Busy busy

So, it's been busy.  Got some new chins in, and been cleaning up and working on oodles of things.  Have 9-ish houses that I've been working on.  Well, I guess more than that, since I built a porthole house for one person, and that should ship soon, and then I build a cottage house as a donation for nationals, and then I think I had 9 or 10 on top of those.  So over the past few days, those were getting cut, holes getting cut, and I sanded the first one yesterday.  Trying to do them sort of in waves.

Built shelves for a customer's order, and they came and picked them up.

Working on another customer's order who wants scatter guards... have most of that sanded (cause she wanted shelves as well), and realized I don't know how she wants the bolts on one of the shelves.  She did say she wanted it like the last time, but to be perfectly honest, I think I remember how last time was, but I make a lot of shelves.  So, going to have to ask about that, and then still need to figure out prices for the scatter guards. 

Then I got this massive order from someone who wanted to know how quickly I could get it done.  My stupid ass said I could start on it Saturday, which I did, very little of, since I'm still working 3 orders ahead of that one.  Had a question on the order, and emailed the guy, and he wanted to know "will it be done tomorrow????"  People.  I am ONE PERSON.  I am SICK.   I have ORDERS IN FRONT OF YOURS.  I do not drop everything for someone who is buying an order that comes out to some dollars and change and then rounds it up to the next dollar and says "with a 50 cent donation for the rescue."  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the donation.  It's 50 cents I didn't have.  But your 50 cents is not enough to make me push all the others in front of yours aside to do yours.  Sorry.  It's just not.

I have a doctor's appointment today and places to go.  When I get home, I will work on that order.  And on the orders ahead of it.  And there's a few behind it as well.  None of them are "special" unless someone wants to throw a $20 donation with it, and then I'll put it to the front of the pile.  Sorry, but just being honest, the bigger orders are actually a bigger pain, due to the fact I never have a box to fit those 12 hidey houses or 6 - 40" shelves, and have to tape together boxes or mail it in multiple packages or whatever.  I'd rather have orders of herbs anyday.  So I'm sorry, but just because you're spending a large amount of money, your order is not getting done any quicker.  In fact, if I have an order for herbs, I may do it first, cause I can throw it in a box and be done, versus wood orders that have to be cut and sanded and glued.  If I can take an order off my list and get one less person to ask "did you ship it yet?" by all means, I will.  But that happens with small orders.  The big ones get worked on, don't get me wrong, but they just take way longer.  That's just the nature of hand-made products.  In case you weren't aware, it takes a lot longer to build a house than it does to scoop 1 ounce of herbs into a little baggie and label it. 

But orders is on my list today.

I also have one chin here, Penelope, who is a little beaver.  So, I had to clean his cage again yesterday.  So he has a new liner, as well as the male young chins, which also do, because I had the one chin with loose poos in there.  So everything in that cage got sanded down, new clean bowls, etc etc, and the sick chin got moved into a small cage.  Got medication to give him, but need to start on that.

Got all the male chins together in the young male chin cage, and got weights on all of them.  Cleaned out the bottom of the guinea pig / rabbit FN and put a liner in it, and the female young chins are now in there, and weighed. 

I have girl scouts coming sometime in April, and I need to have a lot of those cardboard rings for goodie bags cut up, so I put on the respirator, face mask, ear plugs, smock, all that, and cut up two bags of cardboard tubes.  Hate those things.  They create this fine dust that gets in everything.  Despite the ear plugs I was q-tipping that dust out of my ears for the rest of the night.  Need to cut up some loofah, same style (and boy are loofah shavings / dust sharp!, do not look forward to that), but one thing at a time. 

Have an order for a ton of anything goes toys, so I've been working on that.  Cut up 1.5 stracks bags of scrap wood to make pieces for those toys, and have almost the entire order completed.  Still need to cut up more (I think I have two bags left, and then Jim gave me all his scrap wood, so I have a HUGE tradition bag full of scrap wood) and get on sanding those.  Working on that. 

Made that house for nationals, also made two toys to be a donation for nationals, out of spare colored pieces I had from last spring.  They look nice.

Someone wanted to come adopt a chin, and sent the adoption form and all, and sent a pic of their cage, with tons of chin-non-safe items.  So I told em, get rid of the wheel, tree trunk, etc etc, and they said, well it all said chin safe.  I'm sure it did.  That's the frustrating thing, the pet stores don't care.  Guinea pigs shouldn't have dairy.  How many dairy themed treats do you see for them?  A lot.  Chins shouldn't have sugar.  Same thing.  So she said she's going to return those and get back to me.

Had another person from Lake Central High School email about volunteering.  We're going on like 3 years now that I've been on their list as a place to volunteer, and I have yet to have one person here from there.  I don't know if they think they're just going to cuddle chinchillas all day, and when they talk to me and I tell them, not likely, they're more likely going to feed, or fill toys, or make toys, or clean cages, or.... then they magically forget they ever talked to me.  It would be super nice if they actually would show up, because I do get a reasonable amount of calls, but petting the chins is, unfortunately, not what I need help with.

I did have that volunteer last week, and he was supposed to come on the weekend, but was sick.  He apologized, but I told him, already worlds ahead of everyone else that says they'll come and never comes, he already came once.  Well, he said he felt bad and he sent a paypal donation of $35!!  How awesome!! 

Have someone (didn't realize it was the same person) who just ordered 10 pounds of mazuri to be shipped to them, and was emailing me about adopting.  It was kind of funny, cause I had told them, when I get in the new chins, I'll let them know what I have.  But I forgot I did that, so when they emailed back and said they wanted two specific chins, my first thought was "how the heck do they even know I have those??"  and then I remembered.  I have to check the weights on those chins today, but assuming they check out fine (fingers crossed) then I will be emailing the person back and going from there.  Well, I'll be emailing them back regardless, but if they're fine, they can go home.

Out of all the chins I've brought home, the two are still on medical watch.  The beige baby is the one with loose poos, and Jim gave me something to give to him, suppose I should start that.  And then the brown velvet is losing weight.  Eating, but losing weight.  The rest are doing good. 

And I keep getting these emails saying, "oh I really like this chin, what is the lowest you'll go?"  or "what is your bottom dollar," or that sort of thing.  Anymore, I don't even respond to them.  Don't get me wrong, if the email is actually descriptive and says, oh nice family, yadda yadda, wants a new pet, yadda yadda, loves chinchillas, that may be different.  But most of these emails are one liners only caring about the money, and they're inquiring about the money on chins that are either so low that I won't lower it more (if you can't afford $75, you just can't afford a chin, period), OR they want the price lowered so significantly that I just want to laugh and post it on here ("so I know the chin's $250 and I know that's probably a good price for that color, but I only have $25 to spend...").  Uh-huh.

Oh and then I just turned in the paperwork for the Lake County Pet Expo, so I need to go find items to make a basket for that, and then I thought about making a little basket for nationals, so we'll see.  That will be today or tomorrow, but I need to get back to the expo super soon cause they want to at least know the basket theme.  Should probably get on that.....

Anyway, gotta leave in a bit to go to the doctor's and run an errand or two, but this list of things will continue!  If anyone would like to volunteer and help with all of this stuff, there is plenty to do right now.  I would love to get this one lady who borrowed me two cages, her cages back.  The one is clean, and covered (so it stays that way), but the other needs scooped, soaked, and scrubbed.  My random table in the rescue needs emptied.  The rescue needs organized.  The cuddlebuddies need listed.  I need to do a hammock inventory.  I'm doing it all, but hey, if anyone wants to help will definitely not say no!