GOODBYE TO SUMMER

Can you believe it is the end of August already?  Where does the time go?  I can't even remember August happening and here it is ending.  The end of August is always bittersweet to me.  It is like the ending of a beautiful day.

I love autumn, but I adore summer.  I come alive in the summer.  I love running out to the car without having to bundle up.  I love sitting on the beach and walking down to the water's edge, letting the waves wash over my feet and ankles.  I love eating outside, smelling the smoke from the barbeque.  But now all of that is coming to an end.  And the beauty of autumn is beginning.

Each season has its own beauty.  The joys of the summer will be replaced by the joys of autumn.  Even though autumn doesn't officially begin until September 21st I always feel like the end of August is the end of the summer.

So goodbye summer and hello autumn and September.  I am looking forward to seeing what you have in store for me.

 

(All three pictures were taken from my kitchen window while making dinner this evening.)

ANOTHER BUSY DAY...WILL IT EVER END?

Busy, busy, busy.  There is just so much to do at work and now only two of us to do it.  And people are just so impatient.  Since we have only one librarian now, he has to do everything.  Today one woman was yelling at Diane because she wanted to speak with the librarian and he was in the men's room.  I think she wanted Diane to take her to the men's room so she could talk to him through the door.

The kids were all so bad.  They even threw eggs at the front door this morning.  And they were loud and running all over the place.  We will be very happy when they finally go back to school next week.

One good note:  Marquita got permission to work 16 hours instead of 8 because we are so short handed.  It's not the 28 hours she was working but it's sure a lot better.

There is so much to do all the time that I have not been able to get my shelving done.  So at dinner time I came home and got Joe and he volunteered for an hour and got about half of my books shelved.  What a guy!  Couldn't ask for a better husband.

I made West African Vegetable Stew for dinner.  I put it in the slow cooker and it was done when I came home at dinner break.  It was good.  Joe loved it.  There's nothing left.

Well, another day down.  Let's see what tomorrow brings.

GOODBYE PEGGY

Today was the last day of work for our Children's Librarian, Peggy.

She has decided to stay home and be a full-time wife and mom.  Her youngest boy is starting first grade this year and she thinks it is important to be with him.  I agree.  There is no more important job than being a wife and mom.

But we will all miss Peggy.  She is one of the best librarians I have ever worked with.  Always pleasant.  And the kids all love her.  They will really miss her too.

THE AFTERMATH

We were very fortunate.  God was very good to us.  There was absolutely no damage to our property (that we know of anyway) from the hurricane.  There wasn't even a drop of water in our basement.  I know it was because of all of your prayers so thank you so much.

My back has been hurting me all weekend, so I have been sleeping on the sofa because it is harder than our mattress.  So I heard all the wind and rain raging outside.  I turned on the TV to drown out the sound.  We have a satellite dish TV and it went out only once for about an hour and then came back.  I got on the internet and started reading back on different blogs.  I was on for quite a while and never lost power or internet service.  We made out so much better than some other people I know.

My sister lives in northern New Jersey.  Her friend who lives a mile from her had a neighbor's tree fall down and go through the roof of her house and destroy one of her bedrooms, putting the whole house out of alignment and causing cracks in the walls.  The rain was pouring through the broken roof which caused her ceiling in the room below to cave in.  Please pray for Sue, her husband and son.  Needless to say she is very shaken up.

The street in front of my sister's church was a raging river.  Her pastor posted pictures and the water was up to his hips with quite a flow to it since it is a steep street.  There were also trees down.  I guess you can figure they didn't have a church service this morning.

We didn't have church either.  The winds were very strong and there were some flooded streets, so it would have been dangerous to drive there.

There were some tornadoes spotted in New Jersey and in the Philly suburbs.  My brother and his family spent quite a bit of the night in their basement waiting it out.

It is back to work for me tomorrow.  I wonder how the library made out. This will be an interesting week with our downsized staff.

HURRICANE IRENE (revised)

The rain is heavy.  The winds are strong.  Irene is here.  Thank you for your prayers.  All is safe so far.

10:15 a.m. Sunday morning
Rain has stopped.  Winds are high though (40 mph).  Lots of flooding.  But not in my neighborhood.  That I know of anyway.  We got off easy.  God is so good.  Thank you so much for praying.

