BOO TO THE FLU

A couple of days ago I hear my boss yelling from her office, "Oh, party planner Kathy. We need you." I knew that couldn't be a good thing. "We have another thing for you to organize for us."

I said, "I suppose you need it tomorrow." (Mind you....my boss is awesome. We have a great relationship, so I can be a smart ass if I want to) A few weeks ago she gave me two days to order and receive custom t-shirts, make raffle coupons, banners and buy decorations! I pulled it off....so now I have become our party planner and my services are required once again.

This time I am being given three weeks to make six....yes, six Halloween costumes, order custom t-shirts and order custom stretchy bracelets. The t-shirts are already ordered and so are the bracelets. That only took a couple of days....now the costumes.

We have an anti-flu campaign going called "Boo To The Flu", so they want our four nurses to be germs for the Halloween parties and parades and then my boss and another staff member are going to be bottles of Germ-X hand sanitizer!! How cute is that? Here is the germ I found on the internet. It will be two pieces but that's about all I know so far!! HAHA!

I bought some lime green fabric and some purple and white felt for his spots. I have no pattern because everything that might have worked is out of print.

I drew a sketch of the hand sanitizer costume and that one won't be too bad, except for the "pump".


I really thought my costume making days were long behind me, but not so. Thank goodness I don't have to do this at home. I have fabric coming out the wah-zoo and tons of stuff to make and get listed in MyOtherShop for the holidays. No, I will doing all of this at work thank goodness! That does mean toting a sewing machine, ironing board and iron to the office, but oh well.

Today I cut about a zillion circles out of felt to glue on the germ costumes! This is what my desk looked like today.

I will give you little updates as I make progress with my project.

I had a nightmare last night that the ugly green germs were chasing me down the halls of the school trying to give me the swine flu, but the hand sanitizers came and squirted goo all over the floor and the germs were slipping and sliding and fell down and I escaped!!! Chee Hoo!!

Just kidding. No nightmares....all is well in party planning land. :)

Meet The Queen!

The other night I'm sitting in my workshop and Irv yells, "Come out here and see this! Sparky is caught in the afghan!" Sparky always covers herself up with an afghan when she lays on the couch. She'll dig her head down under the afghan and toss it up in the air over and over again until she is covered. Then sometimes she can't find her way out of the afghan when she wants to get down. That's what I thought Irv was calling me for....

Oh no, not at all. I get out to the living room and here is Sparky with her head through a hole in the old afghan, dragging it around like she was a Queen and it was her royal robe! Then we have Wrigley looking at her like she's nuts and not quite sure whether she should play with her or get out of the Queen's way!

Often when Sparky is all curled up in her afghan on the couch, Wrigley will go over and grab the afghan and pull on it until Sparky hits the floor. It's Wrigley's favorite game....not Sparky's.

So, Sparky is walking around the living room looking at this afghan following her, not quite sure what to do....until Wrigley grabbed the afghan and started tugging. The little hole started stretching and Irv and I just sat there laughing. Every time I asked Sparky what she was doing, her little tail would start wagging.

Then she decided to go get a little drink of water...all that afghan dragging made her thirsty!

Then Wrigley decided she had had enough of the game and sat down...right on the afghan!

About that time we decided to help Sparky get out. She was grateful, but requested that from here on out she be known as "your majesty"!

Awestruck!

There were so many! They moved in sync like a well orchestrated ballet. Their moves were sheer perfection. The entire group moved as though they were one.

It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen...one of those "stop you in your tracks" moments....the ones that take your breath away and bring tears to your eyes....and I got to experience it.

I was on my way to work and a enormous flock of birds came into view. It was the biggest flock I have ever seen in my entire life. They "blackened" a huge area of the sky! There was no where to pull over to watch them, so I drove on with my eyes to the sky...making sure not to run into the guy in front of me....although I'm sure most eyes were glued to the "morning dance" in the sky.

Photo from the Science Series at PBS.com
For more info on "flocking" click on photo

They swooped and climbed. They made large circles and small circles.....all in perfect "step". It reminded me of the videos you see of the huge schools of fish dancing in the ocean current.

Even thinking about it now as I write makes me feel just as I did that morning. Awestruck!

The beauty of nature.....

The Missing Paint Swatches

Last week I talked about picking a color to paint my living room. I had the little booklets with the tiny little color samples in them, but once I started to narrow it down, I knew I needed more.

I went to Menards and picked out a bunch of the nice big 4 X 5 color swatches they have in the colors I liked. I brought them home and I taped about 6 different greens to two different walls in my living room. Then I took the accent color swatches and I tucked them in around the back of the green they went with...kind of like this.

Each time I was in the living room, I would notice the color swatches and slowly I was starting to eliminate the ones I didn't like. Then it happened....

We got home Friday night from the craft show set up, and as I walked through the living room I noticed that Wrigley's little bed had something all over it. I walked over to take a closer look. I bent down to see what it was, and it turned out to be what was left of a lovely yellow accent color swatch. I looked up at the wall and one whole set of swatches was missing! I knew where the yellow was, but what happened to the green, the blue and the brown? Obviously they fell off the wall, and I was hoping the rest of them had slid under the couch when they fell.

Uh, no!

The colors looked really nice on the wall....I did not check to see how they looked in the back yard.

