Happy Halloween Free @MinnowBuilder Share and some updates about me
Can't believe that it's been 10 11 days since my last post. Sometimes life just gets in the way to say the least. Promise I haven't been eaten by any Zombies.
That was my youngest today yesterday being a Zombie Pirate. Halloween is fun, right? Kids running around dressed up getting candy while hanging out with friends. Was thinking about it today as we walked with my youngest and her friend that of the many things I did as a kid trick or treating really hasn't changed much. It's one of the days that kids get to act like kids and I think it's a good thing for them.
My oldest is at the point that she took off with her friends and they did their thing and we didn't hear from her until she ended up about 2 miles from home and wanted a ride home. She is at that scary age for any parent...well at least this parent...where she is old enough to go off on her own with friends but to young to truly understand the real dangers of life. Don't think kids ever realize how much you worry about them.
Toy Show and Boiler Update
So a bunch of people have messaged me on discord and left comments about the toy show wishing me luck. This show was a little more important then most as we had a massive $13k boiler replacement bill to worry about and it came on the heal of a number of other unexpected bills. So our reserves were already tapped. Really appreciate everyone wishing me luck for the show and the concern people had about our boiler situation...actually had someone offer to send me 1 BTC as a no interest loan if it came down to it...love the steemit family!
Anyways here is a photo of our booth. Sorry the photo kind of sucks as those windows up on the ceiling had daylight hitting our booth just right that nothing worked to get a good shot. Notice people in the booth, that is 90 minutes before opening dealers shopping our booth. That was wall to wall people once the show started for pretty much the entire day.
The show was really good for us and was able to have the boiler guys come on Tuesday to install our new boiler! Sold all of our kenner prototypes and most of our other rare items which made a huge boost in our sales. Was able to pay my help their full amount (they offered to take less on this show) and still have enough to cover the boiler...barely, but it's covered and we have a shinny new boiler with lots of new copper pipes all around our basement. The thing is so much smaller then the old one and can't wait to have a few colds days to see how well it does. Naturally while our boiler was dead we had a super cold start to Oct, but now are having nice 50 degree days.
Oh and I was really worried that once they started working there would be some surprise expenses. Not a single penny over the quote...that was a major relief!
Halloween photos? Free MinnowBuilder Share!
Anyone have fun photos of their kids in costume, or of yourself? Did you do a Halloween post? Drop a link below if you posted or add a photo in the comments if you didn't. Haven't decided what will make the winner, but someone is getting a free share to @minnowbuilder based on my completely biased decision of the post or photo I like the best.
Only requirements is make sure it's original content...don't steal a photo or I'll likely figure it out and flag you for weeks on end for being a thief. Naturally I love followers, resteems, and upvotes but none of that is required to win the share.
And that is a wrap of this free write style post, no going back and editing just typing what was on my mind which then turned into the minnowbuilder share idea...yes my brain goes all over the place at all times. Oh and why the lined out text above? Well I wrote this late last night and thought I posted it, but apparently I didn't (crap guess I did a little editing to my free write). So glad it stayed in the editor so I didn't need to rewrite this whole post.
Your stand looks good. I am glad that you are able to pay for the boiler its just a shame that the money raised can't go towards additional stock
Inventory isn't really an issue for me. Have a ton right now and had been stocking up to make sure this was a great show before I ran into this issue. So instead of having an easy winter as I was hoping for I will need to keep working hard. Really that is the only thing that changed in the end.
A cute Toothless dragon! Homemade costume.
Love homemade costumes. We have done more then a few over the years.
How are you? I've been too busy to post myself but am getting the urge again. thanks for the votes :-)
I remember you having some old trading cards, right? My son has taken up Magic the gathering again and is working on his collection if you have some for sale.
Being a Grampa is great and I'm settled in here in the Great white north for the foreseeable future.
Best wishes to you and yours :-)
Long time no chat. Glad to hear from you my friend. Know you got a little down about steemit, but hope to see you back on here more.
I have a good amount of MTG cards. Shipping to CA isn't always the cheapest, but we can work something out. With the announcements of @dstors which I am part of we can use some MTG card lots as some test transactions on the alpha version of the site. We are going to try and help offset some of the shipping charges on transactions with rewards. This will make international shipping possible.
Great! how can I look at what you have to offer, prices etc...
Cheers
No simple way as it's not something I have online anywhere. Do you know what he is looking for? Most of what I have is older sets.
He's away for the weekend right now. so not sure what I should ask? maybe what series/years and how many. opened or original sealed plus the all important...Price :-)
I'm planning on a Sunday article on my Halloween but here's the gist of it anyway.
My 2018 Version Gothic Lolita Pirate The Bloody Raven.
Yes that’s a real 40”Ninjato sword, plus 9 Throwing Kunai, two Shuriken throwing Stars and a two headed hatchet.
The Bloody Raven YouTube Version Video There's a drawn out fictional history to my alter ego.
Costume? What do you mean Costume? I am a goth and it’s my everyday style!
