April officially starts birthday/anniversary season around here. It starts at the beginning of April and there is something going on every month through September. Lots of cake gets eaten during that time…

This year was a milestone for my sis. She turns 50 on April 3rd.  She had her celebration on Saturday. It was held at Circus Cafe in Saratoga. It’s fun inside and I liked this chandelier.

If only our ceilings were high enough for a chandelier!  I got this banner printed up from Vista Print:

There was a special menu just for us:

We had a selection of an appetizer and an entree. There were 16 people there and John wasn’t the only vegetarian 😀

My appetizer was the crabcakes:

No matter which way I turned my plate, this looked like an owl to me.  These were quite tasty and honestly, if I had a side with this it would have been the perfect size meal.

For entrees, there was a choice of beef, chicken, salmon and veggie.  I think 75% of the table got the steak!  John and I both ended up with the risotto and roasted asparagus:

This was a big portion, too. We each took half home to have for dinner on Sunday.

I was in charge of ordering the cake and with a special request of no buttercream frosting (I know!! ), I went with Lake George Baking Company. We get treats there when we ride to the lake in the summer, but we’ve never had the cake. They opened up a location much closer to us, too  – d’oh!

How pretty this is! What doesn’t show is the edible glitter on it. The cake was sparkly and a nice look of spring despite the dismal weather we have been having.

It was a dark chocolate cake with strawberry filling and whipped cream frosting.

This was delicious! And I was happy to note that the flowers were buttercream, so I did get some frosting LOL! I couldn’t finish my piece – too big – although I wanted to.

All in all a fun time was had and happy birthday to my sis!

Sunday the weather finally, finally changed for the better. The sun came out and it got to around 50. That meant biking time! We took the path towards the lake. It was pretty much clear, but we stopped before the climbs began because that will still be snowy. This is Glen Lake:

Still a nice water view.

Bikey face!

And I see my helmet is crooked and a little loose. Oops.

John also had bikey face:

It’s been too long since we were on the bikes! We did just under 12 miles today. Not quite ready to hit bigger hills, but it won’t be long. Spring just needs to stay now.

A little peek into my business world. I spent the last 2 days doing a wholesale show. This was open only to store buyers or those opening shops up, not to the general public, and the focus of the show was makers/artisans from the North Country.  There was everything from honey/maple products, wooden sculptors, artisan foods, jewelers, pottery, bath and body, home decor, furniture. Lots of incredibly talented people, that’s for sure!

I found a neat tip online that worked really well.  Getting things up higher into eye level is important and hard to do with a table. I have a folding table with legs like this:

I measured the legs and they were an inch wide, so I got some 1-1/4 inch PVC pipe and cut it into 12-inch lengths:

Being even is important here. Then pop them on the legs of the table:

This raised my tables up 7 inches higher bringing displays up closer to eye level.

There were actually a fair number of apothecary products at this show, more than I would have liked. We all looked really different, though. Some were more hip, some country style and my clean black and white look.   I did have a little feeling of inadequacy at first, but I guess everyone else does as well when you start to compare.  So I tried not to do that and just focused on my products.

The show was cash and carry, but the object was more to network with shop owners (and other makers). The pace is much slower than a regular retail show because less people come through and there isn’t the buy-buy-buy atmosphere. I had some cash and carry and a lot of discussions with store owners. I got a lot of good feedback, which was encouraging, and two of the store owners followed my social media accounts, which meant they looked at my materials since I didn’t have that info on display anywhere. Hopefully these relationships will develop into full wholesale accounts.  I for sure will do this again next year.

Now I’m peopled out again and John told me I have to dial it back a little with the show being done. I’m trying to listen to him, but I’m excited about where things can go and it’s hard to slow down. You know me LOL!

So this is what spring looks like around here right now:

Yuck! The best way to counter all that is the flower show. Had another sister day as Colleen was the person I dragged along with me this year 😀  She really enjoyed it, though. I thought I was going to explode from happiness when we arrived at the show.

This year’s theme was Diamonds and Pearls.  One landscaping company decided to do a theme from Pirates of the Caribbean and the Black Pearl.

Complete with pirate’s booty!

You guys know I was all over these trunks! There were a lot of different trunks used in other displays, too. Happy girl, right here.

Port Royal:

Not sure if you can see on the right side the dog with the keys in his mouth and the hand reaching out.

It’s so amazing to me that they can turn a hockey rink into this in 5 days.

Another section was a woodland trail complete with fallen leaves.

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I love how they use birch bark to write the signs.

I was so excited to see Dutchman’s breeches!

They are related to bleeding hearts. Don’t they look like upside down pantaloons?  I actually planted some of these bulbs last fall. I really hope they bloom as they can be difficult to grow. We shall see what happens in my garden!

This display was all vintage and wood. Those lanterns are pretty neat, even though they aren’t my style.

