several false starts

After my excellent start this week on finishing up for the open house I got nothing done the last two days. After working over at the shop for about an hour Thursday morning, that afternoon my sister and I headed out to an estate sale in Richmond, the outer edge of our territory, but about halfway there we bailed and returned home. It had rained lightly that morning and started raining lightly again as we were leaving and the farther we got the heavier the rain to the point that it was difficult to see the cars in front of us on the highway and there was a gravel road involved at the end so we decided to postpone the outing til the next day.

The rain was the leading edge of another cold front and you know me and rain and cold. It paralyzes me (we got 3 1/2” on Thursday). Didn't want to brave it to the shop nor get out the messy modeling glass since I couldn't access the outdoors for cleaning hands or washing stuff off so I finally set up the metal shelving unit that I had brought over from the shop over a month ago and has been laying on it's side in my studio waiting for me to find floor protecting furniture leg cups that would work for the metal legs of the unit. The third set I purchased were finally big enough even if they weren't exactly what I wanted. Since the shelving unit belongs to our fused glass artist friend who has stored his studio in our shop while he moves and gets his new studio set up and he finally got the slab poured and the metal building up, I texted him...how goes the build out? Slow, he says. I figured that as soon as I set it up and filled it he'd be ready to retrieve all his stuff. In fact the other shelving unit in here is his as is the bakery rack. Anyway, I finally set it up and got everything off the floor. Of course, no before picture because...me, but here's an after picture. 

So Friday we headed out again for the estate sale telling ourselves that a. the rain would have kept everyone away and so the good stuff would all still be there and b. if it was meant for us to have it would still be there. Well, 'a' turned out not to be true and 'b' apparently there was nothing that was meant for us to have because we both left empty handed but then they had some pretty high prices on some of that stuff. This sale was advertised as 'three generations of collectors' of mostly 50s and 60s stuff...cartoon glasses and mugs, aluminum ware, salt and pepper shakers, beer steins, pottery vases and planters and decorative items, complete dish sets, fishing lures, jewelry boxes, toys, McDonald's Happy Meal toys, very tarnished silver plate, games, coca cola stuff, and purses...they must have had 100 purses...box purses, the big canvas/burlap heavily jeweled in animal and flower designs purses (my mother had several of those), and just regular ordinary ones. I'm not even scratching the surface here. We had a lot of fun with the hats though, what was left of them anyway. 

 Our favorite was the one with a row of white roses and green leaves that looked more like an artichoke.

Then I had to do the dishes which I don't seem to get done until all the plates are dirty which is about every four days. And since it had been overcast all day and it was getting dark earlier than usual, I fed the dog early, walked her early, and then settled on the couch with the bowl full of cracked pecans and started shelling.

It's sunny today and creeping into the 60˚s so I've got the car loaded with all the stuff that's getting taken back over to the shop that slowly migrated over here for one reason or another and going to try and make more progress.