Elves are not vegetarians...

Day Seven

Out with the therapy chair...

thanks to my dear friend, Ariela, and her husband, Marco.  A lady where Marco works is redecorating her condo and gave them several lovely pieces of like new furniture.  Ariela thought one of the accent chairs was perfect for the spot in front of my desk.  I love the beautiful bargain chair I bought last year just before tax season, but it really was too big for the space available.  And some of my clients got a little too comfortable in it - hence the therapy chair designation.

Aggie watched them take away the old chair - and Bee's favorite sleeping spot.  She was understandably curious as to what was coming in - and she was probably hoping it wasn't another cat.

And here's Marco with our beautiful new client chair.  Isn't it pretty?  And the upholstery color even goes well with the color scheme.  Serendipity!

Thank you so much, Ariela!

A much better fit - and comfortable, but not too comfortable...

And apparently, it even meets the Bee's approval!

Elves love to decorate...

Day Six

Elves are good detectives...

Day Five

Elves are sociable...

Day Four

Elves are early risers...

Day Three

Elliott Elf strikes again...

Day Two

The Adventures of Elliott Elf...

Day One

Another month...

has passed me by - and I am still behind.  It seems like the old saying really is true: "The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get."  I've been working on a project for a client that, I am sad to say, seems more and more like a losing battle.  I've have poured lots of time and energy into it, at the expense of my other clients and their work, my housekeeping and my sanity.  I am at the point of giving up.  When I see him this week, I am afraid I'm going to have to give him an ultimatum: do what you need to do to get your finances in order to get this business loan and stop the financial hemorrhaging your business is suffering from, or find a new bookkeeper.  I just can't deal with the stress any more - especially with tax season looming on the horizon.  And I still have to finish my IRS continuing education before the end of the year.  Yikes!

While I crave perfection, I know that the best I can hope for is progress.  And I have seen no progress at all, on anything work-related, during the month of November.  I know it's my own fault and I'm mad at myself for poor time management and procrastination.  Why aren't there more hours in a day?

If anyone knows the answer to that, please let me know!

I know it's been awhile...

since I've actually blogged about anything of consequence.  My friend, Tom, asked me why and I replied, "The mully grubs."  Isn't that a great expression?  I mean, I thought it was some kind of big-assed Texas bug when my friend, Linda, wrote about cleaning until the mully grubs were gone, but it really just means being down in the dumps - a blue funk as it were.  Sometimes I'm like Mr. Monk, bogged down in the OCD details of obsessing over perfection, or the lack thereof.  For the past couple of months, my whole house looks like each room has had some sort of minor explosion; I start a project, get distracted and move on to something else.  Well, I am happy to report that today something finally got done!

Tom and Al came by to do their monthly sales tax report, drop off their bookkeeping paperwork for October and put up the living room curtain rod.  You know - the one Richard and I puzzled over, cursing the engineer who designed it, until I realized after he left that the decorative ends of the rod unscrewed...  Duh!  They also brought me a case of Greek yogurt and a can of pumpkin from their morning trip to Costco, but I digress...

It didn't take long - since they know what they are doing.  You can see Al supervising the finishing touches once the rod was up and the valance was in place.  There was great gnashing of teeth and more than a few expletives deleted in the sewing room last night as I sewed the wrong edges together and had to rip it apart and start over.  I've been dithering over this thing for a month, worrying about ruining the cheap daybed quilt I bought to turn into this fabulous window treatment!

Of course, there's always too much light when you don't need it - 

but you get the picture. 

You can see that the valance matches the quilted throw and pillow on the chair - and it doesn't clash too badly with the lamp.  Thank you, guys - thank you so much!

I love it when a plan comes together.

I am really happy with the fabric and the wall color coordination - and it was really a happy accident.  Like most of the really good things in life.

At last...

cooler weather has arrived!

Okay - so you can't see your breath outside, but it's still cool.

Happy Fall, ya'll!

The best of friends...

have staked out the reading chair in the living room.  I am pretty amazed that Peter and Bee have taken to each other so quickly - I mean, it's been a couple of months, but still.  Cats are very territorial and Peter has been an only for the last several years.  Maybe it helps that Bee was an only in his previous home.

At any rate, I am very happy that they are each glad to have a buddy.

In other news, I have finally worked up the nerve to cut this quilt into pieces to make the living room window valance.  Fear of failure - for about a month now.

