And quick as that it’s Friday already.

And quick as that it’s Friday already. Last real post was on Monday night. Funny how fast time goes by.

Got my hair trimmed on Wednesday I think it was. It’s back to being shorter & cuter. I like it. Some of the bounce is back from my perm too. I think I’m ready to color it again. No idea exactly what color tho.

Thursday evening I went to a belly dance class. It is designed for weight loss. Slow & easy. Made for folks who are recovering from surgery, or are shy or just want to maybe lose some weight. OMG what fun. This was my second week going. I feel like such an uncoordinated person. I’m determined to learn tho. I love this. It feels fantastic when you’re doing it. Not to mention the thought of it turns my honey on!! A couple of us are going to try to get together outside the class to practice more. The class is only once a week, but hey for $2.50 a class… you can’t beat that. And it’s put on my one of the ladies who is very active in the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. She’s also the lady who does the Buddhist meditations. That’s something else I’m thinking of looking into down the road a little.

This morning Connie & I went to the local Costume Shop. What a fun place. It’s full of not only belly dance stuff, but actual costumes & ballet stuff too. Oh the money I could spend in there. Since we are students we get a 10% discount on our belly dance outfits. Hey, it covers the tax so that helps. Connie grabbed a hip scarf for herself but I could not decide on one I liked. So I’m going to go back in there wearing an outfit I would like the scarf to match. Figure that may help me decide. Once we buy one, we’ll check into just how hard it would be to make our own. That could be so much fun, especially with all those jingly coins!!

So Thursday morning we lost the reed fish. Not sure exactly why. Everything in the tank was perfect. Even took the water to be tested. It’s possible he just stressed out & didn’t make it. Major bummer. Everyone else seems fine for the time being.

.....Insert a 3+ hour break ……

Oh my, oh my. Gotta love it when the man comes home an hour early ….. and the house is empty …..

Afterwards we splurged & went out for Chinese. Now he’s sitting in front of his puter … & here I am. Again. I’ve now totally lost whatever else I had planned to write. Funny how sex will do that. Hopefully we have a fun & full weekend.

late babble & weekend updates

It’s almost 11 & the place is quiet. Tim & Connie are both in bed. I can hear the fish tank & the fan. That’s it. It’s kinda nice.

Our weekend was rather nice. No hurrying out the door early Saturday morning. We headed out mid morning to wander the main street downtown. I had seen that the businesses were having a sidewalk sale on Friday when I drove that way. We got home for lunch & relaxed a bit. We ended up doing a bit of running around in the afternoon. Home for dinner and just hanging out for the evening. Saturday night was … yeah. I hate having to be quiet or trying not to make the bed make noise. I know we don’t have to, but it’s just weird. Now, if she’s not home … that’s another story.

Sunday was quiet too. No major anything happening on the first weekend of no market. I didn’t mind either. Oh wait …. Sunday we got a new to us fish tank, complete with fish. My friend Cindy felt she could no longer care for her fish the way they should be so she was offering up the tank & fish on Freecycle. I saw it & we talked about it. That was Saturday evening. Next thing ya know, Sunday morning we’re picking up the fish tank. We got it home & boy did it need a huge cleaning. Now it sits in the dining area, all clean & pretty. Let me tell you what … those fun plastic resin statues & tank decorations that we think are so pretty … are outrageously priced. We shouldn’t have, but we splurged & got 2 that were not too badly priced. Well, not bad alone… but together were still $55. What would have been really cool would have cost $120 for the two pieces. She had a half a castle in there, which she said she would really like to have back. Ok, no prob. That’s why we went ahead & got new things. Add some more gravel, & a few live plants … next thing ya know, there goes a small fortune. But, the fish seem happy & the tank looks cool.

So we now have a reed fish which looks like a Japanese dragon or snake, depending on who you ask. He is the surviving male of a mating pair. His name is Haku. The female died recently of ammonia burn. Then there is the ghost knife fish. He’s cool looking, when you can see him. I’ll have to work on getting a pic of him. His name is Ghost. She’s had the tank & these fish for about 4 years now. Says she got the fish as little ones & has watched them grow. There is also a nice large pleco (like the one in our tank) & a little catfish. I'll work on cool pix of everyone.