FARM DAY

Believe it or not we got to the farm before the storm hit.  It was really crowded, but everyone was very organized and things moved along really fast.  Here's what we got:

     2 cucumbers
     1 lb. concord grapes
     1 pint heirloom cherry tomatoes
     2 heads of garlic
     3 large golden peaches
     1 head boston lettuce
     1 bunch kale
     2 lbs. white eggplant
     1 piece smoky farmer cheese
     1 dozen eggs

I now have more cucumbers than I know what to do with.  I am going to have to go through the refrigerator and use things up this week.  It is getting so crowded I don't know what is in there anymore.

I also got a bunch of beautiful flowers.

We tried to get gas on the way home.  We fill the tank every farm day and it lasts 2 weeks (unless we go away or do some unusual driving).  Today we could not find a place to get the gas.  There were lines everywhere.  Oh, well.  It is going to be beautiful on Monday and I am not going anywhere this weekend so I will get the gas then.

We went to the deli to get lunchmeat and the line was unbelievably long.  It would have taken me over half an hour to wait.  So we went to Wawa and I got it there for twice the price.  But at least we have it.

Then we stopped at a couple of stores looking for size D batteries for Joe's radio.  But they were nowhere to be found.  You would think the world was ending!  While he was in the store, I sat in the car and took a couple of pictures of the threatening sky.

When we got home we finished putting things away and getting ready for Irene to hit.  Our yard looks very empty and at the moment that is a good thing.

Our outside furniture and trash and recycling cans are put together like a jigsaw puzzle.  Hopefully nothing will blow away.

At approximately 2 p.m. the rain started.  It was just a gentle rain at first, and now at 5 p.m. it is pretty steady and heavy.  However, there is no wind.  So far so good.  I'll keep you updated.

GETTING READY FOR THE STORM

Hurricane Irene is on her way.  The neighbor in back of me seems really worried about the upcoming storm.  He has put tyvek over his third floor window and sent this message.

So funny.

Joe put away a lot of things in the yard while I was at work, and I put away the rest of them when I got home.  The only thing left is the bench which I will move nearer to the house tomorrow morning.  I even picked the four green tomatoes hoping to save them and let them ripen in the house.

Tomorrow is farm day.  I got an email saying we should come early because when the storm hits they are going to close.  I am going to try to get there by 10 a.m. when they open and be one of the first ones there.

We found out today that our part-timer's hours are being cut.  She is only allowed to work 8 hours a week.  This is really going to impact us because she was giving us 30 hours a week.  It is a system wide move to save money.  There is just no way we can do what we do with us missing 3 people (a librarian and 2 assistants).  Our branch head, Jerry, says we should just do the best we can and we will have to be closing some days because we will not have enough people to keep the building open.  There are a lot of meetings we have to go to in September and the library cannot run with only two people there.  It will be an interesting next few weeks.

I hope we are able to ride out both storms:  the hurricane and the storm at work.

THE WEDNESDAY GARDEN

After the earthquake and crazy day yesterday I wanted some calm before I went to work this morning.  So I went out into my yard and took some pictures for you to see how things are coming along.

The impatients I bought at the farm...

... and the vinca I bought in Lancaster are doing well.

Unfortunately my other two impatients died.  I'm trying to coax one back to life, but we'll see.

My coleus and the other plant whose name I don't know that I got in Lancaster are also doing well.

My earthbox has herbs:  parsley, rosemary and chives.

My roses are beautiful.  I have to get out there and deadhead them this weekend, though.

Lastly, take a look at my tomatoes.  They are getting big and doing well.

Pretty soon they will be ready to pick like this one Joe brought in yesterday.

A DAY LIKE NO OTHER

This is a day that will go down in the history books.  I guess everyone has heard now about the earthquake that hit the east coast.  I happened to be at the front desk waiting on a customer.  At first I thought it was a truck outside or something.  I work in a 100 year old building and it shakes when there is heavy traffic.  But this went on and on and then the building started creaking and making a strange noise.  I looked up from the computer and saw the loft swaying and the windows rattling.  Then I noticed the computers were shaking.  People were freaking out, but it really wasn't that bad.  It was only a 1.7 by the time it got to Philly.  In fact a lot of people came in later and said they didn't even feel it.  Our guard was outside cutting the grass and he said he wouldn't have known it happened if someone hadn't told him.  And it seems as if anyone driving for some reason didn't feel it.  That's strange.