See, I did it!  Now to sew it together, line it and get it hung.  Or hanged.

No, people are hanged; fabulous window treatments are hung.

Trick or treat?

Is it Halloween already?  Amazingly, the candy jar is still full!

And the mail lady brought me a surprise Halloween box from my friend, Erin - we didn't even have to go door to door this year.  How cool is that?
Treats for Aggie and the cats, too.  Thanks, Erin!

We hope you have a safe and happy All Hallow's Eve!

An exciting new opportunity...

has come along and I am looking forward to my new adventure.  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a die hard card sender and letter writer.  Throughout my formative years, I had it drilled into my head that thank-you notes and writing a proper letter were not only polite - it was the right thing to do.  I'm fifty-four and I'm still doing it.  About ten years ago, I started making my own cards (after having spent a good portion of my life keeping Hallmark in business!) and I not only love indulging my creative side, I am so pleased when the recipients of my little handmade greetings tell me how much it meant to them that I cared enough to send them a personal note.  When I started my own business five years ago (has it been that long?) I decided to make birthday and Christmas cards for all of my clients as a means of keeping in touch throughout the year.  Cards are an excellent marketing tool - and receiving a real, hold-it-in-your-hand card makes people feel good.  But - and there is a but - I will have to admit that the last two years of making over three hundred Christmas cards has really taken its toll on me - both in terms of the work and the drudgery of making so many identical cards.  In fact, I hated the design for the cards I made last year.  Earlier this year, I switched to printing birthday postcards - more cost-effective in terms of time and postage.  After tax season, I was even considering discontinuing my client marketing completely.

Enter my friend Joy and Send Out Cards.  She sent me a lovely card to introduce me to the concept and the business.  Signing up was tempting - but would my clients feel that my keeping in touch with them had lost its personal touch?  I decided to try it for a month on my friends and see what I thought.  Well, it's like this: I love it!  The response I got was overwhelming.  I started to re-think the client marketing thing.

I am not, by nature, a joiner.  A couple of years ago, I joined Melaleuca at the urging of my friend, Richard, who loved the products and thought I would, too.  He was right - I love the products and I continue to use them.  I didn't join the organization with the expectation of making a lot of money; I joined because I liked the products, wanted to use them, and won't recommend anything to anyone that I haven't used and like myself.  If I think something has value, is economical and adds to the quality of my life, I am more than willing to share my experience with people I think will benefit.

The other day Richard came over to put a curtain rod up for me.  That's a long, funny story about oddball rod bracket design and two intelligent people who couldn't see the obvious, but I'll do a post about that when I have some photos of the finished valance to share.  But I digress...  While he was here, we had lunch and he was telling me about the new real estate office where he'd moved his brokers' license.  Hmmm, I thought, a potential application for Send Out Cards as a marketing tool.  I told him a little bit about the company and he seemed receptive; I gave him the DVD that Joy had sent me so that he would watch it, too.  Later that evening, my phone rang.  Richard was totally impressed and was ready to sign up.  Wasn't I going to sign up as a Marketing Distributor so that he could sign up as my downline?  At that point, I hadn't made up my mind yet.  I forwarded him an email that Joy had sent me with a link to another video to watch and suggested that he sign up under Joy's number.

We agreed to talk more about everything later.

Joy is an encourager.  She spoke with Richard and answered his questions - but they both believed, and told me, that this was an opportunity that I should not let pass me by.  I was really on the fence about taking on a new business venture until Joy said something that resonated with me:  "Quite honestly, you are being handed a gift here and it would be smart to take it. It doesn't always happen that way. I asked Richard and I believe he would like for you to be in SOC as a distributor. He is ready and sees the potential with this."  That made up my mind - and boosted my confidence.  I decided to take a leap of faith and signed up.  With all this encouragement, how could I not?  Next I signed up one of my bookkeeping clients for the monthly service, and then Richard signed up as a Marketing Distributor.  So far, so good.  I'm not concentrating on the financial aspect of this new business right now - I'm concentrating on people and sharing a product I know they can benefit from using.  I already know from my bookkeeping and tax business that if you provide people with good service, you will be rewarded accordingly.

I am excited about what Send Out Cards has to offer.  You can check it out yourself by clicking here.  It's a great service, combining technology with an old-fashioned, personal greeting card in that special someone's mailbox.

