Old Friends and No Apples

Today I spent a few hours at the parade of homes. All went well, but it started to sprinkle so I decided to leave a little earlier than planned. As I neared my car in the parking lot, I ran into a friend I haven't seen in a while. She was there to man a booth for her new job. We spent a few minutes catching up before she had to get going.

After that I decided to head over to Yutzy's farm market for some apples.

I love this place. They have homemade items like jelly's and jams along with fruit, breads, and candies. You could go hog wild in this place.

One of my favorite things is the lunch meat and cheese counter.

Every week they run a meat and cheese special. When you go to the grocery store here you normally pay anywhere from $4.99-$8.99 for meat. Their meat specials usually run about $2.99-$3.99, cheese $1.99-$2.99. And to sweeten the deal, it tends to last in the refrigerator two to three times as long. I love it!

The downside to this trip,however, was that they were out of apples. Hopefully, I will have better luck next time.

Realtor Day

Monday was Realtor Day at the Parade of Homes. The houses all open up early to allow the Realtors to come through before the parade opens up to the general public. It is one of my favorite parade days as the Realtors are looking to chat and network with those in the houses as much as we are with them.

One of the perks of Realtor Day is the treats. Every house seems to set out donuts, coffee, etc., for the Realtors to much on as they go through the houses. Our house had donuts, muffins, cookies, yogurt, coffee, juice, and water. A nice variety that many of the Realtors appreciated.

I had many compliments on the kitchen table from the Realtors. Many were very impressed with the quality, so hopefully we will get some leads from there.

Our table is in the Manor Homes house this year. It is house #9 on the parade.

Full Stop

My husband, Nick, came into the house from his shop and says, 'you're going to need to go to Grainger tomorrow'. First of all, this is NOT the first thing a wife wants to hear coming out of her husband's mouth. lol. Second, saying I need to go to Grainger means only one thing, something is broke.

As I'd suspected with his initial comment, something was in fact broke. The capacitors in his table saw needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, this means that all work that requires the table saw is at a full stop until the capacitors are replaced.

So off I went to Grainger today.

I think that sometimes they look for the most off the wall places to put these stores. They have two in central Ohio, and both are tucked back in industrial parks. I get it. I really do. They are an industrial supply company. But that doesn't make them any easier to find.

Needless to say, I did find the store I was looking for and they had the two capacitors I was needing.

 Hopefully all will go well tonight when Nick puts the new additions back on the table saw motor.

Little Red Ants and Strawberries

We went out this morning to pick some strawberries from the plants we have on our property, but when we started to remove them and look at the individual berries many of them had small holes. After farther inspection, we noticed that from some of these little holes crawled little red ants.

Now when I say 'little red ants' I am meaning these tiny little things that are no bigger than the nail on my pinkie finger. I haven't noticed them on any of our other garden plants, so I'm thinking they are just partial to my strawberries.

Thankfully, we were able to save a few from their clutches. Home grown strawberries taste so much better than those from the store. Yum! :)

Opening Day...

at the 2011 BIA Parade of Homes.

We have a kitchen table set up there this year and I wanted to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. I knew from the parade two years ago that things are rarely the same way you left them when you dropped everything off four days prior.

Our display in the garage had been moved, but thankfully everything was still in the same basic arrangement as I had left it.

Inside the table looked great! There were people touching the top, which is exactly what I wanted. Hopefully there will be a good crowd tomorrow and I will be able to show a lot more people what we can do for them.

New Blog Design

Hopefully you have noticed that I have revamped the blog, but changing the visual layout is only the first step. For several reasons, I've decided to make this blog about more than just woodworking. I am a woodworker's wife, but my life isn't as simple what happens in our shop and I've decided to start sharing a more comprehensive view of things. This blog will be about my life as a woodworker's wife. That includes everything that makes up my life in general, so who knows what I'll be talking about in the future.

Knives and Fingers

One thing I will say about being a woodworker's wife is that life is very rarely dull. Neither, are his shaper cutter knives.

This past week I was in the house and suddenly my husband comes running into the house to the bathroom sink. I follow him to see what is going on and see blood trailing down his hand.

Apparently he had just finished sharpening one of his shaper cutters and was trying to put it back onto the machine when the wrench he was using slipped slicing his finger. Now this is one of the great reasons why sharp knives are always better than dull ones, the cut was so clean there was no pain. Yep, no pain. And believe me when I tell you that it was a pretty deep cut. It took about ten minutes for us to get it to stop bleeding enough so that we could bandage it up.

Luckily, since it was a clean cut, he didn't need to go to the hospital. I am just grateful that this doesn't happen often. Sure we get our share of splinters, which are sometimes just as bad, but those don't tend be as gory in nature.