The Legs Fall Off If You Move It

Lots going on.  Many brow furrowing meetings this week, hopefully yielding a medium-sized startup check in a couple weeks.  Down to offering relatives’ gold teeth for collateral. 

What?  They’re not really using those back teeth anyway.

Also looked at a lot of possible locations last week.  Oh.  Emm.  Gee.   One place made me laugh so hard, I doubled over and actually choked.  Sort of that Tom Hanks laugh from “The Money Pit”, if you ever saw that screen gem.   I am expecting to have to spend some $ in making wherever we end up “retail ready”, but bringing in utilities, like, you know, water and electricity?  I hadn’t planned on major street construction to INTRODUCE INDOOR PLUMBING TO  THE BUILDING as being one of my expenses.  So, maybe a big party tent in the Astrodome parking lot?  How does that sound instead?  Hot in summer, cold in winter, and the great outdoors for your restroom, just like some of the buildings that are in my price range.

In inventory news:  Hundreds of bottles of fabric paint, dozens of 1970′s-80′s latch hook kits, some needlepoint kits (you know the kind, with the big tiger pacing toward you out of the pillow?), uber cool iron on embroidery transfers from the 60′s, fabric, poly-fil and quilt batting galore.  Also my own weight in railroad spikes.

Swirling blog posts in the making as soon as I have more time to type:  Stash v. hoarding — where’s the line?; There will be tears — my own destashing adventures; Spring cleaning time — bring out your junk!

1.  What?  What is this mean faced little boy jealous about?  Somebody has a better haircut than he does?

Oh, look.  The little envelope on the right pulls out, and reveals that he’s not just pouting outside some random location, and he’s not just mean faced.  He’s actually a stalker!  And he’s jealous of his true love’s affection for her dog!  Isn’t that a darling sentiment for a child’s Valentine?

Sort of looks like he’s looking at her through a cell door, doesn’t it? 

Soon enough, son.  Soon enough.

2.  Now, this one is just cute.  What a cute little puppy.

And, when you open it up, the precious sentiment reads, “I’m not bashful, and I’m not bad.  But I want you to know that I can be had.”

Isn’t that just the sweetest thing?

Jeez, new people.  You sure ask a lot of questions.  Following is a summarized answer to most of what you and your fellow emailers have been asking.

Off the top of my head, I hate:

Wet bread

Math

Escalators

Snakes

I Love:

Kittens

Growing things

My P-Touch label maker

Old stuff

Anything in huge quantities

Pesto

I am a fabric and fiber girl.  I have tried to do the scrapbooking thing, and I have a thousand bits of things in a box labeled “collage bits”, but so far, neither of them have been my thing.  I also tried mightily to be a tole painter, after that damn Priscilla Hauser kept telling me that she could so teach me how to paint!  But, bless my heart, I am no tole painter, nor am I an oil painter nor a painter of any kind other than the kind that slops some paint down via foam brush as a background to other things.   

I have really never sold any of my work, except for custom clothing and home dec stuff.  Everything else has been for gifts or for my own enjoyment.  I did sew for pay in the costume shop of the Washington Opera a long time ago.

I drive a Ford Fusion hybrid, which I love.  I play games with it when I drive, and trying to keep the gas engine from coming on keeps me under the speed limit for the first time in my life.

I have four cats.  One two year old, and three ten month olds.  Two boys and two girls, orange, black, brown tabby and gray tabby. 

I have been married for 14 years to a guy who has been amazingly, amazingly, unbelievably great through this whole thing.  Despite his many personal failings, as compared to my mere one or two, he has proved himself to be a really good guy.

We are blessedly child free.  We talked about having kids several times, but decided that if we weren’t responsible enough to keep a swimming pool clean, we probably weren’t responsible enough to have kids.

I am from South Carolina, where my family has been since the 1600’s.  (I also love ancestry.com.)

We moved to Texas from DC 14 years ago for my job, which I quit last June.  I have an MBA from the University of Texas, which I completed last July.  Looking around for reclaimed materials to make an owl clock in the downtime immediately thereafter, I realized Houston needed the Texas Art Asylum, and I embarked on this bold adventure.

I am starting a lot of sentences with I, aren’t I?

Also, I hate WalMart.

My father used to say, “Give him an enema.  That’ll wipe the smile off his face.”  I would like to rephrase that.  ”Give them a series of meetings with small business lenders.  That will wipe the smile off anybody’s face.”

Seriously.   Not quite as pithy, but it sums up my last few days pretty well.   Ain’t no stimulus package in H-town, people.  Not even for a green, crafty, woman-owned startup retail business.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I could get a loan of X dollars, if I had 50% to put down or post as collateral.  So, there’s another saying that goes, “If I had the gd money, I wouldn’t need to borrow the gd money.”  I’m sure you’ve heard that one.  There’s also a version that includes reference to selling a quantity of ones own blood at the blood bank.  Apparently, it’s the retail bit that is the hangup for the lenders.  Maybe we could be a cheese biscuit bakery with a 5,000 square foot waiting room filled with cool stuff to repurpose.  I’ll sleep on that idea.

Here’s another one — “It’s darkest before the dawn.”

And — I wish I could think of one about punching people in the throat.  That would make me feel better.

In better news, I have a couple cool prospective floorplans for different store locations.  Is it better to be in a nicer building in a less cool area, or a cooler area with a significantly less inspiring building?  Cool area, I think?  Like, a cruddy place inside the Loop v. a nicer, newer, including bathrooms place at the intersection of Highway This and Highway That?  Looks like the dollars will end up making this decision for us.

And, in inventory news, we now have a whole bunch of cute, cute, so sweet they make my teeth hurt, animal planters from the 50′s and 60′s.  There are kitties and puppies and lambs with openings in their backs or in wells behind them to hold plants, or whatever suits your fancy.  The lambs … oh, the lambs.  They’re white and fluffy and curly in a ceramic sort of way, with pink and blue accents.  The cats and dogs are more traditionally colored, except for a few of the cats which are school-bus yellow or turquoise and have their entire upward-poking behind areas as plant receptacles.  Or pen holders.  Or pincushions.  Ha.  That would be funny — a school-bus yellow or turquoise cat with a pin cushion for a butt.  Ha.  I love inventory.  I love inventory just exactly as much as I hate the money part of this whole situation. 

Finally, if you’ve made it this far, a hearty welcome to all the new folks.  There are lots and lots who have found us over the past few days, and that in and of itself is enough to cheer me up immeasurably and steel my will to forge on (steel, forge, ha).  In fact, just so you know, we had 1,050 hits on the website since Sunday afternoon.  Blessedly few of them pushed on over to the blog, though.  Seriously.  How is this for a first impression?