A busy couple of weeks

 It was (finally) time to knuckle under and get some of my personal  "maintenance" items taken care of, meaning follow-up (stitches removal) on the MOHS surgery site for the skin cancer spot, my annual wellness and prescription renewal visit with my Doc, a re-check with the eye surgeon that did my cataract surgery and last but not least a root canal on the tooth that started bugging me in late Sept. Ruh-Roh as Scooby would say. 🥺

I've never had a root canal and I was pretty stressed out about it, but I went in yesterday to have it done and I have to say I was quite pleasantly surprised. It went very smoothly and I've experienced very little pain or discomfort - YAY! I hope that it may continue that way until it's settled down and stabilized within a week or so, then the crown will happen. They prescribed an OTC "pain bomb" of 3 x 200mg Ibuprofen plus 2 x 500mg Acetaminophen 2 times daily as needed. Wow, I never knew you could safely combine the 2 for tackling inflammation & pain relief when needed. I took the combo after I got home and have not needed any such measures since.

Great, and phew. Another item was to tackle getting a new phone. My old one only had 16GB internal storage(!?) and was running Android 9, haha, time to get up to speed. Another Samsung (A15) w/128GB internal storage was on sale & just right plus it was easy to port my contacts etc. over to it.

In process Butterflies - Commission from a Craft Fair visitor

One of the visitors to my booth during the Craft Fair asked me to make her a couple of butterflies, one a bit simpler and one really "beaded-up". Delivered them over the weekend and she loved them. She followed up with an email asking if I'd ever made a hummingbird...humm? I told her I'd look into whether I could develop a good-looking, workable shape.

The weather around here has been nice, in fact we had a bit of a cool snap last week which really felt good, although it was way too breezy for my liking (don't bother with the hairspray). 😳 I used the cooler weather to trim back our crepe myrtle out front. Hate letting all the leaves/berries fall onto the rocks in the yard, then you've got to deal with all the subsequent sprouts.

I had an opportunity to stop into a really nice Big Lots over on the other side of the river after delivering the Dazzlers and found a new baking chip that promises to make my cookie exchange offerings ultra-good. 

A creamy chip with peppermint candy chunks.

I can't wait to use them. I saw one recipe that featured a blonde cookie with coconut plus the chips and finished with a drizzle of dark chocolate to amp-up the pretty factor. That sounded intriguing, although if it's a cookie from my kitchen it's going to have pecans in it for sure. Also, at this time of year I'm anxiously awaiting Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Peppermint Bark Squares. So, so good, a super nice treat for after dinner.

Love, love!!

The other morning the Boss was up just before sunrise and took this shot from our 2nd story master. Pretty cool, pre-dawn rocket launch with a whoop-tee-doo contrail.

Well, that's about it for us, nothing terribly exciting. Thanks for stopping by though! See you next time.

Last minute scramble, a successful craft fair and MOHS

(Haha - did I fool you with the header? Just had to show off my banner.)

We've definitely gotten into the groove back home here and are enjoying some cooler fall weather this week. I've spent some time being productive in the kitchen, making and baking, and have stashed a fair bit in the freezer for coming days when I'm feeling lazy or are too busy to cook. Stuffed peppers was one thing I made with enough filling left over for a few burritos - win, win.

Too busy to cook is how it was leading up to the Mandarin Garden Club Craft Fair. I was in overdrive making up 'Bobby-Dazzlers' in various sizes and price ranges to add to my stock so if I had a really good day I wouldn't run out.

A small sample of some Bobby-Dazzlers

I'll admit to being kind of stressed-out with this being my first solo show. You might remember last fall I shared a booth with my neighbor, (I only had my trivets for that show). Her booth was an inside space but this one was an outside space. I was borrowing her pop-up tent and furnishing it, which was a much bigger deal for me. 😲 Going to all the trouble to set up and stage a booth, making & bringing all the inventory ~ a sure recipe for a big bite in the butt by Murphy's Law. Sure enough it rained (hard) during set up, the tent didn't have side panels although I did have a plastic dropcloth for one side. Well, I was one wet duckling, however, the rain didn't last long, my stuff didn't get too wet and I dried out too.

It was a great day, very successful and encouraging. 🤩🥳 I was one beat-up tired little lady by the time I packed it in and packed it up. Being on my feet all day was hard, but it was much easier to engage with potential customers than I expected ~ my chit-chatty skills are a bit rusty but serviceable. I expect I'll to try to find a few more laid-back venues around town at which to sell my wares.

