I thought this was going to be a relaxing weekend. Ivy had other ideas. Ivy decided we should open the store today. We all know Ivy is quite capable of opening the store herself but when Ivy asks, “Hey Dad, do you want to hang out in the store with me Sunday?”, what do you do? I was confused, we are not normally open on Sunday. I wondered what she was up to. Ivy reminded me this was Yarn Fest weekend. I thought my Yarn Fest responsibilities ended a couple years ago, when we made the decision to not participate in Yarn Fest. Ivy: There are plenty of customers from out of town. I’m going to open Sunday to give them the opportunity to come in Sunday. Me: What does that mean to me? I
Today is the first Sunday of Spring in 2019. It is beautiful here in Northern Colorado. I can look out my window and see what’s left of the three inches of snow we received on the first Friday of Spring 2019. I usually get up on Sunday make the morning coffee and write about things that are important to our store and the rest of the world. Today was slightly different. Starting with the coffee. Elaine recently purchased a coffee machine that someone needs to put in the required amount of coffee beans and water, press a button and ten minutes later, they are drinking pretty good coffee. Not today. I put in the required coffee beans and water all right, but I left off a part or two whe
Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the Bomb Cyclone, I fear no evil, because I had been to the grocery store and we did not lose power. In the sixteen years Elaine and I have lived in this house, we have seen more snow, but we have never seen snow with wind and cold like the Bomb Cyclone. We didn’t open Your Daily Fiber Wednesday, because we could not get the SUV down the driveway. (I just mentioned Your Daily Fiber to get the yarn stuff over with and out of the way.) The Bomb Cyclone brought me even with my dad. My dad lived through the “Blizzard of ‘49”. He liked to talk about the “Blizzard of ’49” every time it snowed after the “Blizzard of ’49”. If he were here, we could compa
The last couple of weeks of construction have been pretty rough. Between the cold weather, self-important, twenty-something inspectors, angry contractors and indecisive project owners, I am ready to get back in the store and carry heavy things for Ivy. Three days of the last two weeks, have been too cold to work outdoors. When this happens, I sit in a construction trailer pretending to get caught up on safety reports and paperwork until I feel like I can go to the gym. With any luck, some type of salesperson will come by and try to sell new shovels or stuff like that. If I’m really lucky, the salesman might bring burritos, do-nuts, or maybe even pens or baseball caps. I live a charmed l
It is a beautiful Spring day here in Northern Colorado. The Colorado sun is pouring through the window as I type. One particular day, this past February the dogs woke me very early. After I let the dogs out, I made myself a pot of coffee and sat down at the computer. I saw a live stream of what looked like some kind of festival coming from the woods of Pennsylvania. There were thousands of people watching a bunch of guys in Abe Lincoln hats waiting to pull a chubby looking rodent out of a fake tree. I don’t know why I didn’t change what I was watching, but I didn’t. I watched two Abe Lincoln hat wearers pull the rodent out of the fake tree and everyone cheered. For split second, I wo