Or a client - however you choose to use it.

Who knows where the time goes...

because I sure don't!  September just flew by - especially the last two weeks.  It seemed like it was my birthday and then Aggie's birthday yesterday - and now the whole month is gone.  And no fall weather.  Yet.  But hope springs eternal, as they say.  I am, however, encouraged about October.  Aside from being one of my favorite months of the year - probably the whole pumpkin thing - this October in particular starts perfectly: the first day of the month is a Monday.  It's a new week, a new month, a new quarter - like a whole new beginning, full of possibilities.

Or so I like to tell myself...

Fall and my faithful companion...

Aggie, my faithful cairn companion, is fourteen years old today.  She came to live with me when she was eight weeks old; as I recall, we got her on December 6, 1998.  Aggie isn't doing too badly for a little old lady and I hope to keep her around for a good while longer.  As you can see, she is anticipating her birthday treat.  She got a new green collar - which she has been wearing happily for the past couple of days - but today I think she is waiting for an edible treat...

The other day I got some cheap fall flowers while I was at WalMart buying muslin to line my living room valance.  Yes, Aggie got nuggets from Chik-Fil-A that day - spoiled thing!  The flowers didn't quite fill up the basket as much as I had hoped after I spent about thirty minutes trying to cut the floral wire to arrange them in the styrofoam block.  I'm not sure which wasn't strong enough: my little wire cutters or my hands - probably both!

Bee came to see what I was working on and then turned his attention to the landscape gardeners outside.

I think Peter objected to Bee usurping his space and told him to get lost.

I got another cheap bunch of flowers today - along with a heavier wire cutter - and my fall basket arrangement is now gracing the kitchen counter.  I've filled up my pumpkin jar with fall candies; let's see how long they last.  At least they are a little more difficult to get into than if I had put them on the front corner of my desk!  Enough decoration for now - I might get my pumpkins and gourds out on Monday.

And now the birthday girl, Agatha Christie Smith, is reminding me to give her another treat from her birthday box of chicken nuggets...

Bangs, bees, birthdays and books...

are an odd combination of things for a blog post, but it's my birthday and I can write about anything I want.  I was going to do a post a while back about my front door and the bee decor, but I didn't - so I'm showing it off now because bees just make me happy.  I found the wooden flower cut-out, welcome sign and little bee by the door knocker on Etsy.  Aren't they cute?  The sign on the left, the corner of which is peeking out, says Bee Happy.  The new sign confused my clients a little when I switched the flag out for it, but it's been up there since January.  I think they're used to it by now.  Come on in - it's raining outside.

Let's see, what was I going to say?  Oh, yes - bangs.  When is one too old for bangs?  I haven't cut my hair in a while, and while I am inordinately fond of headbands, that unfortunate hairstyle has a tendency to really show the grey in my mousy, brown hair.  I just can't do the hair color thing.  If I try to color it myself it looks like crap - seriously.  And I hate paying someone at least $75 to do it for me; consequently, I am besieged by greying temples.  Solution: I trimmed my own bangs and amazingly, I don't look my age - so maybe I'm not too old for bangs after all.  I may give in and go somewhere for a cheap quick trim.

Is this not the coolest thing?  My friend, Kathy, sent this lovely handmade sewing gadget to me for my birthday.  She said it had my name written all over it: ME fabric and useful, too!  It is a tile padded and covered with an attached pin cushion - with a fabric waste basket hanging over the edge.  Matches my bedroom sewing corner (and ME sewing basket liner) perfectly and I can't wait to use it!

Now for the books: I just finished reading Sunshine on Scotland Street - the latest installment in that wonderful series.  It was a lovely chronicle of the adventures of Cyril, the only dog in Edinburgh sporting a gold tooth, while his owner Angus is on his honeymoon with his new wife, Domenica.  Bertie is still the victim of his mother's yoga classes, Italian lessons and the psychobabble of Melanie Klein.  Bruce, the narcissist, has an interesting experience with his new found doppelganger and the lottery.  Danish reality television wants to do a documentary on Matthew and the triplets - but plans change with the filmmaker meets Big Lou.  Of course, now I have to wait about a year for the next one.

Fortunately, Mr. McCall Smith is about the release the next book in the Isabel Dalhousie series - I can't wait until the end of October.  No murders in Isabel's little corner of Edinburgh - but her adventures are interesting all the same!