I'm Baa-aaaack (with lots to tell you :o)

I have no idea how long this post will be, as I'm running out of time (don't want to be late for church; Again ;o) I suppose I should start with a happy Earth Day to everyone! Pretty sure this is Papa bird from the little family of birds we had in our garage last month (Mama was brown). Does anyone know what kind of bird this is? I thought it was a Finch or maybe a Wren, but he doesn't seem to match any of the photos I've looked at (he's brown and yellow, extremely quick and very, very small). 
I was excited to learn that our "An Epic Farms' Fish Tale" was included in a list of Earth Day lenses on Squidoo (yay!) I wrote it when we decided to use the goldfish to keep the horse's water tanks clean. If you're interested, click here to pop over and read (but don't forget to come back!) Okay, so nix on the beginning statement of this particular post - I obviously had no time, as it is now Monday. Sunday afternoon was spent organizing mom's pantry, bathroom, and unpacking still more boxes. Meh. 

Here's the dirty deets: I've been running back and forth like a lunatic helping my parents to pack and move; they sold their high maintenance "mansion" in the next town (okay not really a mansion, but it was definitely BIG) and have relocated less than 4 miles up the road - Woot! It has been an interesting - albeit exhausting - experience to see God's hands all over this. Here are a few of the highlights: The first thing was the sale itself, lots of prayer for it to sell fairly quickly. The answer? The first couple that looked at it, bought it (how's that for unusual in a lousy economy? ;o) Because my mom was completely overwhelmed by the idea of packing up and moving, I had some definite concerns about her driving abilities during all of this and said a few prayers for that too. I assume most of you saw the 77 year old  woman who plowed through Publix recently when she hit the gas instead of the brake (eek). Anyway, interestingly enough mom's car suddenly malfunctioned and had to go into the shop for repairs and the replacement part they ordered was defective (which "never" happens), so they had to send it back. The new part is on back order and will be another week or two at least before this is resolved (problem solved - whew!) 

I have to say the biggest one was their "new" neighbors. A couple moved in down the street from their old house less than a year ago and they struck up a casual friendship (they now go to my parent's church). I could not take off for most of the two weeks they were packing because of the state-mandated testing going on. As much stuff as they had I was really worried about my mom tackling it by herself so I did the best thing I could think of and prayed about it. The answer? 
Turns out mom's new friend has moved no less than 27 times and is a 'professional' packer-upper (due to her husband's line of work - he's a troubleshooter for a national corporation). Not only that, but she was also in between jobs and had plenty of time to help. Now what are the odds of that I ask you? Is God awesome or what!? I'm telling ya, He never fails (Boo-yeah :o) Although we will miss the house (it was gorgeous - and I'll try to post some more photos next time), I will no longer worry about mom taking a header down the steps from the second floor. She'd already fallen once coming down the steps from dad's monster office above the garage.
Seems I'm out of time again - and now it's Tuesday - so I'll just end it with some photos of my latest project; a collaborative effort with DD. She built a toy box for a little girl's birthday; she has been working with the family and helping them with their signing. My job was to burn the child's fingerspelled name into the lid. Nothing like a small challenge, eh? Good thing I wasn't busy (and pardon me while I laugh hysterically at that one, right? ;o)
Here's the lid. DD brought it to me to work on:

If you've never done pyrography [wood burning] it's pretty cool (although tedious and time-consuming). First thing is to take some graphite paper and transfer your pattern. In this case the letters I printed out (the font is called "Gallaudet", which is named for the big college for the deaf:

Once you have the design on the wood, you can start carefully burning it. I keep a piece of waxed paper under my arm so I don't smear my design or get the wood dirty (we have natural oils on our skin, don'tcha know ;o)

Several days (and a gazillion hours later :o) you can sit back and appreciate your efforts as you work the cramps out of your hand. Oh, and it says "Shea", by the way:

Gave the lid back to DD for assembly, and we put it together. Two sets of hinges; regular (the stainless) and specialty hinges towards the outside so it would close more slowly and - hopefully - not slam shut on little fingers:

Not bad, eh? I think we make a pretty good team, anyway :o)

Internet difficulties and an hour and half on the phone with tech support (to no avail) has brought us (at the speed of a lame turtle) to Wednesday. *sigh* This may be a terrible post, as I don't really have time to proof it as carefully as I normally do. Shall I apologize? Said technical difficulties, along with life in general, have made it impossible for me to do much visiting. For that I will apologize - I've really missed reading your posts this week!  Have a great week (what's left of it anyway ;o) Hopefully, I'll be back to my regularly scheduled self soon.

