Who knew?

Tonight is the Ignite Fort Collins event and I'm looking forward to my duties as a go-fer and to hearing the talks. My contact person among the organizers sent me an email a couple of days ago asking if I could pick up a roll of ticket that they could hand out to people to get their free beer as part of the ticket price they paid for the event. I said 'sure thing'.

Of course, I thought I knew where the party store was, and it's not there, it's another 10 minutes south and east. A few years ago, a big shopping development went up in a spot I consider the very edge of town, and although there is a Super Target there singing its siren song ("Come shop here - toiletries AND groceries, come on! It'll save you money and be worth the extra time...") I don't get there much. The party store was in that shopping center.

Have you been to a party store lately? Who knew there was such a thing? Not me. I felt like an alien or something, seeing all these shiny colorful things in one spot at the same time. I need absolutely nothing in the store, and I guess that's why I don't frequent it; it's an entire store of little luxuries. Still, I saw their Angry Birds birthday invitations, the printable banners, and the pinatas (pinatas are big out here for birthdays) and thought, "Well, at least if I ever need this kind of stuff, there's a store where I can get it."

I did cave and buy Mr W an Angry Birds little plush guy for his backpack.

There's a haze in town this morning because of the wildfire. It was weird that it seemed early yesterday that it was about out, because I couldn't see or smell any smoke. Apparently the wind shifted (and the firefighters knew this was coming, which I thought was pretty cool), and the fire took off in another direction. Now we've got slightly hazy conditions in town and it smells like a campfire. I am blown away at how much smoke, how much burned organic stuff, can be foisted into the atmosphere from one of these things.

In other news, this morning I got an email through Etsy asking if I had a catalog for my polymer clay buttons, as she needed "several hundred" for a project. Yowza. I haven't gotten back to her yet, but will exchange a few emails and see if I can get her what she wants and have it worth my while. If we agree that I'd make her, say, 200 buttons, does anyone have advice as to how much to discount what I charge and how to avoid getting stiffed? It's fun to think about, anyway.