Sunday

      Last year, casual dolls, especially hoodie dolls, became really popular. So many real people wear a hoodie and jeans or breeches when they go to the barn. I made a lot of dolls in hoodies. For my black Friday sale I think I will only have 4 this time around, but I still think they are a lot of fun. I also think the messy buns I have been putting on a lot of the dolls is fun. That really seems to be the most common easy "style" that we have. Even more common than the ponytail these days. 

     My black Friday sale will be on November 26th at 3:00 pm ET. That is the day after (American) Thanksgiving and traditionally the first official day to start your Christmas shopping. In my experience it is also the day that stores become absolutely insanely crowded until December 24th. It's a good thing I like online shopping and craft fairs. 

     This past week was pretty decent. I was fairly energetic, my brain was kind to me, and I got a lot of things done. Friday I had an interaction with an incredibly difficult student that was actually quite positive. They like to sort of pick fights in a way. They will (rudely) say they heard a thing you said, when they are clearly not listening, and they will insist things are different than they are and escalate into screaming if you don't treat them with kid gloves (and sometimes even if you do). I am sick of how they treat the teachers (and to an extent the other students, but it actually seems worse with the teachers). I ignored most of the irritating and baiting remarks but also insisted that this person was in fact wrong about the things they were trying to insist on. But then immediately went back to ignoring and doing what we were doing as a class. I had an ex who used to do something similar. He (the ex) seemed to love fighting, especially in public, and would find little ways to start a fight. I have learned that people like that want the fight. And I won't engage. I can out stubborn just about anyone, but I have no desire to get in a battle of wills with a student. If you want to try to sidetrack the activity to focus all the attention on yourself you're out of luck. If you want to try to pick a fight with me (to focus all the attention on yourself) you're out of luck. And weirdly, it almost always works. This time the student actually participated, partially in the activity, no swearing, no yelling, mostly listened when redirected. It was kind of nice.

      There are now only 2 weeks until my Black Friday sale and I am starting to get a little bit nervous about things. I still have a lot to do to get ready. I have photos of everything I have made, but likely I should make sure I have nicer photos of some of the things. That takes time. Doing the blog catalog takes time. Scheduling all of the photos on Facebook takes time. And I seem to be running out of time.