A Glimpse of Daylight

I'm finally taking a moment to breathe. I'm peeking out of my cave long enough to glimpse the sunlight (ok, so it's actually overcast but at this point, I'm not picky). November is crazy for us. This year is even more so. We usually do craft shows every weekend in November. This means that I put off working on everything until September or October, then I spend every waking moment down in my basement until I'm so tired I can't see straight. Sometimes I work out at the shows with CJ and sometimes we hire someone else, but I always have to be there to help set up and breakdown.

This keeps us busy enough. Everyone at church knows not to expect to see us at all during November. But since I'm never content with my life only a little busy, we made it even more hectic this year. I'm homeschooling this year and the kids are taking piano lessons. Plus, we added new shows. Take a look at what our Oct/Nov/Dec schedule looks like.

Monday 6:30-7:30 Logan has Speech/playgroup
Tuesday 3:30-5pm piano lessons for all 3 kids
Thursday 2:30-3:30 Speech for Logan
Friday 9:30-2:30 Co-op for all of us
Oct 21st set up for a show at the Tacoma Dome
Oct 22nd-26th work the show
Oct 26th breakdown
Oct 31st set up for a show in Poulsbo
Nov 1st & 2nd work the show, breakdown Sun.
Nov 7th set up at Spanaway Lake High School
Nov 8th & 9th work the show, breakdown on Sun.
weekend of Nov 14th--NO SHOW! (It was an odd 5 weekend month this year)
Nov 21st set up at PLU
Nov 22nd work the show, breakdown that eve.
Nov 26th set up for a show in Portland, OR
Nov 27th Thanksgiving
Nov 28th I set up for a show at Peninsula High School while CJ works the show in Portland all weekend
Nov 29th & 30th work the Peninsula show, breakdown on Sun.
Dec 5th-7th Hubby works the Portland show (it's a 2 weekend show)
Dec 7th breakdown and come home

This is our schedule minus the physicals and Halloween activities that the kids had scheduled, without the scrapbook convention that I go to every year, not including support group for Howdy and Sassy, and without the day-to-day things like schooling and running errands and attempting to keep up with the house. And also not taking into consideration my work time to make sure we have enough product at each show. Everything we sell, I make by hand.

In the midst of this I have to keep the kids' schedule as normal as possible or their behavior will fall apart. I haven't done a great job of it so far and I could see that I was losing Bubba last week. But I think we're getting back on track.

Our goal every year is to start spreading out our shows throughout the year, maybe one a month. I will treat this as a part-time job and plan work hours/days and then I'm not cramming it all into 1 or 2 months of craziness. But by the time we get to December, I'm so burned out that I can't even get myself to go into my craft room for 6 months at least!

But there are benefits to all this madness. First of all, I get to be creative and make things. And I love to go to a show and hear everyone say, "Oh, these are SO cute! You are so creative!" I eat it up. Second, I like knowing that I'm contributing to our finances. These shows pay for Christmas and usually a trip to TX to see all of Hubby's family.

So it's beyond crazy for awhile, but then I have a few months to forget about it before I have to start it all over again.