Dog Days of Summer

I can't help it. This time of summer hits and I start wanting to stay up till early morning and watch stars. I love this time of the year inspite of the fact that I get incredibly lazy. I signed up to work on 6 "why tie ties?" (check website; http://ferryfolk.com) anyway they have to be done along with 4 beaded ornaments come November and all at once I found myself doing beading again. On top of that I have a class I am giving at joggles.com on painting a children's rocking chair. This should be a fun class but I am behind not only in painting it but doing the directions. I need to get started on a website for "Teens Unlimited" so I will have something to give to the board next Monday and quite frankly I have a person who is so militant and gung ho on one of my projects that she is totally ruining the experience for me! Oh well this too will pass. Sooo I am slowly getting back on track again. This will be tough since I really hate traveling and I will be traveling one week a month for the next three months. It always takes me a good week to week and a half after I get back from traveling to get my feet back on the ground. Anyway, I am doing some wonderful projects for shows this fall and winter and I am really getting to think of a studio. It is time for me to work on a studio so that come next spring I can have a place to show my work and be in the open studio tour here on the island. This is something I really would like to do. Of course, where the studio is and how it is constructed depends greatly on what is built in the empty space next to our house. If it is another house or a duplex then it will not be such an issue to have the studio in the garage or up behind our shed but if it is a restaraunt or another business well we will have to wait and see.
Anyway, I am rambling and since my hubby is the only one reading this blog he is probably thinking, "what on earth is she thinking? We can't afford a studio yet!!!" My response is "We'll see."
So the shop is going great and our sales are really up and everything is going along swimmingly... Why am I so concerned? I just keep thinking about putting the brakes on spending until the shop is consistently earning money. We are going on a great ride right now with sales up dramatically but we have only seen an increase in these sales for one month. We need to see a full quarter to see a real gain. This is a worry for me! Plus I see everyone getting so excited about how well the store is doing and I keep flying the caution flag because..... well good hopes, thoughts and what have you are wonderful however they are not always effective.
Well I had better go. I am trying to get my name in a few contests over the next couple of months and get some exposure for my business and before the end of this month I probably better finish concentrating on that. I will talk with ya soon. Rene

Movies movies movies and a really good book!

You would think that I haven't got a thing to do... but everyone needs some time off and this weekend we took it. First we went to see the Fantastic Four...
This was a fun movie and I enjoyed it but... It didn't rate high on my must have scale. It was based on a comic book and well... what more can you expect then what it gives? It was ok.
We went to the Macaroni Grill and wow did I have a great meal! And a really cool drink to boot!
The next night with a different couple and we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I loved it! It was really a fun movie and not to off from the original although I kept waiting for Johnny Depp to say... "and once in band camp" AKA American Pie. Anyway then it was off to Buca De Beppo and then we went to see the Wedding Crashers. Now understand, I did not really want to see this movie. However at one point in the movie I found myself laughing so hard I thought I was going to have a heart attack! I loved this movie! It was really funny (adult comedy) and had a sweet story too.
We followed that up by going on yet another day to see "Crash". It was a great movie too but i have to say it left me feeling really depressed. I hate that people still judge each other by the color of their skin and that only when times are really bad can they find the fortitude to trust someone of a different ethnic background.
And for all of those of you out there waiting for Harry Potter. I got him too. I am enjoying the book tremendously but since I signed up for a show in November in which I need to have 6 of my beaded ties done and 4 beeded ornaments finished, I have a show in October for my furnishings and am teaching a class on painting a rocking chair, I have had to buckle down and get some work done. It is a busy time still but I thought I would let you know that if you havent seen any of the movies I mentioned ... go see them and just relax and enjoy them. Rene

Another Recipe

Okay so I have been wracking my brain to come up with another recipe for summer cooking and I found a wonderful one:

ingredients:
1 tub cool whip
1 package ladyfinger cookies
1 quart vanilla, orange sherbet mix
A large oblong cake pan

Take the cookies and put them into a food processor and chop into fine crumbs. Then take the icecream and spread a quarter of it out in the pan. Place a quarter of the crumbs out on the top of the icecream and coat with a quarter of the cool whip. Continue adding ingredients as stated. Cover and then put in freezer till ice cream is hard again. This is a wonderful way to cool down on those awful hot days of summer.

So Life Goes On.....

