Perry Moffitt

I have been saying to the husband for a few weeks now “I have itchy feet, we are long overdue for a vacation”. Which is not exactly true. We went abroad less than a year ago. But I think this is my reaction to winter. To the long nights and low temperatures.  I wake up in the morning and think, “I wonder who I could convince to go to Florida with me this weekend”. I know this is not a normal thing, but I have long suffered this addiction to travel, needing to get out of town (or the country) has plagued my bank account since I was 16, luckily I married a very understanding man.

All this being said, around our house we have been discussing how to cut back. What if work dries up for Paul? What if I got laid off? We don’t have any savings. We always put money in our IRA’s and said that was our safety net. If it got bad enough that we needed to crack into our IRA’s we wouldn’t mind paying the penalties. But alas, our IRA’s are about 30% below the purchase price and looking more meager by the day. We are young, we shouldn’t plan on using them for years and years, blah blah blah- therefore, I’ve stopped opening the statements…

So we have be talking about how to perk up our savings accounts. I shopped around and got cheaper home owners and car insurance which is saving us about $50 a month. I toyed with the idea of canceling the cable, but my dirty little secret is that I love television. Really love it. Especially with Paul working overseas, just having the background noise is a comfort. So what else it there to cut out? We live pretty modest lives,  we have 9 year old economy cars…okay, Paul’s is a truck, but it is a necessity for his job. We eat out less than once a month, we wear clothes until they fall apart at the seams and we possess one 19″ box television which I think I may bring to antiques roadshow soon.  Our netflix subscription at $14 a month feels very luxurious to me. What are our biggest splurges? Travel and parties.  Which we seem incapable of cutting out. This weekend we will be hosting a bonfire with whiskey drinking and chili dinner and have invited everyone we have ever met passing in the street. Which seems like a lot of whiskey to me… I have justified this by saying “at least we are getting rid of all that brush!”

And yesterday, on almost a whim, I bought 2 round trip tickets to Barcelona in May. US Air was having such an incredible sale that I just couldn’t stop myself from pulling out the credit card. For $100 more than the price of one ticket to London this time last year I booked 2 tickets to Spain!

So there we are, cutting back all to the bare neccesities. Failing miserably at perking up our savings account. But somehow, it makes me feel more like myself again. For example this is the first blog post in months that hasn’t had to do with sewing. And while I like sewing, I also like having things to look forward to. So now I am looking forward, 9 weeks to spain!

I proclaimed too loudly my 2 store victory last week. I am sad to say that the Maternal Wellness Center, where I have been having great luck selling my baby goods for almost 2 years will be closing their shop, in light of the economic downturn. This was announced after I made a dozen new baby dresses and 10 new baby onesies. So I have a glut of baby items right now, which I think I may just hang onto until the Lansdowne Farmers Market in the spring.

It is strange, this downturn is all the talk of every NPR program I hear and every article I read but yet far, it has not affected our day to day security. Selling baby things at the Wellness Center was a nice little hobby but my heart goes out to those crafters and seamstresses who depend on this for a living. I am a worrier so the possibilities of being laid off always lurks in the back of my must-stress-out-about-something mind. But somehow, we are busier than ever at work and Paul has successfully landed a short term contract at Ursinus College doing just what he was doing at Swarthmore college before he went on tour. I am crossing all my fingers and toes that the short term contract turns into a long term job. Paul however, is not as hopeful.  I think he is a bit too comfortable (for my liking) with the touring-sometimes-home-lots-of-the-time schedule. But, with the economy, I am feeling very very fortunate this holiday season, that the paychecks continue to come in, and the lights are on, and the family is healthy.

I am now selling baby things at a 2nd store! My first success story was the Maternal Wellness Center, which continues to be a nice match for me. Ali from BOHEMA, in the Roxboro section of Philadelphia contacted me and asked me to bring stuff in. They specialize in woman’s clothing, but for the holiday season they have taken on some of my appliqued onesies and quilts. Not sure how my stuff will do in a woman’s boutique setting but I am hopeful!

The holidays are eating up a lot of time. I have stacks of projects laying around, but somehow we managed to get a Christmas tree and decorate it but I haven’t managed to do much crafting.  Hopefully a wedding quilt update in the next few days…

And in the news of Paul taking over the world…

My husband has started a sailboating event website for a “mess-a-bout” off the coast of NC for this coming summer. I promised him I would add the link so look in the top right hand corner for more info.

Some days I feel very clever. Like when I use coupons for cat food or trade in my credit card points to by a new computer monitor. Some days are good but sometimes I am downright dumb.

My dad bought Paul a little digital postal scale. I claimed it as my own and on it I weight the etsy packages I send when people are kind enough to purchase my sewing. On the scale is a chart- how many ounces to how much postage need. I have been following this and putting stamped packages in the mailbox with the postage on the chart under the category “large envelope”. But this weekend I needed an excuse to go to the mall (more on that later) and I visited the post office where the price of postage was about 50 cents more than I thought it would be. I asked her why and out came a 30 page catalog and I learned I have been sending things with the large envelope flat rate and not the large envelope package rate. I say “Well I guess I have gotten lucky so far because none of them have come back to me!” she says “right! they were probably delivered postage due!” Holy Crap! Am I the biggest jerk? Postage Due!!! Yup- I am not a genius. So, if anyone out there got a postage due package from me- I AM SOOOO SORRY! and I am the rudest etsy shop owner ever!

Oh- and the trip to the mall. Which I will firstly say is not a place I usually ever go. This mall I have been to maybe 4 times in the 6 years of living in this town, and at least 2 of those is because they have a post office that is open on Saturday afternoon. Anyway, the mall. I have this lovely desk job that I rather enjoy. I have been sewing a lot lately and both of these are rather sedentary and have led me to not fit into the pants in my closet. I toyed with the idea that maybe I could let out some of the seams but it appears that I have jumped 2 sizes in the last year and- so- it is off to the mall I went. I spent $50 in a store and had my eye on Ann Taylor when firemen came from all corners. EVACUATE! they were yelling. no sirens, no alarms just a lot of fully uniformed fireman yelling. So I was saved from Ann Taylor (which I could not afford anyway) and made my way outside where every 16 year old volunteer firefighter was standing, grinning ear to ear that they had such excitement in their life. about a dozen fire trucks and ambulances were all milling around slowly and still no smoke or no explanation. 2 days later in the news it was all explained away as a “sewer gas leak” and the newsman gleefully said there were ” no injuries”. So, big excitement for small town me, all because I wanted to mail a package.