A nice repeat customer who has some marketing experience gave me a good tip.  She pointed out when she went to my site she had no idea whether or not fruitcake is available outside the normal fruitcake season.  So I’ve asked my web designer to place a statement to that effect right on my main page, and will henceforth incorporate it into every newsletter as well.

I always assume people know fruitcake is available year-round, but we all know how stupid it is to make assumptions.  For example, I assume because Nicky’s 23 years old, when he leaves the house he’ll turn off the TV and lights.  Wrong!

Yesterday, Sunday, all I heard coming from the basement was the constant drone of race cars going around a track.  I presume the kid’s found another video game with which to kill days of time.

For a bit of adventure, I made Kathy, David and Petra accompany me to a talk by Justin Trudeau out at the UBC Okanagan campus last week.  It was great fun, and we were smart to arrive early because we got the last four chairs.  Everyone coming after us had to sit on the floor or stand.

Though not Pierre, the kid has solid Liberal roots and appears honest and patriotic.  We all enjoyed it, and then headed to the ORA restaurant in the Best Western for dinner.  I had my usual Manhattan there, and then as Petra had had a Cosmopolitan, I decided to give that a whirl, too.

That was a mistake, as I had to race out the next day and purchase a bottle of vodka and some cranberry juice.  Now every afternoon at 4:30 I toast my gramma with a beautiful Cosmopolitan.  They’re gorgeous as they’re pink, my favourite colour!

On Saturday I thought oh what the heck, and went to the thrift stores for a bit of R and R.  A week earlier I was talking to Alison and I told her I’m not shopping as I really don’t need a single thing.  She said, “That’ll last six weeks.”  Wrong.  It lasted about seven days.

But imagine my joy at finding the hardcover Antiques Roadshow Primer for $4 at the Mennonite thrift store.  I raced home and started to look at my stuff and went through the book in a day.  I had no idea some of my furniture was that old, but according to the photos of the leg styles and pulls, it is.

You may know mom’s partner Gerry is an artist, and he had several old water colours lying around unframed, which he kindly gave me.  To save money, I decided I’d frame them myself.

Yesterday I overcame my fear of taking apart a framed print to insert my own art.  You know how on the back, there are brackets and screws in the corners?  I carefully disassembled it and removed the hideous art.  Then I took one of Gerry’s lovely water colours and put it into the frame.  Not bad.

I told mom another thing I learned from my Antiques Roadshow book is that Gerry’s style of folk art is valuable.  I can’t believe the amount of stuff I learned from a $4 purchase!