September's Over

Last year September sales were my worst of the year, and to date, it looks like a repeat, or let's hope I'm not going into a tailspin! I barely eclipsed last September's sales, and today didn't do much to change that. Although I had enough lookers, I didn't have buyers. As well, we had rain. Rain is definitely part of the summer equation in Florida, however, surprisingly, Sundays have been really good in that regard this year. Not so today, with showers coming twice, the second one enough to call it a day around 2ish.

Normally when Bruce takes the extra time to put up our rain sides it doesn't rain. We joke that they are our insurance. Today I was grateful he had gone to the work because I had to put them all down to keep things dry. At one point I had about five people sequestered with me. After they ventured back out, I kept the sides down and began the process of taking everything down while keeping it off the ground. Fortunately Bruce came to my rescue to finish things up!

Bruce spent the day organizing his new cubicle. Darden is moving into a new spiffy office building(Darden Headquarters), and for the first time in nearly twenty years Bruce will not have an office with a door that closes. Now for some people that works just fine but it is not something Bruce is too excited about, at least for now. He explains that sometimes as a construction project manager he has to yell at people and he's not sure he will be able to follow the cubicle guidelines about keeping your voice down while on the phone. If you know Bruce, you know he'll adapt to whatever comes his way. Mostly he was sad to not have the wall space he was accustomed to. On our last trip to London he took some photographs that were really special and had them framed. Too big for his new space, they are hoping to find a new home in our hallway. Before Darden was spread throughout about ten buildings, now everyone is under the same roof. Furthermore, they are providing wonderful perks for the employees, including a 24 hour gym, dry cleaning, and a very attractive cafeteria. I've no doubt it won't take long for him to be thrilled with his new environment.

Every week I photograph the market for Dana who forwards the web album on to all kinds of city officials. One thing about Dana is that she hates birds, for reasons unclear to me. Lake Eola is filled with birds, including several types of swans. Just to be a little silly I usually end each album with a bird shot. Here's one from today:

 

We changed our location for the Saturday market and I think it might prove to be much better. I will however miss the easy bathroom and water foutain access! It was unbearably hot after noon and it wore me out. If you can imagine I went to bed at 7:30 last night and slept until 6:30 this morning! Thunder and lightening woke me up at some point. Bruce told me that we had a lot of rain and I just went and checked our rain gauge--3" between last night and today!

I'm real proud of Matthew right now--he ran a half marathon today; if I'm not mistaken it was his first one. When he agreed to do it to raise money for the stroke foundation he didn't realize that my mom's father died of a stroke. He raised 325 pounds! According to what he wrote, it wasn't necessarily fun, but crossing the finish line was quite the high.

Because we were home early, and neither Bruce nor I had eaten lunch, we had an early supper of quiche (from my friend Wafaa at the market)and a nice little salad. Bruce helped Bill yesterday with a leak problem he'd been having, digging a trench to drain the water. The hard labor in the miserable heat caught up with him so he's relaxing on the couch, and I'm going to read my book.

Hope you've had a lovely weekend.