The New Year, Can't Wait

Fire
Originally uploaded by catscluttercrafts

I am seriously getting psyched up for 2009. For us it's going to have some major changes. Not moving or anything that extreme but maybe more house repairs...
In March I plan on paying off my last credit card and then helping my husband pay off his big 3. I know you are probably in shock and horror that we have credit card debit?!?! Ahh yes we do and at one point it was up to almost $50,000. Running a business is not that easy and if you goof up on your accounting, well let's just say it doesn't make the government happy. Well actually it makes them very happy because they love getting paid. It didn't make us happy because we didn't have the money but had to put what we owed them on a credit card. Then it was a downward spiral of more debt adding up. Copper and silver needed to be bought to pay off the other credit card and he is a one man studio. He just can't keep up with the work he gets.
So after his debit is paid, he is revamping his website and going to stop doing business with some of our 3rd party people. Plus raising his prices which he really didn't do when copper almost quadrupled in price. He did raise prices with most of our silver pieces because silver went way high! We couldn't afford to buy silver to make anything.
We are going to be snobs in choosing what jobs he does. Which should elevate a lot of his stress. Plus we won't have to worry about people hounding us for small things. Which is all my husband gets from his 3rd party orders anyways. I do not think people understand that handmade means we do not keep inventory because we are busy filling other orders. Also he's a teacher and the school year months are busy busy. Which all his companies know but still demand a 2 week turn around. It is also posted on his website. Seriously people we spend no quality time together!
So I'm psyched for 2009! Plus, don't tell anyone but I'm really enjoying my job. My midnight shift once a week are my favorite. I love the ladies I work with and they make it worth being overtired to show up and throw stock. As I told the one lady I work with, I should really be paying my boss for working because it's so much fun.
Going to get my hair cut today! It needs it majorly!
Another fire picture. Have I mentioned I'm addicted to taking pictures of burning wood now? I shot a whole bunch of pictures yesterday that need to be uploaded! Don't worry I'm not turning into a pyromaniac or anything like that.

My Trip

I was looking through my pictures and realize I didn't take shots of a lot of cool things. There's always next year, right? But what I do have, I just don't know what to post first. I guess I'll start with what I photographed first. This picture is taken at the entrance to the Spa at the Inn. I love the way it looks and the sound for the water rushing over is musical.
It is 10 stories, to walk to the Inn. We walked down in about 3 minutes rushing to lunch. You can't see the wings of the Inn in this picture but they jut out on both sides.
Here's the hallway to get to the elevators you walk down when you leave the cafe. It was taken at 10:30am, so the lights were very dim. These huge rocks have flecks of quartz on them. Also hidden are geodes of amethyst. Don't have any pictures of the geodes.
Here's what's painted on the elevators. A very simple ginko leaf design.
If you have never been to the Grove Park Inn, the lighting is just amazing. Here's 2 shots of the ceiling lamps that are in the lobby.This lamp is huge and notice the stenciling on the ceiling, just like the elevators but this time it's roses.
The glass panels aren't what was originally in the lamp. These are for up lighting and I don't know the reason why they added the panels later. Possibly so they cast light down too? They are made out of copper if you can't tell and are about 6 feet by 6 feet.
Another cool lamp that is huge, is this stained glass ceiling lamp in the Blue Ridge Restaurant. They serve excellent food but take reservations up to 3 months in advance so it's hard to get a table, unless you like to eat at 8pm. I highly recommend their sea food buffet. It's 2 rooms full of food and it's delicious.
Here's a picture from one of the wings and you are looking at Asheville. The GPI is built on sunset mountain so every evening you have the best views of the sky. Unfortunately there is construction going on , so ignore the floating ladder image. You can also see part of the golf course and the spa. This image is of the spa and is not well liked among a lot of purists of the Arts and Crafts movement. Many parts are underground and the light can only be brought in via skylights or inside lighting. I think they don't like the harshness of the pyramids and the sparse vegetation. When we were there, signs were posted that NC was going through a drought. So I can understand why they didn't go crazy with the landscaping.These paths go from the Inn to the Spa. The tents you see were for an Oscar party event for the locals. We were packing up on Sunday night and the people going to this event were all decked out like they were going to the Oscars. Men in tuxs and the women all decked out in fancy dresses. Seemed to be a very big event!

This That And 10 Cord Of Wood

So my days have been really off this week. I'm a day and a week ahead of time. I think it's because I really want to go to the handworks party. I think my gift came out better than I had hoped for. Even after all my missteps.
I've come to the realization that I need to go back to work. It would have been 2 years without having a job in February. Unfortunately it's been a very odd sales year. I don't if other artist's or business owners have the same thoughts. We've had barely any gallery sales this year. We've had very small sales all December. Which we are very grateful for. So I will be filling an application tomorrow. I keeping my fingers crossed. It's only part time but every little bit helps. Plus I still get to spend days with my youngest. She's not too keen on me leaving to go any where. Want to go downstairs, she thinks I'm leaving her alone forever!
Today we finally received our wood delivery. 10 cords of wood. Which is a lot of wood. I spent dinner time helping my husband stack wood on the porch. I love having a wood burning stove! It's magical. I love starting the fire, getting wood, stacking wood, etc... It makes me feel like I have a purpose and I get to enjoy the benefits of it. Plus it's a work out!

What Part Of, I Will Never Do Business With You Again,

Did You Not Understand?  I don't like to say that often but today I had to tell someone that very thing.

Going back in time, (3 years) my husband decided to try to have employees.  He thought it would help his production and make his life easier!  

So he went to a company to help him.  He wanted to do it right and make sure he had all the insurance coverage he needed.  All he would have to do is give weekly updates of the hours they had worked.  Sounds simple right?

It's not!  So a schedule was set up by his employees but it never worked out that they were never on time.  Then he got a fine for not having worker's compensation insurance!  

He's was so upset because he had gone to this company to help him make sure he had everything! This company doesn't do worker's comp and he was supposed to look for yet another company to do that!  That was last year. 

He was furious because the guy who came over and showed him all the stuff he had to have never made it clear that they didn't cover that one insurance!  So he paid the fine and the employees kind of faded in the wind around that time.  So it worked out.

I had many phone conversations and so has my husband with this company.  Telling them we would never ever have employees and would never do business with them again.  (Sorry employees)  It wasn't worth all the work and money he had to spend. Nor did his production improve.

So today, we received a call from this company again!   This guy left his name, number, etc...  Before he hung up I had to ask him why he was calling.  The woman we dealt with before went on maternity leave.  He was just updating all her clients on the change until she came back.  (December of 06' was the last time we were billed for anything.)  So even after a year of telling them we won't ever do business with you again, they still had his account as active!  So I gave him the story and told this guy we will never have Employees again!  

I  hope he gets it and marks it in the file.  Don't ever, call again!

But who we kidding, he'll leave the account as is and I'll be receiving a call in 3 months or so!