Besides the earth shaking under our feet, this has been the weirdest day at work.  We were short-handed again today because Diane had a vacation day today, so it was just Marquita and me working the desk.  We usually get from 5-9 new card registrations a day.  Today we had 27.  27!!!  Three times our highest day!  I spent most of the day making new cards while Marquita tried to keep the desk running.  We had piles and piles of books waiting to be checked in.  Lines of people waiting to check out.  A huge delivery of books from other agencies to check in.  (It didn't get finished.)  The wait for a computer is usually right away to 15 minutes.  Today the wait was a hour or more.

To top it off three people came over and started arguments with the branch head and the guard.  People called on the phone and screamed at us.  One woman was in the restroom for about 20 minutes.  She was very pregnant and we started getting concerned about her.  So Rob (the guard) knocked on the door and asked her if she was OK.  She started cursing him out through the door and when she came out she started screaming at Jerry (the boss) that she was being sexually harassed and that Rob had pounded on the door over and over for the 8 minutes she was in there.  Right.  Another guy was going to beat up all of us because he had a $12 fine on his late videos.  And he could too, he was a big guy and not mentally stable.

The mail came in around 12:30 p.m. and I didn't get to open it until 7 p.m.  That's how busy we were.  The books that I was supposed to enter never got in.  I'll have to do it tomorrow. When I went to count out the money from the cash register, things didn't add up.  I had to count it three times.  It took me so long to finally balance the books.   By the time I was putting it into the safe the lights were going off.


At dinner time I came home, picked up Joe and we went to see the new school that has just been built a few blocks from our house.  We watched the whole thing go up and were interested in seeing the inside.  It was a community open house between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.  It is beautiful!  I wish I had been able to attend a school like that.  Joe said the chemistry labs were bigger than the ones he used when he worked for the chemical plant.  It would be nice if his twins could go there.  It's right around the corner from where they live.

I didn't have time to take Joe home and get back to work on time, so he had to come with me.  It was only an hour and he always likes going to the library.  It's good for him to get out of the house and talk to people too.  I was so tired Joe took me out to dinner at the diner on the way home.  I fell asleep almost immediately.  I just woke up so that is why you are getting a post at 5 a.m.

I don't want to ever have another day like this day.  It was one of the worst days I've ever had at work.  And an earthquake thrown in for good measure.

ANOTHER RAINY SUNDAY

Google image of downtown Philadelphia in the rain

Yes, another rainy Sunday in Philadelphia.  I don't think I'll ever get another chance to post a Sunday garden with pictures entry.  But my garden is looking lush.  I just have to get out there and weed and cut back the roses.  There is always too much to do and not enough time.

I worked at the Regional Library again this week.  More overtime.  But we need the money to pay for the new car.  It wasn't bad.  As soon as the downpour and thunder and lightning started all the people disappeared.

I have one more Sunday to work and then I have a month off from overtime.  Good thing too because September is a very busy month.  Almost every day is full of stuff to do.

We had a guest speaker in church this morning.  Once a year the Bible Fellowship churches switch pastors.  So both of our pastors were away and Pastor Lou Protnicki from Maple Glen was our speaker.  He spoke on Hebrews 11 -- Faith's Hall of Fame, and tied it into the series we have been having in the book of Judges.  The key thought was:  Faith is believing that God is better than what life can give you and better than what death can take from you.  Faith is believing that God has something better for you.  If you can trust God to save you from hell and get you to heaven, then why can't you trust Him with the little things of life?  Faith allows flawed people to accomplish great things for God.  The message was fantastic.  Pastor Lou was so humble and put God in the forefront of everything he did and said.  It was getting later and I had to leave to get to work on time, but I couldn't go until I heard the end of the message.  Wish I could have stuck around to meet him and talk to him, but I just made it on time as it was.  It should be on our website on Wednesday, so I want to listen to it again.

