Random April Ramblings

I’m curious to know how all of you are doing with self quarantine. I know that numerous US States have closed schools and non essential businesses. I’ve been pretty much hiding in my house since Governor Newsom first announced California’s lock down. When the first case of COVID-19 was announced in Del Norte County, I started to let hubby do all the errands alone. He also handles the retail store’s local deliveries. Originally we planned to do deliveries on Friday and Saturday but I think we may cut back to just Fridays. Would this negatively impact anyone?

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The Ragdolls, Abbey and Arthas are bored to tears. Aidan’s cat, Kit, is majorly pissed off that they’re home all the time and I’ve been calling her Miss Grumpy Pants. It also appears to be shedding season. There is fluffy white hair covering everything! Speaking of shedding, Miss Baya is also shedding. She has out shed every horse at the barn 10 – fold and manages to do this every year. Yes, I really did need a hairy Andalusian! If I don’t pick up the hair I brushed off her almost instantly, it all ends up on the barn owner’s front porch, ack! We went on a few trail rides at the beginning of March but now the trails are closed and I really shouldn’t be out of the house so no more rides for a while.

Del Norte Unified School district has done a great job moving courses online. My only complaint is Charter, the internet provider. I think everyone is stuck at home and cruising the internet and boy does it ever crawl. Shipping time has slowed down a lot on both the packages that ship from here and the ones that we receive. I’m thankful to live in a small town where a lot of what we need is still available but toilet paper and paper towels are fairly scarce and for the life of me I can’t find any baking yeast. I even dusted off the old bread maker! And bacon, I’d really like some good bacon ,lol.

Breyer wise, the Seattle Soiree event was cancelled. Personally, at this point, I can’t imagine that BreyerFest would still be a go in July. I think that this will depend a lot on the state of Kentucky to decide but even if it does still take place, we’re not likely to attend. I can’t imagine standing in the Special Run line crammed in with hundreds of people or doing room sales at the Clarion with waves of people coming in. Breyer offered a refund to Seattle Soiree attendees or the ability to receive the 2 guaranteed Special Runs and to be entered in lotteries for a chance at purchasing the extra special models. I think that Breyer handled this well and that it would pave the way for a virtual BreyerFest although the task would be much more involved!

eBay Store

I’ve been listing a lot more Retired and Special Run Breyers to our eBay Store. USPS won’t currently ship Internationally to a number of countries ie. Spain and Italy due to COVID-19. I’m trying to figure out how best to handle this. Oddly, a lot of interested buyers from Italy have been expressing interest in purchasing Breyers! eBay also rolled out a new International shipping option that involves shipping to eBay first and then on to the buyer (this is not the eBay Global Shipping program, we do not use that due to increased cost.) The service offers door to door tracking and insurance. We’re eager to see how long the handful of packages that we have shipped this way take to arrive at their destinations. eBay is also requiring sellers to use Managed Payments starting in July. This will eventually phase out Paypal completely which is both good and bad.

Easter wise, I really wanted to offer some fun premade baskets but ran out of time. We have a lot of fun basket and egg fillers that can be ordered online and deliver for free on 4/10. We have cooler things to fill eggs with than candy!

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I could ramble on all night but that’s it for now. Once again, thank you every one for your support, stay safe and please don’t hesitate to ask if we can help in any way!