~ Stuff It! ~

Normally my weekends tend to be time to catch up on housework and cook a good meal for my dad.  Since dad was having a birthday this week I didn't need to cook a meal.   Instead we met with his sisters for lunch at his favorite restaurant.  Mi Pueblo's has been my dad's favorite place to eat for years.  He eats here at least once a week.  The staff know him so well they no longer bring him a menu.  The picture below was from a year or two ago.  This year we forgot to take pictures due to the non stop talking and giggling.  I think the other customers were annoyed at our loud burst of laughter, but we didn't care.  We had a great time visiting and making new memories.

After dinner it was back to Podunk where I spent a couple hours in my office stuffing my new patterns into the clear hanging bags.  Since I'm fairly new to publishing patterns this part of the process still gets me excited.  To see my work in print amazes me.   Twenty-five years ago I never dreamed I'd be writing patterns for anyone but myself.  It's been quite the journey learning how to go from scribbles on paper to making a product for sale.  I had no idea what went into pattern writing.  Learning to use graphic programs has been the biggest hurdle.

Hopefully someday I can farm out some of the work.  But for now I'm a one woman show.  I do have testers and editors(friends) that work for free.  In the next few months I'll be looking for a few new pattern testers that are willing to work for free or very little.

After all the folding and stuffing it was time to start shipping the weekend orders.  My mail lady isn't going to like me today.  Maybe I should bake her some cookies!  I've caught her complaining about picking up my orders.  I'm sure having a rural route isn't easy.  Appreciation goes a long way, so I think I'll do something to put a smile on her face.  Homemade cookies might not be the best choice.  Purchased items tend to go over better with the mail carriers.  It is a very stressful job.  A friend of mine works for the USPS as a manager of several small post offices in this area.  She has had death threats, small explosives and suspicious packages with powder in them put in her home mail box.  Not by the mail carriers but by upset customers.  So I think my mail lady needs a little something to make her week better.  Who knows what she might be dealing with on daily basis.

The picture below shows my pattern storage.  The turned up containers are patterns  needing to be reordered.  Looks like later in the week I'll have another fun day of stuffing patterns.  Everything in my office is stored in air tight containers.  Even the door to my office is sealed with weather stripping.  This may seem like over kill.  But my thoughts are.....I have allergies and I know many other do also.  So I do whatever I can to keep any type of allergens out of my office and pattern supplies.   We have even closed off the heating vents to the room.  It is heated and cooled separately from the rest of the house.  

A great end to the weekend was the sunset.  Over the last couple of weeks we have had the most amazing sunsets.  This picture was taken earlier in the week but last nights sunset was almost exactly the same.  It looked like the woods were on fire.  This is one time that I found the color purple to be absolutely stunning.

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