Clear Lake Antique Fair

A post from Kelli–

One thing that I like about my job is that there is often hours to pick up so if I need some extra money.  Since I don’t have kids right now and Jason works a lot, I often pick up shifts that are overnights, holidays, weekend bonuses, etc.  I’m pretty much a sucker for anything extra!  Earlier in the month, I had accidently scheduled myself to work last Sunday during the day.  A coworker of mine needed to switch some hours around, so I let her work the Sunday day and I had excitedly picked up the Sunday night shift so that I would qualify for weekend  differential, holiday pay, overnight bonus, and pick up hours.  I was really excited about it until I realized that the Clear Lake antique fair was that day.  They had already changed the schedule so I couldn’t drop it, I was kind of bummed, but decided I’d just make the best go of it and if nothing else, I would sleep really good on Monday and Tuesday (I was scheduled for the Monday overnight too).  And boy was I glad I made that decision–As always, the antique fair did not disappoint!

We got up super early to head over to Clear Lake.  Dad took the truck with the trailer, Karl took the suburban, and Mom and I rode over in my car together.  I was really excited to ride over with mom because I haven’t gotten to spend a ton of time with her recently, do the ride over was a real treat.  When we got there, this cute sign greeted us!

Isn’t it cute!??!  We worked on getting things unloaded and set up.  While the antique fair doesn’t officially start until 9:00, often the vendors quick shoot the loop around to check out goodies before it opens up, so Mom and Dad ended up having a pretty good amount of sales before the sale officially even started.  Mom and I headed out to shoot the loop quick too and found a few fun things.

This little doll almost looks so crabby that she’s cute!

I’m a sucker fo the color green, so I really loved these dishes that all coordinated, but weren’t quite the same color.

Isn’t this neat?  It looks like they took and old sewing machine and rigged it up into a lamp.  Kinda neat right?

Remember how I said we found a few fun things?  I was serious–We found Mary from Country Threads.  While our first introduction many years ago might not have been the greatest–Us kids were outside her shop playing and started screaming which lead her to think that one of her dogs or animals got us–she has really become a great friend.  We wandered back to our booth with much talking and chatting so help Dad and Karl with some sales.

Pretty soon Kalissa and Craig showed up with Carver!

Dad had found quite a few toolboxes at some auctions recently and decided to sell them.  **Funny story–When we were unloading, I actually grabbed his toolbox out of the suburban and tried to put it out for sale**.  Because the toolboxes were a bit larger, people asked if they would be able to set it behind our table and come back to pick it up because they didn’t want to carry it with them all day.  Carver found the toolboxes and was having quite the fun time.

He was quite sad when the buyers came back to pick up their goodies as he really was having a dandy time.  He almost pinched his fingers a few times, but I told him to keep working on his wrenching skills–cause Uncle Jason is going to need his help!  He even got a few pictures in with Karl.

Don’t they look alike?!?!

A little later, Mom poked me and told me to look at the booth next to us.

Isn’t that quilt cute?  Super simple, but beautiful none the less.  A short time later, there was a customer that came by and was commenting on it too.  She said that she had wanted to buy it but it wasn’t for sale and was quite bummed.

The Antique fair always brings in a few food vendors.  Mom and Dad had steak sandwiches and I had a fry bread taco….followed by a funnel cake…and some ice cream.

Later in the afternoon when things had calmed down, Mom and I headed off to Larson’s Mercantile a block or two from the park.  We always stop by as they have reasonably priced fabric and literally a little bit of everything else.  While we were there, we even found panels that we used to make our Oink-a-doodle-Moo quilts that were featured on Moda Bakeshop.

We haven’t seen the panel for quite some time so we were happy to find it!  I even got to drive home with Karl as my trusty copilot and hear about his student teaching experiences and such.

All in all, it was a great day!  Some of the best things about the day though weren’t things!  I’ve been doing lots of thinking lately and have really realized that most of the reason that I enjoy certain activities and such isn’t the actual activity, it’s the people that I do the activity with.  Quilting wouldn’t be as much fun for me without mom.  Living the farm life surely wouldn’t be as much fun without Jason and the ability to share stories with my dad.  Being a nurse definitely wouldn’t be the joy that it is for me without my patients and learning about them.  It’s really not the activity, but the people that I spend my time with doing the activity that are important for me and my real source of fun and joy.

One of the best parts of my day though, was getting a phone call at 5:00 letting me know that I got call, so I had to be available to come in, but they had low census, so I didn’t need to come in unless they called.  I’ll just take that as a God whisper that Clear Lake was where I was destined to spend my day!