And Another Thing . . .
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Saturday, May 1, 2004 Jeannie is a long time reader who lives in FL and takes the most fantastic photographs. Check out her photoblog sometime. I used to encourage her to start her own online journal but this is clearly her calling. She's a self-confessed "picture taking machine". Great eye, great camera, Photoshop whiz = great results!
Last fall my parents had one of their huge pine trees cut down. (These trees were our Christmas trees many moons ago.) When Gretchen and I asked them why they left the stump so tall, all Mom and Dad would say was, "Stay tuned."
They had seen this chainsaw carver's work at a couple of local craft shows and hired him. It took about 6 days, working around the rainy weather. My parents have gotten as big a kick out of the neighborhood's reaction as they have the artwork itself. My dad counted 17 people standing around watching one day. Little kids were picking up wood chips as souvenirs.
When Dad was showing the final product to Simon and me, he asked if I thought it would be too much to add a woodpecker and bushy-tailed squirrel. (Heck, no! Do it!) Mom had a dream so vivid about a rabbit carved at the bottom of the tree, the first thing she did when she woke up was look out the window to see if it was real. Very cool, indeed.
My Friday Stefani Day didn't go as planned, but they never do, which is admittedly part of the charm. My number one intention was to fully update the Pine Tree Designs website. But the weather proved to be so gorgeous that I ended up working in the yard most of the day. Rain was predicted for the afternoon and today but still hasn't shown up. Just a tiny sprinkle here or there. Last week Dad and I dug up a bunch of hostas that we'd marked at the end of last summer so I could finish the row along the front sidewalk. So yes, that means yesterday I dug up about 6 more feet of grass - but it's done! I didn't quite finish weeding the rest of the existing bed or I would have taken a picture. Tomorrow, hopefully. Steve and I walked Reggi in the village first thing in the morning, stopping at Fairport Donuts for 2 muffins. Then Dad came over to give me Part II of last year's Christmas present. Part I was the beautiful wren house he made, of his own design I learned. Part II was installing it. It looks fantastic and I'll take a picture soon. Excuse me while I talk to Dad for a second. Dad - two things - there's no bird-related reason I can't plant morning glories or something climby around it - to climb up and around the house, is there? And I saw a bird trying to get in the house tonight! It wasn't a wren and thus wasn't successful. My gut (and my bird book and binoculars) is telling me it was a tree swallow, except the tail wasn't very forked. It sort of looked like a slate colored junco too. Is one more likely than the other, do you think? Now back to our regularly scheduled entry.
This morning, Jennifer's son finished installing our central air conditioning. Hot weather - bring it on! I went to a 9:00 Village Gifts vendor meeting to further discuss the upcoming Canal Days festival. I'm so stressed, worried I won't have enough product. Tables are set up outside, under a tent, where we all display some stuff and then of course we're to stuff our "booths" to the rafters with product inside the store. This is our biggest single weekend of the year. But I came to some conclusions of what else to buy and make and how to display it. I'll do the best I can and learn a lot for next year. Can't do more than that. I stopped by the store after the meeting to add the new dragonfly necklaces and some more turtle necklaces to the side of the card rack. I put out some Mother's Day cards too. You'll see them tomorrow on the website. I also picked up my biggest check yet (thanks mostly to Mom - thanks, Mom!) and made it to the bank in time to deposit it. The owners of Village Gifts tease me, as do I - about Mom being my best customer. We had a short meeting at the store Thursday night about t-shirts we're having made to sell at Canal Days. Linda: Hey, Stef - you sold 3 cards today! Terry: And it wasn't your mom. Stefani: Oh, my sister was in? Linda: No, it wasn't your sister. Stefani: You mean perfect strangers?? Laughter ensued.
I did the grocery shopping this afternoon, which pleased me no end, because I've now completed all my commitments for the weekend and Sunday can be a total PTD day.
Which means I can continue my framing marathon and order more frames, now that I've figured out which frames look best with which cards. These are the GardenCards that are prints made from dried flowers and leaves.
After dinner tonight Steve and I went to Home Depot and bought a new deck umbrella, which means tomorrow I'll put up the lights around it that I bought at Target a while back. Did I tell you? Little coppery birdhouses that light up. I can't wait to see it all done up. So far Simon and I moved the table out and one chair so I could read the paper the other night. So tomorrow, assuming the rain holds off, we can put everything else out there. We also bought a new gas string trimmer. Steve and Simon have been using one that is probably close to 30 years old - that Steve had in his youth. It finally crapped out or close to it. I tried using it once but it made my back hurt immediately - like my center of gravity was off or something. We also bought a new garage door! Jen's son Joe is going to install that for us too, thereby saving us about $400 from what I was quoted last week by a garage door company. White, no windows, medium insulation, nothing fancy. But what a treat this will be! I should take before and after pictures. The current garage door had rotting wood when we moved in 4 years ago and has been getting progressively worse. You can actually see this door is crooked in the tracks. It's a mess. This winter we all learned to finesse the door up and down with the garage door opener, but not always with 100% success. So we had to open and close it manually sometimes, which of course always fell on the coldest days. I know we'll be taking this new door for granted in no time.
It's a lovely, quiet cool night here. Simon's had no friends over all weekend, which is quite unusual. Oh - here's the latest on Simon: he did not get a job at Target - per the postcard he received yesterday. No reason given, just nothing available at this time. Poor kid, though I had told him he might not want to put all his eggs in one basket. Today he told me he thinks he'll apply at Blockbuster. Duh! I suggested this long ago - he'd be perfect for it. I offered to take him this afternoon to apply but he wanted to think a bit more about it. (And he told me he would only work there if he got a discount on movies and games. Kids.) He scheduled his road test for May 28 to get his junior license. It's at 9:00 am, which is good - and it happens to be on a day he has off from school and I'm taking off too - as a prelude to the Memorial Day weekend. We practiced parallel parking and the k-turn yesterday. He's a good driver but I can tell his confidence level is still not where it should be. He gets annoyed when I say that. He has the technical skills, he just needs to add lots of experience. I know when he reaches that certain solid level, we'll both recognize it. On one hand when he gets a little cocky, I wouldn't mind it if he failed the road test. Just because. On the other hand, I don't want him to fail the road test. Then again, I, yes - moi - failed my first road test. I remember being so adamant that the tester was an idiot - he said I would have hit the parked car I was parking behind if he hadn't stopped me. Would not! No way! Looking back - what an asshole I was for thinking I knew better than the experienced test dude. Teenagers. Can't live with them, can't shoot 'em.
Dinner: Good old fashioned grilled cheeseburgers - and onion rings (frozen, but they were darn good). I had some more of the Bush's Baked Beans. Simon likes them sometimes but Steve hates all beans. That's crazy! That's more for me! Reading: Handmade for Profit, by Barbara Brabec.
Listening to in the car: Sea
Glass, by Anita Shreve
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