Yikes!

Oh, man... things are starting to pile up on me! Last week I felt like crap and didn't get much done. I'm feeling better now, thank goodness, because this week I have:

1. A guy pressure wased my house last Friday and is coming back today to seal all the wood. Which means I had to get all my "stuff" off the porches... and I have a lot of stuff on my porches. And I'll need to get it all back on the porch when he's finished, after it's dry, and before it starts to rain. Timing will be everything. The house looks so good without the green patches and the spider webs!

2. A show this coming Saturday - The Valle Country Fair is the only one I'm doing this year. I had to cancel all my others because I wasn't feeling well. I've been trying to get some things made just so I feel like I have enough for a full display. I don't work well under pressure, so this has been difficult. I really need this to be a good show, for obvious reasons!

3. I have company coming this weekend so the house needs to be straightened up. I don't need to do a major cleaning for these folks, because they know me well and understand that I can only do so much. They're coming with the excuse that they're going to help me with my show, but I know they also want a get-away to the mountains on peak leaf-looking weekend. It's all good!

4. All my show equipment has been stored in the shed since the Valle Country Fair last year. It will all need to be cleaned and inspected before it's packed in the car on Friday afternoon. My old tent was in horrible shape the last time I set it up, so I expect that it will be worse by now. Let's hope for clear, gorgeous fall weather so I don't even have to set it up and I can have all my jewelry out in the sunshine.

5. My "good" computer is in the hospital. It was running slow and was getting a lot of errors, so I had no choice but to take it in. One of the major errors was with Norton Security and I really don't like being online with my virtual butt hanging out in virus land. So, I'm working on a really old laptop today. It's slow and I can't get to my email on it. Hopefully my other one is not too sick and I'll get it back this afternoon or tomorrow.


Well, that's it for now. Gotta get busy this morning. Have a great day, everyone!

The Valle Country Fair!

What started out as a church bazaar 32 years ago has grown into one of the best festivals in this part of the state. It's always the third Saturday in October - the time of year when the fall colors are always at their peak.  The Church of the Holy Cross in tiny Valle Crucis, North Carolina sponsors the event and is responsible for distributing the proceeds to local charities. There are 135 fine art and craft booths and one of them will be mine. There's always good music and lots of fresh apple butter and cider and other good food.

Held in a field surrounded by mountains showing off the glorious colors, it's a draw to the "leaf peepers" and there's always a huge crowd.

I look forward to this show, and I think that even afer I quit doing all other shows (a direction that I'm definitely moving toward), I think that I might still like to do this one. The weather is supposed to be perfect this year, which is a real blessing. I've been there some years when it snowed on us and it was so cold that I thought my nose would snap off. Last year was a mud fest after weeks and weeks of rainy weather. (And, if you've been reading this blog that long, you'll remember that I had an infection from a botched root canal that day, too.) In any kind of weather it's always a good show.

This year I'll have all of my amazing new work and I'm also going to do something different. I recently went through all of my inventory and found some things that are really.... well... old. There's nothing wrong with them, and in my opinion they're beautiful and I don't understand why I haven't sold them yet. I feel like I need to clear out these old pieces because they wear me down. I want to concentrate on finding new directions. So, I've polished them all up and marked them down and I'll have them in a basket for customers to go through. Hopefully, people will look at this as treasure hunting for a great deal.

My good friend Kimberly will be coming from Charlotte on Friday to help me and we always have a great time visiting. After last year I think she's a glutton for punishment, but she volunteered to do it again, so I'll take her up on it. I usually see a lot of familiar faces and several of my fellow co-op members will have booths there, also. The organizers always put us close to each other so it can turn into quite a party! To top off a fun but exhausting day, the Valle Crucis Elementary School does a fund raising dinner on Saturday night. Fried chicken, slaw, green beans, mashed potatoes, biscuits home made dessert and sweet tea. The ultimate comfort food before going home and collapsing.

So if you happen to be in the area, come see me. This event will not disappoint.

Mother Nature's Fury

Yesterday was the first of the summer series of shows called Art in the Park in Blowing Rock, NC. There's one every month from May through October. My lovely sister volunteered to come help me out with this show and I greatly appreciate that. Even more special was the opportunity for the two of us to spend some time together here in the mountains. (She lives closer to my Dad, so when I see her, it's usually when I go down to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area.) She hadn't  been up to see me in a couple of years.

She arrived on Friday evening, just before a hellacious thunderstorm. We had hail the size of a quarter and lightning popping all around and big, big thunder. Torrential rain and wind. She'd been here about 45 minutes, when the power went out - I heard more than one transformer pop. I had planned on cooking dinner for us (a rare thing, but I was willing to do it for her!)but the power was still off. We waited until the rain let up and decided to go to town and get dinner. Got in the car. Drove as far as the bridge and backed up and abandoned the idea. The creek was almost to the top of the bridge and we were afraid that if we went out, we might not be able to get home! Poor Sis is extremely afraid of lightning and thunder, probably after being knocked off her feet by a nearby strike when she was about two.

