A Noticeable Absence

I get weekly notices of how many visitors I've had since the week before.  There was a dramatic drop in visits in my last notice.

What the heck is going on?!

Why is no one reading the blog anymore??

...

Oh yeah, there's nothing to read.

Whoopsie.

That should change by next week.  This Saturday is the BIG event.  The one that has been more time consuming than my wedding.  The one that Corey wishes was over more than I do.

...No, I can't say I wish it was over.

I'll certainly be relieved when it is, but I don't want it to be gone.  The whole planning experience has been exhausting and has tested my patience with people I never expected to test me, but...

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  James 1:2-4

This event me and a handful of others have spent countless hours on is an effort to bring churches together and non-believers to Christ.  Something I think we can all call a worthwhile use of the extra hours in our days.

Extra hours being the ones we use to eat or sleep or converse with our significant others.  But who needs conversation when you can put the message of Jesus to people who really need it? 

I would have been sick of horse race gossip by now anyway.

Although, because of horse racing I was just this close to Bobby Flay yesterday.

"This close" meaning about a hundred feet.

But I digress.

What was I saying?

Joy!  Yes, joy.

That's what I will be saying.

He hasn't called back yet??  JOY!

We might not actually have a dunk tank?!  JOY!

Another vendor cancelled?!  JOY!

Gray hair?? JOY!


Just you watch, by the end of this thing I am going to possess the maturity of your gramma.

...

I just hope your gramma still plays laser tag.

...

PS. If you're in the upstate New York region Saturday, August 13, stop by Crandall Park in Glens Falls from 9am to 8pm!  Look for the girl with the clipboard and very large bags under her eyes and throw some coffee in her face.  I...I mean she will appreciate it.

Weekend Wrap Up: craft festivals and torential downpour

Hello friends.  I'm back.

Back from the brink of exhaustion.

Not really the brink.  I was fully there.  This stress/anxiousness/sleep deprivation induced cold sore on my lip is proof.

But I'm back.  Because my first major craft show is over.  All that's left now is wrap up: figure out money and inventory stuff.  Load leftovers on Etsy.  Get every piece of jewelry out of my sight before I scream bloody murder.  I don't want to look at another piece of wool for at least a week.

That is, after I finish the three custom orders for four pieces.

But I digress.

The weekend was fun.  Rainy and dismal.  But fun.

The public still managed to come around.  They brought their jackets and umbrellas.

But to be honest, I was disappointed.  I wanted so badly for my very first show to be successful, and by my own wildly unrealistic standards it wasn't.

Some of the factors were out of my control.  Like the rain.  As hard as I tried to use my mental muscle to push the clouds out to sea I just couldn't make it happen.

And then there's the economy.  I'm not going to pretend to know what the heck this means, I just hear everyone else use it when things go wrong so I can assume I have a 50% chance of being correct when blaming lack-luster sales on "the economy."

But then there were things that I could have controlled.  Like the layout of my booth and its lack of whistles and bells.

Dangit Stacie!  Why did you forget the whistles and BELLS?!

But alas, I know what to do next time.

And now that I've had a day to recover, assess the damages and let my brain fog clear I can say there will be a next time.

I pretty much had that figured out, though, at the end of the show Sunday when I met a fellow jewelry maker who clued me into the world of trading.

"Wait, so I can buy your earrings by giving you a pair of mine??"

If only I had known about this when ordering my second crab cake sandwich, the one that cost me my entire profit for the weekend...

I'm only slightly exaggerating.

It was worth it.

Now, on to the goods:

I used a lot of things I had on hand and/or freebies for my props.  Like the driftwood I smuggled in my suitcase from my trip out to Washington.  Oh, and the little silver trays I collected at various garage sales.

These hair accessories went like hot cakes.  Like chocolate chip, Mickey Mouse shaped hot cakes.

This display is courtesy of Corey Lucas.  

I am most proud of this "bracelet stand."  Also previously known as two pieces of driftwood I found laying on the beach among others I also wanted and ended up kicking part of the way back to the house we were staying in because I just couldn't hang on to it all.

