This past weekend there was an annual craft sale in my area that has always been a huge draw. I can remember walking through the park to look at the various vendors’ wares and being jostled because there were so many people also at the park looking at the wares. So when my friend, who lives right next to this park, offered to let me and my mom set up a tent on her lawn to attempt to sell some of our crafts I took her up on her offer. After all, the vendor fee for the park is quite steep and my family is kind of cheap. Also, I wasn’t sure how well my stuff would sell so I didn’t want to pay a lot of money to set up a booth and then not sell anything.

I didn’t have much to sell, but I took the day off of work on Friday to give it a shot.

The crowd wasn’t very big on Friday, but I figured that was due to the fact that a lot of people were working. My mom did okay, though a good portion of that was because she sold a quilt… to my friend.

Very few people commented on my stuff. In fact, the most comments were about the beer that I had on display to show off our six-pack holders. I wasn’t selling the beer as I don’t have a liquor license and the last thing that I needed was to get in trouble with the law.

The show was Friday and Saturday so we hoped to do better on Saturday.

Nope.

Again, I didn’t sell anything. My mom sold a few things, but not nearly as much as she had sold on Friday. We were talking with one of the vendors from the park and they claim that after the poor turn-out on Friday that quite a few of the vendors packed up and left. It also didn’t help that there were two other large events happening this weekend within driving distance of our area. Typically the craft show is the only thing happening on this weekend in July, but not this year. The other vendor was hopeful that next year would be better because nothing else is scheduled to coincide with the craft show. My mom has already put in her reservation for a different spot on my friend’s lawn, so hopefully next year will be better.

I guess that technically I did sell something this weekend. I had made these hooded towels a few years ago, but never ended up needing them. They had been sitting around so I decided that I would give them to my mom to sell with her hooded towels. She sold three of these towels this weekend, two of which were mine. I told her to keep the money, but she refused. It’s kind of disappointing that the things of mine that sold were the ones that I grabbed at the last minute.

The other thing, though, that happened was the real reason why I think my mom and I were supposed to be there this weekend. On Saturday we noticed two women walking down the sidewalk and pushing a girl in a wheelchair. My mom and I looked at each other because the girl in the wheelchair reminded us so much of my older sister, Chrissy. Chrissy has been gone for 8 years, but when we saw this other girl both of us had to hold back the tears.

Later in the day when these women came by again to head back to their car my mom had to stop and talk with them. The girl in the chair was playing with beaded necklaces like what Chrissy used to play with, and when we approached to say hello she got very excited, smiled, and started to make noise like Chrissy used to. This girl has different issues than what Chrissy had, but the similarities were just hitting very close to home for us. It turns out that this family lives near the town where I live, so I gave the mother my name and phone number. I told her that if she ever needs anything or any help to please give me a call. She said that she will probably have me come over and visit to get to know Kristin, this way if they are in need of me to babysit she will feel comfortable leaving me with her. I completely understand and have no issue with that. I know what it’s like to be limited as to what you can do, or being in a tight spot, and not being able to find anybody who can stay home with somebody with these types of disabilities. I have always said that I would like to be a resource for a family like ours, since we never had that option. I need to go get brushed up on my CPR and First Aid training, so I’m going to be looking into that. But I truly feel that this is the reason why I was at the craft show this weekend.