Its Spring Break again at our store. Every year we close for most of the month of March and this year we are taking it into April. I find – we just need more time! People are like – “Have a great VACATION!” There are elements of that to be sure – we vowed not to schedule anything before 10 am! Some staff are working at other endeavors or just taking some time off. But, we are also busy bees while the store is closed to retail. The kitchen keeps us occupied with all kinds of crazy, on your knees scrubbing of floors and corners and baseboards. Defrost the freezers and throw stuff out. Time to pull those steel racks away from the wall and sweep and paint and replace everything. Touch everything!
We work hard at decreasing clutter, increasing efficiencies, changing menus, developing marketing pieces, rebuilding inventory. We hand dyed all our once white aprons. We pulled all our mats and hosed them down outside. All our rugs get a deep clean too. From basement to attic to barn, we are all over this house.
The weather was on our side this year and the outside yards got some attention too. Can’t believe how old and tired all the winter decorations looked as soon as the spring sunshine bore down on them. We did a little raking – enough to neaten things up and not so much as to disturb the virility of the spring sop. Feels good to be outside.
I’m also getting some indoor time at my newly claimed book arts work table – haha- actually my dining room table at home has been requisitioned to the task. I’ve been taking some courses on bookbinding, papermaking, paper marbling and painting. It’s part of my “retirement plan” – to develop services that have to do with conservation and reclamation of paper, books, ephemera. It’s kind of fussy work, meticulous in nature. But… I love it!