crawdad pad

Phew!  We're finally home from our week-long Chicago convention. 

It's always exhausting, but great to see old friends!  :)

It was a TON of work, but we had help from some amazing people, and we had our best show ever!

I enjoyed seeing the costumes, as usual.

Here's an unusual one.  This guy...

...is supposed to be THIS guy...

...from some obscure 1978 holiday special.  Major points for creativity! 

The weather was awful.  It snowed almost 7 inches at O'Hare and the airport shut down.  Meanwhile, in Indiana, spring came.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the windows are open!  But we've definitely been too busy to hike.  Not only have we been swamped with pre- and post-convention work, but we've got just over a week until closing.  We've got millions of contractor quotes to get before then, because we're planning major renovations in the first 6 weeks.  Todd has already been over to the house to meet with roofers and returned with a mystery.

"These were in the yard and in one of the barns," he said, puzzled.  "The homeowner has no idea what made them."  Having grown up in the country, I immediately recognized them as crawdad, er, crayfish holes.  But they weren't anywhere near either pond.  Doing a little reading, I discovered that sometimes crayfish seek out an underground water source, not just surface water like a pond.  Interesting!  I'm so excited to resume my "property walks," as I made so frequently in South Carolina, to find these little oddities.  Todd also mentioned that there's already a resident barn cat (!!!) that the homeowner was hoping that we'd continue to keep and feed.

Another cat!?!? 

Need I say more? 

It's a whirlwind of activity around here, punctuated by long periods of glazed-eyed couch slouching.  We don't have the luxury of our usual post-convention pajama week, but at least the work we're doing is exciting and moving us toward something amazing.  Little farm, here we come! 

L.A. Woman

So we just got back from a two week trip to California.  The first few days were the 'vacation' portion. 

We hiked in the San Gabriel Mountains...

We went to the coast, too.  We played in the tide pools and watched the surfers.

We did a lot of walking along the shore, and even took some corny selfies.  Ah, vacations!

We visited some of my family members that live in the area.  I got to pore over old photo albums.  I only have one or two photos of my dad, and no photos of that side of the family, so it was really exciting for me to see these old pictures.

My dad, graduating from college:

My grandma with my dad in her lap:

My grandpa in his Navy uniform:

It was such a treat to thumb through those albums!

The real reason for our California trip, however, was Star Wars Celebration, where we set up a booth.  Life is funny.  I do have a college degree, and I certainly never thought I'd sell Star Wars (and other vintage toys) for a living, but I have to admit that it's a pretty good gig.  It's taken me to a lot of interesting places, and I've met some really wonderful people.  But these conventions...phew!  It's really hard work! 

Here I am, sunburned, sleepy, and armed with my Exhibitor's badge.

So...many...boxes.

Finally, some semblance of order...

It was total, complete chaos from the time the doors opened until they closed at night.

Of course, Todd was in seventh heaven.

I missed all the celebrity panels, but I did see several people in character...

Look!  Anthony Daniels (aka "C-3PO") signed the ceramic tape dispenser that I sold to "Mike" - "It's the ugliest thing in the galaxy."  Ha!

The whole time went by in a blur, and it's taken me a week to completely recover!  I'm looking forward to getting back on track with normal life. 

Have a great week!