Monday, April 27, 2009

Market Weekend

This weekend we were all about market - City Market on Saturday, and the Earth Day celebration at All Souls on Sunday. It was an amazing weekend - it's like the gods ordered up perfect weather for convincing people to come out and buy lilac. (Or the power of lilac is such that it can command weather that will make people come out and buy it. I'm telling you, the lilac has a powerful pull.) Since I forgot the pics for opening weekend, these from Saturday will have to do:







Here's the craft display from Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon it was looking much more sparse - which is, after all, the whole point - but I've got to make some more stuff! Fortunately I've got a road trip coming up - Clark's running the half marathon in DC this coming weekend (and I'm jogging around on my now-feeling-better gimpy achilles and cheering for him). Road trips are always excellent for getting a bunch of knitting done. Being able to knit in the car (and while watching tv and while waiting at swim classes and tee ball practices) is pretty much integral to my business plan.


Sunday at the Earth Day celebration they had a blessing of the bikes. Here's Sam helping Brian bless a group of bikes.


I have to say, I was pretty sad Pippi didn't get blessed. I think she would have really appreciated it. But she did get out for an adventure Sunday morning. I woke up at 6:30 and I immediatley thought "I've got to get outside quick or I'm going to have spent this whole weekend standing around at my tent." So I threw on some biking clothes and headed out on Pippi. We had a most lovely ride up Sunset Mountain and through Woodfin to the river and back home. Next time I'm going to remember my camera, because the views from Sunset are unbelievable.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Behold, the Candles Actually Exist


Here it is - proof that I'm not making up the candle story, and also proof that I did create something besides a big mess with all of the beeswax. They're still a little bit of a work in progress, but overall I'm pretty happy with the trend (as in, they started out cracked into big pieces, then went to slightly crazy looking, and have now progressed to a pretty close facsimile of what I'm trying to do.) I'm having fun figuring out what kinds of flowers and plants look good in them, and also getting the whole overdipping progress ironed out. And also figuring out what you can and can't accomplish with a heat gun (note to self, don't let the end come anywhere near the fingers. Got a couple of blisters today that will bear that one out.) But, and most importantly - the candles do exist!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

I Now Declare the City Market Open!

Thanks to everyone who turned out at market yesterday - it was fabulous! The weather couldn't have been more perfect, and I think everyone was just happy to be outside having fun. We saw a bunch of old friends from last year, met a bunch of cool new people, and had a great time. Even our new spot was great - now when I lounge behind my tent daydreaming while secretly wishing a customer would come over, I can look up and see the City Building - the iconoclastic wedding cake - and it reminds me that I am, in fact, downtown. Even though all of the public works signage might have you briefly thinking otherwise. So all in all a really great day, and thanks for everyone who made it happen. (and p.s., I forgot the camera, so pictures will be forthcoming next week.)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

How to Destroy Your Kitchen (and make your husband wish he had maybe chosen someone else 17 years ago)

One word: Beeswax. Yep, it's ALL OVER my kitchen. And my husband is somewhat particular about our kitchen (thank God, since I clearly am not), so he's withholding judgment on this latest big idea of mine. Big idea in question: hand made candles with pressed flowers on them. I had a big moment of inspiration, and now I'm in the slog of the actual follow-through. I can hear you thinking, "Sumner, I didn't you knew anything about candles." And that's because I don't. Or didn't. I'm learning fast. I think I've made about every dumb mistake you can make with hand-pouring candles. Including glossing over where the book said not to plan on ever using your pots to cook in again if you use them to make a double-boiler for said beeswax. Fortunately our friend Leslie just got a fancy new induction stove - it's so fancy that it produces no heat when combined with any of her fancy (but not fancy enough) pots. So she's selling us pots on the cheap to replace the wax pots. Whew. Clark was starting to look faintly apoplectic, but the mention of Leslie's pots and the word cheap have him looking much more cheerful.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Sick Baby Wombat

So the Baby Wombat (aka Sam) is home sick today. Although frankly I think he feels just fine now, so it's more of an at-home-vacation-day for the two of us. But last night - that was another story. I trot off to swim practice and leave the boys to do bedtime - no big deal, Clark's usually in charge of bedtime. But apparently shortly after I left, the sh!t hit the fan. Terrible stomach bug had taken over (which is weird, because Sam *never* gets sick.) Poor Clark had to deal with the whole thing by himself - which was mainly terrible not just because it was a mess, but mainly because it's kind of scary to have a sick little kid by yourself. Especially one that never gets sick - we're masters at dealing with croup - Sam's achilles heel - but not so much anything else. But by the time I got home all of the drama was over and Sam was asleep. As he remained all night - hallelujah! - and now he's chipper as can be.

But speaking of last night - about the time Clark and Sam were in hell I was a little bit convinced I was too. Because swim practice is not supposed to be a suffer fest. At least, not as I think about it. The whole idea of joining the tri swim practice was to pick up some real-live swim skills while I was mainly running. Not so much to do anaerobic intervals in the pool. (I don't even think I realized you could do anaerobic intervals in the pool.) But last night was a little bit of a suffer fest - and I can embrace the suffer when I know it's coming and I know what I'm doing, but it was a little bit of a shocker to be feeling like I was going to puke in a swimming pool. I've done quite enough of that on a track, thankyouverymuch.

Market starts in a week - woohoo! We're going to do a mock setup of everything this weekend - I'm trying to improve the craft display. And speaking of that display, we had been thinking a small set of shelves would be a good thing, and sure enough the universe sent us a set yesterday. Sure, they were filthy and sitting on the side of Holland Street and in need of a good coat of paint, but you can't be picky when the universe starts sending things (for example, the last thing it sent me was a stray cat when I really wanted one, so I can't complain that El Diablo is kind of gimpy and sometimes diabolical.) At any rate, I swear these shelves were just like The Secret in action (at least according to my very limited understanding of the concept) - I thought about shelves, I was sure shelves were in my future, and sure enough - shelves! Just like The Secret - without Oprah and all of the romantic angst.

I'm also working on another craft idea for market - I'm thinking it's a good one, but I've got to do a little R&D before I unveil it. Stay tuned.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

A Narrow Escape

Looks like we pulled it off - a narrow escape from the frost we were supposed to get the last 2 nights. I don't have too much out that would be bothered (at least, not a whole lot that can't be carried back in), but I do have strawberries in the ground with blooms, and our cherry tree is blooming, and I've got a bunch of tulips in various states of bud, and it would be a major bummer if a frost got all of them. I'm fairly philosophical about frost in April - I mean, it's really pretty likely. But that doesn't mean I can't still celebrate when we dodge the bullet. [that was a wackly little double negative there. would almost make you think I skated my way through my english degree. which in fact i did.]