one year later

This post was from my personal blog when I had them separated...
I noticed yesterday that it has been one whole year since I put anything in here. a whole year. Wow. And so much has changed in this last year. We moved to Florida in March. We moved back in August. Hubby worked from September to December 3rd. And he''s been laid off since. While we were in Florida my spiritual side seemed to almost vanish. I spent more time being sad, lonely & depressed than I did enjoying being near family & friends. I learned there are fewer real friends than I thought. I learned you can't ever really go home. I learned you can't step back into a world you left because time changes you.

The spiritual side of me seriously went dormant while we were away form here. Is it back? Not quite to my liking yet, but I can say I feel so much better, even with the current circumstances, being back up here. That has to mean something.

So one of the main reasons we went was to be there for my husbands father. He has made pretty much a total recovery. My mom is doing alright, but she put things in a way that made me love her even more. When we told everyone we were leaving & coming back here my mom was sad. But she understood because we told her how miserable we were, trying to live there. She told me how she wished all her family could be right there but she knows we all have to live our lives. I love her for that.

In my last post I talked about how this Valley seems to be a stopover for many. I know now that our time here was not finished. I'm not sure what exactly we have to do here, but I vow to try & enjoy every minute of it. I have noticed that since we've been back, I have felt a pull to be more ... in tune with Nature & learn more. Now I just need to find the discipline to accomplish that.

I also mentioned that I saw us not staying in Florida forever. Seems that was true, & even much shorter than I thought. Do I still see us going to the southwest? I'm not sure. I have been so wrapped up in being back 'here' I have not given it much thought.

I also said I had made peace with moving. I think I lied. I tried to convince myself that I had made peace with it. I tried to convince everyone else too, that it was what we needed to do. We did it & we can't undo it. All we can do now is learn from it.

I hope this year brings lots of learning for me.

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.

Just when you think life is good ...

Funny how life can change in an instant. Just when you think life is going along just fine, wham.

I should elaborate.

Life has been going along the past few weeks on fairly positive notes, with a few kinks here & there. It seemed the kinks were nothing any of us couldn’t handle.

I’ve mentioned how I feel like the red headed step child when it comes to the market. Well, Saturday things went rather well on a personal note at the market. No, I didn’t have anything cool like record sales. I did get some of my new bookmarks made. I even sold one. Got many compliments on them as well. My day was good for a few reasons. I saw the cold shoulder I was getting from “them” but it didn’t matter. I was in a fantastic mood for no particular reason. To start the day, I located my assigned spot, which was on the opposite side of the row from normal. Wow. I wanna be on this side always. The energy on this side felt so much better. A record number of people came into my space. People noticed, commented on & asked questions about my coasters. I sold 2 smaller sale prints, one new book mark and 8 of the other ones! It only amounted to $36, but I was happy. Along with the sales, came some nice conversation, visiting with my market neighbor who turns out we have allot in common, some friends came to hang out, the sun was shining… a good day. Money wise it still wasn’t worth my time, but all the rest more than made up for things.

One of the things I got to talking about with my neighbor there was the idea of having our own store at the mall for the holidays. All Etsy crafters. She loved the idea. Mention was made to another fellow Etsy crafter who also sells at the market. She loved the idea too. Both are ready to take part, give the time required and the money. Things were ready for me to move forward with. This felt great since Connie & I had sat & brain stormed about the thought of this last week. We talked about details, big things, options, everything.

After the market, we (me, Tim & Connie) went to a newly discovered, small, hippie vintage clothing store. We brought along 2 of the friends who had spent time with us at the market. It was fun. I didn’t buy anything, but Connie & one of the girls we brought did.

So … I had a wonderful weekend. Saturday evening was … Oh My Goddess good.

I spent allot of time recently thinking about how things have been going. I was looking forward to talking to the people at the mall. I was happy to have such a positive response to my new book marks. I was making new connections in various things. Life was good. We’ve even been thinking about truly checking into the house next to our friend that has been empty & for sale for quite some time. He seems to feel he has some connections that may help us out.