Tuesday I need to do some around the house stuff. I think a load of laundry is in order. Need to change the sheets. Have some clothes to fold & put away too. Have lots of “stuff” that has been put in our bedroom that needs to be organized & put somewhere. Gotta water the outside plants, & the houseplants. I’m sure there are several other little things to get done too. Like my nails. I really should file & shape them since they are actually long enough to do that again. You know, before I do something that tears one, which then causes a few more to tear & then ya just gotta cut them all the same length again. So yes, time for nails would be good.

Ok, I’m losing focus. Must be time to unwind & get ready for bed. Seems I have set up a busy day & week for myself. So, it’s 1130 now. Guess I should be done.

Oh my I’m tired & sore

Connie & I not only went shopping this morning for some food & stuff, but we spent the rest of the day rearranging the dining & living areas. Tim now has his computer set up, & on a real desk. We have the table & chairs in the actual dining area, where my “office” was. Now the office area is shared with the man, & over where the table & chairs were. Then the rest of the living room had to be moved around a bit too. Whew! Although most of everything major is arranged, my …er I mean our, area is a mess. I’ll do the move in stuff tomorrow along with putting the little things (that I haven’t yet packed away) into place. Hopefully, even though this was a hard day’s work, we’ll be doing it all over again soon, in a house.

After all this, I have such an urge to pack up more stuff. I am so ready to just move. I don’t care if it’s into a rental house or if we buy a house. I’m just ready.

I think I’ll keep this one short & get ready to wind down & head to bed. After all, it’s now almost 1130 already.

Sunday Sunday ...

Ok, so I skipped the photo opp send off today. I just was too hot to go anywhere.

Saturday morning at the market was interesting to say the least. No, I didn’t make enough money to have it be worth it. But I did learn something interesting. I’ve mentioned how I feel like the black sheep, or red headed step child or what ever you wanna call it. Well, I learned part of why.

Terry (spouse of a vendor & also a board member) told me that what he had heard was that some of the vendors were coming to me complaining that Betty & Derl were providing most of the produce for the share program. (Betty being the lady in charge of it & her hubby Derl a grower) Umm… excuse me? Well, after these said vendors came to me, I then went around & spread the rumors further or something like that. WTF??? I haven’t talked to anyone about the share program. Vendors have never come to me. When it first began, I was thrilled at the turn out of subscribers, & wished her the best of luck with the program. Connie even offered to help her bag stuff if she needed it. I helped spread the word about the program to people I knew, & also had flyers in my space to help promote it. What’s funny is that Tim & I were friends with Betty & Derl before this.

Then there was the whole day that Julie (normal mkt. mgr who runs the mkt. & assigns spaces) was not there & Derl was “in charge”. Well, when several people were not showing up & we were faced with having huge space gaps, I helped to minimize the effect. Terry & I were also trying to help Derl keep up with getting vendors in their spaces. Terry had the list in his hand, which he handed to me. I saw some gaps & made a couple adjustments which hurt no one. Apparently, I “snatched” the list from Derl’s hands & just started moving people around so I could have a different space. OMG!!! I didn’t care what space I had. I was trying to prevent the very thing that again happened on Saturday. Huge gaps. It looks terrible when there are a bunch of vendors, then huge gaping gaps then more vendors. Between me & the next vendor … was 6 spaces. How big is a space? A parking spot size. I should have taken pix.

Well, a few weeks back I was “talked to” by Julie. I don’t recall if I wrote about that or not. She basically snapped at me in a very “not nice” tone. Told me how dare I move people around & that I needed to watch my attitude. WTF??? I’m sorry, but that day, she caught me so totally off guard I was speechless. She had Derl with her, sulking behind her while she told me off. Tim was right there when it happened & even he was like WTF?

So Terry was the one filling me in on things Saturday. He’s the one who felt strongly enough to let me know what was being said. And even he was hearing it second hand. He was telling me that he feels Julie keeps a list of “nice” & “not nice” and somehow I moved form one to the other. I have no idea what is going on. I have not talked bad about the market to anyone. I have gone around each week I’m there & talked to most of the crafters. Just to see how things are going & if I need to bring any concerns to the board.

