Fourth of July

Finished up a 3 day market in Longview, Wa today. We had really good sales yesterday and were able to cover our booth fees and costs with a bit to spare. No basket sales but we did get some good info on a potential market for them. The Renasance festival scene! Yep, A woman came by and said she goes to these events twice a year and our baskets would be a perfect fit and people would buy them ! And we get to have fun and dress up. I kinda like the feel of that idea. Lots of old style craft work and people in character and dress, sounds neat. So were going to look at ones happening this Fall on the east coast.

The weather was perfect the past few days, for this holiday event. Great turn out of people over 30,000 people ! We had a poor location but still did good sales. Our first market where the wind was not an issue. Warm nights and clear skies, fireworks and flags, lots of flags. Doing these markets requires a bit of energy output. Basically selling for 10 hours and interacting with the public can be exhausting after one day but 3 days is , well about all i can do. I’m doing most of the booth sales with Aura helping to wrap the spinners as we sell them and then put together new combinations to hang up. Ivy mostly works with Nowa by playing and walking around and Inanna holds down the bus with cooking and supporting me when I need breaks. Seems to work good but by the end of 3 days I feel hungover almost like after a 3 day bender but without the guilt, fear and remorse! We did an experiment for this show and agreed to not spend any money at the show on food or stuff , toys or rides. No sweet treats or coffee drinks from the vendors, which is hard for me ! I think it worked in some ways , we saved money instead of spending, but it was hard not to let Ivy go on the bumper cars and Nowa really wanted to buy a toy. We worked thru it and got creative by making brownies and our own coffee drinks and making crafts in the bus. Feels good cause now we can have have some money to spend at the Oregon country faire next week end. Were all getting excited for this event, its been in the planning for months and even though were not vending we are meeting friends from Canada there and camping for 3 days and just having fun. Inanna and I went to this faire 20 some years ago and its a magical gathering of hippies and artists and families in a sweet setting in a forest. So were spending this week doing bus mantainence , and planning , and finding a swimming hole somewhere outside of Portland.

And an AA meeting along the way…