We're way ahead of last year. In fact, if we just match last year the rest of the way, we'll still have our best year ever.  What's fun is that much of the increase in sales is in product we've already bought, so I don't have to replace it right away.

It's very, very busy. I went in today to put away books and gave up after a couple of hours. I've been planning to go in more often for shorter periods of time to keep down the wear and tear, but there were just too many people clogging the aisles to get anything done. I finally gave up.

It felt very stressful. That stress is self-induced, but knowing that doesn't make it any less. I mean, conceivably, I could take a deep breath and slough off the stress, but I've never been able to adapt my behavior that way.  

The answer is to change the situation. When I nearly quit over my constant conflicts with collectors over the "value" of their collections, my answer was to simply stop buying older stuff. I'm a retailer, pure and simple. 

In most stressful situations, for me it is usually easier to change the situation rather than to try to adapt to it.

So for the rest of the summer I'm going into work before the store opens and putting away product then. It is really a simple solution and the only reason I didn't reach for it before was because I've always thought of myself as a late starter in the mornings. Indeed, I open at 11:00, not 10:00 because when I was working every day it gave me an extra hour to drink my coffee and read my news. In fact, that's a great example of changing the situation rather than my response to the situation. 

Anyway, as I've gotten older, I've been getting up earlier and earlier, and I often find myself ready to go at 8:30 or 9:00. It's been only habit that has me going in later in the day. That plus waiting for the shipments to arrive.

That's the tradeoff. I've got to let the shipments arrive, but come in the next day early to put them away. I may miss  a few timely sales because of that, but so be it. 

Business is running smoothly enough to get away with it.