Project 365

Day 251: Sleeping at my parents' house reminds me of my college dorm 

Day 252: Charlee came by to get some cuddles from Dad

Day 253: My handmade clay pots from Good Dirt

Day 254: Watched my favorite Christmas movie tonight

Day 255: Day 3 of my week of vegetarian eating.  Veggie stir-fry was not bad.

Day 256: Loving my new jacket and homemade infinity scarf

Day 257: Tonight's dinner is brought to you by my junkfood cupboard

Day 258: The prank wars at school continue

Day 259: Even my kids are getting in on the pranks

Day 260: Jenny looks great with her new top!

Day 261: Weston, my 2nd favorite Westie

Day 262: My tiny Christmas tree, featuring all the ornaments James and I have gotten together

Day 263: And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Day 264: Well, at least I can say this students understands verb tenses

Day 265: Forgot to take a picture until I was already in bed and half asleep, so here's Mac, chilling at the foot of my bed

Day 266: Athens Parade of Lights

Day 267: Milo made a nest while I wrapped presents

Day 268: Book Club Christmas get-together 

Day 269: I hate grading writing

Day 270: Very grateful for electronic report cards this year

Day 271: Zucchini bread for work smorgasbord tomorrow

Day 272: Starbucks date with Robb

Day 273: Can't believe my brother is really getting married

Day 274: Look who came to decorate cookies!

Day 275: Scenes from the kennel, aka my house

Day 276: Ellie stole Milo's pallet, and he was none too happy about it

Day 277: This lovely bruise is what happens when you have four dogs staying at your house and two of them smash into the side of your leg

Day 278: Sweet birthday card from a student.  I may be by myself for my birthday, but at least I'll have Mac and Milo

Day 279: My students know me so well!

Let's All Go to the {Craft} Fair!

Last week, my life was completely taken over by CRAFTING!  About a month ago, I signed up to have a table at a craft fair at Bethlehem First United Methodist Church in Bethlehem (duh).  Unfortunately, I didn't really start preparing until about a week before the craft fair.  Thus, my office/craft room got completely taken over.

Every single surface was covered in coasters, necklace pendants, and magnets.  Fortunately, by the time Thursday night at 10:30 rolled around, I had all of my items finished, ready to go, and loaded into the car.  I think at final count, I went to the craft fair with 30 sets of coasters, 20 sets of magnets, and 20 necklaces.

My other challenge was figuring out how to display everything.  I ended up using some rolled bulletin board material in 5"x7" frames, and tacking the chains over the top and around the back of the frames.

For the magnets, I covered a baking sheet with scrapbook paper.  I didn't really think about how heavy that would be, so I had a little trouble standing it up, but we made it work.

After school Friday, I went by the church and got my table all set up.  It took about an hour, but I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was a little cramped, but I wanted everything out because you never know what might catch somebody's eye.

The craft fair started Saturday morning at 10.  Tamara had warned me how boring craft fairs can be, so luckily my friend Robb agreed to come hang out with me for the day.  I should have known that he would not approve of my table set-up, so he spent a good bit of his time there rearranging my table.  Good thing I like Robb's style!

The craft fair itself was pretty boring, but I did make some sales.

My only goal was to make at least $25 so I could feel like my table was paid for, and I made that with my first customer.  She bought three sets of coasters and two necklaces!  After that, little sales trickled in for the remainder of the time.  By the end of the day, I had made $115.  Not bad, considering this was my first craft fair!

I'm looking forward to getting all the new items up on my Etsy shop so I can hopefully sell some more of it during the Etsy Christmas rush.

A Wine Tasting and a Beautiful Vineyard

In mid-October, my group of friends from high school and I gathered in Nashville for our annual (well, supposed to be annual) girls weekend.  Our friend Annemarie has a townhouse there, and Nashville was equal travelling for those of us in Georgia and the one of us in St. Louis, so it seemed like a good choice for girls' weekend.  We weren't sure what exactly we would do for the weekend, but luckily Annemarie had some activities planned for us.

On Saturday, we headed out to Arrington Vineyards.  Arrington is owned by Kix Brooks, one of the members from Brooks and Dunn.  It is clearly not a huge vineyard, but it was the perfect size for what we wanted to do.

The vineyard was mostly just a large field for picnicking, the grapes, and one building for wine tasting.

We didn't bring any picnicking stuff, so we put our name in for a (FREE!) wine tasting, bought some bottles of wine for while we waited, and set ourselves up at a picnic table for some afternoon wine sampling.

Two bottles of wine later, it was time for our tasting.  We each got to select three wines to sample.  I think Vanessa and I liked the snacks almost as much as we liked the wines!

We had a great time at the vineyards.  Arrington was GORGEOUS, and the wine was quite delicious!