Part of me has to wonder if they are trying to find a way to get rid of me. People in this valley are weird. Small minded. Not that Julie is from this Valley, but Betty & Derl are, & the 3 of them have become quite chummy. I have to wonder if it centers on my personal spiritual beliefs. I don’t flaunt pentacles or anything all over the place. But, I have been known to wear my favorite ring, & on occasion my necklace. Most of the time, the necklace would be under a shirt tho. This is the only thing I can think of that they would not approve of. Not that they have to approve. But, yeah ….

Maybe it’s a pick on the new member who wont see it coming. Maybe it’s because someone didn’t like the fact that we denied membership to a few crafters & now they want to find a way to get back at me like it was all my doing. I’m grasping at straws. I’ve tried to do a good job as secretary. One minute everyone was happy with all my efforts. Then the next, I am totally snubbed. When that feeling started, I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to do so I did & said nothing. I became quiet. I didn’t know what exactly was going on … & come to find out, I had no clue how much was being said about me behind my back.

More little things I’ve noticed since all this began … I’m supposed to put together a monthly newsletter for the vendors. I’m supposed to get input from a few people as to what needs to go in said newsletter. Remember me spending so much time on making it all new & revamped? Yup. Got tons of compliments on it too, including from Julie. Well, time comes to make the next one. I send out emails & ask for input. Nothing. I ask Julie to send me info for the newsletter, in person. Ok. Nothing. I was also asked to see about making a monthly newsletter for the public. More of just an info sheet that would tell what produce is in season this month, what entertainment & special events were happening in any of the markets, etc. I told everyone on the board that I would be happy to do this, all I needed was the info. I would put it all together. What did I get? Yup, nothing.

Whew. Ok, I feel a little better just sitting here typing all that out. Maybe now I can face the board better to get all this cleared up. Because yeah, this is stupid. I’ve been keeping track of my sales so far this season. For the time I put in, I would like to get minimum wage back out of it. Otherwise, it’s not really worth my effort. I don’t make minimum wage (for WA). Will I do the market next year? Probably not. Will I be a board member? I’d love to be one, if we can resolve this BS.

What else can I ramble on about? Well, that might take another couple pages. I’ll save that thought for another day. Today has been a super lazy afternoon here. Connie is at work. Tim is at Joe’s. Tim & Joe are working on getting Tim’s computer up & running & fully loaded. Connie walked to work this morning because it was already to warm to ride her bike. She’ll be calling here when she’s done for me to go get her. No biggie. It’s about time for her to buy another tank of gas anyways. Meanwhile, I’ve had the whole afternoon to myself. I kinda felt bad about not going out to the park but dang it was too hot.

This morning tho, after we ate breakfast & were figuring out what to do today, I made mention of the fellowship down the road we’ve been meaning to check out. I quickly got online & checked the calendar …. Today it was all about pets! Wanna go? Sure. When does it start? 10:30. What time is it now? 10:24. We got dressed, grabbed the dog, and the Sam necklace & were out the door. The Cascade Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is right down the road so it only took like less than 5 minutes to get there. The group was open & welcoming to us. Talk about nothing like a church service. It was really cool. Today’s thing was about blessing our pets & being open to learn from them & all that cool stuff. We did a little candle lighting thing for all the pets we’ve lost then she said a little blessing over each of the dogs who was there today. It was really neat. We chatted with a few people afterwards, & headed back home. My new friend Amy told us about this place. We were next to each other at the market one day & just got to chatting. It was fun to hear her be all excited about it. Kinda made us excited to go check it out. That was about a month ago. We finally went today. And on a whim at that. I think I’ll be checking this out a bit more.

Well, now it’s almost 530. That’s when Connie gets off work. I should get this posted & be ready when she calls. Of course there are cookies for everyone who read all my babble.

Friday evening & I’m sitting here enjoying a beer

My honey is on the laptop playing pool with Joe. He’ll have his new to him computer whenever we have the space ready. Joe is even giving him a desk. Tim is really blown away with all Joe is doing for him. So am I.

The car is packed for the market in the morning. I’m going lighter than normal. My heart may not be in the market anymore, but I’ll give it my all to sell what I do bring.

I took a few shots of the full moon tonite too. Joe had mentioned that he was reading up on shooting the moon last month. Said the first thing to do with a camera like mine is to turn off the auto focus. So I did. I still had to play with my settings, but hand held, they did come out better. I was impressed. I’ll have to try tomorrow nite with the longer lens & the tripod.

