It's Friday

It's been a busy week! And for us, it means getting ready for a hopefully busy weekend. Every night we say this is the night we're going to get to bed by 12, but then...a shipment of Noodler's comes in and I can't resist tearing all that tape off to see what's inside, or the online orders take a weird spike, or Jon decides it's time to tackle sorting through the ink that's sitting in boxes, and it turns out neither of us were professional organizers in any of our former lives and despite really liking ink in general, sorting bottles and bottles of ink has nothing to do with liking ink and really more to do with planning and alphabetizing and limits on how many glasses of wine you can have. While Jon and I are working on getting the shop and packing area organized and set up, the little chickpea and the chocolate beast are keeping busy. Jon brought Super to the vet, while I took care of the little monster at home. Our vet, Dr. S, is amazing, mainly because he suspects/knows I'm a hypochondriac when it comes to the dog, but doesn't say anything. It all started when I was basically 100% sure the dog had an ear infection, which just turned out to be a massive build up of ear wax. Super has had a small lump on his belly for about a year, about size of a pea. I think when I first brought the dog in, I neglected to say it was about the size of a pea, and just said "there's a giant lump on his belly!" Dr. S says it's nothing to worry about. At the very least, Super has clean teeth. Caleb also had a visit to the human doctor this week, where he cried shamelessly when the doctor attempted to examine his sensitive parts. I took the TTC to the doctor, and I must say that while I used to really enjoy taking long streetcar rides across the city, I'm always a little nervous about hauling the baby on there. I used to be a teacher that took classes of students onto the streetcars, and I could see the dread of ordinary human beings just trying to make it through the day when they saw the 35+ of us lined up at the stop, knowing that they were going to be squashed by dozens of loud and obnoxious adolescents. No one likes the crying baby on the airplane... However, I think the baby really enjoys taking the TTC! It's the wind from those tiny windows, and all the people coming and going and the beeps and rings and and the robotic recordings of "next stop, Broadview Ave." Despite Jon's newly found germophobia about public transit, I've had the pleasure of sitting beside a few people who put up pretty well with having a baby grab their fingers and pull their hair, including a very friendly Australian woman ("You know, as a general rule, I don't really like children, which is why I think they gravitate towards me"), a grandmother of twins, and a young man in a hoodie, who very kindly allowed Caleb to casually stroke his arm while he read his book. We've got a lot of things swirling around. There are a few new products and lines lurking around in the back waiting for us to find the time to take photos and do up samples and properly launch. There are shelves that are partially labeled, or labeled in close-to-but-not-quite alphabetical order waiting for inks. We need to buy some more chairs for the calligraphy classes, but the six we already have Jon got from Diamond Rings (now that is a story for another day...), and Jon is pretty sad he'll never be able to get an authentically matching set. However, Jon is really only 99% certain it's Diamond Rings, so... I've got a few things getting themselves ready for the blog, and I can't wait to share everything! There is lots and lots to come, which is all pretty exciting. Stay tuned! Or at the very least, stay tuned until tomorrow, when we announce the winner for the giveaway. If you haven't entered yet, you should! Three bottles of those delicious 1670 Anniversary inks from J. Herbin. We had some very sad broken bottles of Bleu Ocean in our shipment, but even at the bottom of a cardboard box, that blue and gold is beautiful (you know, in that doomed tragedy kind of way). I hope you all have a sunny-and-ice-cream kind of weekend!