So Hot

Remember how we had such extreme weather here not too long ago that I felt compelled to share it with you? Well this past weekend was it's evil twin, extreme heat. Well, now I suppose the hail could be the evil twin, but the point is, it was unseasonably hot. What did we do in the heat? We worked on the yards, of course, because we are not sane. We fixed the drip system and planted trees and plants. We went to a plant sale at the horticultural department of the college across the street and got more trees and plants which will need to get into the ground soon too. The real kicker is we feel like we are really bad at plants and every time one lives and grows, we celebrate. Truth is we've only killed a couple plants with our lack of skills, because we don't actually like to 'garden'. What we do love is the plants and the birds and insects they attract. Yes, I think we are a bit off, but you already knew that didn't you.

I didn't get much tatting done at all. In fact after working on the drip system, my fingers were so sore I was afraid I'd done some real damage and wouldn't be able to for a while, but I pushed through. I got a couple of small orders over the weekend that I must attend to today and there is a possibility that another order from a brick and mortar shop will be coming in soon. If that comes in I'll be a busy little tatter for much of the week.

I will also confess one last thing. I did try a new design over the weekend and it was, as the internet says, a fail. I had what I thought was a clever idea, but the execution was sloppy. It could still work, but it's not just going to fly off the needles like I wanted, it will require actual thought and preparation. So yes, I will get back to the 'fail' and it will eventually come to life. I just need to always remember to put the failures out into the world not only to prove that I have them, but to prove I know that I am far from perfect. So now it's onto the week ahead with calmer weather and hopefully tons to do.

Normality

Well here we are again back at Monday. Normality is about to resume and I still haven't decided if that's a good thing or not. I was extraordinarily lazy over the past week and weekend and even though I was making  a few sales, I wasn't remaking anything that sold. Instead I was finishing up cross stitches, playing games on my phone and basically avoid anything that felt like work save for a custom mask I needed to make. I'm not a complete slacker.

The week ahead contains my 6th etsy anniversary and I am still hemming and hawing over what if anything to do to mark the occasion. To be honest one day sales that do not contain a limited edition pendant have never really worked well for me and giveaways are at best a mixed bag. I guess I'll think of something before it happens.

I know this is a ridiculously short post, but I need to make sure I get started with the day so the weekly routine can begin again. I will leave you with what happened the day after the hail, which caused no damage for us by the way. The next day was still quite rainy with thunderstorms just missing up all day. Toward the evening we were treated to the now meme worthy double rainbow...all across the sky. And as a final note, go see Cabin in the Woods so I can quote the movie without spoiling it...seriously.

The Sky Is Falling

Well, we went out adventuring again yesterday. We took a trip out of town to shop a little and go out to lunch and then home. It was a fairly unproductive shopping trip, which is probably a good thing is the long run. As late afternoon rolled around the weather got...we'll go with interesting. You see, our weather is boring... blissfully, predictably boring. The sky doesn't attack us here, at least not usually. The thunder began rolling continuously and the lightning flashed and flashed and then the truly odd event occurred, hail. Sure, we get hail here, but it's the size of grains of rice and that's how this started. Then it got bigger and bigger and as the family stood on the porch watching, it became golf balls pummeling everything. Again, I am aware that this is normal some places, but I've lived here all my life and never have I seen this before, so I took pictures.

Of course the weather wasn't the only significant event yesterday, though it was certainly the loudest. I wanted to say thank you for all of the congratulations I got regarding the magazine. I was excited to hear how many Canadian friends would actually be able to see the magazine.  If anyone does run across it in a store, I would love a picture flipped to one of the mask pictures on the shelf. Don't go out of your way though. The last thing I wanted to share actually occurred overnight, my 2000th sale on etsy (insert confetti and balloons). This is especially good timing as you can see in the screen shot my 6th anniversary on the site is less than a week away. Okay, it would have been better timing if it had happened that day, but I won't complain about that.

So, yesterday I shared a magazine article, the sky attacked and I made a milestone sale. I'm thinking today and the weekend, might pale in comparison. There are no more big family plans scheduled so I'll try to get back to tatting and the one last butterfly cross stitch while the rain continues to fall in buckets.