We all have hobbies and talents!

My hobby of choice is Scrapbooking... duh! But I must say that my brother has a wonderfully interesting hobby for himself, and he's so very talented at it too. Even with my Art degree, I know I could never venture into Decoy Carving. He's been an avid duck decoy carver/painter for nearly 6 years and he just gets better and better. He also carves other wild-life as well, and his work can be seen on his own web site for, Wood Wizard Decoy & Art Works. He enters many competitions and has had numerous winning pieces, and has even had his work diplayed in museums.

One of my favorite things to do in October is to attend a tiny community festival in Alexandria, PA each year. The festival is called, Hartslog Day, and there are many arts and crafts stands lined up along the street with artisians selling their beautiful work. I had attended Hartslog for a few years and told my brother Jim, that he should have a display of his ducks set up at the festival. I finally convinced him after about 2 years of nagging and he applied and was accepted. So this past Saturday was Hartslog Day and it was the 4th year for him to be involved in selling at the event. Here's a picture of his display from the day...

He couldn't attend this year though because he was selected to teach at a carving competition in Maryland, so my sister-in-law, and 2 of their friends set up for the festival, and I went along and helped a little too. All in all it was a wonderful day! He sold pretty many ducks (along with a few woodpeckers, a pufin and a rainbow trout and a bass). The weather was thee perfect Autumn day with the crisp nip in the air, just the way I like it. There was also plenty of great festival food to indulge in. I had a slice of my favorite pumpkin cream cheese roll and the ever so yummy, smothered cheese fries!

Not much else has been going on this week here with me. I've been pretty laid back with almost zero motivation... don't know why though. Yesterday Mugi had some training that he had to attend for his work and it was in Mount Pocono which is about 2 and 1/2 hours from here. He asked me to go along with him for the ride and I did... hoping there would be a nice scrapbook shop closeby. I'll just say that I sure got my share of Wal-Mart, as I walked around that place for over 2 hours! The area of Mount Pocono leaves little to be desired for me. I spent the rest of the time waiting for him in the car, looking through my scrap mags. I wish I would have Googled the area before leaving... there may have been some place close that I could have driven to. Ohhh well.

I did get a little bit of a scrap fix in the mail though. I'd been wanting the BasicGrey "Periphery", ever since it debuted, so I finally ordered the collection plus chipboard and I also ordered a bit of "Mellow" for good measure.

Then I got another super package that was sent by a sweet, sweet internet scrap-friend, Amy Tara Koeppel. More BasicGrey! She sent me a bunch of "Obscure" to play with.

Now I have lots of new goodies to use if only I could get myself some new Mo-jo!