Now I’m sitting here taking a break form making a few more magnets for tomorrow. I have several of my “Celebrate Life … it has an expiration date” fireworks pictures. I made them wallet sized some time ago to use as keychain pictures. Well, that didn’t go so well; so I had pix left. Now I’m adding some matstock backing to them along with a magnet strip. Poof! A nifty fridge magnet.

Earlier Tim got the dryer control panel thing taken apart & put back together. The dryer works now!!! Woo Hoo … I get to do more laundry now. Yay? Yes… yay. I’m gonna play with the panel guts tho. Maybe take a few close up pix of it or something. Might be fun.

I found out that Sunday afternoon there is a big send off thing for some of our Guard troops. We were told by one of the photo group ladies, whose son is one of the ones leaving. She said it might be a cool photo opp for anyone who wanted to come. I think I might like to go. I know I’ll get all emotional, but too bad. It’s not like in Pensacola where we lived in a military town & cool things like this were happening all the time. Not that our troops leaving is a cool thing mind you … but you know what I mean.

Have I mentioned I am happy the dryer is fixed? I’m so thankful that replacing that part worked. If only everything were that easy to fix. I should go toss in a load & get it in the dryer before bed.

Ok, done.

I guess I should go back to making those magnets. I’m just relaxed …. Yeah .. we got some together time earlier tonite. I’d rather just go to sleep afterwards … but sometimes you gotta just go with it when it starts …

Here I am again.

Still feeling rather weird. But, as with everything, we deal.

So today my honey comes home saying he has news. Well, instinct makes ya blurt out “uh-oh” without thinking. I mean, consider the news we’ve had recently with his job. So he tells me his schedule is being changed, effective Friday. In my mind, I said oh shit. Then he tells me “now wait, it’s not that bad. It’s kinda good actually”. Ok. They are gonna try having him & another guy do a slightly later shift, but still working 9 hours. Hmm… ok, that doesn’t sound too bad. At least he still has some OT. So his new hours are from 8 to 545. He now gets to sleep in til 630. We can get up together! Nice. He can go to bed around 10. Again, nice. So all considering, not too bad.

Then earlier this evening I spent some time online trying to find out some ownership info on that house we’re looking at. There might be hope yet. I found out a little. Seems we should have most of the bargaining room we need. We’ll see how bad they want to sell. I told our realtor & she’ll do more research. She’ll get back to me by Monday. Cool. Meanwhile, there is still hope of renting the house my girlfriend has. No idea when the guy will finish his house & move out tho. But, it’s something to keep in the back of our minds.

EDIT: got email back from her with not too positive news, but, we’ll see.

Our friend Joe is building a computer for Tim. It’s something, which even given all his physical limitations, he can still reasonably do. It’s to repay him for all the help he has given them. We try to tell him it’s what friends do, but who are we to argue a free computer for him? So looks like we need to do some rearranging around here and find a small desk for him. So far he’s been using my laptop & been just fine. But now, he’ll have a desk top to use & be able to start playing his Flight Simulator game with Joe. I know he’ll have a great time with it. A little rearranging now, and some more when we move. No biggie right?

So anyways… I get to go pick up the dryer control panel part Friday morning. Hopefully it won’t take long for the hubby to install it. Then in the evening I get to load the car for market Saturday morning. I’ve been feeling really weird about that whole thing too. I think I may have to insert my foot in my mouth & clear the air somehow. I’m not always the best at figuring out how to approach things like this, so no telling how it’ll turn out. Worst thing? I leave the market. Not all that bad in my eyes anymore, but …. Yeah.

Ok, I started this at 1030. It’s now 1115. I think I’m done.

Just Monday ramblings

Why is it that when people don’t reply to your posts you feel lost? Or forgotten? I don’t know. Really. Most people I know who have an online journal, write for themselves. So who cares if anyone replies? Allot of people tho, blog for interaction with others. I think I’m somewhere in between. I enjoy the interaction with my online “friends” but I also write to get the thoughts out of my head. It allows me to keep track of the daily goings on in my life where I otherwise might forget them. Then why do I get the little feelings every now & then of … why do they get all kinds of comments & I get none? Am I an outcast with my online people too? I know, it’s dumb. Sometimes I envy the fact that it appears that several people seem to have a real connection with the people on their friends list. I used to feel that way about a few. These days, it seems I am all alone again. How sad is that?

