Not lost or forgotten, just in the dark and too darn busy!

Hello there.  I can't believe it's been two plus weeks since I have posted.  I have been doing "mind posts" but they haven't made it to the computer till now.  In my last post, I complained about an early snow storm, very atypical for us in October.  Well, I guess I should not have complained about that lil bitty 5 inches, cause Mother Nature saw fit to "bless" (I say that with EXTREME sarcasm) us with even more a couple days later.  We had 16 inches of heavy wet snow here in my little Massachusetts town.  Most of the trees still had a heavy mass of leaves still clinging to soft, not yet frozen, branches.  The ground had not yet frozen so tree and shrub roots were not firmly locked into the ground for the rigors of wild winter weather.  As a result, we (I say that collectively for all the snowfall recipients in the area) sustained a lot of damage of destroyed trees and foliage.  Personally, here, we lost a mature winter berry bush and had lots of limbs down, but nothing earth shattering.  Fritz and I had spent the half day prior to the storm preparing by tying up trees, staking and wrapping bushes, etc.  The preparations paid off.

These were taken about one hour into the storm.  The snow was falling fast and furious and piled up quickly.  It does look pretty though.  But the next morning, mostly what we saw was sad broken trees.  Some of our local roads are still partly blocked by downed limbs that haven't been taken care of yet.  The inevitable happen a few hours into the storm on Saturday night and the power went out.  We did not get reconnected to the world until Thursday.  It was a long tiring week.  Thankfully, we have a generator that we can run part time to run the well, furnace and keep the fridge and freezer cold, but a good part of our evening and nights were spent by candle or head lamp.

Good thing the batteries were charged and ready to go!

In the week following the power outage, I had to get caught up on all the things I couldn't do without power for 5 days and simultaneously prepare for the 2nd annual holiday open house at the Spaulding Cooperage.  I was a busy bee!  Especially given that I just sold my cupboard from my spot where I usually display my wares.  I had just decided that it could be offered for sale as I had a replacement piece.  I did not, however, expect it to sell so quickly and not only did I have to change and add to my stock for the open house, I had to completely redo my spot with a new shelf unit.  Crazy!!  But, in the end, it all turned out well and the sale was very successful.  Here are a couple of photographs of the spot the night before the open house.

I packed my booth to the gills with vintage Christmas spirit! 

It is amazing what a little creativity can do.  I had this grain sack available in my booth for a month and it sat there unsold.  Then voila, inspiration hit!  I wrapped some empty boxes with brown paper and red ribbon and stuffed the bag with them, made and attached a tag that says "SANTA" and presto - a Santa toy sack decoration.  Happily, it found a new home very quickly.

In closing, I'll share with you that I made my new year's resolution early for the upcoming new year.  I have decided that as of January 1, 2012, I am going to downsize my spot at the Cooperage to my original 1/2 size spot and deal primarily in small items and my own hand crafted items.  I did enjoy the success of the last year's adventure in ramping things up a bit by selling from a larger spot and from all the markets.  I loved having a little extra jungle in my pocketbook from the improved proceeds (especially when it came to having more to donate to worthy causes), but let me tell you, towards the end of September, I took a good hard look and realized how stressed so many aspects of it made me and how much of my time it was taking away from being the wife and mother I want to be.  My family is my first priority and the old adage, "If mama ain't happy...ain't nobody happy," was looking like it could become the norm in our house.  So...I worked it all around in my brain a bit and got myself a good sized helping of perspective and made my resolution.  I feel better already! 

Don't fret.  I'm not giving it all up.  There will still be plenty of happy finds and pictures and small projects to share with you.  It is after all, a past time that brings me a lot of joy.  Just gotta find my balance.  I think I'm on the right track.

Well, here is to a happy start to the pre-holiday season and hopefully no more long power outages!  Take care.