NEON to CathyO and Janet (Sept)

There will be a long off topic story at the end.

I did Janet's first and did not plan ahead so the AUD at the end had to switch to a different size marker. I ended up doing a second one for Janet that will appear later - that I am happy to report turned out very well.

Cathy's is another one of my old standbys. The letter C is one that usually intimidates me. I'd like to think I could get over it - but somehow I tend to choke on C's and L's.

There will be some better neon ideas showing up down the line. My method for filling the dates with blog posts was so simple - and yet, I managed to botch it up on multiple levels. C'est la vie.

Long off topic story.

I do all the birthday invitation addressing for a friend of my daughter's who has 3 kids. This year, she sent the invitations for one of them and the theme of the party was glow in the dark - which is similar to neon. I knew the neon *celebrate* stamps would be perfect and pondered black envelopes. I went on a scouting mission for neon paint pens and was shocked to find very few. Sadly - our only art supply store closed and I am stuck with only Michael's and Hobby Lobby for art supplies.

I bought a set of neon gel pens, figuring they would be fun to have even if I did not use them on this job. Then I stupidly pulled out my stack of neon paper that is available eVeRyWhEre - (Astrobright) - and did some samples - folding the paper into envelopes...thinking that we could buy the envelopes. She loved the neon envelopes and then when I went to buy them all I could find were cartons of 1,000. Or you could buy a box of 250 for the same price as a carton. And it was not a mixed box - it would be all one color. I was looking online - which technically has everything there is to be had.

Rats. I figured we would have to go back to black envelopes and address with the neon pens. Then at the same time, I had another gold ink wedding envelope job show up. I spaced off ordering the gold gel pens I prefer and recalled that I had purchased them in Jan - off the rack at my local Office Max/Depot. When I arrived - nope. They did not have them and I will refrain from relating the highly annoying part where a clerk tried to tell me that they had not carried them in two years (when I just told him that I had purchased some at that very store in January of 2019)
He was trying to be helpful and told me to *try Walmart.*

I have a huge thing against Walmart that I will not get into and I only set foot in that store when it is a legitimate emergency. And - no they did not have gold gel pens and no - they did not have any good neon options, now that I was back to black envelopes on the other job. Turning to trudge out, feeling queasy - as there are a finite number of options for pens and markers in DSM. Here is where we need that glorious heavenly musical fanfare in the background. A full symphony. Angels sprinkling me with magical dust. Neon envelopes on a low shelf that I just happened to glance at out of the corner of my eye.

Oh.My.Gosh.
More music. More angels. Clouds. Donuts. World peace.
And they were A6 -- I left out the part about how I had been planning on A7 neon invitations, but A6 showed up and A6 envelopes are a lot harder to find unless you are ordering from a huge company.

And - this never happens. $5 for a box of 50. OK, they were not the best paper in the world, but they were fine for a 7 year old's birthday.

So - there I was - crazy happy in the middle of Walmart.
Jean-who-does-not-hug would have hugged someone except she is able to catch herself right before going off the deep end.
And after that I cruised on over to Michael's and found the gold pens I needed.
So, it all worked out.
Sometimes things do work out.

Note to anyone who thinks they want to address envelopes for a living:
By the time you find the supplies you need, you have reduced your dollars per hour by at least half of what you thought you were going to make. And then when you calculate the stress you went through, not knowing if you would find what you need,  you are actually in the negative zone.

Onward.