The first of which is:  I've figured out the actual definition of R and R. It's Running and Ragged. I am so very sorry that I did not get my regular posts out last week and the week before; things got a bit whack-o around here (and what else is new, right?) Did you miss me? I missed you ;o) Remember me telling you awhile back about my friend Sandy renting a booth at an antique mall? (here). Well, we made plans for me to haul some of my crapola er, creations up there over spring break to put in her booth. I wanted to pour some more candles to take too, and had to round up what I could get my hands on from my inventory, which is scattered all over everywhere in the house (anyplace it would fit).

Quick interjection here: LookLookLook! Our little Finch family came back again this year. Not the best shot, but considering that they were tucked in an empty waste basket underneath a shelf I was proud to get any kind of photo. I got to watch their first flights again too; lots of excitement there. *grin* (next pic :o) Everything had to be tagged, jotted down (gotta have an inventory list don'tcha know), then carefully packed up. Not too daunting a task if you spread out over time. Well. I was starting to stress somewhat by the week of jury duty; I'd hoped for an early dismissal each day, and instead got longer hours (grr). Just to make things more interesting (because we all know how much Jen loves a challenge, ha ha) my parents are moving and one of the little germinators at school got me again. Welcome to insanity squared. Meh. I woke up Saturday morning with a stuffy head and icky cough and by Monday was sick as a dog and making a beeline for the doctor's office; fine way to kick off spring break, eh? Not. Since I was heading to Sandy's on Thursday, I was hoping to be lots better by then. Hope springs eternal...*sigh* 

I did manage to get most of it done in between tissues, sneezing fits, and frantic calls from my Mom; although I think I have several new gray hairs added to my collection. The only thing that really bothered me was having to ask Sandy if she would write up the inventory as I tagged everything; I couldn't get to it before Thursday. I wanted to be completely finished with everything beforehand, but I just couldn't pull it off. Of course she was happy to help, but I was disappointed that we wouldn't have any real play time (we wanted to go for a trail ride :o/ Maybe next time. *sigh* I could not believe how hard we worked! From the time I got there Thursday afternoon until almost 10 that night; then back at it by 4:30a.m. Friday. Had to pause for a good laugh at Shrek (the peacock) and company bright and early Friday morning, who came marching around the corner of the house to glare suspiciously at the stranger in the dining room (that would be me) before exploring the exciting mysteries of the garage. Took it through the screen, which is why it looks funny (the splotch on Shrek's head is a hole in the screen) but you can still see them.

We finally finished up late morning and made a beeline for the booth to see how much of it we could fit in there. Would you believe I had eight pages worth of inventory? Good gravy. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 items. And I didn't even take everything either - eek. Good thing, as we were really hoppin' to get it all done (well I had to get at least one terrible pun in for the bunny hop photo, didn't I? HA). Neat shot - another one of those hoppy accidents. Wow, two lousy puns for the price of one. *rolls eyes* Okay, I think I've gotten it out of my system now. Probably. Maybe. We'll see. Anyhoo...

Would you like to see the booth? Here we are...doesn't it look nice?

Remember the card rack? That heinous painting project was worth it after all, don't you think? I put the joy boxes on top, and if you look carefully you can just see the brightly colored foam squares I stuck on each card rack to keep them from sliding down/falling flat (plus it makes it look nice and cheerful).

I spray painted a couple of cookie sheets and we hung them on opposite sides of the display shelves to hold the magnets I made (lots cheaper than buying a white board :o) She named her booth "Simply Heavenly" - don't you love it? Except for the lotions, soaps and scrubs (1st and 2nd shelves on the left) most of the rest of it is what I took.

I've never tried to sell any framed photos before, just pictures on cards, so we'll see what happens. I really liked the way they turned out, but that doesn't mean anyone else will. I'll confess to a rather large case of nerves here; worrying that everything will just sit there. Forever... Oy.

I sure hope everything sells well for her (and me too *laugh*). She spent half the time sniffing her way through the candles and rhapsodizing over how wonderful they all smelled - even through the plastic wrap and cellophane ;o)

I didn't take any of my drawings this time; I'll probably take those the next trip. I guess that's all for now - I'll sign off with some photos of the new arrival at Sandy's the day we got there. Isn't she adorable?

This is not the best shot, but look how tiny she is! Smaller than the chicken; do you believe it? In Southernese, that's what's known as "Tee-Niney" :o)

Honey, I know just how you feel ;o)

Hugs everyone!