A New Job

Who knew I could be so scared!? I'm not exactly sure what is scary, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with my new job.

I have opened a shop and it has been incredibly difficult to get everything priced. For some reason, pricing has taken way more time than expected. I'm selling antiques and vintage treasures, and as such, there are no "set" prices. It's pretty much what the market will allow. Even I realize it's silly to think there is a way to have all prices not too high (to avoid criticism), not too low (don't want to give the goods away), but just right. The idea that there is a perfect price for everything haunts me. Probably would have haunted Goldilocks too!

Haunts is really too strong a word, but I don't know where the thesaurus is.

I've been working on this idea seriously for about 3 months and half-heartedly for about 3 years! And it's not exactly a new field, I've been in a bunch of antique mall spaces and this shop was open for about 16 days in 2001. Last Thursday night I realized I would never get this shop open if I didn't just open. So, Friday, with slightly more than half the items priced, I put out the open sign and waited for customers to find me. They did. And they found the not-priced items. I made prices up for customers and when the shop was empty I just kept pricing.

Vintage shoes for the dancer in me.
Notice the strings? They're attached to price tags.

My daughter has been IMing me each afternoon. I told her I was open and she gave a big HOORAY. The next day she asked, were you open today? I said yes and got a "cool! congratulations." She knows me. She knows how easy it is to close the doors and run off to lunch. I didn't. Maybe that's what's scary.

I even opened this afternoon. All along it has been my plan to close on Sunday. But yesterday a customer said she'd like to come back and look at the vintage clothes and a fellow dealer wanted to come by.

So that's what I've been doing this month. I'm closed Monday and Tuesday. I kinda want to stay in bed til noon, but while I have been focused on my shop, things like the laundry, dust bunnies and weeds have been building up.

My parents joined facebook.com

My daughter loves Facebook. It is a lifeline to her. She has specifically asked me NOT to join Facebook! And I'm really glad!

Now, I'm not against parents checking out their kids' Facebook pages. For some, this is the most responsible thing to do and I applaud that. Any tool to take care of your kids and keep them safe is wonderful! But my girl is 22, a senior in college and she calls me whenever something bothers her. I don't need to see her Facebook page. She's earned her privacy. Just like I haven't told my family about this blog. I like the privacy too.

What triggered this was a program on NPR about a 40-something woman who had set up her mom's Facebook account and then was agonizing because she really didn't want to allow her mom to friend her. She definitely didn't want her dad to either and she was feeling enormous guilt about the whole thing. The program mentioned a website dealing with this very issue! Oh Crap . . .

It was the mom who spends so much time viewing her son's page she feels like a stalker, that reminded me how glad I am not to be on Facebook. This mom knew she was being obsessive, but couldn't help herself. I heard her and thought I would be just as obsessive about my daughter's life and her friends' lives. My daughter would be mortified if I tried to friend them! They might be too, for that matter!

I think I'm going to send an email to my girl telling her how glad I am not to be on Facebook. I won't tell her its because I would spend all my time checking up on her. That's best left unsaid. She'll think it's weird, but then anytime I'm too self-analytical she thinks its weird. Hmmm d'ya think she thinks I'm weird all the time? Maybe she doesn't think about me enough to do so? I hope!