I’ve officially moved to my own webspace: www.KellyNaturally.com

I’ve also changed my Twitter name from

I will still be blogging here occasionally at SeriousShops (I do work here, afterall!), but future posts here will be mostly focused on the biz side of things. 

If you’re following my parenting, natural living, or gardening posts here on the SeriousShops.com Blogs, I encourage you to come on over to KellyNaturally.com!

If you've been receiving my posts through a reader, the RSS feed for my new blog is: http://www.kellynaturally.com/syndication.axd

Thanks again for following & hope to see you at KellyNaturally.com!

Adam, Dan, and I headed up the NJ Turnpike for an exciting trip to New York City to visit the New York Toy Fair being held in the Javits Center in Manhattan. This was Serious Shops' third year (and best yet!) visiting NYTF.

NYTF is a fantastic place to meet up with some of our current vendors, find new products and toymakers, and even catch an early glimpse of the next big thing in the toy world. Of course bringing home toy samples for the kids (and ourselves, of course) is a major plus!

The highlight this year had to be getting my photo taken with Robert Pattinson - you know, Edward Cullen from Twilight? 

Okay, it was just a cardboard cutout, but cool, nonetheless, right?!

We visited the amazing Lego display:

Best item of the show had to be the prototype of the soon-to-be released Rubik’s Slide puzzle on which we’ve spent the last few days mastering the easy level. 

I’m sure it will be a big hit this holiday season! Great brain teaser!

We collected catalogs, tested out puzzles, watched a skateboard demo, shook plenty of hands, walked what felt like miles of aisles, ate super-expensive mediocre food, saw some really unique toys, puzzles, & games, and overall had a really fun, productive time!

Next up: choosing which products to add to our line-up this year.  Stay tuned for new additions like Heye and EuroGraphics jigsaw puzzles!  I’m already looking forward to next year.  

We’re in the midst of our busiest season & so excited to be here!

Our extended hours are en force, holiday decorations are up, and everyone is in good spirits. The warehouse crew is super busy packing & shipping… just a few short weeks left until Christmas! 

We took some photos on Monday of this week - enjoy!

SeriousShops.com front office:

Monday's outgoing packages:

Monday's afternoon warehouse crew (nice job guys!):



SeriousShops.com holiday season outgoing packages in 2003!
(Why yes, that was our garage, and yes, we have grown!):

When the Plasma Car arrived here at Serious Shops, we felt the need to actively test it out before offering it for sale.

This was of course, solely to be certain our customers would be happy with their purchase.  Okay, who am I kidding? We couldn’t resist racing a futuristic looking muscle-powered scootmobile around the warehouse!  We don’t think you’ll be able to resist either… one ride on the Plasma Car, and you’ll be hooked!

We all gave it a good number of tries out in the warehouse – from the smallest weighing in around 40 lbs to the biggest weighing in around 180 lbs. Adam currently holds the record for fastest trip around the warehouse at 26.2 seconds!

The best part of the Plasma Car is the adaptability to different riders.  Little to big can ride; no matter how short (or long!) your legs are – with no adjustment required.  The Plasma Car holds up to 200 lbs; so Mom, Dad, and kids can enjoy – you just need to be able to turn the wheel! The ride is smooth and super-easy to control – just lean to turn & put your feet down to stop!  Exercise has never been this fun!

It’s cooler than a big wheel, safer than a scooter, and more fun than both combined! We’re sure you’ll love it as much as we do!

Welcome to October at Serious Shops!  I’ve finished decorating around the office to welcome Autumn:

We’re all so excited to be moving into the 4^th quarter - you can really feel it around here. The weather is cool, the air is crisp, and everyone is busy!

My friend tells me she’s just made the switch from iced lattes to hot. Now, while I still drink mine iced every morning, the sentiment is understood: Fall is finally here & it’s Fantastic!

Aside from my decorating, here are a few more exciting seasonal things at Serious Shops:

Fall Garden Flags

Pumpkin Spiced & Maple Vanilla Lattes

Halloween Stuffed Animals

Today, we're making good on our new shoe subsidy program. We're paying warehouse workers up to $40 for any eligible shoes they've bought in the last 30 days and until 9/18/2009.