I need to end this and get to bed.  Another week of work in front of me and two days without Diane to help out.  Sigh.

FRIDAY VIEWS

 

Doesn't this look great?  I would love to spend my weekend like this.  Unfortunately tomorrow is the great "Kathy-cleans-up-the-house" day.  It needs it so badly.  I have been so tired from all the work I've been doing that the housework has gone by the wayside.  So tomorrow is catch up day.

Yesterday and today were a little slower at work.  It seems that Thursdays and Fridays are that way every week.  At least it gives us a chance to catch up.  And we need it!  Next week Diane is off on Monday and Tuesday, our busiest days.  Fortunately Marquita is able to come in all day on those two days.  I can't wait until another LA is assigned to us and we can finally get the help we need.

Joe and I were going to go out to dinner tonight.  We went over to Wawa to get some money from the ATM and the heavens broke loose.  The rain was pouring down like someone was throwing buckets of water at the front windows.  So we ended up getting hoagies, waiting until it let up a little, and making a run to the car.  Well, there's always another day.

A BUSY DAY

Being short-handed at the library stinks.  It is so hard to do the work of 4 people with 2 1/2 (no, not a half a person, a part-timer).  We just do not have the time to do what needs to be done.  We all try our best, but at this point Diane and I are just plain burnt out.  By the end of the day we just don't care if we get things done or not.  All of us end up counting down the last hour of work.

To top this off we have been having lots of phone calls.  Not just plain calls you understand, but the kind I've spoken of before.  For instance there was one I had today from a woman who wanted to know what our hours were.  I said that we closed at 5 p.m. today.  She said, "I don't care what time you close, what time did you open?"  I told her 10 a.m. although by this time it was 2 p.m. so I really didn't see what difference it made.  OK.

The best call though was from a teenaged boy who asked if we had the book The Color of Clear Waters.  I said, "You mean The Color of Water?"  "Yeah," he said.  "That one."  I told him we had three copies of it.  He said thanks and hung up.  A few minutes later he called back and asked if we had The Lost Boy.  I told him yes we had that one too.  Then he asked if he gave me his library card number if I could check them out to him and deliver them to his house.  Uh, sure.  Be right there.  Where do these people come from?  It sure makes my job interesting.

A RAINY SUNDAY

Google image

What a rainy day this has been.  It has been pouring all day.  On the good side, my plants are doing really well.  No Sunday Garden pictures this week.  We got sooo much rain.


I had to work overtime today.  At least it was a good day to do it.  It was very quiet -- no one wanted to come out because the weather was so bad.  I actually had a pretty good day.  I met three new people who were very pleasant to work with and great to talk to during the slow times.  I love meeting new people.  So this has been a good weekend for me.  Also saw some of the people I used to work with and caught up on things with them.  I work 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon and get paid for 8.  Not a bad deal.


I was back at my own church this morning after being away two weeks at my sister's church.  I sort of missed being with her.  But it was good to see my friends.  We had a dedication today of Shawn and Juliette's new little twins, Natalie and Kate, and their 1 year old son, Connor.  It was a beautiful ceremony.


Well, it's back to work tomorrow.  Let's see how my second week of being supervisor goes.

THE FARM AND A TRIP TO PENNSBURY MANOR

A busy day today.   It began with a trip to the farm.  I got a lot!

2 lbs. of red potatoes
4 peaches
2 lbs. of tomatoes
bunch of parsley
4 squash (8 ball and Cousa)
organic Spring Mix
1 baby watermelon
2 red peppers
3 cucumbers
1 dozen eggs
1/2 lb. baby Swiss cheese

Joe had a tomato, swiss and lettuce sandwich for lunch and said it was wonderful.

This afternoon Joe and I met my friend Carole and her family (including her cousin Lisa who she is staying with ) and we went to Pennsbury Manor.  Carole used to be one of my Sunday School students when she was a teenager and is the daughter of my former pastor.  She lives in Kentucky now, but is here with her three daughters visiting her family.  I haven't seen her in 10 years, so this was a wonderful treat.

We got there rather late and missed the last tour.  But we were able to walk around and since I have been there 7 times before, I was able to be the tour guide for everyone.  Mostly we saw animals, birds and insects.  It was more like a nature tour than anything else.