I have been doing way too much thinking lately I guess. Way more than I could ever take the time to write out on here for the world to see. But anyways ….

So the weekend was alright. We ended up not doing the market Saturday morning. Photography & rainy weather are not a good match. We ended up down there saying hello to several of our people & they all commented on the bad weather in the morning. Glad we skipped it. Was nice to stop & visit with some of them tho.

The 3 of us went out & hit a few yard sales instead. What fun we had. I think we all found a few treasures for way cheap. Been a long time since we got to enjoy going, much less actually finding fun stuff for cheap.

With Tim now being online, we didn’t spend much alone together time Saturday. It’s okay tho, I know the newness & novelty of the computer will wear off for him in awhile. He now has a Facebook page tho. I’m wondering if MySpace is next. We’ll see. He does enjoy being able to chat with his friend Joe on there. Next thing you know, they’ll be playing the Flight Simulator game together. We just need to get him a better system put together from the parts around here to handle the gaming stuff better.

We got a little of our alone time on Sunday. Wasn’t the same, but nice. We totally ended up not doing much of anything all weekend other than the Saturday morning outings. In a way, it was nice.

On the house front, the news is not promising. Well, not in the way we’d hoped. We got all the info to the mortgage guy. He ran credit reports, numbers & figures. We can’t go VA like we’d hoped. We’d have to go FHA. To do that we’d need at least 3% down. There are 2 programs that offer assistance with that. We’d have to get the seller to agree to stuff to be able to use that. You know how the legal mumbo jumbo goes. Funny thing.. with our combined incomes, we can qualify for that house we’re looking at. The house payments would be .. are you ready? Oh, only about 1300. Yes, One thousand and three hundred dollars. A month. I don’t think so. Nice to think the bank thinks we can handle it tho. That in itself is actually cool. To get the payments down to where we’d feel comfortable, we’d have to get the sellers to come down about 40 grand. And pay the closing costs. Right. I don’t see that happening. I know it’s been empty a long time, but I don’t think they’ll come down that far. But …. You never know till you ask I guess.

So, we’ll either keep looking for another place that’s smaller & cheaper, or just tough it out here until the place that Kati has is ready. I’ll email her about it again tonite too I think. We got the letter that says our rent went up effective with the September payment. Another $25 a month. May not seem like much, but when you watch the units around you get remodeled, and you still have the same old crap … it doesn’t feel right to pay more. I really would understand the yearly hikes if we got some improvements.

Oh, to make today a real Monday, I had dryer issues. Yup. Did a load of the man's work pants. Went to put them in the dryer. Closed the door. Hit the start button. Nothing. After finding out it was the washer we had the extended warranty on, I made an appt with the place we bought them from to come out & fix it on Tuesday. Told the man when he got home. He says let's see if we can find out where the possible part is that could be the problem. get online, Search. Find part. He proceeds to try to remove it only to have it be the wrong part. Hehe... I show him what looks like the right part. He gets that out. we try what another repair place said to try. Nothing. Dammit. So, canceled the appt with the first repair place & made one with this other guy. The other guy was much more helpful even on the phone, and more friendly. Oh, and cheaper. So yeah ... I've listed a few things on our local craigslist to see about trying to get the cash to cover the repair bill. We're all in the wrong business. They get anywhere from $80 to $100 just to come to your house. Finding & telling you what’s wrong, is more. Installing it .... more. Geez.

I’m really getting hopeful about the whole mall store thing. I hope that I can sell a bit more before then to make some cash to buy more stuff to make more stuff with for the holidays. Think positive …

I’d love for any of you who read this far to go check out my Etsy shop. See the stuff I’ve listed… do some shopping? Tell your friends? I’m working on promoting … it’s hard on a $0 budget tho. Free is good, but without it seeming like a full time job in itself, it’s next to impossible.

Ok, enough for now I think.

the house

Ok, separation. So let me write about “the house”. It’s the house next to Joe & family. It’s a nice house. Has a decent front & back yard. The layout is super weird, but that’s from adding on to it after the fact. Not a big deal tho. It has a fireplace. The garage has been converted to living space. It has nice wood floors.