This has been a very quiet week for me compared to last week. If you are coming the Whidbey this weekend stop by the flea market. I will probably be there. It is looking like a nice weekend and I have a few more items for the tent. Dan and I will be working on building a display back for my paintings so I will be able to put them in my tent as well as all my furnishings. Anyway, I completed another painting and my husband didn't hate it. He didn't like it but he didn't hate it either. So he has to work on a frame for it and on the molding for the bathroom. I had intended to finish the bath this week but my body decided it was in need of rest sooo...

My body does this every once in a while. If I go for three or four weeks at break neck pace then it stops for a week so that I can rest. And Boy do I REST! but I hate these weeks because I feel like my time is spent so poorly and I dont get anything done.

Well the shop has been busy which is good and we have increased business and inventory so we are achieving something good from our increased efforts and total shake up of Teens Unlimited.
I guess I had better go now. I am in the process of cleaning up my bedroom and organizing it better. This should reduce the allergens in the room and allow me to get all my clothes in the closet. I have discovered thrift stores and I can now get silk shirts in all colors shapes and forms for about $3.00 each. I am dressing better now than I ever did when I was working. I didn't have time to go shopping at thrift stores when I was working and I could not hardly afford store goods! Anyway, I am changing my total look and getting an entirely new wardrobe. This is so much fun and I think that at the most I spend $20 a month or less on clothes. I spend more money on coffee!

Well I need to get going but will write more soon. Rene

Another Summer Day?

It is always amazing around here in the summer. The temp today was in the mid '60's with some breeze and an occasional raindrop. Add to that an absolutely gorgeous rainbow and well you couldn't ask for a better day. Summer always reminds me of times with my parents when I was growing up.
We had a visit from my grandpa and grandma and great grandma and my great aunt when I was about 5 years old. It was a really hot summer day and my great grandma was laying out on a lawn chair soaking up some rays. She was kind of sleeping in the sun and we were all just kind of enjoying the heat and sun. My grandpa turned on the sprinkler and went up to where great grandma was sleeping and turned on the hose. At 70 some years old it was surprising how quickly she could move. Before anyone could even think we were each manning a hose or a very large bucket of water. There was water throughout the house, basement and yard and there were puddles all over the yard because it was so full of water. Everyone was wet and laughing. A year later great grandma was diagnosed with cancer and she went to a nursing home to live. It is a wonderful memory of these people who were so dear to me when I was growing up.
I remember one summer my sister, brother and I spent all day gathering bricks together to make a barbecue. It was a great day! We used mud as the cement since it was mostly clay and we piled up the bricks and when it was done we went in the house to get the hamburger that we could barbecue. My mom actually cooked the meat for us and we had dinner on our handmade barbecue. Of course that was the last time it was used but for one night we were so proud of our achievement.
As kids we used to sleep in sleeping bags out under the stars. We often put all three together so we could be warmer during the night. We also had the two house dogs come sleep with us when we slept outside so they could protect us. One night there was a definite need to protect us. We were awakened about 1:00 in the morning by the dogs growling at something and what sounded like scratching at the front screen door. My sister turned on the flash light and we could see a very faint shadow of something on the front porch of the house. When my sister shined the light on the shadow we saw eyes. Boy that was all it took. All three of us kids tore the bedrolls to shred trying to get out of them and we were off with the dogs quickly running behind us. We ran around to the back door of the house and tried to get through the door all at the same time. My father said it was the worst noise he had ever heard and he met us at the end of the stairs in the house. He and mom slept upstairs. Mom was right on his tail. Dad grabbed a gun when we told him what we had seen and he went out by the back door around to the corner of the house by the front door and discovered a HUGE porcupine. Dad said it easily stood 4 feet tall when it was standing on all four feet. He waited for the porcupine to get out into the wheat field and then he shot it. We had hunting dogs and other house dogs and we didn'ttttt need to have quills in the dogs. I think back now on that event and realize from a parents perspective that had to have sounded like the house was falling down when we all tried to get through the door at the same time!!
There are other memories some old some newer but they all center around summer and they all make me smile. I do love this season. Talk with ya soon. Rene

