Friday, November 13, 2009

It's been a busy week

Let's see. Monday night I went to the auction with my sister and our friend Pam. It was alot of fun, I ended up getting a couple of orange retro looking chairs for the shop for only $20.00, a little tikes desk for Hayden and a Sony digital camera and tripod for $35.00. They failed to mention that the camera was the kind that take the little CD's, I don't even know if they make them anymore.

Tuesday, my buddy Michelle and I went to the Oklahoma Tax Commission's workshop on business taxes. Thank God, I went. I didn't realize that once you had your company name and had formed an LLC that you had to trademark your name and logo. The guy teaching the workshop said that people will go online and search company names and if they haven't been trademarked, they will steal your name and then call you and say that they have the name trademarked and you can buy it from them for $10,000. I freaked and ran home as fast as I could to work on my logo and get it finalized. I've filed the name Unwind, A Yarn Shop LLC and the trademark is now mine. Whoo, that was stressful. I could only image someone calling me and wanting a butt load of money to buy back my company name.

I got the carpets cleaned on Wednesday and you would never believe a motorcycle shop had been in there before. All the stain came out and it looks pretty good for old carpet.

Yesterday, I met with the guy who represents Crystal Palace, Classic Elite, Nashua, Jitterbug and a couple more that I can't even remember right now. It was a very stressful day. Have I mentioned that I don't like salesman very much, so pushy. Telling me that I need to have this or that and if I don't I shouldn't even go into business. I'm trying to do this on a shoestring budget, but still make it really nice. I want a good variety of stuff, but I can't afford to pay a $1500 opening order to all the different companies. So, I doing it the sneaky way. I've got a good friend who owns a yarn shop and she is letting me buy the yarn through her for right now. Hopefully, the shop will be a success and I'll slowly be able to get my own account with these companies.

Today, I cleaned up the dining room furniture that I'm taking to the shop. My Lantern Moon needles came in today. I've got them hung on the peg board and they look so pretty. The credit card machine also arrived today. I've been playing with the cash register so I don't look like a fool when I'm trying to ring up someone's purchase. My sister came by and brought some baskets and a vase with some of her old needles in it, I also have a big vase with needles, so I should have plenty for people to use or practice with. My daughter brought Hayden up for a little while and he liked his new desk. Then my niece showed up with her son Asher. The kids played for awhile, pushing around the baskets and the little coke crate wagon. Then Pam came in with her daughter and two of her grandkids. I realized quickly that 600 sq feet can get full really fast.

Tomorrow's plan, well, I don't really have a plan right now for tomorrow. I need to set down and figure out what my hours of operation will be, work up a class schedule, and do some paperwork. Sunday, we are borrowing my son-in-law's father's truck to move the furniture in. I can't wait to see what it looks like with stuff in there. I hope the yarn starts arriving soon.

Only 18 more days till I open.

2 comments:

Lupie said...

All sounds like it is going great. Hope to see lots of pictures.

lunaticraft said...

They do that with name URLs too. A few of my musican friends have run into that problem. People will go and scout out young talent, and then buy www.theirname.com, .org, and .net for cheap while they're still young and unknown, and then once the talent goes to set up a website, they'll charge through the roof.

People are really mean sometimes.

Anyway, sounds like the shop is going to be amazing! Can't wait to see pictures of it.