I painted my silver trays with chalkboard paint, swiped flowers from my mom's yard, and grabbed the milk glass from Mrs. Buck's house.  My parents' bought a lot of things, too, to help me out.  Like this pie shelf.  Which I hope to keep stocked with pies.  As was intended.

And these little bathing-lady figures you may see standing around.  They are the most darling little things...

Sometimes I call them my fat-bottomed girls.

They make my rockin' world go 'round.

Get on your bikes and riiiide!

But I digress.



I was happy to hear so many positive comments. 

"So pretty!"

"Very unique."

"I like this a lot."

"They look like moth balls."

And then, of course, there were a few who I would not consider fans.

But I'm pleased with the overall response.  Pleased enough to see what happens next year.

...

**Update: find more ideas from my 2012 show on my new craft blog here!

Garage Sale Day: Debrief

Saturday was the most wonderful day of the year.  Besides Christmas.  And Thanksgiving.  And each day I get to buy new shoes.

It was GARAGE SALE DAY!!!

Again, this was the World's.  Largest.  Garage.  Sale.

As in, it don't get much bigger than this.

As in, you'll find all the junk your heart desires.

As in, bring your walking shoes, wallet, granny cart and patience.

...

Friday night I stayed at my parents' house; we planned to leave for the sale early the next morning.  Kimberlie and I blew up the air mattress, settled in with our favorite sleepy-time movie, The Mummy, and fell asleep.

But not before her darling puppy peed all over the kitchen floor sending Kimberlie downstairs to the laundry room for "dog towels" (which are just crappy towels they no longer use) to find the basement flooding.  So while she cleaned and disinfected the kitchen, my mom and I rotated from the wet ground to the washing machine's spin cycle the rest of the dog towels until we cleaned everything up.

I then went to sleep and woke up at 6am.

But not before I had to leave the air mattress because I am now too old to sleep a mere 5 inches from the cold hard ground to sleep on the couch, waking Kimberlie's dog every 15 minutes to stop her from snoring.

It was a great start.

But nothing was going to stand in my way of junk shopping my little heart out.  Not lack of sleep, not cold, harsh winds, not even Mother Nature's poorly timed surprise.

And with that resolve, we headed out.

However, some of us were a little less resolved than others.  Some of us are also not morning....creatures.

This is the gang before commencing, minus my dad who is taking the picture.  Kimberlie is on the right and my mom is in the middle.  Notice: the dog is wearing a pink hoodie.  And, yes.  She is matching my sister.

See my granny cart?  You'll see in a second just how useful the sucker was.  What you won't see are the hundreds of other granny carts, carted by non-grannies.  I can't properly express the feeling I had pulling it behind me, a feeling of camaraderie between me and my fellow Warrensburg Garage Salers as we braced ourselves for a full day of wading through treasures, watching novices, counseling them in the ways of weight distribution.  It was evident, by that cart, I knew what I was doing. 

And then I knocked over four people on my way to get dried Chinese lanterns.

We start so early in the morning because by noon the town looks like this.  Tens of thousands of people, literally, pack into what is really a small stretch of Warrensburg.  It gets annoying.  Especially when one of those ten thousand buys the glass pitcher and bowl I knew would look so perfect on my antique dresser. 

The food is a great part of this who shebang.  It's the same fried crap you get at county fairs and at a time of the year when you and your lower GI are just starting to miss it.  We got chicken quesadillas here.  At 10am.  Donuts came next.  Then sausage and peppers.

Eventually, we did need rest breaks. 

And we took them wherever there was enough space to park our tooshes.  See my cart?  It's full of goodies, jackets, water bottles, an empty tin can, hopes, and dreams.  See the lady petting the dog?  This happened all. stinkin'. day.

Hehe.  I am in so much trouble for posting this.  I consider it payback for her little monster keeping me up all night and literally trying to eat my hair.  But because I am afraid of my youngest sister, I am not going to tell her I "featured" her here.  Let's just keep this between you and me.