Today was a good day too. I was again in a good mood for no particular reason. Things were going well. Life was good for the most part. Connie & I went & ran some errands this morning before heading to the mall to meet with Stacey. We got to go in & see the space, walk thru it, & ask questions. It looked like everything was falling into place & going to work out well.

We came home, relaxed a bit & I headed out to water the plants. Moved a few from the too sunny back deck area back to the side & front where the rest of the potted plants were. Cleaned up some that were dying, in hopes that they are salvageable. Got the hose out & watered the heck out of everything. Connie came out & helped to get the huge hollyhocks cut back. We have a bunch of seeds saved for next year when hopefully we have our own yard to plant them in. We have plenty to even share with friends. This is the only way our big ass trash receptacle ever gets full. We put bunches of stalks in there. So in cleaning everything up, we found that there are new shoots coming up!! YAY!! What a fun surprise. We cleaned things up so that some of the self seeded sunflowers could have room to grow.

Then as we were cleaning up … Tim came home. Our lives were about to change. Fast.

After the typical Hi honey I’m home stuff… he asks me how I’d feel about him working a swing shift. Possibly from like 2 to 10. Sounded good to me. But … what about all the overtime?? No more. No more overtime. Gone. 3 months before we were ready. We knew that come late fall, the overtime would pretty much disappear until spring. But we had plans in place for that. By the time the OT went away, the mall money would cover it. Then income tax time comes to help us thru till the OT kicks back in. Well. Guess not.

I’m kind of in shock. I haven’t spoken more than a few words all evening. To anyone. I know it’s not his fault. Whether he went to swing shift or not, the overtime was going away. Now, they are trying this out to see how it works. Neither of us can see any reason why it won’t work. They have some huge jobs that need to be done so they are hiring 3 new guys and splitting everyone up into 2 shifts. I asked if he asked for a raise since he was the one out of the group who was turning his life upside down with the shift change. He said he hadn’t asked. I said he should. So he says he will. He even felt it was worth a shot to ask. Even a $2 an hour raise won’t make up for the OT he’s been getting but it would help make the transition a bit easier. We’ll see.

Right now I’m ever so thankful we have Connie here to help. Without her help, within a month we’d be up shit creek, without any paddles.

I know something has to change. I just have to figure out what & how. How do I find work that’s temporary … since the beginning of November we are supposed to go on vacation to Florida, and then I’m supposed to do the mall? So I look for something and say I just need something from now till the end of October.

One thought is to actively pursue the Leavenworth Art in the Park. But I don’t have enough stock to get started right now. And obviously, don’t have the money this moment to make more stock. This rock & hard place crap is getting old.

Somehow, this has happened for a reason. Somehow, we’ll make it thru this too. I’m just not sure how right now.

Monday ramblings

Six days since I wrote. Again. I think about it all the time, yet always find myself distracted & then the day is gone.

Last Tuesday Connie & I went back up to Chelan. This time we spent our time in a fun shop called Spirals, & then headed to the Wal-Mart Super Center. We don’t have one here in town. Over a hundred bucks later for each of us, we headed home. I did get a nice new pair of earrings and a nifty rock called Modavite. Oh the money I could have spent in Spirals. Wal-Mart… well, we split the bill since it was mostly food, & each of us spent about $100. Money sure goes quick these days.

I don’t recall what I did last Wednesday. That’s sad.

Last week on Thursday I got together with a friend for some girl time. We got to know each other a little more, which was nice. We learned we have more in common than either of us ever thought. Kinda cool.

Friday my honey had the day off. Nice. We ended up having to replace the starter on his car that morning. Finally, it runs right again. Then he worked on replacing the fuel hose on the bike. Oh what an ordeal buying that thing was. Installing it was easy in comparison. I had taken the formed hose down to the Honda shop. They couldn’t find the hose in their computers. We had tried ordering the 2 formed hoses that the computer showed, but they ended up being the wrong ones. We finally just got plain old bulk fuel hose & used that. Thankfully, it made the bends we needed it to make without a problem. So now the bike runs well again too.

