Monday Morning Staff Meeting

Good morning everyone. I hope this day finds you well and in good spirits. It's sunny and cool here in northern Illinois. It's certainly a breather from the terrible heat and drought that took it's toll on the crops.

I'm sorry that I didn't bake this morning but I thought that we could share some of those fried green beans that I introduced you to yesterday. There's some wonderful homemade ranch dressing to dip them in. Terri asked if I thought the green beans had been precooked before they were breaded and fried. It seems to me that they were probably blanched.

Enjoy!

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As I mentioned before I stay very busy in my sewing room, replenishing my stock for the farmer's market and preparing for some upcoming holiday craft shows. My sister calls her sewing room her happy place and that works for me too. It never seems like work to me, unless I have a special order to fill. For some reason special orders hang over my head like a heavy weight. Other than that I positively love to sew/crochet and iron!

You cannot sew without pressing as you go along and for some reason I've always loved to iron. Other household tasks not so much.

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Have you heard the term flash sale? There have brick-and-mortar flash sales in the Chicago area, although I've never attended one. A group of people get together and rent a vacant storefront for a short period of time, maybe two weeks. They fill the space with their wares, advertise and create a buzz, open and sell for that limited period of time. I've heard this is quite successfull.

The property owners are happy to get at least some revenue from the rent. The local newspaper ran an article about online flash sales. It sounds interesting the the prices seem reasonable to me. I didn't check into the shipping costs though.

Joss and Main is the site I checked out but if you search the term "flash sale" you'll find others.

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We subscribe to Netflix and that allows me to watch movies on my computer while I"m working. You would not believe how many movies I've gone through in the past few months. I'm running out of things to watch.

Yesterday I clicked on the classic movie category and watched two oldies. The first was African Queen with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. It was filmed in 1951 and it's stands up well to the test of time.

The second movie was Charade with Carey Grant and Audrey Hepburn. It's a silly who-done-it, who-stole-it tale but it's worth the price of admission just to see Hepburn's wardrobe. Her cream colored sheath dress and her coats were fabulous!

What's your favorite classic movie?

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Thanks to an enterprising 8th grader from New Hampshire, I've added something to my bucket list. What did he do? He launched a balloon with a camera attached and it traveled to the edge of space, taking pictures as it rose.

Pictures from the edge of space."

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That's all for me this morning. I'll be having the official "Name that Sewing Machine" contest later this week. Have a great day wherever you call home.