The Weekend

.

I did it! I like it. I had a brainstorm after the other quilled balloon cards that I wasn't 100% happy with - make the card taller! The balance is better and I can use the long twisty "strings" that I think look cool. It took me about 9-10 balloons until I got these three to work. I still need to practice, practice, practice, but I'm on my way.

~ ~ ~

Ann asked if the Friday night massage maybe triggered some of the emotion last week. All my emotion happened days before the massage. I've heard that massage can do that though (Stephanie, I think you've mentioned it) - where a massage releases all the whatevers that reduces one to tears.

The thing is I had myself a good little cry at my desk Friday about 4:30. No one saw me, thank God, which is important to me. Love a good cry, really rather not do it at work. I called Steve for a phone hug and he made it all better.

I walked into the massage therapy place and told Mary I wanted her to massage me until I cried. I was stressed out and really wanted to lose it. Got it?? She said okay, she'd do her best. We were kind of laughing about it. After the massage she said, "I'm sorry, I didn't make you cry. Are you okay with that?" I told her I had a little cry at my desk before I arrived there so I must have peaked too early.

Maybe next time.

~ ~ ~

Yesterday morning, Steve and I took a little road trip in the morning out to Pultneyville and Sodus Point - about 45 minutes from here. I'd had an email from a fellow crafter who told of a store in Pultneyville that was now carrying her work. So I wanted to check the place out to see if my work would be a good fit there. It's called The Artist's Loft so I thought it might carry unique work that you don't see in regular gift shops. My handcrafted cards don't always compete well with mass produced, inexpensive cards. Plus I'd love to sell some framed pieces too.

My friend Jen lives out that way so she told me of 3 other stores in that area. She also gave us a couple of recommendations for breakfast so we stopped at Gus's Restaurant* on Route 104 for breakfast. It's a drive from our house but it's definitely going into our usual breakfast rotation. Our breakfast arrived so fast we thought they must have brought us someone else's food. And they have thick country toast which is always a key factor for us. And it was toasted to perfection. I like my toast in the same room with the toaster, but not actually placed in the toaster, you see.

These towns I mentioned are on Lake Ontario - and the stores are closed for the winter. I didn't even think of that! The one I really wanted to see however, is open but their weekend winter hours are 3:00-7:00 on Saturday and Sunday. So I'll take a drive out there some other time.

Even though it was a pretty gray day and we didn't accomplish what we set out to, we had a good time on our little drive. We picked a good day to do it, as it turns out, looks like we got 5" or 6" of snow last night and it's really windy again.

~ ~ ~

* Gus's Restaurant is spelled that way, rather than Gus' Restaurant. Is that one of those things that's right either way or the rules have changed over the years or anything? I'm sort of a stickler about spelling and punctuation (and thus have "hired" Mom to proof my journal entries - she's the Queen of Proofing). Did I ever tell you about the new store that opened in Fairport last year? It was called Season's of Fairport. Their large professional sign over the store said Season's of Fairport. I flipped out! I had to tell Mom and Gretchen about it since that kind of thing bugs all of us. Gretchen tried to reason that maybe it was run by a family named Season. The next time I drove by the store, the sign had been fixed. I wonder how many comments they got on that thing. I know there are lots of us sticklers around.

Furthermore, on our Saturday road trip, I stopped to get gas. While I was pumping, I noticed the sign on the pump offering a savings of 8/100ths of a penny per gallon if you also use their car wash. Hardly seems worth it does it? The sign was like this: dollar sign .08 cent sign. Huh?

Grrrrrgggh!