Things I have done today
Packed my oldest son off for a week at Scout Camp. This included last minute scrambling to find lost uniform bits and pancakes with smiley faces.
Breakfast and scripture reading. (Managed to not spill on the scriptures, which is a good thing.)
Howard and I had a quick discussion about some business propositions and what the responses should be to various requests made via email.
Answered a whole pile of email. How big is a pile? Well right now I only have 9 messages with stars next to them because they need my attention asap. First thing this morning there were three times that number, plus a dozen emails I hadn’t even read yet. And a dozen more in the “answer when convenient” category. I can vaguely remember when getting an email was an event instead of commonplace.
Did a quick scan of Livejournal, facebook, twitter, CNN, and my blog reading list.
Processed merchandise orders. Filed the ones which have to wait for shipping day (orders containing RMS). Packaged the ones that go into the mail today.
Arranged tickets for Howard to attend Worldcon in Australia during the first week of September.
Emailed Worldcon/Hugo folks to let them know that Howard will be there. Hopefully it will not be too late for him to get on some programming.
Fed pancakes to my other kids.
Quick meeting in the kitchen with Howard where we divide up the tasks for the day. Howard will be drawing pictures for QFT. My list is long, but the meeting helped me prioritize the critical stuff to the top.
Purchased Dealer room space at Worldcon in Australia. Also contacted the international freight broker to begin figuring out how I am going to ship merchandise to sell in Australia legally. We’ll also have to figure out how to file the necessary sales tax on things we sell. Also we need to predict how much we will sell so that Howard does not run out, but also does not have to haul stuff home. Eep. I’m going to ignore this task for the rest of today. It is full of daunting.
Contacted some business partners to discuss contractual issues.
Picked up four large banners from Alphagraphics. These will hang behind our table at GenCon. Howard looked them over and approved them (in yet another quick meeting), which was a huge relief to me. I handled contracting the images from Jim Zubkavich over at Udon and did all the approving. They are beautiful. We are happy.
Paid for the next three months on our two storage units. I may have to visit them again later today.
Bought basketry kits from the Scout office. My two youngest were jealous of the project that Link was working on in advance of Scout Camp. Now they get to make baskets too.
Did this week’s accounting work. It was pretty light, just receipts to enter and a single bill to pay. Next week the accounting will include quarterly reports on royalties and quarterly tax reports. Whee.
Wrote more emails.
Lunch (while listening to a teenage girl tell me why her life is overwhelming.)
Sorted t-shirts into three piles. One for shipping day at Dragon’s Keep. One for shipping to GenCon. One to stay here and fill orders as they come in. Created an inventory sheet for the shirts I am shipping to GenCon. I erred slightly on the more-than-I-think-will-actually-sell side. I hope my educated guesses about sales are better than the ones I did for Balticon. We could have sold twice as much there if we’d only sent it.
Ran out of steam. Wrote a blog entry and clicked stuff on the internet. It is now 2 pm. Next I intend to catch up on Doctor Who so that Kiki and Howard can talk about the finale without ruining it for me. After that I hope to get back to work putting together the freight shipment for GenCon. It needs to ship in the next couple of days. And of course I still have laundry, dishes, children, and QFT layout.
Edited to add:
Doctor Who was interrupted by basketry. The kids required more help than I expected. As in, I had to sit with them until the baskets were done 90 minutes later.
I went back to Doctor Who for a bit, but stopped to do dishes, cook dinner, and eat.
The evening was consumed by QFT instead of GenCon. And I mean completely consumed. I just finished the work and it is now 2 AM. QFT is looking better all the time, but it is still not done. Tomorrow Howard and I will sit down for a meeting to discuss the remaining white spaces.