It’s shopping season for sure, and this time last year I had 8 broom orders to fill in the two weeks before Christmas. As soothing as it may be to smell fresh cut wood and fall into the rythm of sanding, there’s really only so much sawdust and paint fumes a person can inhale at 2 AM and retain their sanity. Not that I had a lot of it to begin with.
I love making brooms. Absolutely love it. So you know things are a little out of whack when I wake up every morning in a cold sweat and immediately check my email praying another order hasn’t come in. The truth is, as much as I hate the “c” word — you know… can’t— there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do my Actual Real Job, everything that needs to be done for the house, and make my favorite pieces of functional art.
So the last Crookedbroom of the year shipped out today, and I think the word that best describes shutting the shop down for the year is, um, suck. But there is another word entirely that describes the fact that I’m heading to bed tonight before midnight:
Awesome.