Gonzai Gallery

For the first time in my career as an artist/crafter, I cancelled a show I was fully registered and paid for. In fact, it's the show I've been involved with the longest, a craft fair at a nearby school. But I'm exhausted, I'm way behind on creating inventory, there's no light at the end of the tunnel and the deadline for cancelling is Friday, so I pulled the trigger. I didn't do as well there last year as I have in the past, and it's the first show on my schedule, so I'm hoping it'll give me another week to make inventory for shows where my sales were better last year. I hope.

Other than a small panic attack when I discovered that show setup started at 7:30, not 8:30, and discovered this AT 7:30, (and please don't mention this to any MD State Troopers, as I exceeded the speed limit by a LOT to get there), and some serious foot pain, the day was not bad. I had a sales goal and met it, barely. Moved some prints, for a change, all Dr Who or Torchwood, interesting event at a mundane show. Top selling ornament? Cincinnati Bengals. Seriously. Not a single Redskin, Jet or Eagle, but 6 Bengals. Had a ton of help for loading in and a kid to help load out, so both were much easier than usual. Neighboring booths were good neighbors and Mom hit it off with the couple on the right. Next year, I'm bringing my MP3 player. They hooked up an organizer's Ipod to the PA for the music - except he had a whopping 12 Christmas songs on there. If I never hear 'The Chipmunk Song' again...I have about 3 days of Christmas music on ITunes (including classical) so they'd have been better off having me bring the tunes!

Then to Hunan Manor for a first rate Chinese meal, served to us about 5 minutes after we ordered it(!) New record. And all reasonably priced and very good. Went to the Columbia Michaels but they have no more ornaments. Went to the Ellicott City store, they had 15. One shattered when the cashier picked it up, so make that 14. And home by 6:30, just in time to find out we didn't really miss the Penn State/Ohio State game (we root for Penn) but should have seen Navy/Notre Dame. Go Navy! Oh, and Zenyatta is indeed impressive. Too bad we'll never know what might have happened if she matched up with Rachel Alexandra. Clearly the boys are no match for either of them.

Just what I wanted to come back to - a web site crisis.

My site host revamped things last week, leaving two major problems: the first being that the menu on my web site has vanished. The front page is there and otherwise fine, and the pages are all still there, but with the menu missing, only I can navigate the site and that's only because I know what I named everything. Eesh. I haven't figured out what happened yet. The second problem is the new interface for the site - HUH?!? I can't make it work for the life of me. It is not intuitive, which the previous one was. Furthermore, there isn't an instruction page and the help page doesn't work. I suspect that, post-Ravens game tomorrow, I may be spending a lot of time on the phone with the hosting service trying to figure out how the heck the new interface works. And then I'll still have to sort out where the menu went.

Oh, joy.

This town is definitely going Ravens-crazy. I tried to go to a signing session with Le'Ron McClain and Ray Rice last night; the line was 200 deep long before it was supposed to start, I figured by the time I found a parking space and walked back to the shop the tickets would be sold out. Even if they weren't, it was below freezing. Not stand around outside for an hour weather. Trying again tomorrow night to score an autograph from Jim Leonhard, better known in my house as 'Mighty Mouse'. He's here to save the day!

Meanwhile, even stores that don't normally carry Ravens gear have it now. Lots of it. Safeway has shrimp cocktails arranged like footballs. Everyone's wearing something Ravens or at least something purple. All the cars have flags and/or magnets (two magnets here.) I'm going to dig out my purple lights (from my purple 'Ravens' Christmas tree) and a Ravens plaque and see what I can do with the front door. Outdoor decor isn't my strong point but for the Ravens, I'll give it my best shot :)

I hate colds. Especially colds that get worse over the weekend instead of better. My voice is just about shot and sleeping has been very dicey, and if my nose gets any redder I can be Rudolph. Blecch.

( Things I Did Without Breathing )

Showtime again tomorrow. Means frantic work tonight, getting up at an ungodly hour tomorrow, 8 hours of hard, physical work and cheerful selling, often at the same time, before dragging myself home. I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home with takeout and football, then sleeping all Sunday morning, something I desperately need.

Nope. I knew Mom was babysitting the nephews Saturday night; I just found out, she's doing it at home, overnight. I have to entertain the boys all night Saturday, and likely in the morning; even if I don't have to watch them in the morning, they'll be too noisy for me to sleep. I love them, really I do, but I really needed the rest this weekend.

It took until 4pm Friday, but my claim was finally approved. They started working on the Mazda immediately (they'd already ordered the parts) but it'll be Wednesday or Thursday before they're done. Meanwhile I was approved for a compact car from Enterprise; I walked over there Saturday morning. They had no compacts left, but offered a mid-size for $5 a day. I took a Mazda 6 - I figured there'd be a smaller learning curve going from the 3 to the 6. The 6 is heavier and bigger (LOVE that trunk!) but otherwise much the same as my baby blue. So OK there.

Was a busy bee most of the weekend with errands, shopping & car stuff. Didn't get as many ornaments done as I'd like, but got a fair number of Terps done. Absolutely blew at both college and pro football, way too many upsets this weekend for my comfort but at least the Ravens pulled it out. Watched 'The Da Vinci Code', I've never read the book but I thought the movie was OK. Not gripping or anything but interesting, and I'd watch Ian McKellen read the phone book so not a waste of time. Got a larger, much heavier hand truck for my shows rather than try to bolt the bent wheel back on the current truck. Thing weighs 32 lbs so it's a haul in and of itself; I sure hope it can help me with loading.

Getting a wee bit nervous re tomorrow - I'll be going to vote as soon as I manage to wake up, I just hope I'm not too late getting to work.

My craft show schedule for Christmas seems to be pretty well set now. For those unfamiliar with Gonzai Gallery, I set up at craft shows and sell my art, woodcrafts, and at this time of year handmade Christmas tree ornaments. This year, the economy being such as it is, I scaled back the business to holiday season and the 'big 4' conventions and that's it for the year. Not that everyone reading this is going to rush out to one of these shows, but if you are in the area, I won't mind matching faces to names! 

These should be pretty certain shows, I've done 4 of the 5 before and all have been taking place for 15 years or more. I'm still looking for something on November 22, as I hate to waste such a prime date in holiday season; but on the other hand, it's my birthday, there's a huge dog show in Philly I wouldn't mind attending, and my older nephew has been invited to play in an under-8 soccer tournament that day. So I'll be busy that day no matter what.
 

( My Holiday Show Schedule )

Plenty of annoyances, nothing major, just...aggravations. The weather is damp, cool and dreary. Worked a large show all weekend, hurt my back and shoulders, blistered my hands and turned my legs into a bruise collection but made less than a hundred dollars, so it really wasn't worth it. Went to a fast-food drive-thru for breakfast yesterday and today...and both time the store closed while I was in line. Wha? Tried doing a portrait of Dexter, which started out well but then for no special reason the pencil stopped sticking to the paper, then stopped blending. End of Dexter. And of course there's the computer. Thought about trying to dual boot XP - read the instructions and got a major headache. Considered dual booting Linux - same thing. Looked into ways to convert video for burning to DVD and my head nearly exploded. So no crisis, just frustrations. 

Venting over!