So we warmed up soup on the gas stove and made sandwiches for dinner. (If you call "warming up" cooking, then I guess I DID cook after all!) We laid on the fouton and talked until it was dark, then went to sleep. The power finally came back on about 10:15.

We hauled our butts over to Blowing Rock early on Saturday morning and set up the booth. This took longer than usual because I had a new layout in my head that I hadn't actually ever set up. It required a few rounds of moving things to get it "just so" and the jewelry displayed like I wanted it. Then we settled in and waited for the customers to start spending money. And we waited. And waited.... waited some more. I made my booth fee back, but not much past that. I think I managed to pay for gas and lunch.

And, then, to top off the sucky day, the black clouds rolled back in about 3:00, but the show promoters didn't come around to tell us we could pack up early until we started hearing thunder. Nothing like the feeling of being under a metal tent frame when there's an electrical storm going on! By the time we got everything broken down and I retrieved the car, it was pouring buckets and we just heaved all that soaking wet stuff into the car.

Situations like this make me wonder why I even bother. Sis kept asking me that question. She's been with me for a few shows, but never one that was really successful (she's starting to think it has something to do with her!) I believe it has to do with hope. No one ever spends time taking their best photos, filling out forms, and paying huge application and booth fees with the thoughts that it won't be profitable. Some shows just aren't good, and there's no way to tell ahead of time if you'll make any money. (Side note: Yes, I can tell ahead of time about SOME shows - I never do festivals, for instance, because the focus is usually on something else, like music or food, and the art is just a side note. So I don't even apply to them. This series of shows in Blowing Rock have always been good in the past.) And you don't haul all your crap around - a whole carload of crap, just to display a couple of little boxes of jewelry - like you're some sort of turtle, or gypsy, just for the fun of it. It's really not fun at all unless you're making money.

So I'll be spending the next few days drying things out. When we pulled the tent out of the car, with the canopy top still attached, there were baloons of water trapped in the fabric. Things are spread all over the porches getting air. Table covers are in the washing machine. My car windows are down as we speak, to try to dry out the carpet, and I'm keeping an eye out for what looks to be our third day in a row of thunder and lightning. Whoops... just heard a far-off rumble... gotta go close the car windows and get this posted before I have to unplug the modem again.

Fall Show Schedule

I have several shows coming up in the next few weeks that I wanted to tell you about. I always enjoy meeting my customers in person, and this is a perfect opportunity to catch me live.

The first one is next Saturday, September 26th in West Jefferson, NC. It's called Arts on the Side and is sponsored by the Ashe County Arts Council. It's a small, informal show on the grounds of the Arts Council and inside their gallery. We'll be set up from 9:00 until 3:00 and my friend, Janet, will be spending the day with me.

The following weekend, October 3-4, I'll be part of the Chatham Hill Winery Harvest Festival in Morrisville, NC (near the Raleigh-Durham Airport). The hours are 12:00-6:00 on Saturday and 1:00-5:00 on Sunday. There will be wine tastings, of course, and several different craft artists an well as some community interest groups. My sister and her husband will be there selling items to benefit the American Cancer Society.

On October 17 is the Valle Country Fair in Valle Crucis, NC from 9:00 to 4:00. This is not too far from home, and one of my favorite shows. It's an over-grown church bazaar that has turned into one of the best shows in the state. It occurs at the peak of fall color season and its bucket loads of fun with music, great food, and 135 craft artists. I've done this show every year for almost 15 years. We've experienced all kinds of weather, but it's only rained on us one year that I can remember. It's usually chilly in the morning and one year we had a few morning snow flurries, but normally you can count on a clear, crisp fall day.

Then a few weeks break until the evening of November 20. I'll be doing a benefit Trunk Show for Hospitality House of Charlotte. This wonderful organization offers low-cost housing to out-of-town people who have family members in Carolinas Medical Center, which is right across the street. I'll be donating a portion of my sales to them. The details haven't all been worked out yet, but I think the date is firm. We'll probably start in the late afternoon and go until around 7:00 or 8:00. We'll have wine and food and this will be a great opportunity to help out a deserving organization.

If you are part of a local charity and are interested in hosting a benefit Trunk Show for your organization, please contact me. Or, if you'd like to host one in your home for your family and friends, we can do that, too! Those are always a ton of fun.

Even after this blog post moves down your screen (assuming I continue to blog on a timely basis!), the schedule will remain to your right. So -- now you know where to find me!!