Crazy Fridays

Yesterday was another busy Friday for me. I wanted to run downtown in the morning while Kestrel was at preschool and do some stuff and then come back, transfer her over to daycare and head back downtown for the Circle Craft Fair. Of course, it was BUCKETING rain again! My entire day was successful and I managed to get everything done that I wanted to. The craft fair was nice. It was pretty much identical to last year, with maybe a few new vendors. Almost all of them were in the exact same location as the previous year, so it was easy to navigate around. There was a lot of art, jewellery, clothing and wood and leather crafts. The food stalls were all the same and I breezed past them because they were all very over-priced, as were the children's clothes. There was a glass blower this time who was giving a live demonstration - that was cool. The nicest part about it was wandering around BY MYSELF!

The jewellery was all very nice and I ended up taking the cards of seven different stalls. But one in particular caught my eye. I was scanning all of them, looking at earrings, because I'd like a new pair of smallish dangly earrings (I lost one of a pair that Doug bought for me), but I have a really specific look in mind. I stopped at one and had a look at her display. She had lots of really nice things and I poked around at the rings and perused the earrings. Then one little pile caught my eye. They were very thin rings. About five years ago, I lost a ring that was very important to me. My sister had bought it for me off of a street vendor when we were about 18. We had recently moved to Vancouver from our parents' home in Clinton and we both had minimum wage jobs. One day, she met me after work and gave me this tiny silver ring. I loved it instantly and when she told me she'd spent $13 on it, I was shocked! We were making about $4 an hour in those days and that meant she'd had to work over two hours to pay for it! I wore the thing constantly and rarely took it off.

Then one day, about five years ago. Doug took Hannah and I to Victoria for the weekend. He arranged for me to have a nice spa treatment done on my hands. I removed my rings, bracelets and watch and put them in my coat pocket. When I was finished at the spa, I went to meet Doug and Hannah elsewhere and on the way I put my jewellery back on. Unbeknownst to me, the tiny ring had probably fallen out when I had pulled everything out and I realized it was missing. I retraced my steps right back to the spa, but it was gone. I cried for hours. I called my sister who was sympathetic, but helpless to do anything about it. I was depressed about it for the longest time until a friend told me that things can happen for a reason and it was time for someone else to enjoy the ring now. That helped a little, but I've always missed it and have never been able to replace it until now. Anyway, the new ring only cost me $20, so I am as pleased as can be because it looks almost the same as the one I lost - yay!

So the renovations have been pushing forward. The back of the house now has partial siding - we're not putting the rest on the lower half of the house so as to leave it for future owners who may want to expand the house out the back. It has been raining a lot the last few days, so the east side of the house has to wait a bit because it is quite swampy on the ground. The indoor changes haven't started and I am dreading them. I can't help but feel that we're just prettying up the place to give it to someone else. Sucks.