So excited!

Work was pretty slow last Saturday-Monday. I'd originally planned to work on my Faire listings this past week...but work picked up on Tuesday with 8 orders, a couple orders Wednesday, another 7 orders on Thursday, 3 orders on Friday, and 6 orders for today. 

But the main reason why I didn't work on my Faire listings was because...I got a new toy! :) I'm so excited. There was a lot of discussion in the sticker group on FB about Joann's going-out-of-business sales and having Siser cutting machines deeply discounted. Siser has the Juliet (12") and the Romeo (24"). I would've actually preferred a 16" cutter (Starcraft Solo) but they aren't readily available. And since my Cricut Maker 3 is a 12" machine and still working fine...I decided to upgrade to the 24" Romeo. With the discount, it ended up being cheaper than my Cricut was in 2021! They're normally available for $589-$699, but with Joann's discount...I got it for $350! 

I've been having fun learning how to use my new Romeo. Luckily there's another FB group that shares a lot of tips and tricks to navigate through all the quirks. It's been a lot easier to get the hang of than some people in the FB sticker group made it seem. And it's really nice to be able to completely adjust everything so much more than you can with Cricut. The biggest thing is being able to adjust how much of the blade is exposed. That really helps with jagged edges. I can also fine-tune 
 The only "complaint" I really have is that it makes more noise when cutting...but that doesn't actually affect its functionality. I'm just a person who doesn't like noise. :P 

I did have to rearrange some things to set it up in my office because the Romeo is so big. It's a 24" cutting area...the machine itself is 37.25" wide. I removed my camera tripod arm from the "table" my Cricut had been on and was able to fit the Romeo on there (but turned to face the other way than my Cricut was). I had a $25 Amazon gift card and I found a nice Cricut stand that fits at the end of the desk that I have my printer on. 

I may eventually rearrange my office some more, but so far I like how it's all coming together. After I take my old printer and the metal cart/shelf that it's sitting on (you can see the top part of the shelf in the bottom left of the photo below) out to my mom's house, I might see about turning the "table" that the Romeo is on to be perpendicular to the window and move the Cricut stand in front of the window...just to make everything more accessible from my desk. Then the only thing I have to go to the other side of the room to work on is my laminator that is against the wall opposite of the window. But we'll see if that's actually as workable as it seems it could be in my head. ;) 

The angle of the picture kinda makes it look like there's not much room between the "desk" my Romeo is on and the stand that my Cricut is on...but there's plenty of room to walk through there. And the Cricut stand is on wheels so I can easily move it around, too. It's much sturdier than I expected it to be, considering I only paid $22 for it. It's all metal (well the top table part is particle board) and while I can wiggle it, it doesn't noticeably move around when the Cricut is cutting. So I'm glad about that! 

I also ordered some more of my supplies before prices go up...as I'm sure a lot of it will be affected by tariffs. I was able to get a large package of the vinyl sticker paper I use, some more cutting mats, and my glassine packaging envelopes. I also went ahead and got another blade holder for the Romeo. That way I can have one blade dedicated solely to stickers and then the deep-cut blade in a separate blade holder for magnets. Then I don't have to keep adjusting the blade...I can just keep them exactly in the spot where they work the best. 

Oh and in unrelated news, we also inherited a robot vacuum! I haven't really played around with it since I've been busy with my Romeo, but we'll see how it works out with all the dog hair that accumulates. ;) It'll be interesting to see how the dogs and cats feel about it, too. 

Happy Easter!

Man...it's already been almost a month since my last post. The months seem to be going by pretty quickly. Given everything going on in the world, I can't say that I'm disappointed about that. 

Now that the kids are older, we don't really do much for Easter. We just have dinner at my grandparents' house. My nieces are the youngest from the immediate family, so we don't do any egg hunts or anything anymore. It's just nice to be able to spend some quality time with the family. :) 

I've been feeling pretty blah lately. I've still been dealing with a lot of pain in my back and shoulder. It's making sleep difficult. I've also been dealing with a lot more stomach pain. I've had pelvic adhesive disease as a result of abdominal surgery that I had to have in 2010. When I went to have my tubes tied about a year later, they couldn't even find one of my fallopian tubes because there was so much scar tissue. While subsequent surgeries aren't recommended...I think I'm going to talk to my family doctor about having a total hysterectomy and doing what they can about the existing scar tissue. So we'll see how that goes. I'm not excited about the idea of more abdominal surgery...but 15 years is a long time to deal with issues that seem to just keep getting worse. And it's not like I'm using my uterus anymore or anything. :P

With how crappy I've been feeling, I'm glad that work has been slow. It was slower last April, too. It's just that time of year. But the number of orders I've had so far this month is still 20% higher than this point last year, and my revenue so far this month is 86% higher. If it continues to be slow this week, I think I'm going to work on uploading designs to my Faire site. I haven't kept up with uploading my designs over there...so I want to work on that. I really need to work on my eBay listings as well. 

We took the dogs to the vet last week to get their annual vaccines. They were such good puppies. Nova was excited to see all the people but Boz was nervous, of course. He basically didn't leave my side the whole time. But we got all their shots and everything went smoothly. We also got Nova an allergy shot. In addition to being allergic to chicken...she seems to have seasonal allergies as well. Each spring she starts getting itchy and ends up with hot spots. So far she seems to be doing better than she has the last few years...so hopefully the shot continues to help her. Next we have to schedule Bozley's neuter surgery. Every time we've tried to schedule it in the past...something around the house ends up breaking that we have to pay to fix/replace. :P So...hopefully we can get it scheduled soon. Bozzy still weighs the same...about 65lbs. Chunky Nova needs to lose some weight though. ;) She was up quite a bit from when she got her shots last year. 

Well...I'm going to package orders to go out tomorrow and then might go to bed early (well...earlier than normal).