A lot of other industrial companies and safety minded firms are using similar programs to incentivize safety or to provide a nice perk to folks who are putting a lot of wear and tear on their shoes. Healthy feet are productive feet! We're not the first ones to try this program out, in fact, you could say we're following in the foot steps of other shoe subsidy programs (har har).

For a great place to pick up your shoes, try: http://www.zappos.com 

They sport free shipping, free returns, and excellent customer service. 

Not to mention they are run by one of my favorite business people - Tony Hseih

And, now for my obligatory goofy image that is sort of related to the post :)  
It's a picture of Shoe Money, of course!

Disentanglement puzzles, aka disentanglements, are the brain teaser puzzles that usually require the removal / extrication of a ring or long oval piece (known as a shuttle). These puzzles will often employ chains or ropes for complexity and/or aestetics. These types of puzzles have a long, long history dating back at least hundreds of years.

In general, these puzzles, at first glance, will appear to be unsolvable without force. However, upon closer inspection there are "weaknesses" to be discovered in the design. There are design weaknesses of many kinds, but some of the more common can be described as "loose" joints, "suspicious" gaps, or "pull-overs". The more difficult disentanglement puzzles could require the exploitation of more than one of these weaknesses in concert to reach the solution. In fact, some of the more challenging disentanglement puzzles even use recursive procedures to arrive at the solution (like Patience Puzzle, a super classic, http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/patiencepuzzle.html)

ex. of the "Pull-Over" weakness
http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/conestogas.html

ex. of the "Loose" joint weakness
http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/iron.html

ex. of the "Suspicious" gap weakness
http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/ring.html

IMHO, the best disentanglement puzzles are the intersection of visual simplicity and obscurity of weakness. They may not be considered the most challenging puzzles. They look strong, sturdy, and simple. Their weakness is difficult to describe, uncommon, and hard to "see". Here are some of my favorites:

And of course, who can forget the Classic Horseshoe Puzzle...For sale at http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/luchorshoes.html

This puzzle still mesmerizes me. It uses a slip and twist motion only made possible by the links between the horseshoe. With the ring nearly in stand still while the horseshoes twist and slip between it, the horseshoes are suddenly side by side and the ring ready to slip off!

SPOILER Alert -- solution for Lucky Horseshoes here:
For a slow mo video, check this out.

Horse Shoe Puzzle Secret Explanation How To Solve It

 UPDATE!  Congratulations to our lucky winner April @MagicDandelions! Thank you everyone for your interest & please visit again in the future for more giveaways!

I thought I’d start off the weekend right by giving away a brand-new, right off the shelf copy of one of our kids’ favorite puzzles; the Geometric Shapes Maze By Melissa & Doug. You can check out the puzzle maze, right here on our SeriousPuzzles.com site:

A great educational wooden puzzle; it reinforces basic color & shape recognition (shape names are printed on the puzzle), as well as developing fine motor, patience, independent work, sequence, and matching skills.  Our daughter’s favorite way to use this is to challenge me to mix it up the “most” and see how fast she can “unmix” it. A great time, all around! 

Melissa & Doug puzzles are crafted by hand using non-toxic paints, and meet or exceed all U.S. toy testing standards.

Would you like a copy of this fantastic puzzle maze?

Here’s how to get one:

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TO ENTER:

Please visit SeriousPuzzles.com.  Leave a comment on this blog; tell me one thing you learned about us or which puzzle you really loved on our site!

EXTRA ENTRIES: (Don’t forget to leave a comment for every extra entry you complete!)

1.  Sign Up For the Serious Shops Newsletter  (please send us a separate email to info@seriousshops.com letting us know you signed up)

2.  Tell me a product from one of our Serious Shops that you would like to see as a giveaway in the future.

3.  Follow Serious Shops on Twitter

4.  Follow me on Twitter & Tweet this giveaway (you can do this once a day!)

Giveaway is open to US Residents only. Contest will end on August 31st at 12am EST. Winner will be chosen at random and will be announced here on http://www.seriousshops.com/blogs/ & emailed directly. Winner has 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.