trying to catch my breath

First off – thank you, thank you to everyone who stopped by to see my favorites list over at Simply Lovely so far. And to those of you who replied to my November newsletter. (If you want to receive my newsletters, send me an email and I'll add you to the list.) And to those of you who have placed orders from my online shops recently. I am thankful for all of this.

Second – friends, it's been a pretty hard week around here. I have a cold. I have been burning the midnight oil, literally, night after night trying to cross things off my to do list. I have been trying, in vain, to get a definitive answer from both our insurance and the pediatric sleep study doctor as to whether Liam's visit next month will be covered. I don't know if I have the cold because of the amount of stress and stuff to do and night after night without enough sleep. Probably this is the case; this sort of thing happens to me. I am trying to catch my breath, literally and figuratively, around here; I am trying to keep on keeping on for the next 9 days after which I hope I might get a little down time. But a few things are going to need to give. For this reason, please be patient if you've emailed me recently and I've not responded. Please be patient if your orders take a little longer to reach you than usual. I will try to package up all orders from the past few days this coming week, but it may need to wait til about a week from now. I think I am near my wit's end here.

Let's be clear – I'm not complaining. Having work is a good thing, a very good thing. But have you ever had one of those jobs that has just presented challenge after challenge? (Oh dear, do you remember that last year around this very same time I had one?) I've been working on one of those the past week. It's been a steep learning curve, made steeper, I guess, by a head that is fogged by a stuffy nose, scratchy throat and cough. The client, though, has been nothing but patient and gracious and lovely throughout this, but it turns out that I've just discovered a mistake with this job, made by nobody's fault but my own, at the worst possible time; that is, right when I'm done. So, I am scrambling to find a way to reprint this entire job, to ensure the client's happiness, to keep my integrity in tact. It's not as easy as it could be to just reprint because, actually, I don't have enough paper on hand right now, because I've been printing so much non-stop the past few weeks. So, as I wrote earlier, something has to give and I don't want it to be my health and sanity, both of which may already be in short supply. Nor do I want it to be the satisfaction of a very nice client. It makes me so very disappointed to write this, but I am considering the fact that I may not be able to make it to the Sunday Best Holiday Sale after all. I will be trying to figure this out over the next few days.

Alright then. I'm going to keep on working, as best I can, on the tasks I have set out for myself so I can sit down to a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with some of my very closest friends this coming week.