It was a glorious October day. The sun poked through the clouds from time to time. A breeze blew now and again, enough to remind you of the approaching winter. It felt great to be wrapped in a blanket with a cup of hot chocolate to warm your hands.

(sound of record scratching)

Except that it was July 27th. Um, yeah.

When I reserved a booth at the Hollandfest craft fair in Cedar Grove, Wisconsin, for July 27th, I never figured I would pull on a sweatshirt and sit huddled under a blanket for the entire seven hours Brrr. The high was 61 degrees. No, I’m not kidding. No, that wasn’t a typo – I meant the HIGH temperature. Crazy, crazy.

Despite all of this, it was a good day. My dad went along to sell his book and Doug came as our booth engineer. I’m glad I had them. When we pulled up and saw the empty spot that was to be our booth, a sick feeling flooded me. There wasn’t a table. I’ve only done indoor craft shows where a table was provided.

But we have connections in this little town 😉 The men ran over (yes, like 3 blocks away) to the church and borrowed a table. A perfectly sized table. God provided. And I didn’t have to sweat about getting a table, dragging it all the way up there, and whether or not it would be the right size. In no time at all, we were set up and ready to go.

Before we officially opened, I made a quick jaunt to the oliebollen booth. Oliebollen are Dutch doughnut holes. Deep fried and rolled in sugar. Oh. My. Goodness. They were slightly warm and… Ecstasy. Doug made another run later in the day.

 

I sold 26 books!! Woo hoo. My dad sold nine. Not too shabby. I saw some peopl

e I hadn’t seen in a while. My dad knew many people. A friend of mine even surprised me by showing up. Now, if any of us can get pictures off of our phones or other devices, I’ll post them.

I was bummed that I wasn’t able to find the worstebroodjes vendor (no prize but a hip, hip, hooray for the first person who can tell me what worstebroodjes are) and I didn’t get over to the Delft booth. Oh, well, next year.

And those who stopped by got to see that yes, I did indeed wear my tulip earrings!