A so-so shot of the booth

One fun thing I did was to have lunch with my friend Nancy. She was headed to Europe for a river cruise and to spend some time in Paris, but we managed to get together at the Green Papaya. What a fun atmosphere, very snazzy, stylish & sparkly, plus a serving robot brings the food out for the server. Cool, I'd never seen that before.

Serving Robot

Halloween Deco in full swing

And finally, I had to have MOHS surgery to remove a spot of skin cancer (BCC) from my scalp. What a weird feeling when they put the sutures in and then pull them tight like lacing up a corset or something - whew! So that's taken care of, make it #5 for my face/head. (Years of sailing in the Caribbean (or living in FL) will do it to you - I see plenty of walking wounded around here, lol.

Thanks for taking the time to check out what we're up to and feel free to comment.

PS. I read in another person's blog about a spam folder under comments in blogger and when I checked it I did have a few from y'all in there. Sorry about that.

Trip home, just dodged Hurricane Helene

 Here we are with another catch-up post covering the trip home from Rocky. In general, it was a good trip, with a few extra days included. 

It was beginning to look like time to wrap things up out west and head back to Florida. The overnight temps were in the high 30's range, and even though the days were beautiful, we knew it wouldn't last much longer. The electric fireplace was very welcome and really sheds a lot of heat. Between the fireplace and the thermostatically-controlled plug in heater we never had to fire up the furnace. Time to say goodbye to Rocky, and Rustic, until next time.

Coming home, we did our usual thing of overnighting in Cheyenne WY then hopping on I80. We stopped for 2 nights at the Point Randall Resort on Lake Ozark, Missouri. It was a restful stay however the weather was soggy. From there we headed over to the Paris Landing Lodge in the Tennessee State Park system. West of Nashville, what a beautiful setting on Kentucky Lake, just off the Tennessee River. It's rather newly built and quite fancy. Cushy rooms and a nice restaurant too.

Paris Landing Lodge, Kentucky Lake

Ed came through this area on his river cruise back
in May and wanted a better look at it.

Nice pool and firepit plus outside 
seating for the restaurant.

Lovely Kentucky Lake

At this point we began to become concerned about our weather prospects due to Hurricane Helene moving in and heading north. We dithered for a bit trying to decide whether to stay or go, but eventually headed east as quick as we could and spent the night in Knoxville. Our original plan had been to head over the mountains down to Asheville, then hit I26 to 95S, but fortunately, after scrutinizing the weather from every direction, the Boss did a re-think on that plan and instead we headed east on I81 to catch I77 at Wytheville, VA, then over to 95S and down the east side of NC/SC and GA. 

This was the day Asheville took a pounding and I26 got washed-out in places. We dodged that bullet, and skirted much of the rain. That evening we made it safely down to Santee, SC for the night - WHEW!! 😳 The next day we saw quite a few trees down as we made our way home. Everything in our area was fine with just minor debris (mainly tree limbs and lots of palm tree fronds).  

Since we've been home it's been lots of food shopping and cooking, plus plenty of cleaning and decluttering. Nothing like spending 4 months in a 26' RV to make you appreciate less clutter. 😉

Here's a look at the chicken pot pie construction and completion - so good, and 3 for the freezer.

Got to have the obligatory frozen peas!

The last thing on my mind is to cover my recent obsession with my beadworks projects. I got started on these while wiling away the hours  this summer. The result - I've made quite a few "bobby-dazzlers", or suncatchers if you prefer. I made the decision to set up a booth at a local craft show. It's a smaller one at the Mandarin Garden Club here in Jacksonville, so hopefully it won't be too overwhelming. Those big craft fairs totally freak me out, too many people and too much happening. I won't even attend one. Next post will be about how that occasion turns out. I'm having a blast making these pretties, now if I can just brighten someone's day with them.

These are just some of what I've made, but they
give you an idea of what I'm talking about. This pic
definitely doesn't do them justice at all, you need
sunlight to see the fabulous sparkle ans shine!

I'm also offering my trivets and wood/chicken wire suncatchers. I'll let you know how it goes. They are fairly labor intensive so I'll never make more than 50¢ an hour, haha. 

Thanks for dropping by and we'll see you the next time. 😘