But on Halloween night I go to my neighbors with a bloody pillow case and say,
”By the way, Is this your kid’s head?”
If all year you are goth maybe next year you should try and go out as a stereotypical preppy rich kid. Would totally mess with your neighbors...lol.
Pretty bad ass alter ego you have there!
Stereotypical preppy rich kid? Gag me with a Caterpillar Back Hoe.
LMAO
My Halloween post, https://steemit.com/steemsilvergold/@kerrislravenhill/the-bloody-raven-s-halloween-2018-piratesunday
That is great. You should add it to @pifc's current Pimp Your Post
I upvoted this earlier but I had to run out, so now I am back for a comment.
I stayed home during Halloween as I don't agree with it. In my country, Halloween is an imported holiday that is being used as a money grab by unscrupulous corporations.
Obviously, I won't be entering your contest but I wish luck to everyone who does.
See ya later!
Hey, @thedarkhorse.
Wow. That must be some show. All of the expenses of the boiler, plus pay your help their normal amounts. But, what does that mean for ongoing expenses that might normally be covered by the show? I mean, I think it's a great blessing that the boiler work was covered. I'm just thinking about what happens now.
re: daughter
I had two boys, and I did the same thing. Worry. I tried to limit what they did do, which helped, but unfortunately there's only so much of that you can do when their peers are getting to do everything so Dad becomes mean old dad, and society in general wants to treat some ages, particularly teenagers, as if they were fully functioning and rationally thinking adults.
Which is not the case at all. They have intelligence. They have some decision making abilities. But those all seem to override when it comes to being with the friends. Individual thinking turns into groupthink. At least with the boys.
Still, they made it through, and now they get to worry about their own children who are beginning to enter the world. Can't wait to see what they do. :)
Really didn't do anything for Halloween, other than get take out at the favorite Chinese restaurant, a tradition we started years ago when the boys finally got old enough to stop the trick or treating. Why Chinese? I don't know, other than we like Chinese. As far as I'm concerned, it has no links to Halloween otherwise.
I like these kind of free writes. I don't think every post has to maintain one topic, other than life. And these were the more important things happening in your life, so why not write about them?
This is the current issue at hand. But heat was concern #1 as we already have had some cool nights...you know waking up to heavy frost on the ground and trace snow even the one day. But this just means we will have to work harder with our online sales for the winter as there just aren't many shows to do, actually after this weekend my next shows aren't until Feb with 2 and then 1 in March. And those shows can be great as everyone just got tax money back and haven't had a show to get out to in months or horrible if it snows as people just don't want to drive in it. With 3 in a matter of 4 weeks hopefully at least 2 of them will be good.
This might be the worst part of when they go out as a group. Mob rule rarely has a good outcome.
More then a good enough reason to me! This is what we do for my Grandfathers birthday dinner. He turned 92 on Halloween and we took him out last night to our Chinese place just as we did last year. Both of my Grandparents love the way we do family style there and pass dishes around.
As for the freewrites, I like them too. Hate going back an editing things and really not great at staying on one topic when writing as ideas about other things are popping into my head. This lets me jump around and not care about structure as much.
re: heat No. 1 concern
Oh, no doubt about it. That needed to be fixed, and unfortunately, you also ran afoul of regulatory policies if I remember right that by the sound of things had little to do with the reality of your situation, just another opportunity for someone to make a money grab.
When you've been there done that on things like this, you know there's a rest of the story, you know? Life doesn't just conveniently become a bed of roses because you managed to get over some hurdles.
As I said, absolutely thankful that the boiler was taken care of, and now we'll all just hope that between the online sales and the three or so shows during the winter will be prosperous, too.
re: Chinese on Halloween
Ha! Well, all right then. We're not the only ones. We haven't quite got to the stage where we're handing different kinds of food around to each other (too picky, the lot of them!), but I like the idea. One big shared meal like you would do at home.
re: freewrites
Well, sometimes, there's just not one topic to fully expand upon. They all kind of link together in your head. So, what to do? Write three or four small posts so you don't mingle the topics, or one longer one, to get them out of the way and clear the mind so you can move on to something else? I think this worked out great.
Oh believe me nothing is a bed of roses. As Andrew pointed out above this took up a bunch of inventory that I'm not replacing. Normally I'd put 35% of the sales for new inventory. Luckily I was very stocked up before this so can get away with a couple shows of not buying new inventory.
Really the biggest concern becomes our normal day to day bills for the next few months. We don't have our normal reserve going into winter and this show normally tops off those reserves and covers all our spending money until show season starts up again. Living on a tight budget isn't the worst thing and I always find a way if we need money right away.
Chinese is great family style. If you have picky eaters that actually lets them taste new things without committing to them for a whole meal. It's how we have gotten the kids to eat a whole lot of new things.
For sure lumping them into one post works better for me. I could have easily made a post about each topic and dragged it out and added a bunch of photos that most people just wouldn't have cared much about (at least I don't think they would have). Just isn't my style. Would rather post less often and do a real post.
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