Here's a few of the better pictures.  We saw a little bunny in the vegetable garden.

I was trying to get another shot when he hopped away.  Rabbits are fast!

There was a dragonfly on one of the bushes.  We took a lot of pictures of it.  This was the best one.

Here's one of Joe and I.

Carole's girls were fascinated by this big chair.  This is Sami and Emily.

And little Lily.

We found a bush with tons of butterflies on it.

There was a barn with a goose in it.  A mean goose who chased us out of the building.

Outside was a peacock.  Even though he had shed his feathers last week, he was still magnificent.

This view toward the river was so beautiful.

We saw the oxen and the horse from a distance, but couldn't figure out how to get close to them.

We had a beautiful day.  Next time I have to get Joe there in time to take the tour.

FRIDAY VIEWS

Yes, that is how I feel.  I am sooooo happy it is Friday and I don't have to go into work tomorrow.  My boss is on vacation next week, so hopefully I will have a week to get my feet under me and maybe feel a little more settled in my job before he returns.  It was better for me yesterday and today.  But I still have a lot of questions.  My first supervisor has been very helpful.  I have been calling her and emailing her with questions and she takes me through things step by step.

Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore my supervisor who just left.  But she left things in a mess.  I found books from 2008 and magazines from last November that were shoved on shelves in the workroom and never put out for people to take out.  There is no record of certain things, so I can't tell if we got them or not.  And she wouldn't let me do the supply order, so I don't know if any of our supplies were ordered for this month or how to do it if they weren't.

On the other hand, I'm getting really good at balancing the cash register log and getting money ready for a deposit.  Also the two girls I supervise are the greatest and we are getting along just fine.  They have lots of good ideas on how to make things better and I'm just fine with that.

So all in all the first week of my new job was hard, but getting better.  Thanks for listening to my rant last time.

Being on vacation, I haven't been food shopping for a couple of weeks and things were getting low, so I went on the way home.  I got crab cakes for dinner.  The ShopRite I go to makes their own out of lump crab and are they ever good.  I wanted to make zucchini and mushrooms to go with it.  But the funny part was I could not for the life of me remember the word "zucchini".  All I could think of was the British word for it "corgette".  I kept looking around thinking, "I'll know it when I see it."  That was so weird.

Off to the farm tomorrow.  Since I haven't been home, I haven't used the stuff from last time!  I am going to have to start making lots of veggie/fruit stuff this week.

A WEEK TO REMEMBER

What a week this has been.  It is my first week of being the supervisor.  It is much, much harder than I ever expected it to be.  A lot of that has to do with us being a person short and it being the last week of the summer reading program.  There is more work than we have manpower to do.  I hate being behind in everything.  I hate not knowing what I am supposed to do next.  I hate being the one telling the other people what needs to be done.  I hate having to do everybody else's work because there is so much no one can keep up and certain things have to be done.  I try not to stress anyone out too much.  And most of all I hate the head librarian constantly telling me what I've done wrong.  It's my first week, for goodness sake.  Let me learn my job.

I know a lot of this will get better as I get more comfortable in my position.  But I certainly didn't expect all of this.

OK, I've vented.  The next post will be more positive.

SPINNING WHEEL

My sister took a couple of pictures of me at the spinning wheel when we were at the New Jersey State Fair.  Please ignore the wet clothes and hair.  It was not my best shot.

In this first picture you can see the cotton actually being spun into thread,  My left hand is holding the raw cotton and my right hand has the thread coming out of it. If you click on the picture and enlarge it, you can see this better.

OK, I messed up and it got tangled a little bit.  But I think all in all I did a pretty good job for my first five minutes of spinning.

SUNDAY SERMON

I attended my sister Elaine's church this morning, Ledgewood Baptist in Ledgewood, NJ.  Her pastor is doing a series in the book of Numbers.  The message was so good and so appropriate to some things I am going through and trying to help a friend go through.  I just wanted to share it with you.

ACCOMMODATION -- TO A POINT

Pastor David Holwick

Numbers 9:1-14

The LORD gave these instructions to Moses in early spring, during the second year after Israel's departure from Egypt, while he and the rest of the Israelites were in the wilderness of Sinai:  "Tell the Israelites to celebrate the Passover at the proper time, at twilight on the appointed day in early spring.  Be sure to follow all my laws and regulations concerning this celebration."

