MIA

I just realized that it has been over a month since I posted...where has the time gone?? I have been completely MIA for the past four weeks. Bridget (a great friend of mine) called yesterday me to make sure I have not had a complete mental breakdown and checked out! No, I'm still here, hanging on, but I seriously do not know which way is up at the moment. Okay, I know this is not the 1st time I've said this, but here's my run down of the past three weeks (so you know I'm not just whining!):

December 17th&18th - tear apart and pack entire office (including ALL inventory)
Weekend of Dec 19th and 20th - rent uhaul and make trip after trip of the inventory and desks to the new office
Dec 21st - last minute judgement call to cancel trip to Louisville in order to move to new house over Christmas
Dec 24th (Christmas Eve) - Load up truck and move three rooms of furniture to new house (still have not sold old house, so have to keep most furniture there)
Dec 25th (Christmas Day) - since all of Aubrey's gifts were shipped to Louisville for the Christmas celebration that we didn't make it to, we pretended to open presents and then went back to unpacking
Dec 28th - start setting up new office, while the in-laws come in town to help build shelves for the office and watch my little rug-rat while her nanny is on vacation all week
Dec 31st-Jan 2nd - friends in town for New Year's
Jan 2-3rd - still unpacking and setting up the office (wow, this takes much longer than expected)
Jan 5th - our gas suddenly goes off in the middle of the night and they don't get it fixed until 9:00pm the next night (yes, no heat in 20 degree weather)
Jan 7th - I seriously have no idea where the past few weeks went!!

Somehow we have kept up with orders and are still going strong. I do not know what I would have done without our fabulous employees!! Mary packed and unpacked her little heart out and as a big topper, it was end of the year inventory time! Kristina helped to keep me sane, and was a packing fool! I do have to admit, although it was super crazy and stressful, it was actually a huge treat for me to spend so much time with Aubrey over the holidays, even if we were playing the unpacking game all day every day!

As usual, I feel completely overwhelmed and totally behind on everything. I really need to get organized to get off to a good start in the new office, but I have SO much work to do, I don't have time to stop. We are trying to get our new Spring Collection from the factories, but of course, have issues as always. I found out after the actual ship date that not only had our swimwear not began the production process, but the fabrics were all completely gone. I had to start over, select and design new fabrics, and then begin working with a new factory to get them done in less than a month...needless to say, this is not easy! Our manufacturing contact is probably about to lose her mind as well, but the tough part about this business, well, any business really, is that it doesn't matter why you are breaking promised delivery dates, it just matters that you are breaking them. It falls on you, so it is up to me to keep my promises to our customers.

I am also trying to find time to plan. We all know that if you are on a journey, and don't have a destination, that you are really just wandering around. I feel responsible - for the security of my family, for the reputation of RuffleButts, for our employees, and for the happiness of our customers...we definitely need not only a destination, but a map to get there. I worked late into the night last night, and probably will do the same for the next while. I am 150% determined to do this right. We have a great product (they sell), we love our jobs, we have happy customers, we grew more than 300% last year...I think we have something good here, we just need to stay on track and follow our dream! Now, if I could only get a few more hours in a day =)