My Saturday

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Saturday morning my extended family met for breakfast at The Log Cabin Restaurant, to celebrate Mom's recent retirement and a belated Mother's Day too, I guess. We're a bunch of multi-taskers, even our holidays.

Then Mom and Gretchen and I set off on one of our famous Road Trips. It's a tradition started a few years ago for Mom's birthday. I sort of thought we did it for Mother's Day too sometimes but they tell me no. It's always Mom's choice where we go. For yesterday's trip she picked Naples, NY - a lovely, quaint town about an hour away.

She specifically wanted to go to Artizanns, the store that sells my Sticky Notes. I have only been there once, last fall when I wanted to scope it out before approaching the owner. The owner, Suzanne Farley, happened to be in the store that day so I did get to meet her, but only briefly. In the small world department, it turns out she's married to the brother of a guy I went to high school with - and I recently learned she's a good friend of my good friend, Nancy. My friend Linda knows her too. Pretty safe to say that everybody in Naples knows each other.

When we arrived in Naples, Artizanns wasn't open yet so we strolled the village a bit. I was just thinking, Naples is a small town but still, what are the odds that I would run into my aforementioned good friend, Linda. That thought barely left my head when I heard her calling my name! She was on her way to the library so I introduced her to Mom and Gretchen and we chatted a bit.

We headed back to Artizanns and I (re)introduced myself to Suzanne. She was so nice to me and complimentary about my work, it just made my day. This store is so beautiful, such a gallery, I want to do so well there. I'm proud to have any of my work in that store. After we left, I almost went all Sally Fields, "She likes me! She really really likes me!"

I'm participating in Artizanns "Artists in Action, on the Front Porch" series this year. I'll be there 12:00-3:00 on Sunday, June 15. I'm pretty sure I'll be sending out a postcard mailing next week for this. I've been debating the mailing (because the store is an hour away from Rochester) but I think any opportunity to get my name in front of people is money well spent.

Mom and Gretchen and I then headed to an ice cream stand Suzanne recommended, as is also our tradition during these road trips. Then, not far from there, we stopped at The Wizard of Clay, an outstanding pottery store we've been going to for years. We don't go there often, but we have been going a long time. You just kind of want one of everything in there.

(Von, that's the place we went when you were up here.)

I spent some time working on the deck in the afternoon but I'll post those pictures tomorrow.

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