Catch Up

It was nice to have Mom and Joan visit. The first day they were here it rained by the bucket load. When Duncan took them to their hotel he realized the streets were flooding and our ponds were overflowing. Turned out to be double the record rainfall for a day's time here -- but Saturday was nice and the rest of the weekend was great. We visited Mepkin Abbey, the Tea Plantation and went to church at a sweet little Presbyterian church built in 1850 in the very quaint little village of Rockville on the Edisto River. We also ate a lot and tried to coax Eloise into being more friendly and watched great white cranes in the marsh. I hope it was a nice visit for them and that they will come back. I love having guests - and they are very easy guests to have.

What I Want

She just wants to be employed
for eight hours a day. She is not
interested in a career; she wants a job
with a paycheck and free parking. She
does not want to carry a briefcase filled
with important papers to read after
dinner; she does not want to return
phone calls. When she gets home, she
wants to kick off her shoes and waltz
around her kitchen singing, "I am a piece
of work."

Beverly Rollwagen

Tomorrow, an interview. They are few and far between. Blow on the dice, light a candle, say a pray, cross your fingers and toes and surround me in light. If I don't get a job, I'm going to have to make my own Christmas presents just to have something to do and no one wants that!

East Cooper's Crafter's Guild Fall Show

The Craft Show was an interesting experience, if not profitable. Most people walked right by me, obviously there for the jewelry, lighthouses painted on oyster shells and Santa Clauses made from dish towels. A lot of people stopped and looked at all the boxes, sometimes picked one up and looked inside, then looked over at me and said "This is really neat!" And then moved on. But some few people took a look, lit up and said "I have to have one!" Those were the people I liked the best.

I was definitely one of the rookies at this show. Most people came in with very elaborate display set ups with the exact right cart of move it in on. They had professional signage and their own cash registers. I felt a little bit like the kid with a lemonade stand on the sidewalk in front of the house.

I had good conversations with people who gave me ideas about ways to go about it in the future. #1 Don't pay such high entrance fees. Look for shows that cost $10 or less. #2 Configure "floors" for boxes so they serve better as gift boxes. #3 Get business cards made at dot.print.com. #4 Fewer boxes -- the most distinctive ones are the ones that sell. #5 I need bags next time. It was a rainy weekend and I needed to help people protect their purchase from dissolving before they got it home.

I think my bargain basement prices were about right.

Origami Boxes

I have a booth at a craft show in Mt. Pleasant this weekend. All energy has turned to getting ready for that! Will anyone be shopping for crafts with the stock market crashing??? Put that on the worry list.

Our newly painted living room

". . . I had a nice tan color in mind, but May latched on to this sample called Caribbean Pink. She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish flamenco. I thought, 'Well, this is the tackiest color I've ever seen, and we'll have half the town talking about us, but if it can lift May's heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it.'"

". . .Some things don't matter that much. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart -- now, that matters. The whole problem with people is. . . they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is?. . . I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

August Boatwright in The Secret Life of Bees

These colors lift my heart.

Before and After -- Ta Da!

And Eloise has her own problems

After not ever noticing many cats in this neighborhood before, suddenly this spring, we started to feel like we had a very popular teenager at our house. Lots of cats were coming by in the evening to chat up Eloise. Some she would talk to and share space with, others she would chase away. There is a fluffy orange cat that lives down the street she doesn't like and a mean black and white one. One cat she seems to tolerate is missing a front paw and walks with a decided limp. Assuming he is a stray and feeling he is at a disadvantage in the natural world, Duncan puts food out on the deck whenever this "tripod" visits. One night, there was a terrible row outside involving several of Eloise's regular visitors that left blood on the deck and little tuffs of fur floating in the air. Eloise was inside, yowling and swatting the glass door with her paw. We all rushed outside and the last thing we saw was Black and White Cat shooting around the corner and Tripod hobbling off down the creekbank.

Several days passed before Tripod appeared again. Duncan put a bowl of food out and Eloise went and sat on the back steps, appearing to stand guard so he could eat in peace. Awww. Too sweet. Cat friends. Buds.

Things sort of settled into a quiet routine with Queen Eloise as the indoor cat and Tripod, the outdoor cat. Not politically correct, but it was working. Then, one day recently Tripod showed up with a new friend. A little black and white female -- different from the black and white thug cat. She has a little swoosh across her face, so Duncan calls her Paintbrush. And apparently she and Tripod are best buds now. He brings her to eat on Eloise's deck. They eat out of the same bowl. Sometimes she licks his head while he eats. Eloise is horrified. She regrets she was ever nice and feels Tripod has taken advantage of her kindness. She cannot believe their flagrant noodling on her deck. She cannot understand why we seem to encourage them.

So her outside territory has been defiled and now workers are inside the house, making noise and doing all kinds of unexpected things so she can't find a good place to nap. She has retreated under the bed -- and resorted to stress eating. What else can she do??