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These birdhouses are cool. Not sure if you can see it, but the roofs are made of old tin ceiling tiles.

Garden party:

This was just so charming!

There was a beautiful water feature installed.

One of the stones around this weighed in at 1500 pounds!

The sand sculptor was there as usual.

He chose to follow the Black Pearl theme. He continually works on the display all weekend. Here he is working on the trunk with jewels.

The detail and shading is just amazing. The eyes were painted, which really is a neat effect.

It was so nice to smell all the dirt and flowers.

Spring has to come soon, right?

Here is my favorite shot of the weekend:

Every once in a while I get a picture that hits that sweet spot. If only I could figure out how to do that on the regular LOL! I’m pretty sure this will be made into an enlargement for our wall.

Going to this show helps me get through that last hump before the flowers emerge around here. Now I can’t wait for my garden to bloom!

Did you know today (March 22) is World Water Day?  Here is my water inspiration:

Our water feature we built last year, or as we call it – Radiance Falls. It’s mostly uncovered from snow now, but it will be a while before we can get the pump back in it and running again.  We are so, so fortunate to have clean water. Unfortunately, not everyone does. Still.

You can read more about problems for people without clean water at the CDC website.  And let’s work to keep our water clean. Speak up and let your representatives know that you want clean water.

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in stuff. I know I keep saying I’m busy like I am the only one in the world who is, but that’s why my posting is so sporadic and it is kind of an apology. It’s probably going to stay that way for a while, too.

We did get a chance to see a concert last night. The Boston Brass (quintet) were in town to do a master class for high school students and they put on a free concert in the evening. What a treat! They were fantastic and kind of makes me long for the days when John and I were in a quintet together.  The Boston Brass tour a lot, so check out their schedule and catch them if you can.

John has been doing meal cooking since I’ve gotten so busy. Tonight he made a potato crusted quiche. I’ll have to get him to post the recipe in the comments.  He used the spiralizer to make the potato rounds.

I should have mentioned to him to slice the potato part way down so that he would end up with chips instead of a spiral. He then had to cut them apart.

Delicious quiche!

The potatoes kind of rise up some, which I’m not sure is supposed to happen, but it’s delicious!  On the side is another of those Green Giant riced vegetables. Cauliflower, peas, carrot, green pepper.  This was also good, although I liked the sweet potato one better.

It’s back to work for a bit for me!

As I was getting ready to post,  yet again, more violence in the world. Hate breeds hate. Are we ever going to learn that?

Spring is this week, but it’s still looking wintery around here.

It’s sunny, though!  The nice thing is the ground was warm from before, so walkways and driveways are nice and clear without being icy.

I spent a lot of time walking this weekend. Downtown and back quite a bit, about 10 miles worth. We were out for St. Patrick’s Day at our summer place, Mean Max Brewery.

Out with family. The group was okay, but way too loud. Or maybe I’m getting old, I don’t know LOL!

I spent a good portion of time taking pictures of product with John being my lighting assistant! Plus styling the little suitcase I painted last weekend.

Shelley has the design eye, so I sent her the picture to critique and she gave me some pointers to do. I’ll keep working on it. The wholesale show is a week from Monday, so I have time to play with it.

We did take time out for some coffee, though!

I think I am more busy now than when i was working my other job plus this stuff. At least I enjoy it.

We finally decided to cut the cable cord. The only thing that we really used of the cable was the DVR for Jeopardy and a few shows. We have Amazon Prime and a fire TV stick, so ditching cable is not a big deal since the main show we watch is on Amazon (Man in the High Castle). The only thing is getting as many football games as we did before, but I guess we will live. And Tour de France. That we can buy an internet package for if we want. We also signed up for Netflix again to stream some shows. We started watching Making of a Murderer and gosh that whole thing is so frustrating! We don’t know how the season ends or where he is now, so no spoilers please!  Overall I haven’t missed cable at all except we don’t get to see Jeopardy hardly ever.

— Another new food find! These are Nasoya vegetable dumplings with tofu:

These are quite good! John cooked them up by pan sauteing them and we had ginger dipping sauce on the side.  I tend to eat a lot more vegetarian at home with John going veggie.  This makes a nice alternative to omelets 😀

Any of you get rid of cable?

That certainly was quite a storm yesterday.  Sometimes you get what’s forecasted and sometimes not. This time we got the Nor’easter. There was a state of emergency called, so the roads were very lightly traveled since a lot of people seemed to listen to the advice.

John shoveled once early and then we went out again after lunch to try to keep ahead of the snow since we don’t have a snowblower.  The snow was falling pretty hard during this.

Yuck! LOL.  That was the last time we went out because the wind began to really pick up and no way would there be any point to shoveling until it was done. Still snowing when we went to bed, too.