I could go on about the pluses. There are a few things I don’t like, but I think they are things I could live with. I’m sure Tim feels the same way. Unless you build it yourself, there is no perfect house.

So the asking price has been dropped but it’s still above where we can be. And it is still a bit high for the size & location. It’s been sitting empty over a year. It’s a buyer’s market around here. Hopefully these things are in our favor.

We’ve seen the inside with the realtor lady I have taken pix of. She has recommended a mortgage guy to go talk to. He’s good at creative financing & the like. She told us to get copies of our credit reports so we have them for him when we talk. She even called him & let him know we’d be calling him & gave him a heads up.

So today I went online & got each of the 3 reports for each of us. Well, one wouldn’t give the info & says we have to mail it, just for Tim’s report. Stupid, but whatever. So I have 5 out of 6. Then there is the whole credit score thing too. Sure, you get your report for free once a year … but they want you to pay to see your score. WTF?? Guess everyone needs to make money somewhere. But I didn’t do the score thing. I wasn’t sure if each of the 3 agencies has their own scoring thing, or if they would be the same no matter who I got the score from. If I have to get 6 … that could be as much as 48 bucks. Sigh.

After I did the report thing, I called the guy. He was, of course, out of the office. Left him a msg, so we’ll see. I’ve done my part for the time being.

Joe, our friend, has been lighting candles, sending positive energies & all that for us. He wants us to be next door sooo bad. Well, I should say Tim. It’ll be like 2 kids… but that’s a good thing for both of them. Tim Connie & I can all see ourselves living there. We just have to work on that price.

So there. That’s about all for now on the house.

I think the summer temps have finally found us up here

So Monday we celebrated my honey’s 33^rd birthday. I made a nice pork loin in the slow cooker for dinner. It was super yummy. Connie & I got over to Joe’s to pick up the toolbox that morning. He already had it out of the shed & even cleaned up a bit. Cool. When Tim got home & saw it he pretty much called us sneaky brats.

Tuesday Connie & I spent some time in the garage cleaning it out. What a chore. But it was getting so bad, we barely had room to walk from the front to the back & into the house. It looks much better now. Not like a well organized garage could look, but better than it was before. Besides, we wont be here much longer anyways ….

I’m not sure what else I wanna ramble on about. I think I’ll make the house stuff it’s own entry.

Oh, we got the signed contract back from the mall today. That’s cool. Now we can get excited about that. We peeked in there today & the display stuff we get to use looks nice. Having something like that already in there will help make whatever we put on shelves & walls, look much better. Display & presentation is half the battle right? I’ll get back in there prolly around the first of September to take some before pix and reference shots so we can figure out whose stuff will go where.

After 2 weeks away from it, I’m not super excited about the market this week. I’m going, just not with bells on so to speak. I still feel like the outsider, so we’ll see. There is a part of me who’d be fine with not going back. But, I’d like to do the Taste of the Harvest in September. To do that, we are supposed to be “regulars” in the market. After that, I may not do much more, but we’ll see how life goes.

The hubby is enjoying his new found internet freedom & email stuff. It’s just funny to watch him. The man who used to come home & just relax watching TV, now goes to the laptop & checks his email. Then he wanders aimlessly for a bit till dinner is ready.

I’m slacking on my Thoughts on Whole Living stuff. Figures. Life distractions will do that I guess.

After getting Tim set up with a Yahoo ID & matching Gmail account, I started thinking about my own. I wanted something that matched too. I was tired of my Yahoo name. Having many emails is getting old too. I like using Gmail more than the emails that came with my domain too. I don’t have to worry about storage or anything either. So, after a week of thinking & trying to find a name that worked in both … I came up with HerbsnChocolate. That’s me. I’m into herbs allot … & does the chocolate part even need explaining? So now I am slowly working on changing things online. I was even thinking of changing my LJ to match. But you gotta pay for that huh? Not sure I wanna do that then. We’ll see. I kind of like having a Blogger blog. I don’t like the whole lack of community thing there tho, so I’ll keep LJ for that aspect alone. I’d miss my friends.

Thoughts on Whole Living

Your body craves motion. Allow it to flow in harmony with your breath.

Instead of seeking love, see it – everywhere.

Greet every day with a ritual of gratitude & strength.

