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Sunday, June 16, 2019

Pentwater Arts and Crafts Fair

This, right here, is the future of what I do.

small girl reading a book

Yesterday and today I was at the Pentwater (MI) Arts and Crafts Fair. The weather was marginal yesterday and downright icky today. Nevertheless, I did OK on sales. More on that later.

On Saturday, three of us shared the booth. We've done this before, and we work well together. Jean owns the sandwich board sign and it is great- it lets people know what we are about.

authors selling books

There was live music by Awesome Distraction of Manistee. They were quite good. Not so loud they blow out your brains, but our booth was very close to the stage, so it made it really difficult to talk to people. This is one of my pet peeves, and yet, when the music was playing people were definitely more upbeat and engaged. Don't know quite how to solve that conundrum. I'm sure it wasn't too loud for those a little farther away.

two guys with guitars

At one point they warned us that the Coast Guard helicopter was going to be flying low overhead as part of a demonstration so people wouldn't be alarmed.

Coast Guard helicopter

Today, it was just Jean and me, well.. and Bitzi, who helped bring people to our table.

woman with purple hair holding a dog

I met two new (to me) authors, so that was great.

Now for the nitty-gritty. I'm not throwing in the towel yet, but I need to do better than I did this weekend. Alternatively, I can do more than two shows a month, which will result in less writing time, and/or less volunteer time. It will definitely make me crabbier.

I can keep this up at this level for a while, but eventually there has to be an upturn in sales, or I will need to add another source of income.

I can live frugally, but I do need to have a car and a place to live and food, and a few minimum other things. I get tired of having to forego a lot of activities because I can't afford the gas or whatever. I know, I do go to a number of things, but I have to pick and choose carefully, often camp or sleep in my car, take my own food, etc, etc. I'm not whining, I'm just being honest. After a lifetime of having pretty much nothing, I'm used to it, but I'm not going to let the finances get to the point where I can't afford to do anything at all other than eat and drive.

We shall see. No major decisions until after this year. I'm trying to move from small potatoes to medium potatoes. Maybe that's just a slow transition.

1 comment:

Diane Burton said...

Sorry about the weather, esp. on Sunday. It looks like you had a great little helper in Bitzi. Anything to draw people to the table. Hope your next event is better.