Millbrook Days Pics

This weekend was Millbrook Days, up near the Delaware Water Gap. Here are a few pictures from the first day. Maybe I'll post something about it a little later, but right now I'm too tired, my face is too burnt, and my voice is too hoarse to be able to think clearly.

Just to explain the pictures, though: Sandra was in her garden, Timothy is the apprentice blacksmith, and Virgina, Alissa and I demonstrated bookbinding in front of the garden. (Alissa also finished sewing my apron, and Virginia spent some time keeping Sandra company in the garden).

An experiance that I'll never have to go through again

Although I have been under the impression that 2 o'clock in the morning isn't a common time to write posts, I don't really have anything to do right now, and I'm not tired yet, and I can't go to bed with a steaming hot cup of tea undrunk, so I figured I'd try to get a little caught up on here.

I know this is practically dragging up ancient history, but I want to recount my drivers licence experience before it fades to shadows, hidden in the mists of memory. That way I'll be able to read this post when I'm old and senile, and tell it to my children and grandchildren until they can repeat it verbatim.

So, I spent the 2 hours before my test trying to learn how to parallel park. My only previous experience backing up had been - working the pedals while Mark steered. Periodically parents and siblings would pop out and share their wise, knowledgeable, but all equally unhelpful advise (unhelpful, that is, to someone who really has no idea what they're doing, and is about to spaz out.) Not feeling terribly confident in my ability to park within the legal limit about 1 out of every 5 times, we left late, arrived at the wrong DMV, and luckily arrived at the correct DMV a mile up the road with 2 minutes left on the clock. After going throughout the preliminary check-out: insurance, registration, brakes, seat belts, stupid little red sticker-thing for the license plate... I was then deserted by Sandra, and left on my own with a highly frightening little Spanish woman with a sweet voice behind a kind smile. (When my adrenaline is high, I frighten easily.) So first was the parallel parking. After checking all mirrors and seat belts a zillion times, and using the proper signals, and resisting the strong impulse to close my eyes and just hope for the best, I parked perfectly, first try! The instructor glanced out the window, and told me to move on, apparently oblivious to my burning desire to do a back-flip-flop (if I had known how to do one, that is). I moved on, still trying to remember all the little details I had been reminded of, checking all the mirrors every couple of seconds, glancing at the speedometer, and see that I'm going...35 in a 15!
{Great. You probably just blew it. You parked perfectly, which was just a freak chance, of course, and you'll never be able to do it again, and how do you blow it? Not by an understandable overlook, but by speeding! The most obvious thing to avoid. If you pass now, it'll be amazing. You can't get much more ridiculous then SPEEDING ON A ROAD TEST!!!! What could possible be worse? Maybe you could just crash and be done with it. Maybe you could...oh.my.goodness. Maybe you could roll through 2 STOP SIGNS while yelling at yourself for your stupidity!}

At that point I was finally able to snap out of it, and make no more mistakes, probably because I no longer really cared if I made any more mistakes, because I figured it was all over. I did manage to forget to use my blinker when I pulled over to pull my K-turn, (good thing K-turns are easy, because I had forgotten they were going to test me on it, so I had never done one before.) I finally made it back to the parking lot, fully prepared and fearing the worst, but with just enough hope left to make it a painful few minutes. She finally quit writing on her little pad... and gave a very unclamactic ending to this story.

She passed me!


(As I just took a sip of freezing cold tea, I have come to the conclusion that this post has taken me too long to write, which means I am either an extraordinarily slow typist, or write posts that are far too long to keep anyone's attention, neither of which is even a tolerably attractive thought.)

Croquet:

. . .the game that separates the gentlemen from the rogues. As that statement seems to imply, girls aren't supposed to play (on a previous game Mark re-christened me Fred, which came in dashed handy on several occasions, one of which was our canoe trip on Sunday; my being Fred allowed me to be captain of a canoe until it was commandeered, but then that's there and not here, so I aught to save it for a different post), but since there were 3 guys and 6 girls, we ruled it obsolete.

Before going any further, I should point out that this post is intended to be read with an English accent; if you can't do one yourself, find someone else to read it to you; you have to get into the spirit of the thing, you see.

Ah, I forgot to mention, the traditional getup for croquet is a white fiddle-n-flute (or dress, as the case may be), those of us whose wardrobes couldn't make it up to that standard got as close as possible.

The rest of the town seemed to enjoy this part of the game as much as we did.