So Moses told the people to celebrate the Passover in the wilderness of Sinai as twilight fell on the appointed day.  And they celebrated the festival there, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.  But some of the men had been ceremonially defiled by touching a dead person, so they could not offer their Passover lambs, that day.  So they came to Moses and Aaron that day and said, "We have become ceremonially unclean by touching a dead person.  But why should we be excluded from presenting the LORD's offering at the proper time with the rest of the Israelites?"

Moses answered, "Wait here until I have received instructions for you from the LORD."

This was the LORD's reply:  "Say to the Israelites:  'If any of the people now or in future generations are ceremonially unclean at Passover time because of touching a dead body, or if they are on a journey and cannot be present at the cremony, they may still celebrate the LORD's Passover.  They must offer the Passover sacrifice one month later, at twilight on the appointed day.  They must eat the lamb at that time with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast.  They must not leave any of the lamb until the next morning, and they must not break any of its bones.  They must follow all the normal regulations concerning the Passover.

"'But those who are ceremonially clean and not away on a trip, yet still refuse to celebrate the Passover at the regular time, will be cut off from the community of Israel for failing to present the LORD's offering at the proper time.  They will suffer the consequences of their guilt.  And if foreigners living among you want to celebrate the Passover to the LORD, they must follow these same laws and regulations.  The same laws apply both to you and to the foreigners living among you.'"

1.  How accommodating are you?  God is accommodating.  He wants to help us.  But even God has His limits.

2.  A night to remember.  This is the last Passover celebrated in the wilderness.  It is the last one some of them had for they died in the wilderness.  

     Marking the passage of the year, they are told to have a Passover.  

     The Passover celebrated an historical act of deliverance.  Divine substitution.  

     The New Testament parallels it closely.  We do communion, not Passover.  Christ is our Passover Lamb.

     Strict guidelines had to be followed.  (Exodus 12)  Things are done in a certain way.  It is an intricate service.  Dishes are prepared in a certain way.  It is educational.  Children ask questions.

     For once, they followed God's instructions exactly.  (Numbers 9:5)  The Israelites were not very good at obedience.

3.  Unanticipated Problems.

     Law codes cannot cover every contingency.

     God grants some accommodation.  You can't always avoid uncleanness.  God is gracious.  If you miss Passover for a valid reason, you can do it a month later.  God is inclusive.  He wants to draw people in.  People don't have to become like us, but become like God.

4.  Accommodation is not limitless.

     Humans like the idea of being accommodated.  We want the second chance, special treatment, benefit of the doubt.  But Christianity isn't all about accommodation.  A friendly church is great, but it must have the Gospel of Christ.  We need to stand for something.

     In Numbers 9 those without a valid excuse will be condemned.  God expects you do do what He says.  He has no patience with those who disobey.  God's grace can be stern.  We should not presume on it.  We are responsible for those things we have control over.

     Communion has similarities to Passover.  Not just that both have blood and deliverance.  See I Corinthians 11:29 -- For if you eat the bread or drink the cup unworthily, not honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God's judgment upon yourself.  If you don't approach Communion in the right attitude, there are consequences.  If you don't do it God's way, He will do what He wants with you.

5.  God is not an enabler.  God calls us to repent and be a consistent person.  He wants us to have a changed heart.

NEW JERSEY STATE FAIR

I went back to my sister's house yesterday to go to the New Jersey State Fair.  I try to go every year, but didn't get there last year because of my illness.  So I was really looking forward to it this time.  Since I am working every weekend for the rest of the month, it had to be this weekend that we went.  We even got half-price tickets and things were looking really good.

I had a good ride up there.  Very little traffic and lots of nice sunshine.  But when I got to Chester, NJ (about a half-hour from Elaine's house) it started to cloud up.  Oh well.  It was suppposed to get cloudy.  That's okay.  It's a little cooler that way.  And believe me, some of the years we have been up there have been scorchers!

