Thursday, June 16, 2005

Worker bee

Super long day at work today, I was on my feet almost the whole 8 hours. We kept having these mini-rushes of customers, I was bagging, pricing and hanging die cuts, and then I ended up rearranging half the store. Which is sort of fun. It dawned on me this morning that we still have Easter stuff up on our front display, and spring papers in the rack next to that...so I grabbed some summery stuff from around the store and some of our new summer-themed die cuts.

Die cuts...that sounds extremely passé to a seasoned scrapper, but they are our stand-by. They're custom-made by the owner, mostly titles, but a few other odds and ends, too, and they are almost singlehandedly keeping us in business. I'm sure there are some advanced scrappers in Virginia, but I have only met a handful. Most of our customers are just starting out, and they loooove the die cuts. We feature titles for all the main tourist attractions here, of which there are many, and also a large military section with titles/frames for all the bases here, of which there are also many.

I had to explain scrapbooking from the ground up to a customer again today..."This is an album. It's post-bound, which means there are metal posts that hold the pages in. These are page protectors, they're like pockets. You put your photos on cardstock, which is heavyweight plain paper, or patterned paper, which is lighter weight...." Yada yada yada. I totally don't mind explaining--that's my job--but it is always hard for me to shift my mind that far back. I have spent so many years happily immersed and chatting away with dozens--hundreds! of like-minded people...it's odd to think of someone who's never given my world a thought until now. I mean, how did they manage to struggle through life before? LOL. It's fun to see that glimmer of excitement grow in their eyes as you explain. Too bad they don't realize the damage that's about to be done to their credit cards.

The heat finally, finally broke tonight...tomorrow's high is supposed to be in the mid-80's. Sounds heavenly. Time for bed and my cool bedroom--we have a separate a/c unit in our bedroom in addition to the central air, courtesy of the previous owner who was a tech guy for the county and who had his computer center in what is now our bedroom. The past few nights I have been loving that extra a/c, even if Todd won't let me turn it to "deep freeze" setting like I want.