Two Reasons

Today starts the first of two reasons why my den won't be cleaned by the time Sharon arrives next Thursday.  Tonight we're going to the State Fair after work to wander, look, and eat dinner.  Normally going to the Fair on first Saturday wouldn't be a problem.  But with the broken pipe, the house looks like hell and we have a thousand chores that we need to do before next week.  So, we almost decided to not go tonight and for me to sell our pre-purchased discount admission tickets.  At the last minute, we decided to allow ourselves to have a night by ourselves at the Fair.  I'm looking forward to spending some time there, getting a foot long hot dog, looking at the beadwork in the Creative Activities building, and absorbing the special magic that happens at the State Fair. 

Belly Dancing is the thing at the Ren Faire for Silk Road weekend. 

Then, on Sunday, we're back off to the Renaissance Festival.  This weekend is "Silk Road", so we'll have lots of belly dancing going on - eye candy for the husband.  I'll be blasted by the sun again, so I need to wear something other than my standard outfit because I'm still recovering from the sunburn I got last Sunday!  Of course, last Sunday was also the beginning of our flood.  Hopefully we'll repeat the fun aspects of our Sundays at Ren, but won't repeat the really icky aspects of our flood...  Have a creative and FUN weekend - life is too short to let the details get you down (unless you are creating artwork, in which case the details ARE the tale). 

Finally Friday

I'm exhausted.  The nights have been cool and the days have been quite tolerable - temps in the upper 70's and lower 80's (that's F for all of you C people).  That's really nice for summer temps.  The leaves are starting to turn, and the acorns are starting to fall on people's heads.  Autumn is one of my favorite times of the year and the Minnesota State Fair always is the last burst of summer before the arrival of autumn.  But even though I have great sleeping weather, I still can't seem to get enough sleep.  I really will have to re-evaluate my schedule one of these days.  I can't squeeze in the exercise that I need and I still don't get everything that I need finished in the mornings, even though I work on my laptop when I get to the shop.  I'm just a bit frustrated. 

This is one of my two books - Enamels of the
World from 1700-2000.  Yummy!

I broke down and ordered two different enamel books yesterday.  One was an instructional by the teacher of an on-line friend whose work I admire a great deal.  The other was an exhibition catalog/book covering more than 300 years of exceptional enamels that came highly recommended.  As much as I dislike Amazon, I did end up ordering one of them on Amazon because it wasn't available on Barnes & Noble.  The other one I was able to order at B&N.  I should have looked for my HOME Vol 12 at the same time but forgot.  I'll have to see if I can locate a copy and get that one going also.  It'l like my last bang - the last bits of my money before I enter into a wasteland of pinching pennies until they cry.  It's the end of summer....

Mountains and Molehills

My mountain of items to review before finding a permanent home for them, in other words, the current EXTREMELY MESSY den, did get some serious work yesterday.  But it really doesn't look like it .  That's the trouble with major housecleaning - it rarely actually looks like you've done something until just at the end.  And since I was forbidden from doing something with the second half of my closet until after my DH secures the sawn panel to avoid it from falling into the paneling.  (He is making the project of framing the piece of wood and fastening it to the larger paneling into a LARGE project.  It really isn't that much of a big deal, but with his anticipated schedule, I won't be able to work in my closet again until Monday!)  I did get two large garbage bags of clothing together that I will donate to Goodwill next week.  Take a look at the pile of hangers I have from the bagged donation clothing! 

Hangers from clothing that I will be donating to Goodwill. 
There is still a lot of clothing and books to go through, but it's a start.

The Minnesota State Fair opens today.  I plan on being out there on Saturday night with DH after work.  I am strapped for cash this year, so I'll be choosing my expenditures very carefully.  But it's not going to stop me from going to the Fair for several days.  People who haven't been to the MN State Fair are often bewildered by why people are so passionate about it.  But it is the combination of things to see, animals to pet, food to eat, musical and other acts to watch, and people to watch that makes it absolutely irresistible for me.  I can hardly wait! 

One of the parade floats from the Minnesota State Fair.  There
is a parade daily through the Fair Grounds. 

And for those of you coming to the shop during Fair time, the traffic is only a problem during rush hour in the morning and evening.  Otherwise, because of the wonderful city-wide free bus transportation network that is in place, traffic is very easygoing.  If you want to avoid the exit lane backup that can sometimes happen on Snelling, exit on Lexington instead and just come west on Minnehaha to get to the shop.  Travel safely, but come and see us at the shop - the Fair is just an excuse to combine two wonderful events together - the State Fair and Stormcloud Trading (Beadstorm).  Perfect! 

Studio/Cleaning Day

It is supposed to be my studio day today.  A time to create, experiment, play.  I usually do laundry, but I am just as likely to fire up the kiln or grab my watercolors.  That was before my flood. 