Normally Wednesday is Bagel Day, but I knew even if the roads were clear, we would still have to dig ourselves out, so we ate at home. I was so not looking forward to moving snow. Wouldn’t you know that some kind soul took a snowblower up the block this morning!

I don’t know who did it, but thank you!!! That is the really heavy packed stuff from the plows, which is just so hard to shovel.  That meant we only had to do the driveway and front walk.

Not exactly straight, but the mail carrier can get in.

I thought it was funny to see my flag signaling spring.

Oops.  I give a lot of kudos to the road crews. They worked all night and look how clear the roads are after around 20 inches of snow. Bravo!

Bagel Wednesday will have to be Bagel Thursday this week. 😀

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On to the next thing – another food find. Green Giant has come out with riced vegetables. They sounded appealing to me, so I picked up a couple different packages. This was one of them:

Microwave for 6 minutes and done. That’s easy!  I also like that there is no sauce or anything on these. I tend to not like pre-sauced veggies. Something about them tastes funny.

Mine was simple with a little butter and S&P. These were good! It almost was like eating rice. Served alongside a turkey burger. I’m not like Biz with the styling of the plate LOL!

Now it feels like winter all over again.  There were some tulip greens just pushing out of the ground and now they are covered. It will be a while before this all melts because temps going to be in the upper 30s and low 40s for the next few days.  At least it’s light later!

Is anyone else really tired of these cold and windy weekends? Yuck! We won’t be biking for a while yet, especially as snow is heading in this week to give us a good dumping. Biking in February? Sure! Biking in March? Hmmmmm….

Anyway, I did get a chance to work on a little project that I’ve been wanting to do since last summer when I picked this up. Old vintage suitcase:

It’s not big, only about 15 inches across.  It didn’t smell at all inside, which was a bonus LOL! The fabric was good on the bottom, but the top was all ripped up and I removed it before this picture:

I thought this would be a nice prop for displaying my soaps and stuff. So, after cleaning it up a bit, I made a chalk paint to use all over it, including the fabric (makes it feel leathery). The color is Moonlight White, which is the paint color of our kitchen cabinets – guess where I got the paint?? 😀  It’s an off white. No quite cream, but not really bright white.

Looks much better now. I also painted the hardware flat black.  For the inside, I did a transfer of my logo on the inside lid.  I’ve done this before on a dresser, but the method was a little different since this is a smaller piece.  You need a shiny paper, like wax paper or something coated. My sheet happened to be an empty peel and stick label sheet, which has the perfect sheen and bonus that it fits in the printer.

I used Open Office to reverse my logo and print it out (inkjet) onto the shiny side:

Since the chalk paint is a matte finish, this works really well as a technique. I used a damp sponge to moisten the suitcase lid and then pressed the paper on:

I just rubbed it a bit. It’s sort of like a temporary tattoo.  Voila!

Now the surface of the inner lid was rough, which is why the print came out like that. I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but it has that bit of vintage vibe to it.

After I got done, John said “It’s so you!” 😀 Now to style the inside with product.

Sunday was sister time!  I met up with my sis for some coffee. Multiple attempts at a selfie with not a ton of success.

My head is giant LOL!

Latte:

I don’t know if any of you remember the Super Bowl ad from last year where a small business won a free 30 second commercial? It was for Death Wish Coffee, a local company, and this is their retail store in Saratoga.

Good stuff.  It was good catching up, too.

Who else loves the evening being lighter as of today? Meeee!! Although I do hate thinking it’s one time and it’s another.  Now to get ready for snow…

It sure went from really warm to really cold, literally overnight on Friday!  We woke up to this:

What you can’t see is how windy it was. We went out and it was bitter, bitter cold. Yuck!  Indoor exercising, that’s for sure!

We went to the Troy farmers market for something different and when the wind gusted while we were walking, it took your breath away.

The market was nice. There were a lot of artisans there as well. In fact, one of our business customers sells there, so it was nice to get to talk to them a bit. I would have loved to stroll around Troy a little more, but the cold and wind. Nope. I do have to show you a picture of one store we stopped in. It’s a bookstore and they have the best couch there:

I love it! New upholstery and it would shine. Our sofa actually kind of looks like this, which is why we chose that one since I love that style.

At the market, I bought a bowl. I just can’t resist pottery!

I really, really need to stop buying bowls. Need plates now 😀  It would be nice to have our dinnerware all handmade pottery.

I also picked up something for Pixie – cat grass. When we take her outside, she will eat some — and not to mention she will eat any seedlings I try to grow. So, I figured she would probably like it.

Oooo – What’s this??

….

Nom, nom, nom! I was a little afraid she was going to gorge and barf, but she just gorged LOL. I don’t know how long this will live for. I guess it depends on how much she eats of it.

It was a nice day. It seems both of us are working 6 days a week right now, so we are trying to take advantage of Saturdays.  I’m a bit behind in my social media reading, so sorry about that!