I’m really at the point where I hate being stuck back here in the bedroom, all the time. I really want to move my computer into the living room, but there isn’t anywhere to put it. That stupid, huge entertainment center takes up such a large space in there that we can’t do anything else to the room. If I had a flat screen TV, we could get one of those plasma tv mounts and probably shift the room around so that the desks could be where the couch is now & the couch could take the space that Troy’s computer hutch & a set of shelves are. Those shelves could go under the TV, since it would be hanging. At least then I wouldn’t feel like I was avoiding everyone & everything every time I want to be on my computer.

Hopefully, we’ll get a new TV before too much longer & we can do all of those things. I’ll probably find something else to complain about then, like the glare from the windows in there, or the cats not leaving me alone, but it’ll be better than being alone all the time, I’m sure.

I ordered the pattern I needed for the witch hats I’m making for the booth the other day & I got it in the mail today! I’m so excited to get one cut out & sewn! I do need to wait to buy some more interfacing, unless I can find the stuff I bought last year in the craft room somewhere. I’m just going to make the first one out of some random fabric, just so I can make sure I understand the instructions and all & theoretically, I could forgo the interfacing for that, but I really do want to see exactly how it will look when it’s finished the right way, so I think I’ll go to the store later & get some. Yay, I can finally get started!!

Have you ever read a word or phrase, thought it said something else entirely & then spent a few minutes either trying to figure out why it said that or what it could have meant? I just saw the words used cisco in my inbox & thought it said “used Crisco,” and so I had a whole conversation in my head, that started with “Ewwwww! Who would want that?!” and went on to try to justify the thought and what it could or would be used for, whether the demand was high and if it was, in what parts of the country and so on. Then I looked at it again, realized what it really said. It’s not nearly as excited to know that people resell used Cisco equipment as it was to consider the possibilities of a used vegetable shortening & how it would be harvested and so on.

I know, I’m a goofball, but at least I keep myself entertained, and part of the time, everyone around me, because I can’t keep my own stupidity to myself!

Vicki has really gone to town with the idea of our new encampment & has designed a whole new setup for it, where it all fits inside a 20′ x 20′ area & even has a storage area. I’m not sure it’ll all come together for her, or if she’ll even be able to afford everything she wants to do with it, but it looks like a great idea. I just hope we can get it all set up before it’s time to tear it down. For the sleeping pavilion, I’d love to get a hold of a nice rug to put in there (I’d say a home theater carpet, but the patterns are wrong, even though the size would work), just to keep the dampness in the morning down a bit. I think it would be a lot more comfortable in there that way, at any rate.

She has it arranged so that access will be severely limited & that will, hopefully, make it much harder for anyone to steal from us. The storage area is in the center of the encampment & not that easy to get to, so that will be a deterrent in itself. I think we’re all a little tired of worrying that someone’s garb will disappear, especially after Mark had his stolen a couple of years ago.

I do need to get with her & find out what I need to get sewn for it, if she still wants the green walls we used last year or not.

As many of you know, I’m very interested in our impact on the environment & when I’m offered a choice, I’ll choose eco products over anything else, in an effort to lessen my own impact. I’m always on the lookout for places to purchase these products, and have found the web to be an invaluable resource for that. GreenandMore.com has an amazing variety of eco-friendly products. This company actually lives their mission & follows green practices on the company level within their offices (they use no plasticware, their office supplies & kitchen goods are recycled & they use 100% recycled boxes for shipping).

They have a huge selection of products, including energy saving appliances, organic cotton towels and eco-friendly shower heads. They have solar power products, lighting, things for home improvement & water conservation, home decor & stuff for an eco-garden (and some really cool composters, too). Heck, I even saw some really nice handbags & totes, made from recycled materials.

Honestly, for me, the shopping on the site is wonderful and everything, but the best parts are free. They have a really good blog, called GreenMusings, and yes, they do review their own products, a lot, but there are some really great tips on going green and living an eco-friendly life too. The very best part of the entire website is their vast learning center. They seem to realize that while many people are aware that we need to lessen our impact on the environment, most of us have no idea how to even begin, let alone where to go after that. They have articles on everything from earth friendly holiday tips to sustainability, and tons in between. The learning center really does seem to cover just about everything you’d ever really need to know, from beginners to old pros.

We were all sitting around talking on Sunday evening, about our encampment & how we can make it better. As it stands, our only building is a 10×10 wooden gazebo-type thing. We have very little storage space & no way to get out of the sun, because we lost a lot of our other items to the wind. The faire itself uses an identical gazebo as the information booth (they gave us the one we’re using a couple of years ago), so we were thinking that it would be nice to have them both, so that we could put an awning in between them & use one for food storage & one for garb, and still have a nice place to sit out of the heat of the day.

At our meeting yesterday, we brought it up, and asked if it would be possible to get a nice Easy-Up to use for the information booth, because, quite frankly, the wooden gazebos are really hard to put up & take down, so we leave that booth until the very end. If we had an Easy-Up, we’d just move everything out of it & take it down, and it would be done. They were all for that & asked us if we wanted the other wooden building, and of course, we said yes & explained why we need it. So, if we can get a hold of some Sports Authority coupons, we’ll use those with another member’s son’s employee discount & hopefully be able to get a pretty good one for a good price. I’m really excited about redoing our encampment & making it look nicer & have it be much more functional, right now, it’s kind of a mess.