Friday evening we went to a friends for a small BBQ party. Come fireworks time, we ended up along the river in a fairly decent spot to watch. Was nice, without crowds or traffic issues. Granted it would have been allot nicer if it had been just me & my man, but all in all, it was okay. We had our own fireworks Saturday night so that made up for it somewhat. J

Saturday morning Connie & I went to the market. We both sold almost the same amount. I was happy for her that she sold some of her wood burning stuff. I sold more cards(7) & book marks(4) than I have in quite awhile. Still only made like $34, but even that was better in relative terms than the whole Chelan weekend. And I had more people wander thru & look in the first 2 hours than I did all weekend in Chelan. Granted, we had a beautiful day weather wise too. In all, not a bad market. Not great or truly worth the time, but not bad.

After getting home & unloaded, we relaxed a bit. Connie headed off to work & we headed out to take some pictures & just be together. I took some of the dam, so I hope they came out decent. I haven’t looked yet. Bad huh?

Sunday Tim went off on a motorcycle ride. He figured he’d only be gone a couple hours. No biggie, we’d do something together when he got back. Well his 2 hours turned into 4 ½. He ended up visiting a bit longer than expected with a few artists we know up in Leavenworth. He had a good time tho, & that’s what matters. I just kinda hung out here & relaxed. After he got home we decided neither of us felt like cooking, so we went out to have Chinese. Then afterwards, we tried finding me a new bathing suit. Yeah, that was fun. Not. There’s nothing left. It’s only July & the suits along with all other summer things, are already on clearance & going fast. What the heck? Even some of the stores garden centers are clearing out stuff. Marketing people are crazy. Back to school stuff is on the shelves already. Sigh.

So there is a quick rundown of the past week. I spent some time today packing some boxes. No, we don’t have a move date yet. But some things we just don’t need out, so they can get packed now. I didn’t feel like sitting here all day so I figured I should be constructive. 9 various sized boxes later, I’m good. Almost all my nick knacks are packed. The photo albums are packed. The bar stuff, a few kitchen things, all packed. Hey it’s a start. A small one but a start.

Well, now it’s just about time for the man to get home. So a shower, and some dinner then relaxing & he’ll be off to bed just after 8. Not sure what I plan to do with the rest of my evening.

Monday Monday

Good morning. I know, it’s Monday, but it’s still a good morning as long as we all wake up on this side of the dirt right? Right. I figured I’d sit & write, then go comment a little.

I mentioned I was so ready to move furniture last Thursday. Well, I still am. Nothing has been moved yet, except in my mind. I’ve come up with a few fun ideas, but not everything has a place yet so I’ll wait. Maybe one of the days this week that Connie has to go in later, we can work on it. Or not. I have something else to spend some time getting ready for this week. Then it’ll be next week some time. Who knows. I’m telling ya tho, I bet once I get everything moved around, we’ll get a call that we can move in a month. Just seems to be how it goes.

So I went & picked up Tim’s motorcycle parts on Friday, along with running some errands. You know how big a snack size sandwich baggie is? Well, half that. That’s how big the baggie was, which cost $94 plus tax for the parts inside it. Then … times two. But we think it’s fixed, so that’s cool. The car is running again too. YAY!!

I had taken the hubby to work on Friday so I had to go pick him up too, obviously. Well, I got a call that I needed to come get him from … the new shop! Too cool. I brought my camera & took some pix now that there is actually stuff in there. He got Saturday off (which is when he worked on the car & bike) & went in on Sunday to help get more things into place so everyone can come into work on Monday & be pretty much ready to go.

I went up there on Sunday & brought him lunch. Hey, it’s a Sunday & we usually get to spend it together. So, I brought him lunch & we sat & ate some together. I was back up there about 430 to take pix of the new sign after he called me & asked me to come up. Got to hang out for a few with Marv & Russ too, so that was cool. Marv is Tim’s direct boss & lead man of the weld shop, when he’s able to be there. Russ is the big boss, the owner.

