A week ago we started our bathroom renovation (I will post the photo chronicle when the job is done). A renovation in itself is stressful, but made much less by the generousness of my parents for taking our children for nine and a half days. They return tomorrow afternoon and we'll be glad to see them!
To add to the stress and need of a good crying laugh, the weekend before our renovation started, our dryer died. After three visits from the repair guy with an array of parts our dryer was deemed unable to be repaired. At that point I'd been without a dryer for nine days and had missed out on the Independence Day sales from the previous week. So we coughed up the money for a new dryer and it was delivered the next day. I've been happily doing laundry for several days now and am so glad to have fluffy towels instead of the cardboard that the clothesline was creating!
Our attic fan also has died, sometime between Sunday and Monday this week and it's been a heatwave here in New Jersey, so it makes it quite uncomfortable at night on the second floor and more strenuous on the air conditioner to keep the house cool. My husband plans to look at it as soon as the sheetrock is out of the hallway and he can pull down the attic steps, but I think he's waiting for the heat to break so that he doesn't have to go into the super hot attic. I don't blame him one bit!
Gratefully the heat is supposed to break tomorrow night when a stormy front pushes through the area. I pray it's less violent than the storm from last night, hail damaged several of my plants in the patch - the squash leaves are scarred terribly. As sad as I was about the dammage, I am grateful that I finally had the first picking from the patch this week, a cucumber. I have a tomato just starting to pink up and two more cukes that should be ready over the weekend. This doesn't seem to be the year for summer squash and zucchini - all male blooms, not a squash to be found in six plants. My purple potatoes are growing like gangbusters, I hope that there will be good digging there soon! I transplanted carrots a few days ago, some are in a pot on the patio and others are around the tomatoes. I'm experimenting with those this year. If you're curious as to what to companion plant, you should borrow these two books from your library and take good notes: Carrots Love Tomatoes and Roses Love Garlic - they've been invaluable to me over my dozen or so years of gardening. I learn more each year and I cannot imagine being successful without.
This week I mailed my items that will be gifted at the indiExhibit Celebrity Gifting Lounge for the 2013 Prime Time Emmys. They're a new item that I'm adding to my product line on Etsy, part of my new sewn organic cotton items. I was supposed to get many more items created, but without a dryer, I couldn't properly preshrink the items before sewing. Those items will be made after vacation! The dryer was my creative road block, unavoidable, but at least I've been able to accomplish other things!
organic cotton eye pillow filled with organic flax seeds
packaged and ready to ship:
I will be adding the organic eye pillows and eye pillow covers to my shop in the coming weeks. There is the option to have organic lavender flower buds added to the pillow, but the ones I shipped were all unscented.
Add to your calendar that I'll be the Featured Artist at the Collingswood Farmer's Market on Saturday, September 28th from 8am-noon. I'll post more information about it when the date gets closer.
The past week or so has been stressful, but I'm grateful that I had my faith and humor to rely on, as well as celebrating my 11th wedding anniversary with my husband - teamwork really does pay off, helps us grow stronger both as a couple and as individuals.
Thanks so much for checking in! Have a blessed weekend!
~Nicole
