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The Success of Madison

Well I didn't sell out or even make tons of money but I did make enough to say I succeeded in my first craft show. The Chicago-based organizer of the event said I did better than those with big ticket items. I don't know if that's units sold or total cash from sales. At $2 cards are a lot more affordable than a quilt or a hand knitted sweater.

I would like to find another craft fair to enter but I need to replenish my stocks. I have been making cards for Christmas gifts and haven't done anything toward having a stock of sale cards. I have even made a couple of tactile/Braille cards for my brother-in-law to send to his father. I know he is blind I just hope he reads Braille -- or at the very least I hope my BIL appreciates the thought that went into making the cards.

Earning my WINGS

I will be sending off the check from the Madison sale to WINGS this week. It may seem like a long time but there were sales after the craft boutique and I wanted to get it all in at once. The total - with double matching funds from my employer will come to $120. Not a bad start.

But I haven't been ignoring the charity since the sale. E and I joined the Christian (or is it Catholic) Family Movement (CFM) group at our church and the group was going to be wrapping gifts for the women participating in the WINGS program. We were going to be out of town visiting my sister that weekend and I asked if I could stamp tags for the gifts as a way to contribute. They asked for 200 and somehow I was able to deliver. It was fun coming up with the designs and after you have a few designs it goes pretty fast. I will post a few later.

I called to see if the tags were what they needed and in the course of the conversation I was asked to lead a workshop for the women in the program. I will teach them how to stamp and they will walk away with a birthday card, a mother's day card, a thank you card and an Easter card. I can bring a helper too. I was thinking Dame Catty. When I mentioned the project to the teachers at E's school -- most of whom stamp. They told me that had been trying to find a way to stamp and volunteer at the same time. "How can we help?" I told them they could pre-cut the card stock and they agreed. This is all coming into place. God really put this into action and I am so grateful to be able to contribute.

Santa

This year E met Santa for the first year (that he remembers) the visit at 1 doesn't count as he doesn't remember and there was just a lot of screaming. At the end of the CFM Christmas brunch there was a visit from Santa. E was toward the front of the line and was so excited. He held my hand and jumped up and down saying, "I get to meet Santa, I can see Santa." The other kids who had gone through this before seemed a bit bored at the prospect but there was no containing E's excitement. When he got up there I asked someone else to take pictures (forgot the camera) and watched him chat with the jolly old elf.

"What did you talk about?" I asked.
"Stuff."
"What did you ask for for Christmas?" I asked.
"Toys."
"Anything specific?"
"No, just toys."

While watching cartoons (we just love QUBO on NBC) he tells me what he wants for Christmas -- everything they advertise, except dolls of course, those are for girls. But he got really excited about the Fisher Price "I can play" piano. It looked really cool and so we went looking for it. The Fisher-Price site says $80. Costco had it considerably less but still out of the normal price range for my budget. Thank God for the Costco/AmEx year end cash back. It made it affordable and my Santa (paw paw) helped a bit too.

Santa had to wrap the large gift in paper we don't own so I wrapped it in brown kraft paper from work. Slapped a printed label on it and called it good. I loved the plain brown wrapper. I kept singing "Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things."

Christmas morning he came downstairs all excited to see that there were things in his stocking. It was full of coloring books, road signs for his cars, stamps and candy. He didn't even notice the larger packages. Mr. Potato head's Santa add-on pack and a book/tape of Biscuit Goes to School were nice but the BIG package got all the attention. He ripped the paper off the end of the box and gasped, "Mom, you couldn't afford to get me this but Santa could. Look he got me a piano." It is by far his favorite gift. He received a couple of buildings to run his matchbox cars through, a police and fire station, from my mom on the Saturday before Christmas and he was all about playing cars for 2 days. But since the piano has been open that's what he wants to do.

The day after Christmas my dad and aunt took him to school because I wanted him to sleep as much as possible since he had been up so late so many days in a row. In the morning I told him he could watch one cartoon after he was ready to go. He was up and dressed before I went to work, but he didn't want to eat, generally that means TV. He walked over to the TV, looked at the TV then the piano and walked back to the table where we were all eating our breakfast. " I don't like to watch too much TV," he informs us, "but I sure do like to practice the piano." As long as piano is a video game he will be into it, I just hope that when the tasks get more challenging and the actual playing of the piano starts he is still as excited about it.

Must go to bed now. I need to go move a heavy boy from my bed or move a full humidifier from his room to mine and sleep in his bed. He has had 5 nosebleeds today at school. The air is so dry. I want to avoid one in the middle of the night -- those are the scary (and messy).