Oh this was cool. Just as I pulled up there in the afternoon & stopped the car, a commercial that Russ had done came on the radio. It was too weird!! What are the odds that right as I pull up to take pix of their newly finished sign… their commercial comes on? Weird & cool. It was just a blurb about how the company is moving to their new location, with a bigger shop & all that. Gave directions on how to find them & said effective today they’d be there. The company has been in this town for a long long time. His dad started the company when Russ was just a wee kid, if not before. So that’s about 30 years or more.

Because it was ‘our weekend’ that work was cutting into, I also got up with him, sat & had coffee, & made him breakfast. I told him if he got his hours changed, I’d do this for him allot more often. Instead of having to be there at 6, he didn’t have to be there till 7. So we were up at just after 5 & he was out the door at 630. It was really nice to spend that time with him.

So on Saturday, I went to the market. It was a nice day. No real wind, just a slight breeze, & mostly overcast so it didn’t get hot either. I ended up having my first decent day sales wise. I was happy indeed about that. I did a real “feel good” thing too. This lady & what looked like her mom, were browsing. I have this pic,

which I love & it gets lots of attention. Well, the younger lady was interested in it, but not for herself. She works for the Hospice Care at our hospital. They felt it was just the most perfect thing to hang up there. But, she could not afford the price, just to donate it to them. So, I took about 40% off. It felt like the right thing to do, so I did. But then it got even better. She wanted to know if I would be interested in letting them use that image for their Hospice flyer. I told her that I would like that, just give me photo credit. She was so excited. She told me she’d have the lady in charge contact me. I also got her info in case I don’t hear from her. For an organization like that, I’d love to help.

Then I had another lady, that because I told her I would not be there next weekend, bought something. She saw a couple small things, but had no cash. She asked if I took checks. I told her yes, as well as credit cards. Oh cool. So, she bought something & wrote a check. Another lady got 4 bookmarks to give as gifts to friends. I ended up with a just under $100 day. I was a happy camper indeed.

My market newsletter went over a big hit. I’m so glad. It feels good to know people like what I created. I’ll be mailing out a few today to those members who do not have email. I spent time on Saturday going around to all the vendors there making sure they got their email newsletter. Picked up a few new emails, corrected a couple, & handed out hard copies to several as well. Now we’re (or rather I’m) gonna work on one geared to the public. It’ll come out at the beginning of each month. I think they just want it to have things like what produce should be available this month, what the market entertainment is, any promotions, & things like that. Should be fun to put together.

Well, I’ve been at this almost an hour. I’ve finished my second cup of coffee. I guess it’s time to have some breakfast & get started on my day. I’m sure I could ramble on & on about other things, but I’ll stop for now.

*cough* *cough*

As I sit here sucking on a menthol cough/throat drop, I should be in bed already (it's 11pm). I’m still kinda awake tho. Guess that’s a sign I’m getting better. I don’t feel quite so exhausted. Now I’m just afraid to overdo it so I didn’t do too much today, but did get a few things done. I took hubby into work, at 530 this morning. Came home, checked email real quick & laid back down in bed. I ended up sleeping almost 2 hours. That was nice. I guess I do still need my rest.

So honey talked to his mom & step dad on Sunday about the stuff that happened this past week. They said they’d get him some money to help out. There is no arguing with them, & we need the help. With that, I was able to go get him a new welding helmet today. Oh I didn’t mention that yet. Friday afternoon he dropped his welding helmet & it landed just right to crack the main lens. Not a good thing. When I called about it today, I found out there was only about a $20 difference between the new helmet & just a new lens part. Wow. So there went almost $300 of the money they sent. I’m so glad we didn’t have to pay for that out of pocket.

Tuesday I get to call the Honda shop about his carburetor. And we get to find out how much another very small part will be to replace. Last fall we bought this tiny gasket set that was $100. I took a pic of it cuz it cost so much. This time we need a new diaphragm for the carburetor. We’ll see.

If I can find someone who can get the starter off his car, I’ll see about getting that tested for him this week too. I’d love to surprise him with that. Just have to see if there is someone around who could do that while he’s at work.

