June 12, 2015

Girls Helping at the Office

June 13, 2015

More quilt squares got finished this afternoon

This morning I was up early and had my breakfast before going to Mom's house to pick up Jeff's two oldest girls to spend the day with me at the office.  They wanted to sew and help.  The oldest had been there on Wednesday and started writing invoices, so she was eager to continue doing that. 

Ron needed me at the office early so he could go to Harlingen to work on a job.  It took him a while to get everything loaded, but was then gone for the rest of the day.  Since he was going to be out of the office, we did a little cleaning - not too much, but  little.  The girls are good helpers.  The older of the two loves to clean, so she kept busy.  Then they took turns sewing during the day.  I also took a turn and got 3 blocks made for the string piecing quilt I am working on.

Bags of scraps fill one area of my office.

We had a nice flow of customers in during the day.  There were times when the customers came one after the other and then we had one slow period in the afternoon.  We had a good time. 

 If the scraps aren't in the bags, they are all over the spare desk in my office.

I find that some noises bother me with the Cochlear implant, more than others.  The high pitched ones at worst.  There are times I just need to remove myself from the headache causing noises.  I have mentioned before that family dinners can become that way, bridal showers, baby showers, etc.  It is so sad because I love the chatter, but multiple conversations at once are just too much. 

Scripture cards the girls worked on

My sister picked up hamburgers for the three of us at the office and we enjoyed the food.  The girls did several projects over the afternoon.  They have such great ideas and then carry them out.  The older one started making some little cards with scriptures on them.  On the back was an invitation to visit our church services.  She passed them out to every customer who came in during the afternoon. 

The younger of the two girls at the office illustrated her morning

One of the time consuming chores at the office is stamping the keys.  When we make a copy of a key for a customer, we stamp "Landreth's" on the key so that we know we made it.  This serves as our warranty.  With that on the key, we know we made it and it is a reminder to the customer to come back to us for future keys.  I normally stamp the keys after I cut them.  Ron wants them stamped in advance so he doesn't have to take time to stamp them after they are cut.  This morning he was showing the younger of the girls how to stamp them (as shown in the first square above).  Then you see her looking puzzled with the hammer and the key blank.  

She loves to draw mice, so in her series of pictures, she is a little mouse stamping keys.  The illustrations she drew were so cute.  She showed each disaster she had stamping: the keys falling out of the holder, flying off,  and finally success!  She did 18 little pictures to illustrate her experience.

Feelings of success are short lived when she sees boxes and boxes of keys to stamp.

After work I took the girls to Mom's house and dropped them off.  I realized I did not have my extra set of keys so I returned to the office where I found them on my desk.  When I drove up, one of our frequent customers was waiting to buy some keys.  (It was past closing time, the doors were locked, the signs said closed, and there he stood waiting to be helped.)  I sold him the keys he wanted and then headed home to meet Ron so we could join our friends for supper.  Supper was very good. 

Once we arrived home, we both were very tired.  We talked for a while and before long, Ron headed to bed.  Again tomorrow I can sleep late!!!  Let's see what happens.