This past weekend was the 33rd Annual Fine Craft and Design Fair in St. John’s, Newfoundland. In the past, I’ve shared booth space with my mother (profound thanks Mom!), but this year I went it alone. I’m working on a detailed breakdown of the fair, my exhibit and experiences for my professional blog (the post should be finished later today sometime), but thought I’d mention why I’ve been gone for a few days and incoherent for still longer. I also wanted to extend thanks to the following:

• Mom (& Dad) for child-wrangling, chauffeur services, emergency sewing machine delivery, food and concern – seriously, folks, I couldn’t have staggered through without you.
• Father-in-law Bob for going well out of his way several times to allow us the incredibly time and sanity-saving use of his enormous pickup truck. The days and nights of setup and take-down would have been much longer without it.
• Heather and Bob for having Katherine over to play with Jean and Eleanor (she had a blast!), providing food, support, booth relief and friendship.
• Larry, Shelley, Katie and Sam Bauer for commiseration, support, friendship and setup & take-down help.
• Sharon LeRiche for getting stuff to me from the gallery after a photography snafu.
• Wesley Harris for puns and delightful conversation. I may forgive the former by next fair.
• Esther Squires and Janet Davis for shared knowledge of working as an artist with children, spontaneous booth-tending and general chatter. Janet, the fish print will hang beautifully in our hall. I tried it out this morning.
• The unidentified couple who came through the front doors, made a beeline to my booth and told me that they’d been buying a piece of my work every year since I started the fair and that there wasn’t anything in my booth that they didn’t like. You didn’t even have to buy anything (but it was nice that you did) as your praise was sufficient in and of itself. I was having a horrid morning and you completely turned my day around.
• All friends and family who stopped by, chatted, purchased or sent their friends and family down to do likewise. I truly appreciated it.
• Katherine for being incredibly tolerant and generally cheerful and well-behaved.
• John. Where do I start? Thank you for caring enough about me and what I do to make this a team effort. Thank you for back-rubs, sympathy, support, help around the house, lugging and toting, late nights of working, child wrangling, tolerance of a crazy wife, dog walking, exceptional salesmanship, cheerfulness and a sense of perspective. There’s more, of course, but I’m trying to keep this short.

So now I’m off to finish a proposal and saunter through the day at a normal pace for once. Wonder what it’ll feel like…….?