Now that I’m beginning to feel better again, all sorts of thoughts, ideas & whatnot are running thru my head again. One of the big ones … is to rearrange things in here. I had expected us to be moved or at least getting ready to move by now. I figure there was no point in moving stuff around if we were just gonna move soon. Well, now who knows. So I’m thinking about packing up some stuff I know we wont use, or just don’t need ‘out’ anymore. Then I’ll see about moving some stuff around. Maybe that will help get more motivation going for me too. Nothing like a new view on things to help get things stirred up.

Ok, my little lozenge is about gone. I should get to bed now that its almost 1130. At least tomorrow I don’t have to be up at 515.

the house

Multiple posts in one day .. look out !!

So Kati finally called about 6ish. I was just getting ready to make some dinner. Well, it’s not good news. Seems the people in the house don’t want to let anyone come in while they live there to see the house. WTF?? It’s not their house, it’s hers. You would think if she wants to let the next renters see it, she should be able to. We don’t care if they are messy. We just want to see the layout of the house, the rooms, the yard & get a feel for how much space we have to work with. Ok fine. Whatever. Next issue is they now wont be done with their house until maybe September or October. So we went from it should be done by the beginning of June, to maybe as late as October, or even later. Lovely. You know, we really don’t mind the waiting as much as not being able to see the inside. If we could see inside, I would chalk it up to whatever, and move on. But without knowing, I cant. We cant. I didn’t really get into things with her on the phone, but I will have to get my point across via email or something. I’ll need to let her know we’ll have to begin, again, to look for something. If we can get in that house, cool. If not, let’s hope we find something more affordable.

Tim & I were both so deflated after that. Our bubbles had been popped. Both of us are wishing she was a teeny more assertive, but we also try to understand some of what she’s going thru. I only wish we could help her get out of her crap.

So I grabbed our weekend classified section & tried looking. Crap. Nothing we can afford, on this side of the river. There were a couple places in Wenatchee, but they were in truly less than desirable locations. With some of the construction getting ready to happen on our bridge, there is no way we’d want to move to the other side. Tim would have to cross it everyday, twice, just to work. Sooo not worth the hassle. I’ll have to start putting feelers out to see if we can find anything.

Any constructive juices I had now, are gone for the night I think. Bleh. Maybe I’ll play games or something.

Rambling

Well, it hasn’t been quite a week this time. Wow. I feel better writing about my dad. It doesn’t change anything or fix anything, but I can move on & think about other stuff.

So what the heck am I doing sitting in front of the computer on a beautiful Sunday afternoon? I don’t know exactly. We’re hoping to be able to finally see the inside of the house we’re supposed to rent soon, today. She was supposed to call about noon. Nothing. Not surprising, as she is rarely punctual. I called her at home about 1230. Left a voicemail. Called just after 1pm, on her cell phone. Left voicemail. About 130, I sent her an email. That about covers the bases with her. I don’t really wanna plan anything because you know we’d be out somewhere & she’d call. So, Tim went to visit with Joe for a bit. Before that, we watered all the plants inside & out together. Then we weeded around the hollyhocks, which are taller than either of us now! One bloom has actually finally come out. Looks like another will be soon too. There are tons of buds, about 95% of them still closed tight. I cant wait for them to really start blooming. Before the plant watering … we took a nice shower together. Kinda the only way to get some when the unwanted visitor is here.

Not too much to talk about this week. It just kind of went by. We launched our big Green Bag program at the market yesterday. That was cool. You can read about it here if you want. The day in general sucked ass. It was windy all morning. Lovely gusts came thru randomly all morning long. It was not fun for several of us this time, not just me. My display in general held up rather well. Much better than lasts years would have. People came by ooh-ing & ahh-ing all day. I sold one bookmark. Yup. Cost us $5 to be there again. I don’t think it’s anything I’m doing or not doing. I think it’s a little of the supply & demand bug. It doesn’t explain why other people sell, but I don’t know what else to tell myself. I’m hoping the tourists will come down & find me soon.

Oh, I went & got my hair redone on Thursday. I feel so much better. Tim likes it better too. And Connie says it looks nicer this time too. I washed it for the first time today so we’ll see how it holds up now.