Catching Up, A Book, and Running In Place Today

I've said several times over the years, how amazing my customers are. On Saturday, that was brought home to me again, not in bringing by something creative for me to look at and share, but as a gift from a long-time customer, that passed through the weekend and will still last for several more days. Take a look. 

She brought me a large bouquet featuring several roses, a hydrangea, some
unusual buds of chrysanthemums, and other assorted flowers, along
with a large fish-bowl-style vase to hold them. Yesterday was day
three of having the bouquet on display at the shop, and the blossoms
are beautifully open and scented and haven't dropped a single petal yet. 

This incredible bouquet was a gift from a long-time customer of mine who specializes in making life-like beaded flowers from wire and beads. When I cleaned out some old stock, I put aside several books dealing with her craft and left them with my staff along with instructions to gift them to her whenever she came back to the store for more supplies. I suspected she probably owned all of them, but it's such a specialized art form that I also thought the books should go to a good home. 

Time seems to always be getting away from me, but I'm trying to
keep track of it. Right now I don't have a lot of time to spare. 

Today, I glanced at my calendar and faced the fact, once again, that time is running away from me. My internal clock says "Three days until Sharon arrives," and that means tomorrow will be a very busy cleaning day. Her room is almost complete, and I want to finish that, then move on to the rest of the house which needs a good dusting. I want to scrub the guest bathroom thoroughly, but I'll hold off on a complete vacuum until next week. It'll be tight, but it'll work out. The State Fair opens in 48 hours and that's a firm deadline. 

I've been reading this book and it's rather
mesmerizing. Garrett McNamara had a unique
upbringing and is considered one of the world's
top big-wave surfers. Why surfing, when I don't
have an ocean with waves anywhere nearby and
am afraid of the ocean in any case? I have no
idea, but I've always been interested in
surfing and he's a fascinating athlete. 

So I'm focused - for better or worse. I still have to go to work, but I think I can shoehorn the rest of this in. DH and I have come to an agreement that we won't bring anything else over until after her visit, which will allow us to concentrate on continuing to put things away properly and fine-tune some other things. We can't afford to just sit back and ignore things that need doing, but we also don't need to add to the clutter until after her visit. A balancing act, for sure. 

Have a great Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow - a cleaning demon let loose on my own small part of the world.