I think I’m going to sit down later & do a few sketches to decide exactly how we want to set things up.

I was just thinking about the difference between me & my kids. When I was growing up, for a long time, at any rate, I had to wear special shoes to try to keep my feet straight, and they looked like golf shoes, so, of course, being a littler girl, I hated them.

By the time I was able to stop wearing those, I was so thrilled that I didn’t care if my shoes were name brand or what. I wore a lot of Trax sneakers, in wild colors, because I had never been able to before. There were shoes that were in style that I refused to wear, like oxfords, because they looked too much like the shoes I’d had for so many years. All through middle shoe I really didn’t care much. Yeah, sometimes I got teased because I wasn’t wearing the expensive, stylish shoes, but I really didn’t mind. Yeah, I wore Nike & Van’s in high school, but I made them last or I paid for them myself.

My kids? Erin was always very conscious of what brand he was wearing, and it really bothered him to not have expensive shoes. We couldn’t afford them & I think that he took that personally, at times. My daughter has never really cared much, or if she has, she’s never really said. She has had name brand shoes & boots, but she doesn’t want us to spend a ton of money on them, so it doesn’t happen very often. I think she understands that they’re just shoes, and like everything else, they wear out.

The funniest thing to me is that I have 3 pairs of sneakers, all in name brands & I don’t even care!

There are so many things that I’d love to have for my home, I love to surf the ‘net & look at the newest, cool gadgets out there & dream about what I’d do if I had enough money to have whatever I want. I would truly love to have a dishwasher in my kitchen, I get so tired of hand washing dishes every day, but of course, there isn’t anywhere to put one in there & I have no space for a portable model, either. I’d love a new fridge, too, with an ice maker & water dispenser, but it’s hard to find one that will fit in the space we have for one, because our trailer is so old.

We do plan to get a new plasma TV before too much longer, and while I’d really love to have one of those really cool tv lift cabinets, I know that I wouldn’t be able to justify the cost of that AND the TV, so we’ll likely just mount it on a wall, or get a stand for it. I really would like to get a laptop later this year, because I get lonely back here in the bedroom, by myself all the time. There isn’t anywhere for me to put a computer in the living room and we don’t have another desk for me, anyway.

I imagine that we’re going to need to progress to Blu-Ray soon, too, since I hear that they’re going to stop making DVDs soon & if we don’t, we won’t be able to buy new movies, or probably even rent them. I’m still not sure how we’ll afford to get a player, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, like all of the others.

I went & visited with my parents on Friday morning, because my mom wanted first dibs at the rings I’ll be selling in the booth this summer. She picked out two & bought them, not really letting me make her a deal of any sort. While I was there we got to talking about how terrible it has to be for some kids to grow up & not know anything about where they came from. There are so many people who don’t know their father or anything about him, and a lot of people who never take the time to tell their children what it was like when they were growing up.

I know so much about my dad’s life, because he was always talking to us about what it was like to grow up in the depression and how hard his family had it. When he was little his whole family followed the fruit crops in California, picking fruit from one end of the state to the other, just to try to make ends meet. They traveled back & forth between California & Oklahoma to see family and then come back home, and he has so many funny stories about what they saw & did on those trips, things I would never have known if I didn’t know him, or if he didn’t tell me, because his parents both died when I was 5 (my grandmother from heart disease & my grandfather in a house fire).

I know just as much about my mom’s life. I know that as a young girl they lived in a lumber camp, at least once, because that was where my grandpa could find work. She has funny stories to tell me about her cousins and her friends and things that she did as a child. I know that she raised us totally different than the way she was raised & that we were loved by our parents more than she was by hers. These are things I could never have gotten from my grandmother, because I’m sure she has a different perspective of things & that she believes she did everything the right way. I couldn’t have gotten it from my grandpa, at all. He too, died when I was 5, but it was mesothelioma that took him, from all of the years of building battleships on Mare Island.

The point I think I’m making is that I would know nothing & would have nothing to tell my own children about decades of their own family history if either of my parents hadn’t been around, or if they hadn’t known how important it is to share those stories. My mom is trying to convince my dad to write his life story down so that I have it & it won’t be lost. He had a fascinating life, and went through things that I can’t even imagine. It’s so important to be a part of your children’s lives, even if you aren’t with them all of the time. Take time to tell them about your childhood and your life, even if it seems like they aren’t listening, because it’s important & they are & they’ll remember it & cherish it someday.

I’ve been spending a lot of time drawing up ideas for what I want our booth to look like this next faire. Since we’re changing things up a bit, I want it to reflect those changes and at the same time, reassure our existing customer base that we’re still the same, reliable people that they’ve purchased from in the past. Because it’s a renaissance faire, there are guidelines that have to be followed and there are certain expectations, too. I think I have to do an even better job than the typical vendor at our faire because I’m also on the board of directors. I think, at times, it would be a lot easier if I were doing trade show booths instead of a craft booth a faire, especially since that way you’re just showcasing what your company does & getting the name out, but, this is what we do & I love it.

It seems like I spend the entire year before a faire planning for the next one, though. What can I do to make it better? What can I offer to my customers next year? Will this or that sell? It’s crazy at times, I swear!