Ornaments, ornaments and more ornaments. I took lots of pictures of them. They are a new item in our booth this year and Jeff has been wanting to make them for a long time. We have a tree branch wrapped with lights that we display them on. You can see it on the table in the picture below.

 Booth::Buttons::New Solid Perfumes::Boxes

We had quite the weekend. Thursday night we were getting ready for an early bedtime to get rested for our big day. Bracken came over to me and told me that he had put a bead in his nose. I put my finger on his nose so that it wouldn’t move farther up his nostril. I called to Jeff downstairs, asking for help. Jeff held a flashlight and shined it in Bracken’s nose so I could see. I took a pair of tweezers and was able to carefully and safely remove the bead from his nose. I breathed a huge sigh of relief! It really scared the bejesus out of me. I felt slightly shaky for the rest of the night. It may not sound like a big deal, but it really scared me at the time. It was a fairly big bead (considering the size of his little nose) and I was so surprised he would do that. I thought he knew not to do that. Afterwards he was laughing about it and pretending he had another bead in his nose for me to remove (he didn’t.) I felt annoyed because I wanted him to realize how terrible it is to put things in your nose! I hope he got that out of his system.

 Anyway, moving on… we left early Friday morning and got our items set up in our booth. Bracken remembered our booth space and our neighborhood. He’s been going there since he was just a baby. He walked around with me to chat with market friends. That day I knew Bracken needed a nap, but he wasn’t inclined to take one. So, later in the day, after he soaked up all the sights and sounds and happenings around him and was getting tired, I put him in the pack on my back. I went out in the hallway where it was quieter and then found the quietest spot I could. I had a bag hanging from my neck to keep my hands free, that held my yarn, and knitted while I walked. I walked back and forth, back and forth, over and over until I felt his little head rest against my back and saw his arms and legs dangling in sleepiness. I pointed to my back and mouthed to a stranger ‘is he asleep?’ Yes, was the reply. I felt triumphant. Getting him down for a nap at market always feels like a triumph. I came back to the booth and Jeff snapped the picture above before we carefully put him on a cozy sweater on the ground. He had a nice long nap and we were so glad. He woke up refreshed and happily wanted to visit all our booth neighbors when he woke up. 

Our house was cold when we got back that night, since we didn’t have the woodstove going while we were gone. Jeff made dinner while I gave Bracken a bath and put him in pajamas (upstairs in our bedroom where we had a heater going that day.) Jeff brought dinner upstairs, where it was warmer, and we ate in bed. We hardly ever do that (except on occasion after a long market day), so Bracken thought it was pretty fun.

Saturday we were back at market. That day the farmer’s market was open and we were so happy about that. We had missed it dearly. Jeff requested greens, saying he was craving them. So Bracken and I brought him back chard, kale, and collards. That day Jeff wanted to help me out and put Bracken on his back for nap time. I tried to talk him out of it because I didn’t want him to hurt his back since it had been feeling sensitive that day, but he insisted. Bracken didn’t fall asleep, but Jeff sure tried by walking for a long time. I gave it a try as well, doing the same method as the day before. Eventually I got him to sleep, but when we tried to gently lay him down in our booth, he woke up again. Oh well, we tried.

Saturday night I was asleep after a long day when I heard Jeff get out of bed. He told me he had a fever. I stayed up trying to help take care of him, but eventually had to get some sleep for the next day. I woke up early and made some calls, trying to see if I could find a friend I could pay to help me in our booth that day. No luck. I didn’t want to leave Jeff alone in a cold house, sick and with no one to help him. We had food in the house, but I wasn’t sure if any of it would appeal to him. Sometimes the only nourishing thing he feels like when he’s sick is chicken broth and we didn’t have any. (Our dear friend dropped off some homemade chicken broth for him right as I was leaving the house, bless her heart. That made me feel better about leaving. Also the fact that at least he was in our bedroom with a heater.) I made breakfast, called my dad to wish him a happy birthday, took care of the chickens and let them in their yard. I brought Jeff some food and some drinks. I got Bracken up and dressed and ready. (We ate our breakfast in the car.) I managed to run a comb through my hair. At that point I needed to leave so I wouldn’t be late, there wasn’t time to call anyone else and try to get something figured out. I heard a message on our answering machine right before I walked out the door, our friend offering to take Bracken for the day. But she had been planning that one day off for weeks to drive to visit her dad who was having health problems, so she could spend some time with him. It didn’t feel right to me and my intuition said no, but the fact that she offered meant a lot to me.  It was just Bracken and I driving to market and the thought of doing market just the two of us sounded impossible to me. Doing market when Jeff and I are both there is already challenging enough, I had no idea how I was going to do it.

