What's Going On?

Not much with me. Last week Dragoncat, aka Earlynn, and I shared a booth at the Linton Freedom Festival. It should have been a big festival with a bunch of people there. But, it rained like crazy on the 4th of July parade, then it rained like crazy on the carnival, and it turned out to be pretty slow. I went back on the 5th to finish out the festival, but guess what happened! It rained like crazy! So, after a couple of hours of getting to know the other vendors, and snuggling with the dog in the pet booth, I packed up my shop and went home. Despite the poor turnout, I did OK. At least I made up for the booth cost and the cost of gas to drive back and forth, with a little left over to buy some kibble for the pups. They were not at all happy to be left alone for three days in a row. My lab, Bailey, made me play frisbee in the dark. But, then, she was the one who had to find the darned thing. She lost it a couple of times, but she has a good nose. My beagle, Maggie (Margaret when she's bad), let me know how she felt by peeing on the floor... Her nose is better than Bailey's, and way better than mine; so I suspect that actually bothered her more than it bothered me. Cissy, my cat, didn't really care. As long as she has a dry place to sleep and a bowl full of food, she's happy.

Besides the show, I've been selling my wares on Etsy. I had a couple of nice orders this week. I'm hoping more people will find my shop, as well as Etsy in general. It is a really great site. Very artistic, created and run by artists, and all the shops are original artists/craftspeople. If you haven't been there, you need to check it out!

There is a group on Etsy that I belong to, aka a "street team". We call ourselves "the IN Crowd". All of the members live in Indiana, and are artists and crafters. There is a ton of creativity and talent among these hoosiers. I get a kick out of just looking at the new and innovative things they come up with. If you would like to see some of their works, just go to http://etsy.com/ and enter "incrowd" into the search for titles and tags. You'll get a bunch of pages of nothing but hoosier crafts! We have fiber artists, mosaic artists, jewelry artists, painters, seamstresses, fashion designers, upcyclers, you name it, we got it! Check it out, I promise you'll like it!

While I was off in Linton, my elderly parents went to Asheville, NC to visit my niece. She and her family just returned from several years in Europe. Her husband retired from the Air Force earlier this year. They had a kind of family reunion there. My sister and her husband were there, and my other niece and her family. Her, my other niece's, family consists of her husband and two boys, 4 and 3. I am a mother of one boy. But, I can't remember the stage these two have been going through for the last couple of years. They have more energy than the entire gulf region can produce! When they came for Christmas last year, my ears were ringing for three days after they left! When I talked to my dad yesterday, he said he was glad to be home.... Gotta love kids, but it's good to be able to leave!

Not much else going on in the forest these days. The critters are still lurking about, the birds are still singing, and the grass is still growing. TTFN