Almost Moved In

Yes, it's true.  We're almost moved into the shop!!  There's still 1.6 million pairs of shoes and a ginormous pile of costumes to take.  Plus the rest of my work room boxes and the ironing stuff.  But still!  SO CLOSE!!
This week was spent  finding a home for everything.  I now have Internet and a phone number too!!!  480-398-1469 - the OFFICIAL phone number for Enchanted Wardrobe!  Now, with the phone hooked up I took our old phones to the shop (we haven't had a home phone for some time now - just the cell phones).   Here's the sad story that goes with the phone... our littles didn't know how to use it.  I had to teach them to pick up the receiver (and then had to explain what the receiver was) and then dial -not just dial the phone like on a cell.  When it rang they got all excited.  Now they know how to make phone calls, and they have a blast calling my cell the whole time we're at the shop... (um yah, that never gets old... ugh).  Here's what the shop looked like on Wednesday:

Top is the view from the back of the shop, below is the view from the front.

See that white wall space near the ceiling?  There is now a rod that goes 40' from the front of the store almost to the back of the store to hang suits and such up high.  :)  

Now, you probably know I have a ton of kids.  Ok, not a ton - I have 9.  The olders are the 6 older kids - ranging in age from 24 to 19.  The littles are the 3 younger kids - they are 8 and 6 (the 6 year olds are twins).  With the olders, I was always praised at how well behaved they were, how they had such good manners, etc.  The littles... well that happens sometimes.  Most of the time people just look at us and are  glad the littles are ours.  I think this is due to two main facts.  Ok, maybe three.  First of all, there were so many people in our home the littles never learned personal space or boundaries.  Between the 11 people living here, and all the friends the olders brought home there was a time that the littles weren't really sure who was their brother/sister and who was a friend.  Sad, but true.  Second, Rachel was 18 mo. old when the twins were born.  All 9 kids lived at home.  The olders were teenagers (or pre-teens) and really just wanted to be with friends instead of helping with stereo crying babies.  It was simply impossible to teach a lot of the manners and appropriateness and personal space, etc to the littles.  The third reason, and probably the biggest is we're tired. Old and tired.  I was in survival mode for a few years and was just happy everyone is still alive.  :)  Now, you may be wondering why I'm telling you this story.  Here it is: because the littles have trouble defining boundaries and personal space, they are having trouble remembering that the things in the store are to sell, not to play with, not to wear and take home, etc.  This week we had some "issues".  There were mannequins dressed in weird costumes and put in the windows.  A chicken.  Next to a gypsy.  And a 80's chick.  It was a week of saying, "don't open or move anything without asking first" over and over and over again... Trying to explain the concept of retail sales to the littles is going to have to be a work in progress.  Meanwhile, there was loads of fun.  And we had a visit from BumbleBee:

I didn't take this picture, it magically appeared on my phone... with some other odd pictures.  The littles can work an iphone and an ipad like no ones business, but they had to learn to use a regular phone.  Oh, and I have some picture vinyl collected that was out in a pile upstairs.  Rachel said, "oooh!  A giant CD!".   Sad. 

I came across Rachel's very first halloween costume.  And, of course I stuffed her in it...

It's hard to see, but there's a cute little stinger on the back.  She ran around the store stinging everyone with her little stinger.  Then we tried to get it off of her... which was harder and more painful than putting it on... 

And then there's the costumes that are just part of life... The creative ones... Like this...

What?  Don't your kids wear their McDonalds bag on their head???  Really?  Why not???

Friday I started taking my actual work room to the shop.  Nothing was so stressful and emotional as that in this whole adventure.  I have no idea why, possibly because I really love my machines and love the creative process - and now it will happen somewhere else.  It's weird.  

Here's the work room last night.  I had already taken stuff from the shelf in the back.  

And then 2 of the 3 machines were on a trailer.  With loads of boxes.  I'll keep one machine at home so I can sew at home if I want/need to. 

Here's your new home little serger!  My magic serger that is amazing and sews 2000 stitches per minute.  My little dynamo.  

And here's the other machine, going to it's new spot.  

And here's a little boy in a box.  Because costumes are everywhere!  What?  Your kids don't wear boxes???  Seriously???  Your kids are missing out. 

And then there's this.  This huge pile of boxes.  It makes me groan.  Because now it all needs to find a home at the shop.  

After loading the machines and boxes at the shop, we came home to work on the dressing rooms.  The Hale Center Theatre donated some little houses they used in "To Kill A Mockingbird".  We're changing them up to make them into dressing rooms that look like little houses.  They were a little big, so first the siding came off so we could make them smaller.

And it was freakishly hot today.  Hot and super muggy.  And this is how I felt about that:

Mid sweating it out in the heat, when we took the piece we decided to use as the back/inside wall of the dressing rooms apart we found a treasure!!!  You see, we had to take the siding off and cut it... or so we thought... See the magic peeking through??? 

Well, I'm pretty excited because this is what was under the siding:

Yes, the perfect size and quantity for the back walls of the dressing room.  I'll put a mirror on them and have a cute little arch over the mirrors.   I know - it's such a cute little treat!  Oh, and bonus because the siding was holding the 2 pieces together!  We didn't even have to cut it! Score!!

And then (even though it looks like I wasn't doing anything, I really was doing lots) after pulling many nails, taking out lots of screws, fetching this, moving that, etc we thought we could run it all to the shop tonight.  And then this thwarted our plans:

 Thunderbolts and lightening - very very frightening!  And it came at us quickly (thank you Arizona monsoons) so we scrambled to get everything in the garage - except we had to make room in the garage first and then unload the trailer, pick up all the nails and screws from the driveway so we didn't get a flat tire, and put the almost done dressing room houses away. Don't get me wrong, it was still hot as hades out there.  But now there was a nice breeze and some hot rain. 

Raindrops!  

That's all for now folks.  I have high hopes to pass inspections this week and open to the public SOON!  Get ready to PAR-TAY because we're going to celebrate!