The white circle in the background is where they
removed a piece of the wall to reach the broken
pipe.  There is also a fan inside the closet on
the righthand side with the white cord. 

The picture above is my room after the flood.  The fan is one of two I had running in the room, and the beige box is the dehumidifier which was filling every four hours, on average.  But today is better.  We turned off the fans late last night (so my room is slowly cooling back down) and put the dehumidifier back into the craft room - a room where it is needed most of the year.  But, that left my work ahead of me. 

An overview of the mess that I have to tackle starting today.  I
want this room clean by the time Sharon arrives next Thursday. 
Well...a girl can dream.  Right? 

Take a look at my den.  This overview shot shows the mess facing me that I have to start tackling today.  I am determined that I won't put anything back without a legitimate location for it and that most of the clothing will go to Goodwill.  There are also some things that I will probably sell - my fully beaded buckskin dress will probably go up for auction on eBay with a reserve since I'm unwilling to get less than $500 for it.  But anyway, this is a real mess and I have limited time to take care of it.  Note to my BFF Sharon who reads this blog...At least the catastrophe happened BEFORE you arrived for your annual visit this time ! 

Water Saga, Continued

So after wet-vacumming again and again, it seemed that more and more water was gushing out of somewhere.  But we weren't taking showers...so where was the water coming from?  I left for work and left my DH working on the mystery.  After finding out that we were losing 10 cubic FEET of water an hour (determined by our water meter), he finally told me to call a plumber.  Connor came out quite quickly and determined that we had a broken pipe at the back of my closet.  What a mess.  I had pulled almost eveything off the floor of my room and closet, but I hadn't removed the hanging clothing.  My DH had to remove all of the clothing.  So now I have a hole in the back of my closet wall, two fans and a dehumidifier running in my little room.  The room is HOT.  All of this equipment.  But the carpet is drying out and, hopefully, we'll be able to avoid a lot of mold and mildew problems. 

Can't you tell that I'm looking forward
to house cleaning?  Oh yeah! 

Tha amount of cleaning that I have to get done before my friend Sharon arrives next week is daunting.  I thought I had it under control, until this happened.  Sharon has lived through many floods and other things with us over the years and she will be the first to understand, but it is really a mess and, unfortunately, it won't clean itself.  I really need to cull - many, many things are going to hit Goodwill.  I have 30 years worth of accumulated CRAP to get rid of and I'm really tired of my mess.  So I will have three days to clean, starting tomorrow.  Unfortunately, I can't put things back into my closet until next week - we want to make absolutely sure that it is dry to avoid mildew issues.  Guess any "studio" time I'll have this week will be mentally working out issues with ongoing projects, or imagery of pieces that I want to draw in the future.  It's OK, at least my mind will be able to work on art even though my body will be cleaning. 

Water and Sun

Sunday was a busy day, and it's spilling into Monday.  We went to the Renaissance Festival, of course.  Although I wore a hat - mandatory in 90 F heat, there really was not much I could do about the neckline of my bodice.  I got MAJOR fried there - I'm currently so red that I could probably interchange for a stoplight.  Not good - my skin doctor keeps reminding me that I'm too pale and light in color to handle sun and that sunburns for me could lead to skin cancer.  Since I had a dear friend who died from skin cancer last year, I really do pay attention to this kind of warning.  Unfortunately, I am totally burned in that one location. 

Missy (character Meghan) going after
"Blackstone" for cheating at cards. 
WTG Missy!

We cane home, took quick showers and ate dinner.  DH then went upstairs to watch the football game and I went to work on the computer, downloading some pics of my friend Missy in her swords woman role out on Fest grounds.  Around 9:30 pm or so, my eye was caught by a sparkle where there shouldn't have been any.  Looking closer, I discovered standing water in between my bathroom door and the hallway.  REALLY not good.  I called my DH and we started looking.  It turns out that the floor of the shower had developed some gaps in the grout and water was going directly to the sub floor.  So....he re-grouted the floor and a crack on the wall and we have soaked up whatever we can.  BUT, my hallway is still soaking wet even though we have been wet-vacuuming it a lot, and the wet also exists in my closet.  When I awakened this morning I pulled everything I needed to out of my closet and began wet vacuuming in there.  I'll put up a fan before I leave for work this morning, but I think I'll try and reschedule my Chiropractor appointment so that I can stay later and work on this longer.  It will be sponge baths for 72 hours until our re-grouting will allow for showers again , but this had to be tackled.  All that I know for sure is that it is recent.  I was in the closet on Wednesday looking for something and the flooring was dry at that time.  But it could easily have been four days of wet that we're dealing with.  Everyone has a nemesis.  For my DH and I, it's water.  Water, flooding, sewer issues, and plumbing issues have followed us for more than 30 years.  We're used to taking care of things like this, but it doesn't make it any more pleasant.