Glitter Presents for Everyone!

I think I went a little nuts with the Christmas glitter picks from Michaels. Every package I wrapped got one. They were 70% off and I just couldn't resist! So much glitter. It's not Christmastime unless you are covered in obnoxious specs of glitter. ;) Also, I don't know how to make a multi-looped bow that doesn't look floppy and sad.

Happy Holidays! ><

My Daily Companion

This winter has been hard on Catty. In the summer he was free to roam up in our sweltering attic, and he could also go out into our sunroom and smell the fresh air through the screened window. Now that it's super cold outside, I have to keep the doors to these two areas closed. This makes the cat more bored than usual and in turn, he requires more attention and becomes more...needy.

I bought him a heated cat bed to keep him warm during his daily sleeps during the winter. I feel he has a love/hate relationship with this bed, as he is either happily sleeping in it, or gnawing on it and tossing it about the room...

Thinking he now despised his heated cat bed, I brought down his other cat beds from the attic for him

to use. 

He rotated between a few of the beds before returning to the heated bed - except for taking it out of his cat house.

His final bed is our bed. 

He shows up to our bed at the same time every night, right on schedule.  He has a little routine:

-Hop around on top of the bed covers while I read before bed

-Jump on top of the chest of drawers and leer at us until we turn off the lights

-Leap onto the bed from the chest of drawers (preferably landing on someone's guts)

-Meow in my face loudly while scratching at the covers

-I lift up the covers for him to get under, he runs away

-Right as sleep is upon me, he returns, meows in my face, I lift up the covers

-He climbs under the covers, meowing the entire way

-Purrs loudly, then begins to snore. 

[repeat 2-6 times a night, every night]

He also seems to be whinier than usual...

Why we have a mattress/boxsprings in our dining room, the short version: Got new mattress, wanted to store old mattress  but old mattress didn't fit through the doorway to our attic or basement.  Didn't know where to put old mattress.  Left it in dining room and now too lazy to move it to the garage or take it to Goodwill.

For the first time ever, Rasputin will be boarded during Christmastime. This will also be the first time we've made the 1200 mile journey home to Georgia to celebrate the holidays without the cat.  I'm excited, because this eliminates a lot of hassel we encounter during this yearly trip (sneaking him into hotels, trying to coordinate getting food, etc.) but I am still worried about Catty being happy while we are away.

Unkempt with a Side of Snow

Wow.

To say that I've been busy lately would be almost laughable. I've been crazy occupied the last month!  That's what you get when you combine working in retail + holiday shopping time, so I'm not necessarily surprised. This is my fourth holiday season as an Etsy seller, and each year is just as awesome as the last.

However, I'm now burned out.

With the F*CKING HOBBIT coming out next week, this quote from Bilbo Baggins comes to mind and resonates with how I currently feel:

"I am old Gandalf. I know I don’t look it, but I’m beginning to feel it in my heart. I feel thin, sort of stretched like butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday, a very long holiday. And I don’t expect that I shall return. In fact, I mean not to."

While I shall return (aka: reopen my shop after the holidays), I will definitely be limiting my work load. I think I'll be taking about 20% the amount of orders that I'd regularly take. I need to decompress after the fullness of the past few months.  There are some plans I've had for the shop that I have put off for years, [years!], simply because I really haven't had a nice chunk of time to work on anything new. (Also, I need to get some of my guts tinkered with in January, and will probably need a little time to recover from that).

While I finish up the last batch of holiday orders from 2012, I'll leave you with some photos of my past few months:

 Light snow in October.

Catty being terrible.

Myself with Brother and Mim, stocking up on crap for Hurricane Sandy, even though we were only subject to windiness. >< (A stranger volunteered to take our picture, lols. We are from Georgia after all!) 

 December 1 Snow

 On my way back from the Post Office (I walk most days).

 My new phone case, engraved with a photo of my late grandmother. ♥

Leather dye disaster.

 Catty Bear/Poops MaGoops/Rasputin in his winter den.

Husband guy carrying a mannequin home on the train - at my request.

Our Thanksgiving meat. Our oven doesn't maintain a constant temperature, so I didn't want Husband Guy to have to deal with cooking a turkey in an unreliable oven (I was working most of the day and couldn't help him. He's such a dream boat!)

So...my plans for the shop for next year are a little up in the air. I admit, it will be nice to have more time to tend to the house: to have a clean house and clean clothes and clean dishes and a clean catty. I'll see how it goes from there.