To Market! To Market!

Tomorrow is Market day!  I'm super excited, despite that I was just there last Saturday!  The hours are  7am-11am, just like last Saturday, due the the triple-digit heat.

 
 My friend, Tiffany, was kind enough to take these market photos from a few weeks ago.  Most of you know that I sell Homemade Laundry Soap, Handcrafted Play Dough, and Hand Rolled beads that I string into various forms of jewelry.  I also roll coasters as seen below.  They take about two hours to roll & seal...whew!  But they are fun!  I wish I could produce more, more, more (of everything) but alas....

I have a family.  That means my full time job is with them.  Wife.  Mom.  It's the best job EVER, but to actually do well at it requires focus and attention...  to the people dwelling and coming and going around these walls...to the dishes and the bank account and the sounds.  The sounds are important.  So are the silences.  Because life with each other, while sometimes so full of joy and love, can also be messy.  I'm not saying it is my full time job to "work things out."  It's not.  But it is my goal to help guide and direct these not-so-little people in my life.  Thank God I have His help!  I'd screw it up on my own...and I know that from experience! 
Now, why am I talking about my real job?  I suppose because it is my most important! Another important job of mine is loving on a special certain five month old baby on weekday afternoons! 
But, I've also been working on restocking my inventory for the Downtown Market and that has been fun & challenging.  I have made so many new friends.  I have been amazed at the people God brings to my booth on Saturday Market mornings.  People are so supportive and appreciative of the work I do.  Some people have returned to find me!  It's so COOL!  My friends here in Clarksville find me and hang out chatting and I love it!
 I love creating something with my hands and seeing it move into the hands of its new owner and the admiration on their face--then I know it was worth the time and effort I put into upcycling that old calendar into something wearable!

The Market has been going so well that I haven't even touched my Etsy shop, despite that I've been giving out the web address to everyone.  I am going to try and blog weekly (I know I've made this effort before in the past and failed).  But I am really going to TRY!!!

Summer here in Tennessee is HOT.  I don't mind heat much.  I was born mid-July and had most every birthday party in my backyard (thanks Mom!) and in the pictures we were all sweaty. smiley happy little kids.  Today's kids are spoiled rotten with air conditioning.  I know, I know, mine too.  Me too.  But sometimes mine get out there, you know.  Like last night.  They have a new program here in Clarksville called "Summer Night Lights" and I encouraged them to ride their bikes down to it last night and they loved it.  Came back drenched.  Also, I am playing (and co-coaching with my brave husband) womens' softball.  It's far more fun playing that I thought, after playing four seasons of co-ed softball. 
As for the rest of our summer it has looked like this:  shuttling teens to church camps, preschooler to swim lessons, library programs, swimming, teen to kayaking, teen to basketball camp in Nashville, preschooler to tumbling camp, teen to football camp, swimming...  And of course the tragedy of loosing my mother-in-law of 17 years unexpectedly (she was 60).  She was my husband's mom who lived here locally the past few years with his dad (married 38 years?), who was close to her grandchildren, three of them being ours...it has been a shift in life for us all.
Then the truck quit Tuesday.  We are hoping it is fixable, and my ever-capable husband is attacking it in all his spare time.  I am confident that he will do everything in his power to restore it, as time is sensitive...
I have been trying to find reasons to pick up "Catching Fire" then reasons to put it down, and have taken to eating peppers from the market.  I have some made some Amazing Lunches!  More on that later.....  see you at the Market!