Wow, where has the time gone? The end of Summer flew by with a visit with friends from Virginia. What a great time we had exploring the Northwest!!! We have only lived in Washington for two years and it was really fun to finally see some of the sites that we have had on our “list of places to visit” since we moved here. We visited Mt. Saint Helens, the Columbia Gorge, and of course the Oregon Coast. God has truly blessed us with the incredible environment that we live in!!

The kids went back to school and I was off to Florida for a conference. I attended the International Retail Design show in Miami Beach. This was another one of those “personal development” opportunities for me. I learned about visual merchandising and store design. What an interesting industry! During one of the classes, we teamed up with other designers and dressed a store mannequin. Have you ever done this? Well…it is not as easy as it looks. They are very heavy and they are ……well…stiff! They do not bend in the places that we do….making it difficult to get pants and shirts on them. It ended up being a fun activity….but it was funny because there were body parts everywhere….wish I had legs that looked like those! HA!

I am currently working on a couple of fun magazine projects, a special scrapbook for Fiskars, a showcase for SCD (Society of Craft Designers), a presentation on “creating a display”, and of course the Marathon. I mentioned before that I have been training with friends for the past year to walk the Portland Marathon. It is just a couple of weeks away and I liken it to the last few weeks of pregnancy. LET’S JUST GET IT OVER WITH ALRIGHT!!!!!!!!

Well…back to work….