We had a few extra players the first game, so Mrs Misko partnered with Sonja, and Brandon joined me. His having won the last game we played, and my having missed the first 2 wicket shot (something I didn't know was humanly possible) had nothing to do with the decision; it was pure coincidence. He, I mean we came from behind, got some monstrously good shots, and won the game. It was a close call, with Virginia, Stefan and Us all at the last wicket together. Mark displayed his true character, turning rogue and trying to blast us all to the river, and he jolly well almost got us there, only not quite 'almost' enough. I made a darn good shot (for me, translate that: I didn't miss the shot that was 1 foot straight in front of me) and so we took the game.Then we stopped for some delicious crumpets (or scones) and tea.After tea, Sandra (who arrived late), Mrs Misko, Mark, Brandon and Virginia played another round of croquet while Sonja, Stefan, Alissa and I played Botchy Ball. We had to stop because we couldn't see the ball anymore before the game was actually over, but Stefan and I were winning 7-6, down from 6-1, 2 turns before. Lucky we ended when we did.It was getting dark, so sorry the shots are kind of blurry, but if I had put it on sport, instead of night, you wouldn't be able to see anything.This evening was in honor of Alissa's birthday; we were quite flattered to share the celebration with her, and had a marvelously good time!

VA Photo Gallery

I've been derelict in publishing this post, not because I've been so terribly busy (see, I'm being honest), but because I was purposely avoiding it. Two weeks of your life is a long time - I ought to be able to come up with something clever, if not profound to say about it, but I just haven't been in the correct frame of mind, I suppose. It's not that nothing worth writing about happened, because lots of things happened: We had all sorts of fun, with bowling alleys that mess with your score each turn, giving Becky several heart-attacks, (which I've heard isn't particularly good for newly-delivered mothers; oh well), waiting till it got light out to go to bed after watching creepy thriller movies, getting Aces over kings in poker (my best hand, I think). . .

But then I remembered that a picture is worth a thousand words, and, granting the number of pictures I took, I have already 'written' more words then anyone would possibly want to read.

So, I'll just introduce each subject.

Given that we were in VA, where the temperature rarely goes below 250 degrees, we spent a lot of time in the sprinkler/slip-n-slid.
David wasn't quite sure that water's all it's cracked up to be, his first time down. Daniel discovered the sport of trying to squirt aunts who are holding cameras, and found it to be great fun.

Jonathon and Samuel, drinking the water off dirty black tarp.

Of course, the big kids didn't want to get left out; I was right behind him. You know, I've discovered the strangest thing since starting this blog. Did you know that if you're the one holding the camera, you don't get in any of the pictures? It's really not fair in the least. Then there was the bee battles. I don't remember exactly what bug they were trying to kill, but they definitely put up a good fight.And we mustn't forget the reason for the trip - little 'Belle. There is no such thing as too much holding of a baby. At least for the hold-er; you never can tell what the hold-ie thinks. The end of the two week vacation came all to fast, (which is kind of redundant; isn't the defenition of vacation a period of time that is over before you want it to be?)

P.S. I'm feeling slightly guilty, so I might as well confess here as elsewhere. In the 'fore mentioned bowling trip, we thought I beat Becky by two points. I remembered afterward that because the computer wasn't working at the beginning, it had given me 3 extra points, so Becky actually beat me.

I feel better now.

Front Page Follow-up

I average about 30 visits to my shop a day, and about 60-70 the weeks before Christmas, but I hit a new record when I was on the front page...any guesses?

164 visits, just for being on the front page for an hour. I can't imagine what happens if you're a featured seller, so are the only shop on the front page for the entire day! It's not likely to happen to me, though. It seems you have to be part of the "in" crowd, and I don't know how to get in.

Front Page!!!!

Amazing! One of my items was featured on etsy's front page at 8 pm, and I just sold it to some guy out in singapore. (let's see if the transaction makes it all the way through!) This isn't quite as exciting is being a featured seller on the front page, but almost!

It never rains, but...

pours.

I had been waiting for a chance to use my new RESERVED LISTING graphic, and I got my wish this week. Three times over, actually. The first one I finished was on Thursday. Wednesday night I got an email from a woman asking if I could have one of my large guest books (the one that says allow 1-3 weeks for completion) ready to mail to her the next day. Fortunately, I did have enough materials already in stock to finish it, (which I was glad of; I wasn't relishing the thought of turning down an opportunity to sell my largest book!) so I stayed up till 3 am, then finished the embossing the next morning, and express mailed it to her, and got it to her on time. I was in such a hurry, I forgot to take a picture of it.

The next one I finished was a pretty basic job, but I had to order new materials, so that classified it as "reserved".

The last one, (which was actually the first one I was asked to do) I just finished this morning. It was the most 'custom'. This woman sent me, (I'm guesstimating) 350 printed pages to be bound together in 2 books. I hadn't done that kind of work in a while, so I was excited to have a "new" and unusual project.

After I remembered the proper way to sew loose pages, it was pretty smooth sailing, and they will be shipped this afternoon.
So, so much for custom orders. I also had a 'ready-made' book sell (which wasn't actually ready-made, I have to make a new cover, emboss it and glue it tonight, so I can ship it tomorrow), I had to write the 'interview/questionnaire' mentioned in my last post, and I came down with some sort of flu, which hasn't made working exactly enjoyable the last few days, in addition to the normal routines of life, all this past week.