My hands have numerous small slashes and cuts in the skin from various encounters with sharp edges in the past few days. Dry skin is more susceptible to paper cuts, hands not protected with gloves suffer when they handle wood, and trying to open the back of a watch to change its battery with a small kitchen knife is not the smartest move. I shall remember these things as I now move into daily hand lotion mode.

Yesterday I loaded tables, table covers, trays and tubs of jewelry, and boxes of supplies into my Prius and headed west to the annual post-Thanksgiving craft fair held at a high school about 20 miles away from here. I didn't have to leave before dawn which pleased me, but I still encountered very little traffic on the roads. That made me wonder if I had the right day, so I was pleased to see a banner in one of the small towns that verified that the date was correct. I was still situated in the back building, something I'll try to remedy next year, but for a change that location didn't seem as much of a handicap. Usually people browse in the first building and spend their dollars there, and if they make it to the second building, it's just for curiosity's sake. Most years the time after noon is more or less dead, too, so we vendors shop among ourselves and that's not necessarily a good way to make money. This year, though, there was a pretty steady stream of customers starting about 15 minutes after the doors opened, and although there were lots of lookers - as this year of tighter finances has produced - there were still some buyers, too. Surprisingly, I sold 2 of the 4 watches I'd brought with me, and I probably could've sold a few more if I'd brought the watch faces to work on. A few eyeglasses holder necklaces sold (good useful product at a very inexpensive price) as did a small assortment of earrings, bracelets and necklaces. I surpassed my $100-in-sales threshhold by enough to call this fair a success.

For the young woman and her daughter who were set up to my right, this was only their second craft fair, so she asked for advice and to stay in touch with me to gain information about getting into area fairs. The eight year old girl is quite precocious, hawking her crocheted bracelets, mouse pins made of yarn, and paper bag puppets to anyone who passed their table. She'll make quite the entrepreneur. I expect to see them at other fairs in the next year.

My husband spent the day visiting his brother and sister who live west of here. They were both instrumental in his upbringing since he's so much younger than they are, and he feels a protectiveness of them that's endearing. We each have siblings whose lives are less stable or easy than ours are, and I think that makes us value our own circumstances even more. "There but for fortune..." as the saying goes. He came home happy from his contact with them, and that pleased me. I'm always mindful of leaving my spouse behind on craft fair days (no, he'd never dream of being tied down to an artsy place where he might get bored if he committed to helping me set up and then sitting with me at one of them) but this time he'd found something fulfilling to do, not always easy for him once he has to put the lawn tractor away for the winter!

This new large-screen tv is taking a little getting used to, partly because not all programming is digital yet so the images can look grainy and odd, and partly because the handbook with the remote isn't very clear in its explanations. I suspect it's trying to be sort of universal in its instructions and, as a result, it works well for no one. Most of the instructions seem to be for people who are not using a cable box which is something we do use, so filtering through the information and deciphering the terminology is a challenge. Once in a while some Note is actually wrong, too, so this will take a bit of trial and error to get it all working smoothly.

Bad weather is heading our way, from the west and from the south. I always fear when the forecasters predict "snow, sleet, freezing rain, rain, and a mixture" because that means we're usually in for the worst of it. Backed up against two mountains and about 150 feet higher in elevation than the towns around us, we get hit harder than most of them do. That messy mix is what they're saying is on its way, so the potential exists for a delayed opening in the morning. I wonder if our newly re-hung cable line will remain in place, the cable company will maintain its signal, and the automated alert call make its way through if we are on delay. I guess I'll know in about 16 hours!