Choochokum

I am sorry it has taken so long to post! This has been a whirlwind of a week. It has been one of those weeks that you are really glad it happened and at the same time you will be really glad it is over. To begin with, last Friday, the board of Teens Unlimited voted me in as the director of our little organization. We are a non-profit group running a thrift store for teens. Our goal is to provide affordable clothing to teens, provide a retail training experience for the teens in our store and to provide funds to assist in the forming of an emergency shelter for teens who live on our island. And yes to answer your question, we do have homeless teens on our island. Currently we have identified over 100 homeless teens on the south end alone and over 200 on the north end. Homeless teens are defined as those teens without a day to day provider and guardian. Most of our teens couch surf. They go from one friend's house to another to yet another. Sometimes there isn't a couch for one night and they end up in an old abandoned trailer or simply walking the streets. I could go on an on about this subject but suffice it to say that if this situation did not exist we would have much less incidents of vandalism.
Anyway, the board moved our founder and old director to the president of the board position and we also created a store manager position. We also decided to aim for doubling or possibly tripling our inventory in a one week time and really push the store for our big event "Choochokum". Choochokum is Langley's big art show. It is a huge tourist event and we hope to have a lot of sales today and tomorrow. Anyway, I get to man an information table and we get to put up our sign and well the list goes on and on and this all has to get done within the next two hours so....
I will be taking pictures and will hopefully be able to post them this weekend but till then if your over Seattle way, come see us on the island at Choochokum. Rene

OOOOH, AHHHH, WOW

I love this time of year! The third and fourth of July are turning into my favorite days of the year. They aren't as good as Christmas but they are getting close. It was not always that way however.... Another story...
The year that Dan and I moved to Denver we decided the boys were finally old enough to see the fireworks and enjoy them if we took them to a public fireworks display. We had just gotten to Denver in May of that year and right after we moved there we started hearing about this new radio station that had just started and they were going to be having the largest fireworks display in the state of Colorado. Dan and I were so excited. We figured if it was a new station there would not be as many people as if the station was already established.. It was supposed to be in brand new park with a large lake and well it just felt like Kismet. We decided we would go down to the park at about 1:00 PM the kids could go swimming and play on the park swings and playground for a while, we would have a wonderful picnic and when it got dark we could watch the fireworks. So July 4 rolls around and we are all really looking forward to the day we have planned. When we get to the new park we were forced to park about a 1/2 mile from where the display is going to be, in this huge field. There weren't many cars parked there and we kind of felt this was a good place to park because there would not be so much traffic clear away from the fireworks. They provided a bus to drive us to where the fireworks would be and up on arriving there we discovered that the park did not even have grass. We would be sitting in scrub fields full of weeds and dirt. There was no swing sets or even a playground and if you so much as put a finger in the "lake" you got fined and if you went swimming you got arrested. The sheriff was watching that lake like it was his grandchild and no one crossed him. So we put out a blanket and ate our food and fortunately we had some books and crayons and things for the boys to keep them busy and somehow the afternoon and evening passed. The fireworks were wonderful! They were huge extravagant and really wonderful. Everyone of us enjoyed them. They were over at 11:00 and it was time to go home. So we gathered our blanket and headed to the bus along with 50,000 other people, most of whom had arrived much later than us to the park. We finally caught the bus to our car after a half hour wait. We packed the boys in their car seats and turned on the car and literally crawled out of the parking lot. It took until 2:00 in the morning for us to be able to get out of the parking lot. It took another half hour for us to get home and we finally got to bed at 3:00AM. Both of us were dead the next day since we both had to work and we worked on 3 hours of sleep. Since that day we dont do public fireworks displays. We dont do large events with even larger crowds and we DON'T do NEW!
Instead we have the most wonderful small town fireworks display on the island in Freeland and every year we go to sit on the grass in the small park with about 5,000 people (a lot of who are friends or acquaintances) and we watch the fireworks, hike to our car and go home. It is the most wonderful way to spend the holiday. Freeland has their fireworks on the third so those who go to it dont have to work the next day and can sleep in on the fourth. It is a nice thing. Of course, everyone else has their fireworks on the fourth and we have turned the fourth into a barbecue time for us and a deck party where we sit and watch all of the fireworks from Marysville, Tullalip Indian reservation, Everett, Bothell, Arlington and Mukilteo go up for over 4 hours. It honestly looks like a war zone and it has become a part of our celebration to sit and enjoy this evening with friends and family. This year we expect about 20 (maybe) and it should be a party!! So I hope your party and your celebration for the fourth of July is big and wonderful and full of fireworks, and good food and most of all friends and I will talk with you on the 5th. See ya soon, Rene

Another day of no sleep

Menopause is going to kill me! I have just spent another night of no sleep and have managed to go till now (6:00 PM) till my eyelids have started getting heavy and I keep threatening to fall asleep as I sit.
This has been an incredibly nerve wracking week! I am now the director of Teens Unlimited with the director/creator of this venture taking over the President of the Board position. We also have a new store manager and have defined everyone's roles but now I have to say....GULP! It should be an interesting adventure. Talk with ya soon, Rene