Craft Show 101

I had Matt on my mind yesterday, but I did have a few things to tell you about the craft show this weekend.

My location was pretty good. It will be a while before I earn my way into the prime rows, but we were in the middle on an aisle and it worked out well, except for an hour or so each afternoon when the sun blasted in the skylights right on my check out table! We joked around about it just being my "heavenly glow", but it was seriously blinding at times.

Instead of the "teaser table" I had out front at the other show, Irv added awesome shelves to one side of the front of the booth and they worked beautifully. I had a couple of cake stands, some coasters and some light switch covers on them and people would stop, look at those things and come in. It was great!

I did learn a couple more very important things. One is that signs are a must. I kept thinking they would look like clutter, but when I was busy talking to someone and another person looked interested in something....even though I couldn't talk to the second person right then....a cute sign with the right words....spelled correctly would have worked. So, Saturday night I made some cute signs and put them around the booth with little bits of info about my totes, the aprons and the coasters. People actually read them! I did them on the computer on card stock and accented with scrapbook paper. Easy, inexpensive and useful!

The other BIG thing I learned is that even though I am not a seasonal decorating or dressing type person...hundreds of people are. I saw so many people walking around with Halloween and Thanksgiving stuff. It's not my thing, but that doesn't really matter. I must learn to please the masses. So, on that note, I will be making some holiday themed coasters and aprons for my shop and for the little tiny show we are doing at the church/school where Irv works. We'll see how it goes.

Here is a funny for you....this was my fourth show. At shows one through three, my cakestands were by far my best seller. I had decided that I probably wouldn't make any more light switch covers or coasters because they just don't sell. HAHA! Guess what sold the most at this show? Of course, coasters and light switch covers. So, what do I know?

Craft shows are a whole lot more than I ever thought they were. They are like a little business venture of their own. I am having fun, I'm learning, I'm meeting so many wonderful people...customers and other vendors and I can see where with time, this could become a nice way to supplement our income.

Oh, I have to say hi to my sister Karen in Tennessee who informed me yesterday that she reads my blog every day. I never knew that. So, hi Karen! Love you!

Now I need to go make some Christmas coasters! Chat with you soon!

A Roller Coaster of Emotions

The craft show went well. I paid my fee and made the most I have yet. I once again learned a lot and I will take what I've learned with me to the next show. I was actually thinking about doing one more big one this season if I can still get in until I saw poor Irv hobbling around this morning. His back is a mess from lifting boxes, crates and the booth. :(

Thank you so much for all of the birthday wishes yesterday. That was so kind of all of you. It was a wonderful birthday.

On a sad note....Matt's first Search and Rescue ended sadly. My heart is just aching for a family, for everyone that helped search including my little boy.....A woman in her 50's had dropped her husband off so he could hunt on the mountain. They set up where they would meet for her to pick him up. When he got to the location that evening, her car was there with their dogs in it, but she was not there.

They searched that night until they couldn't any longer and then Matt's group joined them Sunday morning. They had a helicopter and ATV's, people on foot and people on horseback. Matt hiked for hours calling her name and following the instructions from the command center on where to search next.

Late in the day, the helicopter spotted the woman not far from her car....where people had already searched, but apparently had missed her. Matt and his partner sped on their ATV following instructions being given to them by the helicopter. The woman's husband and his partner arrived first to find her already deceased. Matt and his partner arrived next. The paramedics arrived and determined that there was no sign of a struggle or injury, so they are assuming she might have had a heart attack.

Matt is having a difficult time, which is to be expected, but knowing that they helped the family find her after her being missing for almost 24 hours is helping. He is very tired and overwhelmed by the whole day. I'm sure it will take time....

Things like that really put life into perspective. The little things that bother us or the petty things we complain about....really aren't such a big deal after all.

It's Going to Be A Marvelous Day, but Aren't They All?

Whoa Baby! Today is October 4th....and a remarkable day in history! 58 years ago today.....my parents were blessed with a rather plump little baby girl.....ME! I can't believe I am 58 years old today. How the heck did that happen? I feel like I'm about 40...but then I guess that isn't possible when my daughter just turned 35 now is it?

I hope to do a Giveaway of some kind this week in honor of my birthday...so stay tuned.

I was up early this morning making a couple of signs for the craft show booth and then I need to run to Walmart for some more candy....it went over well yesterday...although I think Irv ate a lot of it!

I had insomnia last night. It could have been caused by the excitement of the craft show, but I really think it was the Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie from Chile's that I had for dessert last night....and I only ate half of it!

While I was laying in bed awake at about 11:30 p.m. my phone rang. It scared the heck out of me. Needless to say when I picked it up to see who it was it took a moment for my eyes to adjust....it was Matt. Then I was really scared....he doesn't usually call that late.

He was at the bar with some friends and his Search and Rescue pager went off! It said to meet at their lockers at 6:30 a.m. and to dress for snow and wind. He immediately left the bar and was on his way home when he called me. He needed to get his stuff together and get some sleep. He has no idea what the call is, but it's in a neighboring county about an hour away. He is thinking maybe a lost hiker....I told him good luck and that I will be hoping for a happy ending to the story! I will let you know.

With that, I am going to go finish my signs and get ready for Day Two of the show! Have a wonderful day everyone!