I got to Elaine's with no problem, brought things in from the car, lightened my purse and grabbed a tote bag out of the trunk of my car.  We discovered that tote bags are wonderful for carrying all the little things you buy or accumulate during the day.  Then we set out for the fair.  It takes about 45 minutes to get there.  Usually it is a slow drive, but there was not as much traffic as usual and we made good time.  I always take a picture of the fair from the road leading into it.  It's my "hooray we're at the fair" picture.

We were both hungry so the first thing we did was get something to eat.  Boy do they ever have you at these places.  $14 for a hot dog, 4 chicken fingers and 2 bottles of water.  But it was enough to hold us over.  We started looking around at the different craft booths, looked at the map trying to decide where to go next and splat!  A raindrop.  Oh well, a little rain never hurt anybody.  We went into the kitchen supply tent.  I got a new egg slicer since mine had broken and a can/bottle opener.  I can never find the one I have.  Splat! Splat!  More rain.  We ran into a tent that was selling glass pendant necklaces.  They are all so beautiful.  And only $3.  Which one to buy.  I like this one, and this one and this one is nice.  I decided on an amber and white heart.  We started heading toward the craft tent.  Then the heavens opened and it was a downpour.

We ran into the commercial tent.  So did a lot of other people.  Everyone was wet.  It was very crowded.  We got some Avon stuff in there, looked at a lot of the other stuff and bought a few things.  We were hoping the rain had let up, but no such luck.  We really wanted to go to the craft tent, so looked on the map, figured out where it was, and made a run for it.

The craft tent was great.  So many talented people with so many beautiful things.  I got a couple of things for gifts at the Swarski crystals table.  I got Joe a jar of homemade sugar free strawberry jam.  The jewelry was beautiful.  The clothes were great but expensive.  Woodworking was wonderful.  So much to see.

Has the rain let up yet?  No.  Still pouring.  Now all the rides have stopped running.  The food booths were putting up plastic sheets in front of them to keep the rain off of the food.  A lot of the craft/store booths had plastic in front of them too.  Should we leave?  What fun is the fair in the rain.  But we decided I had just driven 2 1/2 hours to get there and I wanted to see something.

We ran into the next building we came to.  It was different agencies in the county showing what was available to the residents.  Since neither of us were residents of the county we weren't really interested.  But I did take some literature from the Sussex County Library System.  I like looking at other libraries.

Still raining.  I want to go to the Richards Building.  They always have the art exhibit in there.  Another run.  Well, now we are down to a fast walk.  We are getting wetter and wetter.  The art exhibit was wonderful.  Professionals and amateurs.  Oils, pastels, watercolors, pencils, photography.  Each one more beautiful than the one before.

Then we walked to the other side of the room.  There was a lady weaving fabric on a loom.  Really interesting to watch.  I could never do that.  It was so intricate.  There were two ladies sitting nearby with spinning wheels.  I started talking to one of them about spinning and how long it took her to learn it.  She said she picked it up rather quickly, that it wasn't hard.  She said she gave lessons and asked if I would be interested.  I said I was, but I lived in Philadelphia, so it wasn't practical.  She said, "Then I'll teach you now.  Sit down at this empty spinning wheel."  I did and she taught me.  It was so much fun!  I actually spun a couple of yards of thread!  She said I was very good at it and took it off of the spindle and gave it to me to take home.

I have wanted to use a spinning wheel since I was a little girl.  It was a blast!  I came home and told Joe I wanted a spinning wheel and some raw cotton.

We walked over to where there was a quilt contest.  They were hanging from the ceiling and you voted on which one you liked best.  But how could you choose?  They were all beautiful.

The quilt on the bottom right (the brown and white one) was being raffled off.

This counted cross-stitch picture was beautiful.  What a lot of work went into it.

There was a checkerboard set up and people were sitting down, playing a game, then getting up and leaving.  It reminded me of an old general store.

On the way out we saw the robot they have every year.  Whoever runs him has such a sense of humor.  The comments he was making about the people he "saw" had us hysterical.

It was still raining, so we decided to call it a day.  Walking back to the car we got soaked.  We went home and dried off and got a pizza for dinner.  No petting zoo this year.  No 4-H.  No equestrian competition.  No aerial exhibit.  No chainsaw carver.  Until next year that is.