You may or may not know that I live in the city of Reading. Almost four years ago, we sold our little house in the burbs and moved downtown because I'm madly in love with Reading, PA. There's a whole long story there but this is all background to introduce the holiday season.
I hopped out of the shower, hair dripping wet and noticed the sound of the street sweepers out front. "UH OH.....They're sweeping the streets to get ready for the holiday parade," I gasped. In my usual morning stupor, I had forgotten to factor in that the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the city puts on a holiday 
parade that begins, yep....you guessed it, right in front of my condo.
There's no way I'm making it to the gallery before my drive is blocked off from the street. We have artist's scheduled to arrive at 10:00 am....so....bless Floyd's little heart, while I continued to get ready, he loaded up our computers and files, drove over to the gallery with all our stuff, parked the car and then walked back to join me.
The best part of city life is that we can often walk to where ever we want to go! Problem solved.
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| Reading's finest start the parade. |
An hour later, hair dry, breakfast eaten, we enjoyed the energy of the parade and the crowds as we walked over to the gallery to work on Handmade Holidays 2.
I had fun taking pictures and greeted lots of friends and neighbors as we walked to work. Truly, it was a lot more fun than driving to work.
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| I want to join this group so I can be a pirate, too. |
Much to Melanie's chagrin, she too wasn't thinking about the parade. She does NOT live in walking distance and her normal 7 minute drive to the gallery expanded to 40 minutes.
We've begun the first steps of turning our gallery into 'retail' space. With 40 artists contributing to this event, we've got a lot going on. "Welcome to our organized chaos," I announced as each artist showed up.
We're a well oiled machine, each of us fullfilling our small but vital tasks. Floyd has been consigned to data entry, somehow I am the 'mail merge' queen in charge of all inventory labels and all of us check and cross check that every piece of inventory is properly tagged and ready to go.
As we were leaving last evening, I took one long look at Melanie. "What happened to your coat?" I think you need a lint roller. " "Bunny blow. Oswald is blowing his coat.", Melanie dead panned. "He's blown your coat too." I retorted. "Let's go home, I'm beat."
Happy Thanksgiving. Your encouragement and support either in word or deed have blessed us beyond what mere words can express.
You are a blessing!!!!
Warm regards,
Rebekah
