out that vegan French toast might be yummier than it's eggy counterpart. Knowledge is power, folks. Delicious power.

We got at least 1/2 inch inside, and a few more outside.

So I'm sure at some point I'll have to unwrap myself from the blankets and get off the couch, but I'm going to enjoy this as long as I possibly can. This is, after all, one of the pleasures of working from home! Three cheers for small business!

Happy New Year, birds & blokes!

Happy Merry, y'all.

Just pictures today, of last nights seafood feast!  I hope you all have a beautiful holiday.  We got SNOW, so my Xmas wishes are fulfilled.

Fried calamari with lemon slices

Fried calamari with marinara

Fish stew, with shrimp, clams, mussels, mackerel, and crab

Spaghetti with breaded smelt, parsley, and garlic

Festa Dei Sette Pesci

Is everyone else looking forward to the upcoming (be here sooner than you know it) holidays?  In our home, the big one comes on Xmas Eve, the Italian tradition of festa dei sette pesci -- the feast of seven fishes.  As long as I can remember, and long before I was even born, my family has made a fish stew, and believe you me, this is a thing of wonder.  It's a red sauce based stew, with any variety of seven different types of seafood, my favorites being shrimp, clams, mussels, squid, scallops, whitefish, and crab or lobster.  I look forward to this meal every year!  I thought Dave would be a little apprehensive about it (he's not exactly an adventurous eater), but it turns out he loves it too, thank goodness.

Letter pressed holiday cards from Philadelphia and Sons on Etsy

After the very hectic week I've had, I'm excited to relax for a few days, make the stew, drink some wine, eat some buttered bread... ah yes, the holidays.

Oh, and while we're here -- my sale will still be up on Fab.com today and tomorrow, so stop by and check it out! If you haven't joined Fab yet, stop by my Facebook page to grab one of the invites I've posted.

the Big City Bumpkin on Fab.com

I hope all of you birds & blokes are enjoying some time off with friends and family, and wading knee-deep in traditions both sentimental and silly!

Expecting the Expected

I love to ask for advice, but it's somewhat funny how rarely I actually listen to it.  It's not that I don't value the advice I'm given, it's more that I'm always quite sure that things are going to go differently for me than it did for other people.  Sometimes I think it's more important to me to know the advice is actually out there than it is to follow it.  And, sometimes that pays off, in the form of blazing my own trails, and sometimes it doesn't, in the form of my not actually expecting the expected.

I was definitely told that the Holiday shopping season would mean a lot of time spent working, but for whatever reason, I thought that my beautiful check-off lists and planning my working hours (10 am - 4 pm?  Hah!!) would help me to avoid that kind of drama.

It didn't quite go that way.

A 35-40 hour work week?  Well, that's a joke.  I work almost from the time I wake up (9:15 am) until I go to sleep (1-2 am).  Sure, there are breaks for writing emails to friends, or making cookies, and the occasional Netflix movie.  But more often than not, I'm writing emails while printing orders, making cookies while resin cures, and watching movies while I bend jump rings or put stickers on gift boxes.

But the thing is... I like it.  I love it.  I'm busy, I'm frazzled, I always have too many things to do, and I'm enjoying it!  Sure, there are stressful moments where I might forget I ever typed those words... but they pass eventually, and most of the time I feel really awesome about what I'm doing.

It's a great feeling, to be in charge of my own future, to know that I have a say in how successful I am, that it doesn't only depend on my customers (although I love them, and they are pretty important, hehe), that I have control over it!

When I first started this endeavor, I didn't feel like I was in control.  If I had a slow day, I blamed not having enough views on my Etsy shop, or not understanding SEO, or some other reason... but then I realized that there were days when I would have over $100 in sales with only 75 views, and that I could conquer SEO on my slow sale days.

So yeah, I'm tired and I'm having a difficult time not wearing pajamas (there's no time to put on real clothes!), and I don't often lie on my couch sipping cocoa and doing nothing (holiday traditions) -- but I feel so good.  Just so darn good.

So to my customers, and to everyone who supports tiny businesses, and makers of handmade things -- thank you for making this such an exciting time, not just for me, but for all of us!

Scoutmob!

Okay, I'm sickity-sick-sick, and in no mood for little more than drinking orange juice on my couch, cuddled up in a warm blanket, and watching Say Yes to the Dress (don't judge me).

But... I have to give a little shout out for my Scoutmob Shoppe!

I'm up for a limited amount of time, and I heard it through the grapevine (or rather, through their website banner) that this weekend they are offering free shipping with no purchase minimums, so I would get on that if I were you.