 On a hunch, I grabbed a little tent of Bracken’s (a gift from his Grandma Julie) as we headed out the door that day, knowing that I needed all the help I could get. I snapped this picture of him eating his asian pear in there, holding it up for me to see. He didn’t stay in his tent for more than a few minutes at a time, but I was still glad I brought it. Normally Jeff and I take turns watching the booth and walking with Bracken around the market. Bracken spends time in our booth, but only for short periods of time. He likes to move and see and do. I don’t blame him. I just didn’t know how I was going to help customers in our booth and walk around with Bracken all day. A juggling act.    ……And how did the day go? It was challenging, to be sure, (doing market with Jeff from now on will seem like a piece of cake comparatively), but I was really grateful that it went as well as it did. The day was fairly slow which may not have been great for business for everyone, but it turned out to be a really good thing for me that day. Jeff and I had just been talking about how much we loved the “neighborhood” we’re in at the Holiday Market. We have so many kind and wonderful booth neighbors and have felt like we’ve really found our “place” there. Well, I felt that even more after Sunday. Some of our booth neighbors had little chairs in their booths set up for Bracken and invited him to visit them. I joked that he was playing musical booths all day. He knew he had to be walked from booth to booth by an adult, since the aisles got full with people. I was afraid that our booth neighbors would get tired of him spending time in their booths, so I kept checking and saying “are you sure it’s okay?” They all seemed genuinely happy to spend time with him. At one difficult point in the day I had a moment of panic, thinking “how did I think I could do this?” and wondered if I had made a mistake by not taking our friend up on her offer that morning. But I knew I had made the right choice, I just had a moment of doubt. I have so much appreciation for all the people that helped me that day, even a kind word helped me immensely. At the end of the day I had help packing our stuff up and carrying all of it to our car, which would have taken me so long to do with just Bracken and I. I can’t imagine how many trips it would have taken. I was touched and humbled by the generosity of others.
We left about 8:30 that morning and didn’t get home until around 8. It was a long day for us. At different points throughout the day, I realized that we really need a cellphone again. Our pay-as-you-go tracphone ran out of minutes awhile back and it was a tight month for us with money so we didn’t renew it. But it’s feeling again like something that’s important to have. Many different situations have reminded me of that lately.

 Jeff is on the mend. If you know Jeff, you know it takes a lot to knock him down. In the past he always fought illness like a battle, which always made it last so much longer. I’ve felt proud of him that he’s been learning to surrender to it more over the years, letting it run it’s course. He’s been taking it easy, doing bits of woodburning work here and there and then resting when he’s tired. He’s frustrated that he doesn’t feel great immediately, but he’s making improvement. This week has been a challenge. Daily life is a lot of work for us on a normal day, but when one of us is sick it can make it really hard. I got our market stuff unloaded from the car. I’ve been hauling loads of firewood from the woodshed. Keeping the house warm. Making meals. Doing dishes. Washing and hanging laundry. Packing up orders. Mailing out packages. Checking on Jeff. Caring for Bracken. Trying to keep up on the business (falling behind on e-mails.) But I can’t get it all done in a day. (It makes me even more grateful for everything that Jeff does every day and makes me realize again what a good team we make.) It’s Wednesday and I still have a mountain of laundry in the pantry and have yet to get caught up on dishes. Oh well. The house is warm and everyone is fed. Yesterday Bracken and I went to the grocery store. On the way there I decided to stop and vacuum out the car. I vacuumed the trunk, then put everything that was in the car back there. I cleaned out all the garbage.. the gas receipts and bits of tangerine peels from the weekend and all those things. I vacuumed and vacuumed and what a good feeling! (Bracken honked the horn a few times and was pushing buttons while I worked. At the grocery store I noticed our back taillights wouldn’t go out. I had a feeling it was some button that Bracken had pushed, but I couldn’t find anything. Luckily, when we got home, Jeff found a button behind the steering wheel that Bracken had pushed and it fixed it!) There was so much that needed to be done that day and vacuuming out the car was not something that needed to be done, but it brought me so much peace to have one area of our life that was clean and orderly in the midst of so much craziness. Some days, you’d be amazed what a little vacuuming can do for your mental state!