Blind-sided

I sorta thought the trouble was coming, but was keeping fingers crossed that it might be avoided. Nope. Trouble has arrived.

I guess you've noticed that the blog has taken a back seat to all the behind the scenes (and front of the house) action lately. The racing, the panic, the orders, the shows. It's all going so fast. And I've finally hit the point where I can't keep up. I sort of fell behind in August with the huge shows. Then I tried so hard to catch up in September for the fall, and Puyallup was way bigger than I expected, or was ready for. So I was even further behind. And now there's no way to reach the finish line in one piece.

Since soap needs curing time, and it's all going out faster than I can make it, I ran out of stuff this weekend at the huge Best of the Northwest show - which was a great thing for me, sort of. Today I'm so bleary I can barely count the 4 of this and 2 of that which came home with me. And there is a pile of orders that came in over the last few days and many of those soaps are just not available. I have a few batches curing now, but I fear it's not enough. Not enough for the orders, the shop, the next two shows and the all-month-long show in Bellingham. Fidgeting, scheming, re-counting. Some of it will be ok, and I'm still figuring the rest out.

The soap sacks sold out, and the supplier actually sold out too - no more even being manufactured and shipped until January. Wah! What to do about that this morning. Much hand wringing, since I've made it such a big piece of my gift sets for the season. I've only 2 bottles of French Lavender spray left. Ran off to the bottle folks and they have a new manufacturer too - different product, different cases, and I'm worried about the sprayers leaking like they did before when the bottles changed, all to save a few pennies on costs, sigh. Ducked in to get my fresh goat milk to make more of the goat milk soap I've been out of, and the farmer injured himself and had to shut down the dairy until next April or so. I feel so badly for him, but now I'm back to solving another puzzle piece that I never expected. Not enough this, not enough that, not enough time to get the other stuff shipped here. This whole week will be panic (with a quick break for turkey) trying to make more salts, more lip balm, more foot balm, more sprays, and a million batches of soap, if I can swing it.

But I'm TIRED! I haven't had a day off in forever. My skin is breaking out in weird red spots. I need meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Where are those elves?!? I need elves, dammit!