Of course, you can also get free shipping in my Etsy shop using the coupon code: Holidays2012

If you're in one of the cities they cater to, I think you will LOVE the app, too -- 50% off at a restaurant for no reason at all?  Yes, thank you very much... in fact, if I felt any better, I would probably be using that discount at Socca this weekend... oh well.

Halloweenie!

I think we managed to look significantly creepy.

Dave decided not to go out with us because he didn't have anything to wear (that's what you get for not planning a costume ahead of time!!), so this is me with our friends Mikey and Jeff.  Yup, a zombie, and a... zombie hot dog.

I learned a few things on Halloween night: there is no consistently appropriate response to a zombie hot dog shouting "Ask me about my wiener!!!", and walking in high heels is NOT my thing.  I swear, I don't know how the drag queens do it.  My hat goes off to them, indeed!

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!  I'm already trying to come up with something crazy for next year, and it will not involve heels, that's for sure.

What about the Holidays?

The Holidays are a funny thing.

I grew up celebrating Christmas with my family -- my Momma helped us make popcorn garland while we listened to the Jackson 5 Christmas album, my Daddy made the fish stew on Christmas Eve and then took us for a late-night drive to see the lights in Schuyler (do they even put them up anymore?) while my sister and I sat cozy in the backseat, trying to spot Santa in the sky (we saw him more than once!).  It was a BIG deal.

But you know, we got older... my parents separated, but still came together for Christmas every year.  But I got married, then divorced... my sister started a family of her own... things just started to happen, and it became a little less magical than it used to be.  I went through my "bah humbug" phase for a year or two, actively not giving a crap about Christmas (or trying really hard to appear not to).  Once I got into my mid-twenties, I decided it wasn't worth it to be a grump, and I started to love it again.  It became "the Holidays" instead of Christmas, but still... I fell back in love with twinkling lights, a decorated tree (or ladder, or chair), the music, the feeling of the whole thing.  In Chicago, that started to come with snow, which made things even more wonderful.

Tonight, I celebrated Hanukkah for the first time.  I made a menorah very spur-of-the-moment, out of a pair of twigs and some tea lights.  For dinner I made beef brisket, potato latkes with sour cream and cranberry-applesauce, and noodle kugel -- it was delightful!  I lit the first candle on the menorah, and read the prayer from my iPhone.  A little unconventional, yes, but the feeling of celebration is still there.  It feels good, it feels warm and like home.

In ten days I'm going to turn thirty.  Thirty with a big "T".  All I wanted was to have the people I love here with me, and I got a good part of my wish -- one of my best friends, Marika, and my lovely Momma are coming to Chicago to visit!  We're not going to be able to go out to dinner every night, or do anything fancy-schmancy, but that doesn't matter to me right now.  I'm just excited to have people I love here, in my apartment 720 miles away, to drink glogg and eat whatever nonsense I'm cooking up that night.  To sip coffee with next to my faux-er-place.

Sometimes this time of year isn't everything I want it to be, but little things like this make it feel okay.  

Warm, cozy, like home.

Oh dear...

I just bought this cake plate...

I've been obsessing over it for what feels like forever, but is realistically only since last night.  I think I dreamed about it.  I don't even bake cakes, but I just can't seem to get this out of my mind... so I bought it.  I feel kind of naughty, what with the Holidays coming up, I'm supposed to be buying things for other people... but I just couldn't seem to let this cake plate go.  Bad, bad Nessa.

Okay, now I need to learn how to properly bake a cake...

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In case you're wondering... I did get it at a pretty good discount.  I think it's about a $70 cake plate, it was on sale for much less than that, and I got it for even less than it was on sale for.

The website is OpenSky, and they keep giving me credits (you'll get a $10 credit if you join through me) so really, I'm not that naughty.  Oh!  And, they have free shipping on almost everything until Monday!

Holidays

I tried for a year or two to be the "Bah Humbug" type, but it just didn't work for me.  It's much more fun to actually get excited about the holidays!  This year, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving, Festivus, Hanukkah, and Christmas.  I've always wanted to celebrate Hanukkah, to which the obvious response was "But, Vanessa... you're not Jewish..."  Well, I'm not Christian, either, and I still celebrate Christmas.  I'm also not a character on Seinfeld, but I do celebrate Festivus!  Anyway, I've decided my dog Ike IS Jewish... so we're celebrating Hanukkah with him, and I'm searching now for a doggy yarmulke.  Yeah, seriously.  I'm excited about it, though -- putting up a menorah, frying latkes, playing dreidel -- it's going to be fun!  I think we'll just stick to the generalized "holiday" cards, though -- the Winter weather theme is pretty neutral.