There is an equally hilarious picture of me floating around out there, but I conveniently can't find it.

...

So after 7.5 hours of walking up and down the main street in the small town of Warrensburg, stopping at almost every stand, completely filling up my cart, this is what I ended up with:

An old tobacco tin, a horse hankie, five green buttons, one antique button and a gold flowery thing. 

You probably had the same reaction as I did:

That's it?!

...

See you next year best garage sale ever.

Fair Week

Is that fried chicken and horse poop I smell?

Pig sweat and pancakes?!?

Well golly-buttcracks, it must be time for the County Fair!

Golly buttcracks with suspenders, I mean.

...

Every year my boss sets up a booth at the Washington County Fair and recruits mandatory volunteers from her office to man it for the entire week.

Growing up with the country's third largest county fair in my backyard has given me a soft spot for the dirty, the smelly, and the animals.

(hehe, see what I did there?  you thought i was talkin' about the animals...hehe)

So I look forward to my shift.

I watch people walk by.  All kinds of people.  My favorites are the country folk with their boots and jeans and I-don't-care-what-you-think-of-this-cow-manure-on-my-shirt attitude.  They're so simple, yet work so stinkin' hard.  I envy them, but then I look at my pink fingernails and realize I could not maintain a perfect manicure if I'm touching dirty stuff all day, every day.

I also walk around a little, look at the other booths, pick up a Tupperware and Avon catalogue, browse the Pokemon cards and leather chaps, maybe grab an apple cider slushee.

But the very, very best part of this fair, and every other fair, festival and carnival, is the food.  The drippy, greasy, fried-everything food.  If you don't leave the grounds feeling like you're going to vomit, you didn't have enough of an elephant ear/fried veggies/chocolate shake combo.

I, personally, prefer the walk-away-sundae at the Lions Club booth.  Allow me to borrow last year's illustration of this super treat:

Please notice the size.  This is the best ice cream cone I've ever had.  And the old man serving it with the same dirty gloves he uses to take my money makes it a true fair cone.

Ahhhhh.  Good times.

...

My eight hour shift was yesterday.  It will be a whole year before I'm back.  Until then I will just have to settle for the smell of dirty dog and pomegranate and ice cream from Edy's.

The Washington County Fair...Part 2

2009 Fair Highlights

Milk.

And more milk.

Which led me to the Lion's Club booth for the biggest, most delicious ice cream cone I've ever had. Allow me to present a crude drawing:

Other highlights include stepping in cow poo, goat poo, sheep poo, rabbit poo, pig poo, alpaca poo, and chicken poo.

I argued with a crazy person and pet baby ducks.

Then I drove home.

The End.

The Washington County Fair...Part 1

Unfortunately, just because I was on vacation from wedding planning that didn't mean I was on vacation from work. And part of my "work" is spending 6-12 miserable hours each year in a booth at the County Fair.

And since I am incredibly optimistic about every stinkin' situation I'm thrown into, I made the best of my 4-10pm shift by turning it into a learning experience.

What I learned at the Washington County Fair

by Stacie

Teenagers still are not cutting their hair. They also don't seem to wash it. This is cool.

What is also cool: butt cheeks. The more you show, the better. With this revelation I discovered I am very uncool. My seat meat was covered by at least 7 inches of khaki.

There are no reproduction restrictions. Anyone and everyone can make babies. As many babies as they want.

It is possible to tattoo every square inch of your body. Even butt cheeks.

Thou cannot live on fair food alone. They try, though, and are currently failing.

Moms wear pants above their belly buttons. I assume for comfort. I am wearing a skirt that sits between my belly button and my lower ribs. It feels good here.

Santa lives in Washington County in the off-season.

Cowboys are not extinct.

And finally, camera phones are not the greatest at documenting spontaneous events. I apologize in advance for the low quality in the pig and cow milking videos I saved for part 2 of my fair experience.