I've Had a Strange Week

The week started off OK enough. I don't know if I've ever posted about my day job, but what I do for most of the day is technical support for a quilt software company.  Monday was a very typical work day, busy most of the day with tech support email and phone calls.   But on Tuesday, I had sad phone conversation with a woman. She had been hard to get through to because, even though she has a high speed internet account, she doesn't have email. (Say What??? Yes, it's hard for me to imagine having an internet account but no email. Sorry I digressed)  So we had played phone tag for a few days and when I finally got through to her on Tuesday, I could tell something was wrong.  I asked if everything was OK and she said, in a trembling voice, that her husband had died the night before. Oh my god, what do you say besides I am so sorry?  I asked if she would like me to call her another time (after all it was only quilting software). She said no, that this would help her if only for a few minutes. So that's what we did.  I can't even imagine doing anything but bawling my eyes out if anything ever happened to my guy. She had a lot of strength that woman.  My condolences and a rose for Natalie.

                                    

On Wednesday morning my guy left to Las Vegas, NV for a business convention and I thought , here is my chance to go out to my studio and work on the ATC card swaps I signed up for this week.  I signed up to create: 1>Cards made with beeswax, and 2> Altered magazine faces.  So what happens? The weather decided not to let me play. It was one hundred and frackin' two degrees outside and not much less in my studio. I have a fan in there but all it was doing was circulating hot air.  Frack!!! So instead of bringing all my stuff inside the house where it is cooler, I went shopping? Hey, what else is a girl to do?  :) 

So that brings me to my bad marker shopping experience.  I go to Home Depot and find some Bic markers in a set of very yummy colors.  So back home I go, happy as a clam, because they were fairly inexpensive for the set of 36 colors.  I sit down on the couch, moleskin in hand, to play with my beautiful new markers and two of the lovelies were bone dry and a few others were on their way to marker heaven.  The ones that worked were lovely but I had paid for 36 and I thought I should get 36 working markers.  Aren't they pretty though? 

                                                   

 

So back to Home Depot I go and not taking the chance that another set will be dry, I return them instead of exchange.  I decide to go to Michael's, the craft store, as if you didn't know what Michael's is.  The closest Michael's is 20+ miles away.  At Michael's I find what are named Art Markers for Professionals (OK not the real name which I have now forgotten).  I'm certainly no professional but it sounds good, doesn't it? Yes, I thought so too. They had 18 lovely colors and were more expensive than the Bic so I thought surely they would be a good choice.  I also bought a few Prismacolor markers in skin tones because there were no skin tones in the other package. I brought them home, once again I have my moleskin in hand, and.... they smeared/bled from one color to the next.  Not even the cheap Bic's did that.  OK I thought maybe they need to dry first.  Nope they smeared, black into the yellow making a muddy mess. Yet the Prismacolor markers did not, they were beautiful....sniff, sniff...I can't afford the Prismacolor markers. Or could I?

                                                   

Of course I took the AM4P back and resigned myself to buying the Prismacolor markers a few at a time, and at $4 a pop it would take a while to be able to get a whole set.... or so I thought.  I rarely check Ebay but this time I thought what could it hurt? I found a set of 48 markers for $40.00 plus shipping.  WOW, that's 1/4 of the MSRP and 1/2 the Dick Blick price.  So I checked out the seller's reputation and hoped I wouldn't go too wrong with a person who has 1900+ positive reviews but we'll see. If it turns out well, I'll name the seller.  

To top off my week, I went for my regular Sunday morning walk.... don't want to over do it after all. :) All is well, I'm taking pictures and enjoying the sunshine until about half way through the walk. All of a sudden a guy jumps out of his car, and runs inside the house that is across the street from where I am.  I hear him yelling "Call 911, call 911".  What's going on? Well, there is a guy laying on the ground in front of the house and I hear someone say, heart attack.  My heart sank. But by now, their neighbor is running toward their house and I knew that they had things under control so I didn't go near. I would have been in the way at this point. Minutes later, I hear the sirens of both the fire department and the EMS. My mind jumped right back to the beginning of the week and the woman who'd lost her husband. I wonder how she is doing?