Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...

It's so nice when you can combine business with pleasure!
Porters very generously chipped in on my very brief visit to kin in Portland and Marysville before I had to check into the showroom. I was able to fly to Portland, take the Max and then be picked up by Keira and a very cute little Zach to be whisked away to her house where Tia and children ( I assume that was them since they had had the audacity to grow to great heights in my absence!) waited. We then bonded by crafting Keira's day-camp flags...moi providing revised artwork for such. Kiera and I then completed the bonding process by going to the good Goodwill where we did not embarrass ourselves by wrassling over a 1915 novel with a provocative first line. We did say Hi to Russell ( their Goodwill furniture hook-up man) though, before Keira ably whisked me back into Portland to board the Cascade line train... “


"Railway termini are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return." - E. M.Forster

I have to say that train travel is my most favorite yet. I arrived so very relaxed in Everett which is in stark contrast to my usual mood caused by traversing Seattle and Tacoma by car...the expletives were deleted!
Debbie and I had a great couple of days that included forays into beading, idyllic lunching at fashionable restaurants on the wharf ( with sunshine no less!) and a trip to Details (a must in Marysville!). I traveled back to Portland on Tuesday, again by train...Wandering around Portland's Chinatown until I found the Max again and traveled Tia's way. Dinner and games were great, then off to the hotel to collapse a little. Wednesday was all work ( we finished close to 8:30 pm) and then to a hotel with 3 ( count'em 3!) large queen beds in one room. I've never seen that before. It's too bad we were too tired to bounce from bed to bed. Our flight out was booked for 6:35 am and we ( and the rest of Portland, my goodness there were a lot of people there!) made it! A 5 hour layover in Boise gave us time for a working break and then home to my HSH! I wasn't sure it was my house at first since Wynn pulled a Debbie and put down laminate flooring in the living room in my abscence! What a guy!

It's Gonna Be Big!

The place is huge(this is only one of the three buildings) and I lived slightly in fear of getting lost from my group and never finding my way out! I took a lot of pictures to try to remember it all but there is apparently a limit on what I can include in just one blog. I tried to interest Wynn in the whole deer with Christmas ornaments thing ( heads were really big believe it or not!)but he was a nontaker. Wool ornaments and frames and pillows were huge as are the non-pictured monkeys. Sideways Christmas trees were not actually shown but somehow the picture regressed when I imported it so just cant your head for a better view. Wreaths were always pictured in front of mirrors ( a look I really like)and ,of course, too much was never enough!
I wish I could have shown more because this is one place I would love to go shop with my sisters because it takes in the bizarre to the sublime. My fave was probably the ribbon salesman, "My ribbon dirt cheap! Dirt still on it!"

Alternate Universe

I feel as though I am out of synch with the rest of humanity. I put up Christmas trees in September and take them down in December- before Christmas. I am already thinking Spring and then in January it's back to Christmas when we wing to Dallas for a week of buying for next years trees. I'll let you know what the new hot color combos for trees this next year (purple and white!?)

Weak in Review

Some weeks are better than others , some not...just grateful to be here and living the American Dream.
Monday-Saturday- In retail if you don't move something everyday you are not doing your job! Sooooo...
Condense Halloween, move the Pilgrims ( where is that Mayflower when you need it?!), put up tree # 4 ( which is actually tree #5...we put up tree #2 this week...yikes!) and get everything up and out of the basement so we can sell, sell, sell while the gettings good. Whew!!


Wednesday was my "day off" which consisted of moving some of my stuff North, babysitting, and trying to put my eye out ( I had really wanted to show up at work Friday as a pirate but there were no lingering effects besides some deep bruising that persists...ouch and still ouch!)


Thursday night we made a "Wilma Flintstone outfit for Tasha ( very Vampy in zebra stripe minkee fabric). Friday I came home for lunch to discover that she had negated that idea and instead went as a towel....?!


Saturday I was up early and decorated a wedding cake for one of Gaby's friends and then on to work 'til late.
I can't wait for next week!

All that glitters...

Yes, it was the last we day of September and we were raising our first Christmas tree ( retailers have a whole different calendar). Chocolate brown and teal blue with pheasant feathers and grapevine balls and a lot of glittery things ( surprisingly it works... in a kind of elegant lodge manner). I learned what it takes to stuff and wire a tree together and what it takes to put together an artificial tree ( fluff, fluff, fluff!). Next week it will be all white and gold on a ( "Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland...la, la, la) heavily flocked tree.
Just to let everyone know that if they see me not heavily glittered between now and the end of February they will know I've been fired.

Move my world

You would think that a semi-intelligent individual ( such as myself) that has moved around 36 times in her adult life would shy away from any activity that even hints of cardboard, that gives that faint whiff of newsprint used in wrapping precious cargo, that involves carrying anything larger than a pencil up and down numerous stairs. You would think...
wrong, apparently. I feel as if life has molded me exactly for the job I now hold. What do I do? Shift and carry boxes up and down up to 2 flights of stairs ( and I am responsible for each and every item in said boxes). Decorate and redecorate on a nearly weekly basis. Manage the activities of a large group of associates daily. I feel like the big sister for North American Van Lines! I am amazed that I enjoy it so much seeing as I am not even finished moving my own self( sigh... I wonder if I could get the Porter's employees right on that little job?)