I have plenty I could be doing and even though I say I'm tried of the greenhouse,seed catalogs coming in,seed orders going out,trades coming in then I sit amongst all my new seeds packets and get excited about all the new stuff then I want to be right back out there sewing and watching my babies grow. I decided to do a seed inventory so I could see everything written down because if I just start scrabbling around in the seedboxes for seeds to sew,I ALWAYS miss something I really,really wanted to get started Greenhouse is tucked in for the winter but with all the seeds I have to sew,I'll have to go dig out some more benches and hangers because right now there is NO empty benches in the GH. The yard and flowerbeds aren't really finished...I'm just getting to work hit and miss because of weather. I just did finish re-edging and weeding the foundation bed that wraps around the west side of the house,Sunday, before the bottom fell out...and I do mean,"just barely finished" I had to park the Gator and make a dash for the door. I didn't finish mulching. Yesterday,it was fairly decent and I could have finished but had to be in town so lost that day. I just got everything squared away from Thanksgiving. Don't plan on doing a whole lot of decorating for Christmas.

Sure kp, can post some info for you....This is the fourth year for our newly formed garden club. We have one fundraiser per year and it is the Garden Art Fair & Bake Sale. We have about 30 members. All are asked (not required) to make garden art or something related to gardening or baked goods and donate it to the club. We rent a school gym, set up tables, advertise for about a month and then sell everything that was donated. Last year, in about three hours, we brought in $1,300!. We do have unusual house plants and some garden plants, but we try and stay away from too much of that, as we want to be know for our garden art. We also do not wish to run into competition with our garden centers because they usually have their open houses the same weekend. It is a great fundraiser plus it keeps the members busy all year searching for new ideas and creating their art. It is so much fun to see what members come up with. Some of the things we sell: We have totems, silverware windchimes, mosaic work, stepping stones, garden aprons, bird feeders, hypertufa pots & mini gardens, birdhouses, butterfly houses, garden signs, garden baskets, decorated garden chairs, watering cans, garden books, plate flowers, garden crosses, a willow trellis, homemade jams & jellies (red hot pepper jelly, onion jelly, raspberry jam, homemade salsa, and many others. I will take pictures this year and post them if anyone is interested. No, we don't have other vendors, as this is our fundraiser. Past years, we have also hosted workshops every hour, on the hour, but the last few years, they have been less and less. Everyone who comes just wants to buy, so this year we aren't offering anything extra. It is great exposure for our club too. Many people come in and ask questions about gardening. We even pick up new members when they come to visit us. And I think our own members are our best customers! BUT we aren't allowed to buy anything until we open up the doors for the public. Becky

Dorothy I sure enjoyed reading that one. could not wait to find out what came next...man I have not read that fast in a long while lol Thanks for the laugh Lucy

"This is the time we should spend money to help our economy if we possibly can. That's why recently I've gone into my savings and done a few long-wanted improvements around here." Especially if you spend the money to HIRE PEOPLE instead of just buying more stuff (especially imported stuff from the TJMaxxes and Targets people race to when they don't have much cash). Put people to work! That was part of our big outside project last year - DH had gotten a bonus at work, and we got a good tax refund, and we felt like we could afford to dip into our savings a little bit, so we dumped a chunk of our cash into the pockets of local workers. If you can afford to do so, it's even more important to do so now since things are worse now for a LOT of people than they were last year. This year, though... no decorating and some of the "socks and underwear projects" (phrase stolen from the Old House Forum, meaning the necessary and boring stuff that no one is really going to see but that just has to be done) will be put off for another year. No bonus this year, very little tax refund, have been helping support family members in worse shape, we're taking a really hard hit on the medical-bills front this year and have just discovered that DH's car is highly unlikely to last to autumn which means coming up with a down payment and rearranging the budget to fit in car payments. Although DH works for an extremely stable company and we know his job is safe (in fact they're finally hiring another person for his department) I won't risk the savings we have left for anything as, well, downright petty as decorating. It's been months since I've looked at eBay or Craigslist, and I used to be a major addict! Ah well, I just decorate in my head.