Happy Juneteenth - Thinking About Holidays

Happy Juneteenth to all. Juneteenth is a fairly new holiday nationwide, it has actually been celebrated since 1866. Amazing, isn't it? I'm fairly certain that most, if not all, of my readers had never heard of the holiday before it was officially recognized a few years ago. It is a solid and welcome reminder that we built this land on the blood and bodies of those who were considered "inferior". All people of color were considered lower than the "lily" white people who had originally settled in various areas along the East Coast of the nation. Today is a day of acknowledgement of history and a celebration of progress. There's still a lot of progress to come, but we've made some giant strides. We're still open at the store, however, so it's a regular Monday workday for me. 

Happy Juneteenth - Freedom Day - to all of my readers. 
Take some time to reflect on the past and acknowledge 
that we still have a ways to go in actual equality, but 
try - try hard and try often. We have an amazing nation, 
but it was built upon the blood of those who were 
considered "inferior". Don't fall into the traps of the past. 

Yesterday's giant pork shoulder turned out AMAZING. It cooked beautifully, and once again, thank goodness for my digital meat thermometer because it was done more than an hour earlier than I had calculated. The marinade paste was fabulous - DH even said that it smelled really good when he was in the kitchen on Saturday night after I finished making the paste in my new mini food processor. If you are interested in the recipe at all, it's called "Fall-Apart Roasted Pork Shoulder with Rosemary, Mustard and Garlic" and I highly recommend it. 

I purchased one of these from my co-op when I was 
there on Friday. It's an "herb stripper". It's made 
to strip the leaves from fresh herbs. There are a lot 
of times I just have the whole herb in a baked 
dish, but taking the thyme off or the rosemary 
off the stems is a bit of a PITA. This is wonderful, 
and very fast. It's sturdy stainless steel, and washes 
up beautifully. I love it. 

I used two new tools while making this. I had dropped by my health food co-op on Friday, just to see if there was anything I desperately needed. I ended up with a new tool for my kitchen, an "herb stripper" made by RSVP Endurance. It's attractive, and I used it on the fresh rosemary for the pork shoulder just 24 hours later and it worked really well. I'm sure there are many such items, but this was one that caught my eye and that I'm quite pleased with. 

The mini Hamilton Beach food processor has 
an amazing amount of power for such a small 
item. I think it's a three-cup maximum holder, 
so not a lot. It only has the single chopping 
blade, but that's the blade most frequently 
used on any food processor anyway. I have 
Mom's old one if I need to use any of the 
fancy things. This worked really well, and 
was hard to beat for the price. 

The other item that made my life easier was the mini food processor that I purchased from Amazon. I have a food processor - my mother's old one that is probably 40 years old - maybe even older. Although it works pretty well, it always seems like a lot of trouble when all I need are some chopped veggies. But this recipe called for using a food processor to whip the marinade ingredients together into a paste, and I really didn't want to be bothered with that huge tool. So, Amazon had one I thought would work quite well for less than $20, and I could get "same day delivery" at the shop for another $10. Well worth it in my eyes, and it worked a charm! It fits into my tool cabinet in the kitchen, and I have a feeling I'll be using it quite often. 

I own at least 10 different bead looms, some 
very simple, others quite complex. Many of 
them I've built myself over the years. I'm going 
to warp up a small one and try out some 
samples. I learned a long time ago - samples 
are everything when it comes to a successful 
end project. 

Today I'm taking a bit of time in my day and doing some sample beadwork items. I know what I'd like to do, I just need to see if my idea will work. If it does, you may be getting some beading in this year's holiday card. At least, that's the plan. I'll know more after I experiment. After all, it's almost time for Le Tour de France, and so many of my holiday card ideas are tested while watching Le Tour. 

Le Tour de France starts on July 1st, so 
it's coming up fast. As usual, I'll be giving 
you stage-by-stage posts, at least that's the 
plan at this point if all goes smoothly. It's 
also when I usually finalize my plans for 
my Holiday Cards, thus, my beading samples 
mentioned above. LOL

On that note, have a truly fabulous day. Be kind, be generous with your smiles and your compliments, and spread joy. I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini. 

The Good, The Bad, and The Schedule - Holidays and Plans

We were slow at the shop yesterday, which was bad. We were slow at the shop yesterday, which was good. We actually managed a respectable sales total by the end of the day, just not with a lot of customers. I was able to spend most of the day working on Etsy, finishing and uploading the 4mm cubes and getting almost ready for the 6mm cubes to go live. I still need one thing done before I can call the 4mm size complete, and I'll try to get that accomplished today. One step at a time. This isn't fast - this is opening a completely new store from ground-up, and that's never something that can happen overnight (unless you're starting a pop-up, which only exists for a weekend or a few days at a festival). 

This was one of 12 pages of 4mm Crystal Cubes that 
I uploaded yesterday onto Etsy and allowed to go 
live. The first photo of each page is the aggregate, 
the following nine pictures are detail shots of each 
individual color. I'm hoping this will help my 
customers see what they might want to purchase 
with greater ease. 

I want to try to get to my tailor's today. I have several lovely tops that I wear for Renaissance Festival that are HUGE on me now. I want them taken in dramatically, and also want the bat-wing sleeves slightly altered to allow for my sun sensitivity. I also have a couple of skirts that are too large in the waist and end up being very uncomfortable after wearing them for a full day at Fest. I might as well have those taken in and the waistbands altered at the same time. 

This photo from 2018 was when I was hunting for a new 
corset. My old one just was too large. I've lost a LOT more 
weight since 2018, and if I had purchased this one, it wouldn't 
fit any more (although alterations of this brand are covered 
for life). It's the shirt that I want altered, though. I have 
the one in black and two in white. They are WAY too 
large and I also need the sleeves altered so that they aren't 
slashed open to the shoulders any more. The wine skirt 
needs to be taken in too. 

My tailor consists of a husband and wife from Vietnam - delightful people who do excellent work at a reasonable cost. They are a bit peculiar - they don't accept credit/debit cards at all. All transactions have to be either via cash or physical check. I haven't written a check (except to the Department of Motor Vehicles) in years, so it's different. But, I don't mind - the money all comes out of the same place, whether by my check-card or a physical paper check. 

It's not that DH can't use credit cards, he uses his 
Target card and his Home Depot card just fine. He 
just prefers to write a check for groceries and other 
sundries. He's such an old geezer sometimes - *sigh*. LOL

My husband is one of those people who still writes checks regularly. He writes checks at the grocery store! He knows how to use a credit card and uses them when needed, but he prefers cash or a check when possible. He leaves the electronic payments up to me, and writes me a household check every month so that I can deposit it and pay the upcoming monthly bills. It's a bit old fashioned, but it works fine for us. 

I suppose we should probably have planned on being 
closed for Juneteenth, but it's such a new holiday, I 
completely forgot. It's not even listed on my calendars. 
Maybe next year it will at least be on the calendars 
as an official holiday. 

Sunday is Juneteenth - our newest Federal holiday. A lot of places will be closed on Monday to celebrate the day, so keep that in mind if you need to do any Federal business. Those offices will be closed, as will a lot of banks and other businesses. Juneteenth commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. I think it's a wonderful holiday to celebrate and to remember. I'll toast the day with tequila and orange juice. But I won't be closed on Monday - I just didn't know about the holiday in time to get it scheduled. So ... have a wonderful Friday and I'll be back tomorrow to wrap up the week. Slava Ukraini.