Positive Outlooks

I think it's a sign that we're doing the right thing when:

On the first day of our drive back to Ohio, I get a call to set up an interview...
On the last day, B gets a call to set up an interview too...
The sun shines, the roads are mostly clear, and we only encounter bad weather in the last 20 minutes of the whole trip...
And the cats are absolute angels in the car for the entire four days.

It's true!  My interview was last Tuesday (I know, I'm way behind with the updates) and it went really well.  B's was Friday, and it went really well too.  We probably won't hear anything else until after the holidays - I do know that I'll have a second interview then, and the job B applied for would start in January, so he'll hear a definite answer soon.  The catch is, B's is in Toledo, and mine is here in the Cleveland area - for those who don't know Ohio geography, they're two hours apart.  So we'll have to make a decision, but for now we're just going to enjoy the holidays.  

***

Driving around town, running errands or Christmas shopping, I keep seeing empty storefronts in really great areas.  It keeps reminding me of an idea I've had in the back of my mind for many years now - I want to have a little shop.  At first it was a little gift shop, with custom framing and local artists mixed in with collectibles and cards, located in a little cottage in the tourist district of a beach town.  I still think that'd be fun, but switch it to a craft shop with beads and yarn instead of the custom framing, and offering classes and perhaps a club of some sort, a sort of local co-op for crafters and artists to interact.  My friend Julie is a crafty bitch (or witch... literally!) like me, and she made a comment to me once about "subversive crafting" which I thought might be a fun name for a shop.  Then today I commented back on something she'd written, saying I was a "fickle crafter," which I think is a good one too.  I think with that one, I would have the opportunity to offer a wider variety of things - "when you can't decide what to create" or something like that. My heart was always set on a beach town, like Seaside, or even Port Townsend, but seeing some of the places around here that are open made me realize that I could do this anywhere, any time.

For right now, I've got my little Etsy shop up and running.  An idea like this takes capital, which I absolutely do not have.  So it'll sit on the back burner, simmering away, while I add new ideas and start saving some money.