Yes, I'm still around

It's been a long time and enough people have commented on my absence that I finally guilted myself into abandoning (temporarily) my idle pastimes; like reading the lawn greeting forum and 3 sign forums, painting signs, hustling work, flocking yards and occasionally sleeping, to check in here. Who knew I had so many readers? (I think that's 5 now.) All the pictures have been added to the album. Check them out over in the sidebar.

Overall the flocking has been pretty good this summer, although for awhile in July I was checking to make sure the phones were still working. They were, but I wasn't. Everyone was on vacation I suppose. Since things were slow, DBFA and I decided to drive to San Diego for a weekend to visit his son for son's 45th birthday. Within moments of committing to the trip, orders started pouring in. I took 3 orders while sitting in the chair getting a haircut. My substitute flockers went from a single order and an easy couple of nights to 5 orders and 3 nights of marathon driving.

San Diego was amazingly humid. My menopausal, hot flashing system was not happy about that. The boys did not play well together - that Father-Son thing. I'm not inclined to play referee in these things but I came very close to going out to buy a striped shirt, whistle and yellow flag. Perhaps a baseball bat or sap would have been a better choice. Eventually a truce was declared and we did manage to treat ourselves to some excellent food. If you find yourself in Ocean Beach, check out the Portuguese restaurant on Newport Ave. I'd be willing to put up with the scrapping just to lick the plate that came with the scallop skewer. Warning - garlic lovers only. We squeezed in a nice visit with DBFA's San Diego daughter and her husband (the other girls live in other states).

We headed for home early on Sunday. One detour to check out a new (to me) vinyl cutter. My original one is acting up and a sign company in Fountain Valley was selling a very good machine to make room for their new one. We dragged the poor guy out of his bed at a too-early hour to meet us at his shop to make the deal. I am a very happy girl - this machine ROCKS! Here's the first sign to come from it.

I got to see almost the whole lunar eclipse Tuesday morning. we started out on the flocking run at about 2:30 am and there was already a bite out of the lower limb of the moon. By craning my neck, I could watch the progress out of the van window (I wasn't driving). It was all over before we got home. There were some amazing color transitions, deep reds and rust colors and just before totality and again as the moon started to emerge from the Earth's shadow, a faint blue. This is from the sunlight passing through the Earth's ozone layer. I'm so glad I was able to see it, even if I do have a stiff neck now.

Well, I better sign off and get some sleep. There are a couple of flocks awaiting delivery and we mustn't keep them cooped up in the van any longer than necessary. Don't want to get the ASPCF on our case.