spiraling into the blog world...(be gentle with me)

So, a blog--who'd-a-thought. By today's standards I am almost computer illiterate so this is all new for me. I was so proud when I finally got a web site up after attempting it for nearly 6 years! So why strain my already overworked brain with a blog? Well two reasons--one, they say learning new things keeps away dementia, and two, I wanted a place to set the record straight about my retail storefront which will be closing somewhere in January of 2009 if all goes as planned. The website somehow didn't seem the right place to drone on and on about the details. So for those who care or were wondering--here's the scoop--which may change from week to week so I will update my random thoughts and plans as they make themselves known to me. Oh my, your going to get an insight to the inner workings of my brain--scary! My storefront, Fun Stamps, has been in operation for almost 15 years. I opened the doors to my glorified hobby when my son was 5 years old, he is now 20. I had been a obsessive, compulsive stamper for about 2 years at that point and had been doing home parties utilizing Stampendous and PSX catalogs (remember them--ahh the good old days). The problem with that was you had to order two of everything and almost no one ordered the same thing. I ended up with the second image and while, yes I kept many of them, after a year of this there were too many duplicate images! But wait, concession craft stores started popping up, I was saved--sort of. You would rent a space in the store and sell your goods. You had to work a couple days a month at the store. So this was an outlet for all those extra pieces and a couple days a month wasn't that big a deal. I was still working at my other business which was a pre-school and day care in my home where I utilized my early childhood degree that I got so I could properly homeschool my son. All was going well enough except that I was up till 2 am doing prep work for the preschool project and stamping to keep me sane. Short story long--I decided I like stamping better than daycare. My son went to a private school and I opened a store. Fast forward 15 years, my son is out of highschool, retirement is somewhere on the horizons and I'm looking at life a little differently. To keep the store I would need to sign another 5 year lease and I don't want to. I don't know what I am going to be doing in 5 years and I like that idea. If I sign a lease my life gets planned out for me for 5 years, such a commitment. So, after a lot of thought, I have decided to close the retail store. I started thinking about what I wanted to do. I'm still young enough to be productive for another few years. Maybe change my direction altogether, go back to school. Then Karen Lockhart said to me "but you have a clientele, a history, experience, a web site". Oh, well yes now that you mention it I do. So at this point I have decided to continue feeding this habit of mine, to reinvent myself to some degree and most of all, to keep in touch with my clients and friends that I have made over the years. At present, I have been thinking about pulling together some of the local talent and artist that we have here in the great Northwest to do a quarterly get together of a day classes or something along those lines. This would be after the store has closed and is being considered mainly because a lot of my customers have been stressed as to where they will take there classes from after we close. There are, of course, wonderful stamp stores in Washington state that offer great classes but ours would be offered here in the same area where our store is located now, in the Lynnwood area. I am also redoing the web site. Deciding what lines we will keep, add and create. I am working on our own line of stamps which at this point I am thinking about doing in a clear line. So thats it. The store is operational as normal until November at which time I will need to consider carefully what to stock in the store for the holidays. The clearance sale will be in late December early January--almost everything must go ( I promised my husband I wouldn't bring it all home). People have been requesting stamp and paper shelves, die cuts and the machines. We've been selling off our sample cards and boards as we go through the seasons and holidays. Customers have put requests and holds on everything! I keep telling people to leave their name and number for whatever they want even if someone else has requested it. By the time we are ready to call people they could have changed their minds. We will go down the list by date of request. That all being said, there is a very small chance we will close earlier. If the management find someone who wants to be in for the holidays and wants to sign a lease, then we would consider closing sooner. As management is all about renting something that they are not already receiving rent, it is very unlikely this will happen. I promise never again to be so long winded.