You come into this life alone, and you leave it alone.

I'm feeling kind of emo today.

Steve left this morning for Vegas for a week, Sarah is in Florida on a work tour and won't be back until Sunday afternoon, so it is just Emma and I. I let her sleep in today after spending all of yesterday cleaning, purging and reorganizing her bedroom. I'm always amazed at how much crap my kids can accumulate in a short time.

This morning I headed over to the store to load up as much of my fabric as I could fit in the Volvo. (115 bolts if you are keeping score at home.) I also disassembled a shelving unit and packed up my cutting table. I'm hoping to be able to start filling Etsy orders from home sooner rather than later. Running back and forth to cut and pack orders and then take them to the post office is getting old fast! As I was pulling out of the driveway over there I realized something.

The main reason I am closing the physical store is because I'm tired of doing it all alone. There it is, that's the truth. I could not go another 6 months or a year trying to juggle it all alone. Having to do everything alone from shoveling the snow off the sidewalk to preparing the inventory and books for the accountant is just too much. I realized today just how much I've done by myself there and it overwhelmed to the point of tears. (I'm crying now while I type this.) Even the little things like not being able to go get lunch or pick up my kids from school without closing up and feeling guilty for leaving and potentially missing a customer where stressing me out. What started as a great adventure and an attempt by me to prove something to myself has ended with a big ol' reality check.

I've spent the past three days cleaning and purging my house alone. I must get the upstairs room ready for all of my inventory and make it animal proof and figure out some type of organizational system so I can keep track of everything. I now have a pile the size of Mt. Rushmore in a corner that needs to be packed up and taken to Goodwill or at the very least put in the garage until the Church Sale at the end of the month. I don't have boxes, I don't have time to go get boxes, I'm exhausted from climbing up and down those stairs 50 times with garbage and fabric. The room also still has Steve's desk in one corner because he will be working from home again once he starts this new job when he gets back from Vegas. There is still a huge TV/entertainment center on one wall and a treadmill and bike in there too, there really isn't anyplace else in the house for them so I guess I have to work around them. Maybe I'll actually get around to using one of them occasionally! The laundry area is also at one end of the room which tends to get overwhelmed with piles of clean and dirty clothes. (I did spend the first two days of "break" doing laundry, I lost count after 15 loads!) I still need to clean the carpets in there and in Emma's room before I bring much more in there. (Shadow went through a period of extreme separation anxiety when I was gone all day and started peeing up there.)

I put my Etsy store on vacation mode until I get all this sorted out. I still have about 4 or 5 orders to fill and ship and plan to get those taken care of today or tomorrow. I just know when I get distracted and stressed out like this, I make mistakes. My mistakes usually end up costing me money. Like the time I shipped a huge order to Australia, but it was the wrong order! By the time I got the right fabrics to the right people I think I lost about $100. I pride myself too strongly on good customer service and prompt shipping too take the chance of screwing up right now.

I also have play rehearsals three nights a week. It is going really well and I'm having a blast working on it and making new friends. We are supposed to be "off book" by Sunday for Act I. Of course most of my big monologues and scenes are in Act I so I'm starting to stress. I'm going to have to recruit Emma to read lines with me over the next few days. The cats and dogs can't exactly follow along in the script to tell me when I make a mistake! There are some challenging parts where I have to change characters mid-scene that I'm hoping will come along better once I have my lines down.

Funny how things work out...
I just got off the phone with my Mom. I was trying to figure out how to close this pitty party post and the phone rang. Those psychic Mom vibes don't get weaker when your kids become adults that's for sure. I feel better now. I'm still a little overwhelmed and stressed but I'll get over it. I guess I won't be needing the black nail polish and skinny black jeans after all.