Wrapping Things Up

Next Saturday I leave for Peru.  While I will only be gone for 9 days, I feel like I'm preparing to leave for a month.  I've decided that leaving my store open while I am gone is not an option.  I run my shop completely by myself.  I am solely responsible for creating the products, packing them up, visiting the Post Office each day, communicating with customers, etc.  I think the idea of coming home from a trip after 9 days to have orders piled up (that are already possibly 9 nine days old) is not ideal.  So, as of today I am no longer taking custom orders until I return from my trip on August 28th.  That gives me plenty of time to finish up all pending orders and have everything shipped off before I leave.  Also, that way when I return from Peru I'll be able to start fresh, and customers will be able to order custom items with a relatively short processing time.  It was the best solution I could come up with to fit the situation. ><

 

My little backpack for the trip.  I plan on bringing only 1 change of clothes, some toiletries, and a few cameras.  Hopefully that will leave a little extra room for things I pick up along the journey.

I am also excited because my mother* is coming up next Wednesday and I haven't seen my Mim in 9 months!  As my cat is a weirdo, we can't leave him alone in the apartment while we are gone - not even with someone stopping by once a day to check on him.  He is annoyingly social and I fear he would be forever traumatized if he was left all by his lonesome for 9 days.  So!  My mom will be staying at our apartment, tending to the crack baby, while we are in Peru.  She's flying up from Georgia a few days before we leave so I can give her some type of tour of Boston before we abandon her in a new city.

*I don't call my mother "Mom."  As a young child, my kickass mother allowed my younger brother and I to begin watching South Park (and took us to see Bigger, Longer and Uncut when we were about 8 and 9), so the name I use to refer to her most often is "Miiiiiiiiiim" (a la Eric Cartman) or "Mim" for short. Or Mimson. Or Mimmish the Lemmish.

The other name that I call her pretty frequently is "Mam".  I read/watched Angela's Ashes in middle school and became fascinated with the McCourt family.  I read all the books I could find that were authored by the McCourt brothers.  This Irish-American family referred to their mother as Mam, and so that's where that came from. That's probably the name I use more often in public...

I am not leaving until August 20th, so I will still be available to answer messages through August 19th.  From August 20th - August 27th I will not have internet access, so I won't be able to respond to inquiries placed during this time until I return on August 28th.  The amount of times that I normally check my email each day may be considered unhealthy, so it is going to be odd to not even look at a computer screen for 9 days...