Jinny's Year End

YUCK. I hate year end. I have to go through all my reciepts and catch up all the book work that I didn't have time to do for the last umpteen months because I was too busy in the soap shop. Worst of all is that it's inventory and tax time. This year I had to take inventory in my shop and at my top selling retail location in Hays. Ciara made it a little less painful as she owed me 3 hours for the Christmas moolah she borrowed against her paycheck. Then I hauled her into town and fed her supper and took her shopping to bribe her into helping me at the store. :) It worked out pretty good. As luck would have it... my sales in this store were nearly triple what they've been in past months, so that means that 1. I am very happy to get a fat check and 2. Inventory was really easy to take there because it was so depleted. YAY!!!! :)

This year we have to have our taxes done early because we have a meeting at Ciara's school (in JANUARY!) for Financial Aid stuff for college. *SIGH* I feel squeezed. Having a high school senior is exhausting. I never realized how much there is to do. We've got the Senior Pix, ACT registration deadlines and test dates, scholarship application deadlines, cap and gown meetings.... the list goes on! I would have to proudly admit that I'm embracing this season of life and am excited for Ciara to move onto college. High School hasn't really been her "thing". I truly think that it's because of her Christian perspective on life. It's hard to be Godly when you're surrounded by people that swear, get drunk, do drugs, sleep around.... etc. I realize that this is no different than the a good portion of the rest of the world, but at least when she's in college she will have the ability to choose who to socialize with, not to mention that the "friend pool" is much deeper with there being 10,000 students at Ft. Hays and less than 100 students at her school. She has friends, but still... there are challenges. She's done quite well for herself this year though and has had a 4.0 GPA most of the first semester. There was the little incident where she was partnered for a huge group project in civics where the other 2 kids were below average students - thus preseting a huge challenge for her to get a good grade, I hate to say that they drug her down with them and it took her a really long time to pull that grade back up. I loathe stuff like that, the only thing worse is a teacher that keeps the whole class in from recess because one child was being a clown or acting up. Ciara vows that she is learning from these things and will not handle her class in such a way when she becomes a teacher. I'm so proud of her!!

So... Luke's brother and family were planning on coming down for New Year's Eve and day... but sadly, their kids were still sick. New Year's Day Luke got sick with flu type stuff and has been sick for 3 days. My parents both had flu symptoms yesterday and the nite before as well. UGH! :( No fun!! Luke has had such body aches and monster headaches too. He did wake up this morning saying he feels better... so I'm cautioning him to take it easy and not overdo it. Seems like whenever I'm sick and try to do too much I end up right back where I left off. I just woke Ciara up and she is complaining of being tired and having a bad headache. Oh boy... here we go!

I'll go into Hays today to pick up Brandon from church. They had an overnite youth thing... when I dropped him off there were about 3 other boys there so far. I've been praying for years for a close friend for him. A David and Jonathon type of friendship. Someone he is close to and loves and can relate to and have things in common with. He's never had a best friend - not since kindergarten. It's hard for a mom to watch her kids go through life searching for TRUE friendship. I'm hoping that he's connecting with the kids there. It would be nice if he had a friend that called and invited him to over or to go do something fun. The guys he's "friends" with now aren't really friends at all. They're flaky. Not a good kinda flaky like pie crust but flaky like... "you're only good enough to hang out with if my usual posse isn't around". Breaks my heart. He is close to his cousin, Robbie and I'm thankful for that. They have fun together, and try to get together to do stuff and hang out. I just want my kids to have a full, meaningful life, and meaninful relationships. Prayer is the key... because I can't make all of the rest happen for them. I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't have been better off sending our kids to a bigger Hays school??

So... enough rambling for today. The point is... once again... 2008 is OVER. I couldn't be more glad.

This is what 300 looks like!

Yup... 300 small fresh snow lotions

This was in addition to 200 fizzy bombs


And it's all for one customer! I've been busy, as you can see. :) It's great to have so much work and my new retail outlet in Hays is doing lots of business for me too. So... as we approach this time of Thanksgiving, I'd have to say that I'm thankful that God is blessing my business and work is steady. I seem to finally be reaching a place that's a bit more manageable - even though I'm worn out and ready for time off for the holidays! :)