I am definitely ready for this week to end. The kids have been unusually tired, I've been having trouble sleeping, and all of us could use some time to unwind.
Sweetie and I are going to see Avatar this weekend. I heard it's a good movie, and everyone I know who has seen it has recommended that we should definitely see it in a movie theater, preferably one with 3-D capabilities. We'll see what's available here in town.
The kittens are adjusting to life in our house now. The little girls tend to be a bit rough on them, but so far, the kittens aren't fighting back too much. Midnight (the girl) and Lucky (the boy) seem pretty happy here. Unfortunately, that means that they jump on our beds in the middle of the night, purring loudly enough to wake the dead and expecting us to play with them. No wonder we're tired! They are certainly entertaining, and the kids absolutely love having pets to play with.
Last night, I filed our tax return, and I was notified this morning that we should get our refund at the end of the first week of February. We're still not sure if moving down the street is going to work out for us, so we have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, I'm working on my college classes, my online quilt shop, and home improvements.
Speaking of things for the house, as I was looking for instructions for replacing our kitchen faucet, I discovered that it's not very difficult to replace the sink and disposal at the same time. Our disposal has had a few too many pieces of silverware get caught in it, and the sink is ugly and cheap-looking. Might as well fix everything at once. I now understand how minor home improvements can blossom into major ones fairly quickly. All of this started because we have one broken faucet in the kids' bathroom. It has snowballed into replacing three faucets and the kitchen sink! However, replacing those things will add far more value to this house than the cost of the items themselves, even if we have to pay someone to replace everything for us. And if we don't sell this house right now, I'll get to enjoy my purchases for a couple more years.
During my bout of insomnia last night, I designed a knitting needle case for my new interchangeable needle set. If it turns out as nicely as planned, I'm going to make more cases to sell online. I love doing crafty things like that, and if I can make money doing something I love, that's a very good thing.
I've come up with a design for my quilt shop logo. In addition to using it on small labels for my handcrafted items, I'm also hoping to buy some large reusable bags for my longarm quilting customers. Right now, I'm paying nearly $3 per extra-large ziplock bag to send the quilts back to their owners, and I'm tired of the plastic, the lack of advertising, and the expense. As nice as those bags look compared to the plastic garbage bags people normally use for this purpose, I think it would be much better to use a significantly larger version of the reusable polyurethane/fabric bags that you find in grocery stores nowadays. It will cost close to $2.50 per bag to buy a minimum order of those bags, but they will be imprinted with my company logo (and website address) and will be the perfect way for people to bring their completed quilts to guild meetings. It's going to take me a while to build up enough savings in my business account to justify that expense, but I'm working on it.
For now, I need to get back to work. I have a LOT to do here!
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