Monday Rambles

Where the craziness never ends!

Ever.

Seriously.

Last week was a whirlwind of activity and this one seems sure to be more of the same.  I have to go to Lexington for training on Thursday and Friday.  It's sure to be a good training and I love Lexington.  Thing is, I want to go thrifting and junking in Lexington, not sit in a class all day!  It's so hard to do the things you gotts do all the time when you can practically here the junk crying out for you!  Am I right?

The good part is that I will get out of a day of work.  The bad part is that my pay rate for training is half of my regular rate, so I'll barely make up for missing that day of work with the two days of training!  Sigh.

I spent a couple of days last week trying to get the new booths up and running.  It's proving to be quite a challenge.  Nothing is photo-worthy yet.  There's not enough stuff in the spaces for a pic.  I've started selling at a good pace though. 

I only have two spaces in the new store, as opposed to the eight I have at the other one.  I'm actually finding it kind of hard to work in a smaller space now.  I am so used to my big ole four-plex.  It's easy to forget that I started small, back in the day.  To make it even more challenging, my two spaces are across the aisle from each other, so I don't even have a duplex.  The smaller space will be easier to stock and keep clean, but I find I'm constantly over-compensating for the size by not bringing enough stuff.

It's still going to be a while before I get it to that just right stage, especially at the rate things are selling.  I am a little worried about keeping up the pace.  Since it is across the river, I cannot get over there as often as I do the other store.  However, blank spots and disorder show up more easier in smaller spaces than they do in my big ole booth.  I'm still trying to figure out the balance.  It might take me through the holidays to get it right.

Speaking of the holidays, I put the Halloween stuff in the new spaces and will be putting it out in the old booths this afternoon.  It's already selling well across the river.  Even my harvest stuff is selling better than it usually does.  This time of year it really pays to think like a regular retailer and do what they do.  All of your customers are seeing this stuff go up in Wal-Mart or wherever, so they are tuned into that cycle whether or not they realize it.  Vendors that can play along with that will benefit.  I'll have some Christmas out by the end of the month.

This was the most interesting yard sale week I've ever had.  We went to a church sale that did not exist, a community sale that was a bust, and by 11 had only bought a bird cage.  We were heading to large neighborhood sale, when we saw a pile of furniture in front of a house with a "FREE" sign on it.  That filled the van, with really nice stuff, so we called it a day.

Sorry no pics of that haul.  It was a busy road and there was no place to pull off safely, so we were too busy trying not to get killed as we loaded the van.

I did go over to a store I used to be in for a carport sale on Sunday.  Everything was a dollar, so I cleaned up on that.  Got some nice larger smalls for the new space.  Here is Chiquito inspecting that haul:

Beware the photo-bombing kitty!

I sort of had an interesting proposal tossed my way while I was shopping there.  The timing right now is really bad for me, so I said I would think about it.

I need to give a "thanks" to one of my blogging heroes and all around good dude Mike Sterling for featuring my wonky Magneto on his blog the other day.  If there is ever anything you need to know about comics, Mike is the guy to ask.  He's hilarious too!

I got to know Mike several years ago, when a group of bloggers would exchange music CD's through the mail.  Another one of my blogging heroes, Roger Green, reminisced about those days recently.  It's kind of like "old home week" on the blog today!

Well, I've got laundry to finish and dishes to do before getting ready for work, so I better scoot. More later, if I don't totally lose my mind!

Would you believe a Wednesday Rambles?

And then, Eddie went crazy and was never heard from again.

The end.

Okay, so it may not be time to come visit me at Mother Hood's Senility Complex with gifts of old comic books and brownies, but I'm feeling like it might not be too far off.  I've put the "crazy" in "crazy busy" lately.

I can happily report a few things:

First, I set another sales record in August.  I moved from a four digit gross to a four digit net!  This is the largest check I have ever gotten as a vendor!  And that was in the summer slow season!  Even the fair didn't really put a hurt on me.  Now that we're into the fall, which is traditionally a sales pick up time, I am really excited about what is to come!  My Halloween stuff will be out by next week, and I always sell Halloween like crazy.

One of the more interesting things about my sales is that my booth has looked like a hot mess for several weeks.  I've had a real hard time getting ahead of these sales and have been just throwing things in shelves and not paying much attention to anything else.  Apparently, people will step over dead bodies to get into my booth.  The messier it got, the more I sold.

After spending four solid days working, I finally have it under control again.  For the moment anyway.  It looks really good again.  It's not fully stocked.  I have a lot of egregious holes in shelves, but it's neat again.  (Now watch this kill my sales.)  I'll have some pics up here in the next couple of days.

The big stress point I've alluded to off and on since the beginning of August appears to have been resolved, somewhat favorably.  It's led to a new batch of stress, since I have taken booths in a second store as a result.  I don't feel like I can go into anything publicly, but would be glad to discuss any of this in private.

I am not leaving my first store.  I am very happy there, in fact.  I even took another wall space there over the weekend and might be picking another up at the end of the month.  Still, picking up a new store was kind of in the cards for me, even if the timing isn't great.  I hope it will go okay. 

Right now, I am kind of rushing trying to get the new spaces open.  I only have two 8x10's there, so it's a struggle dealing with much less space.  I am also having to rework my boothing schedule and have yet to come up with a satisfactory way to accommodate my job, home, and two stores.  The fact that the new one is across the river in Southern Indiana doesn't help.  I think it will all settle down in a bit, but right now it's all just chaotic.

On the other hand, the store I'm moving into is very very busy and most folks do well there.  It's managed by the woman who used to manage the store I started in and I love her to death.  There are positives to this whole thing, just a lot of uncertainty as well.

If I drop out of sight here and there, you'll know why.  Speaking of which, I'm picking up a lot of new readers these days, so I guess I might as well explain myself a bit. I am not one of those bloggers who responds to every comment.  I just don't have the time and sometimes I honestly don't know what to say.  Sometimes, it will be three or four days before I can respond and then I binge-reply.  Please don't be offended if you don't hear from me.  I have read your comment and do appreciate it.

Likewise, I tend to drop in on blogs once or twice a week and binge-read posts.  If you're wondering why you sometimes get several comments from me on posts that are several days old, now you know.  I love checking in and seeing what everyone has been up to.  Sometimes, it's just hard to work things in.  (You would not believe how far behind I am on Days of our Lives!)

Thanks for being here and thanks for reading and replying and thanks for letting me just be crazy junker Eddie!  Most of all, thanks for being you!

Tomorrow, I'll have pics of the flea market finds.  Friday, I'll have booth pics.