Can we just skip January?

Ah, January. In addition to the snow (see previous entries’ photos; not much has changed), a normal January crams in
book distributors’ catalog deadlines, freelance work to make up income for time taken off in December, sales tax filing dates, use tax filing dates, 1099 preparation and sending-out, and more (it used to also involve filing financial aid applications, which required doing a whole tax return in not much more than an instant, but that’s over . . . it should be easier now, right?).

I’ve also met with the illustrator about the fall Nomad title, shoveled snow, taken the cat to the vet frequently (she’s nineteen and doing fine today, but requiring more attention than usual), shoveled snow, e-mailed back and forth with the cover designer (yes, an extension over the weekend would work), (snow), completely reorganized a book that will be released this fall by Free Spirit Publishing, (snow), and started writing the introductions to the subsections for that book, which need to happen because of the reorganization.

I forget what else.

I’m transitioning from one type of software for financial management of the publishing company to another. I’ve been engaged with this for all of 2006, so I’ve been entering everything in both programs all year. I think I’m almost done, although the numbers in the new program still show some
anomalies, so I can’t just cut loose yet and go with it.

As soon as I get that straightened out, I am going to start working with a different piece of software for managing the publishing-specific aspects of the business, including inventory, invoicing, and royalty calculations (yes, it’s also time to calculate and pay six-month royalty statements, and I need to call one account that has two overdue invoices and remind them to pay . . . these folks always do pay, but they often need to be reminded). I’ll need to run both programs side-by-side until I’m convinced that the new one is giving me good, accurate data—the plan is that it will give me even better data than the existing program, of course.

A good thing: yesterday I requested quotes from the printer for the fourth print run of Arctic Lace. Author Donna Druchunas’ signing at The National Needlework Association’s January trade show went really well, and our distributors were already low-stock on the title.

Nonetheless, I have been thinking it would be kind of nice to skip January, as long as I could arrive on the threshhold of February with all the deadlines met and official forms filed and catch-up work done.

Ahhhhh.

Okay. That was a nice idea.

Back to work.

At least there’s no fresh snow this morning that needs to be shoveled.

P.S. I have been making progress on the Norsk Strikkedesign-inspired sweater. I’m into the upper body, which has black patterning on a relatively dark blue background. For a number of rows, I wondered if there was enough contrast for the pattern to show up at all. I know better than to make judgments about these things until I’ve got several
inches worked, and indeed the pattern’s starting to become evident.

I haven’t decided yet what kind of front opening and neckline the sweater will have. I’ll need to make up my mind in a few inches, when I will need to start the V-neckline shaping if that’s what I decide on. I’m knitting a row or two or three a day, so I may have as much as a week before I reach that point. Deadlines permitting, I do have a number of planning and progress photos of the sweater project to get posted here.