Crazy Spring

 It was summer all through March, and now that it is officially spring and April, winter is back! Snow and cold and so much gloom.  I have been so crazy busy.  For almost a year, I have been saying "once this is done, I will have time to breathe"... "Just get through my daughters wedding, then I can breathe"...no wait, crazy Christmas season is upon us, so "Just get through the Christmas rush, then I can breathe"...no wait, everyone is still shopping, I am shipping a million packages a day.  My somewhat messy house becomes a disaster area and there is never time to fix it.  Now, I am in the "just let me get the taxes done", or maybe "what can I do to avoid doing the taxes?"  After all, internet full of end of world during the eclipse, so I wouldn't want to waste my last days.  So here I am, when I should be listing things.  Sales have slowed dramatically, so a bit more time, but not enough ever.  

Oh, and here in the middle of winter, in the city, and I avoid the outdoors at all costs, I have contracted Lyme disease.  Broke out in a rash all up and down one arm, no other symptoms, thought I got bug bites from playing with some puppies, but no, it turned out to be the stuff of horror films.  My husband found a deer tick on the shower wall one morning.  We assume it landed on him when he was cutting brush.  Weeks pass, I am changing bed sheets, and I find 2 deer ticks on his pillow.  My rash is just horrible, but just on the one arm, then I get bites on my legs.  I strip the bed, wash EVERYTHING.  We take the animals and check them, they  have no bugs.  Grace and I take the dog and bunny out to the car and bug bomb the house, spend 4 hours driving around with the pets.  Next day, I find another tick on the bed and about freak out.  This is the first time I think to look up.  My sheer curtains on the window behind my bed have a line of black throughout the rod pocket.  I get on a ladder and find the rod pocket full of ticks. How they got there, I will never know.  There are a lot of deer roaming the city, we love seeing them, they are so pretty, but apparently they brought guests.  We must have brought a pregnant tick in without knowing it and she started a family in the curtain.  James and I both are on the antibiotics, and I still jump every time I see a black speck any where.  Just telling the story is making me itch.  Hope they are gone never to return.

This may be why I turned to all white for the latest creations.

What Are the Chances? With me, 100 Percent

 

I have "framed" cross stitch samplers that I or my daughter have made by putting them on old tins, old slates, anything odd like that.  I love love love how they turn out, but selling them is very cost prohibitive.  First, you have the expensive tin or slate, then add the cost of the sampler, even if I only pay myself 25 cents an hour for the stitching, which takes forever...  Anyway, I got the brilliant idea to search for antique sampler images on Pinterest and make prints to get the look without the cost. After printing one out, I realize it was made in 2010, not the antique look I was going for.  I had a small tin and thought, oh what the heck, I will cut off a little part of the print at the top and put that on the tin.  Now the Pinterest post was just the sampler, no mention of where it came from.  What are the chances that the designer of 14 years ago would be sitting in her home in the Netherlands and open eBay 5 minutes after I list the tin and immediately message me that I am not allowed to use the image?  I don't mind taking it down or being told I can't use it, but really, what are the chances???? 

 Also, someone else told me I was being deceiving for making something look like a real sampler when it wasn't on this tin, even though I said it was a print and not a real sampler.  Maybe this wasn't the brilliant idea I thought it was.

In the meantime, who knew Valentine goods were a thing?  Not me.  I usually put up a few heart tins and go on my merry blue way, but I realized the red stuff that I didn't get done in time for Christmas could be reimagined as Valentines and I got obsessed with spelling things with old blocks, starting with one little "LOVE" set.  Before I knew it, I was in the Valentine biz and I swear it sold better than my Christmas things did.  Did not expect to continue to be so busy.  Guess it is mostly keeping the usual winter angst at bay.

Sarcasm, My Friend

 I continue my imaginary argument...

She writes again.

I send a new missive.

Thank God you have returned!  Hurry we only have a moment before she returns.  Help us PLEASE!  She has us trapped in her factory of paint and fabric nonsense.  She refuses to get educated and keeps muttering about us being mass produced and factory made.  It is so demeaning.  We are old, and nothing old should ever be changed.  We love being like all the other bowls, we don't want to become bowls of color. We don't want to be unique, help us, help us! NO!  She is mixing the milk paint!  I fear it is too late for us, but perhaps you can save the others.  Call the antique police, we beg you.  Have her sent to an internment camp and force her to learn the errors of her ways. Farewell....oh noooooo, I am going to be blue....

The Bowls

At least I think I'm funny.