Ripping off the wrappings and opening the box...

I'll be processing material for the next ten days, which will be fun.

I can take a kind of pleasure in virtuous austerity for weeks at a time, but let's face it -- buying stuff is more fun.

I hate to say it, but one of the pleasures of owning a store is being able to peruse the catalogs and select material and buy it and wait for it to show up. The anticipation of opening boxes of merchandise isn't all that different than Christmas morning for kids.

What you get is never exactly what you expected. You may be disappointed, or delightfully surprised. You may get a sinking feeling of -- "Oh, oh....I'll never sell that..." or you may get the satisfaction of -- "Wow. That's really cool. I need to get more...."

Maybe that's why people become shopkeepers. They get to keep that feeling all year long.

Of course, it's a terrible temptation, and I've seen many a shopkeeper over ordering to a ridiculous extent.

I try to keep my ordering to a slightly sinful level -- but never a completely crushing level.