Another One Bites the Dust

The week is almost over. We've gone from temps in the low 70's on Tuesday afternoon, to what promises to be below freezing tomorrow morning while I await the unlocking of the gym doors for my morning workout. This is the time of year when people are sniffling and snorting and coming down with head colds because their bodies aren't adjusting well to the changes in temperatures. It's been a busy week, but the weekend is looming and it'll be a fun one this time.

This isn't altogether wrong. I usually end up having to be very
patient while DH looks through buckets of rough stone
for the perfect ones to bring home with us. 

Our annual Minnesota Lapidary Show takes place this weekend. Of course, we work on Saturday, but we always go there on Sunday to spend several enjoyable hours looking at stone, buying this and that for our own lapidary work, and dreaming of the time when we can just work on our equipment instead of having to go into the shop to work. I know we'll have a great Sunday (even if we might be cold) and it will also be a joy seeing the colors of autumn trees as we drive out there and back.

Lake Superior agates are popular stones in this area. I must
admit, though, that I prefer jaspers to agates. Still, they are
quite lovely in their banding and colors. 

Saturday will be the final day of the Bead Shops Hop and I, for one, will be happy to see it come to an end. It's been good, no question, but if our numbers will come close to the prior two years, then we'll be inundated with Hoppers over these next two days. We're running about 20 below where we should be and my vote will be saying that the short extension of time didn't do anything at all to increase the numbers of Hoppers coming through my door.

Eighteen stores throughout the state participated in this
year's Bead Shops Hop. As you can tell, most are
centered around the Twin Cities. But there are some
far away such as the northernmost shop in Grand Rapids. 

Of course, I should also look at the Hop as having provided an opportunity for new beaders to find us and fall in love. Several new people have come by and shopped, and of course we've also had some nice sales from the Hoppers. We're always happy to have new customers find us, especially when we're sometimes a bit harder to get to as we have been during this construction season. On balance, the Hop was probably successful, but I'm not sure if the extended time frame was a positive or negative thing.

Going from June (upper left) through July 2016 on
the lower right, this is the Minneapolis School Calendar.
Look at all of those light blue days. Those are days
when the students are not in school. Wow! Even
pulling the summer out of there, that's a lot of
vacation time. 

Today is an MEA day - (Minnesota Educational Association or something similar to that) - when the teachers are encouraged to attend a variety of workshops put on by their union and the kids are out of school. In fact, this actually started yesterday. So the kids were out of school on Monday, Thursday and Friday of this week. Tell me - how the heck are kids expected to learn if they are in and out of the classroom so often? School has only been in session for five weeks, and here we had almost an entire week off. Crazy! I don't remember so many days off when I was a student in the Dark Ages.

Have a fabulous and fantastic Friday and congrats to two friends with new dogs in their households - Dawn with a new Golden Retriever, and Helen with a new Afghan. Such lovely dogs!