Last Sunday was Octoberfest.

Octoberfest in Urbana, Ohio, is a craft festival. There’s food and crafts and people and all kinds of things to see.

Every year, my grandmother and her good friend, Martha, have a booth where they sell knitted and crocheted items. In the last few years, some of their kids and grandkids have begun to add to the colorful pile of items, and we help out in the booth.  This year, Mom and I worked the festival with Grandma and Martha.

The day started out cold, but it wasn’t as cold and windy as last year. The real problem was that the ground was wet, so shoes got wet. Lawn chairs sunk a bit into the soft ground, and when you moved the chair you heard the wet, sloppy, sucking noise when you pulled it out of the muddy grass. We’ve gotten a LOT of rain lately. Thank goodness it didn’t rain at the festival.

We had all kinds of things for sale, including adult sweaters, baby and kid sweaters, dog sweaters, crocheted nylon scrubbers, hats, fingerless gloves, blankets, scarves, Christmas ornaments, dish towels, and a few other odds and ends.

It was cold enough outside that we did a brisk business in gloves, hats, and scarves, but not so cold that people were trying to run through and get home as soon as possible. The sun came out as the day went on, and it got warmer, but we were all glad when the day ended and we could get inside and thaw out. We ended the day with pizza at Grandma’s house as we divided up our sales, and I think everyone went to bed early that night, exhausted from a full day of cold, being on one’s feet, and the work of setting up and packing everything away.

It was a lot of fun. It always is. And yet, at the same time, it’s taken a while to recover from it. I spoke to Mom on the cell phone on my way to work the next morning; both of us were still thawing out and had identical headaches.

There’s been a nasty flu going around at work. That may explain it for me, or it could just be that Sunday took more out of me than I expected. Several days later I’m still a bit sluggish and lacking in energy, and I’ve got very little appetite, but it’s getting better. Even so, I normally get hit with allergy crud about this time of year, and somehow have avoided it thus far. Until now.

I’m hoping that I’ll rebound soon. I’ve got a LOT to get done NOW. More on that later.