If you’ve ever been the sole proprietor of a business, you understand how often you find yourself preoccupied and planning.

Not Overly Organized – But Effective While Preoccupied And Planning

As a retiree, my life shouldn’t really be this busy. At least, I would have thought not. But there’s a lot going on in the QueerJoe world at the moment:

• Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat in May
• NorthEast Men’s Fall Knitting Retreat in September
• Craft Show inventory for shows in November and December
• Blog platform updates
• Planning new Knitting With QueerJoe episode
• Tax preparations

The Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat (MSKR)

MSKR is taking up most of my time. We’re planning workshops right now. I’m also looking at ordering project bags and give-aways. The workshop portion of MSKR is always the most complicated. Finding out what workshops guys want. Asking volunteers to lead workshops. Setting up an agenda. Creating a web page describing the workshop offerings. Creating a separate web form/web page to let guys sign up for preferred workshops. Assigning guys to workshops. Creating personal agendas for each attendee. Creating class rosters for the workshop leaders.

With all the moving pieces, it always looks a bit chaotic. But over the 15 years, it’s become somewhat routinized and definitely manageable.

There is also getting all the materials ready for the attendees. Project bags, notebooks, pens, give-aways, etc.

NorthEast Men’s Fall Knitting Retreat (NEMFKR)

In May, we’ll open registration for NEMFKR (affectionally pronounced “any motherfucker”). Contracting with our retreat venue and setting up web page registrations and tracking tools for the next retreat keeps me a little busy.

Craft Show Inventory

Just trying to get a jumpstart on restocking inventory. Fingerless Mitt and Snug Cowl Gaiters are keeping me busy.

Blog Platform Updates

Believe it or not, I’m still updating photos that point to my old blog platform. I still have almost 300 blog entries to update. Which is down from about 1,200. I really need to purge unnecessary photos that are taking up too much space on my web server, or it could get costly.

Knitting With QueerJoe Episode

It’s been too long since the last one. I’m hopeful to come up with something enjoyable to view on my vlog channel (Knitting with QueerJoe) soon.

Tax Preparations

In addition to doing simple tax prep for Thaddeus and I, there are a few other tax duties I have associated with the Men’s Knitting Retreats and my craft show sales.

Current Knitting

Started another pair of Rose’s Fingerless Mitts using a different yarn.

I’ll be discussing this yarn in the upcoming episode of Knitting With QueerJoe. Stay tuned.

I also started a new Snug Cowl/Gaiter.

This one is closer in colors to the original inspiration for the design (the Newsprint Cowl). I will also be discussing more about this yarn and design shortly (I hope).