My body does crave motion. I wish I could get my mind to agree more often & actually do it. I'll work on that.
Seeing love everywhere. This might prove more difficult. But imagine if we all were to try this, even for a day.
Greeting each day with anything other than slamming the alarm clock is a good day. But so many of us dont get enough rest at night since we all try to do too much. Starting the day slowly, or even remembering to think of something other than the millions of things facing us each day, is tough.

It's easy to write when the words just flow ...

Here we are in the dog daze of August. We have had some of the best weather this past week. Guess summer is coming this week tho. I hear the forecast is calling for triple digits. Fun. I have enjoyed having the windows open so very much. No A/C. No having the house all closed up & keeping the stale air in here. We’ve had some nights so cool, you wake up chilled. Yup, nice. Guess it’s coming to a temporary end this week.

So Saturday we packed up & went to Ellensburg for the first ever Etsy craft show. I could focus on the one bad thing & be bummed. Or, I can look at the positive that came out of it. The main reason we went was obviously to make some money. This was the area were unsuccessful in. Connie & I shared a bigger than normal space. She had lots of people look at her things, but sold nothing. I had lots of lookers as well, & managed to sell $40. The space cost us a combined $55. The gas to get there was … I don’t know exactly. It took about a half a tank (fully loaded Escape, 90 some miles each way, from elevation of 600 to 2600 and back down some). In the end, money wise, we’re in the hole.

On the flip side tho … we got to see a new town. Ellensburg is about an hour and a half away from here. The drive was a pretty one. We even got to see Mt Rainier in the distance when we made a quick potty stop at a rest area. It looked beautiful in the early morning light, but we were on a schedule to get there, so no pix. While we were there, Tin got to experience some of the wonderful small town feel by exploring the local farmer’s market, a few galleries & a museum.

Connie & I walked away for some lunch & also got to wander quickly thru the market. Nice. I wish we had the support of the city that Ellensburg has. They set up on either side of a local street, & the city shuts it down for the time the market is open. Wonderful! We got to check out the local Safeway supermarket. This is where she works (here in East Wenatchee) in the deli. It was somewhat of a shock to see the difference. She was amazed at how sad a few of the hot case items looked, & at how much smaller the deli in general was. Yet, the Starbucks seating area was ALLOT bigger. Guess that’s what happens in a college town.

We got to meet some of the people we have only known online that day. Most of the vendors there have a shop on Etsy & are part of our Eastern Washington Street Team. We all finally got to put a face with a name. That was a fun thing.

Most of us got to expose ourselves to a whole new venue of people. Granted, this would have been a lot easier if more people had actually shown up. The time of year for this was just off. School was not in session (it’s a huge college town) and there is no real reason to go to a craft show in August. So, they’ll try again no November 15^th. This will be geared as a holiday show & should do quite well. Unfortunately, I won’t be at that one. That’s the time to open the mall store.

I got to talk with the lady set up next to us. She paints some really cute birdhouses & stuff. Nice work. She lives in Wenatchee. How cool huh? Well, we got to talking & I told her about the mall store. She may be our final person to “buy in”. That’ll give us 7 people & bring our cost down to $215 a person. She’s really excited & we’ll talk more about it this week.

Then, on the way out of town, we passed a rock & crystal shop. With a quick turn around, we were off to ooh & ahh over rocks. Oh the fun we had looking around. Tim didn’t find any that really spoke to him, but Connie & I both found a few treasures to take home.

See? In all, we had a wonderful day. We just didn’t accomplish the main objective of making money.

So last night we celebrated the good of the day & went out to eat. Came home and relaxed a bit & Tim & I were in bed by 1030. Long day.

Today has been relaxing. We had a nice breakfast before Connie left for work. Tim & I went to Costco to get a couple things like doggie food & TP. Then over to Big R to get him some more work gloves. I’ve spent time just laying around napping or watching some TV & poking around online. He went off to see Joe for a bit. It’s been a nice weekend.

I hope tomorrow Connie & I can get over to Joe’s & get the toolbox for Tim. It’s his birthday. On a Monday even. Joe is selling a craftsman toolbox. Tim could use it but thinks we have more important things to spend the money on. So, Connie is buying it for his birthday. I hope he likes it.

Ok, I think the words have ended their flow for now.