Erica is writing on the luckiest day of the year.

I'll be sharing my thoughts on The Summer Show later in this blog.

I'm writing this blog at my desk at work...it is currently 8:57 a.m on Wednesday, August 26th, 2015.  According to my coworker, Rachel (who is reading Vogue magazine online at the moment), today is the luckiest day of the year. Jupiter and the sun are aligned with Venus or something like that. I'm not a writer for Vogue so I don't really understand the logic behind this luck theory but I'll believe it. We all need some luck every once in a while. The magazine also offered us all a  tidbit of advice according to our sun sign. (Sagittarius power!!) Mine was career oriented. I'm supposed to take the "big leap" and plow forward toward my dream job. Funny thing is that I'm actually debating whether or not I should apply for another craft show. I think I should trust my horoscope & apply today and see how accurate astrology actually is. LOL

While at The Summer Show, I received a flyer invitation for vendors for the PC West Fest. Booth fee is only $40, the show is indoors and in OKC. Meets all my standards. I initially wanted to do the show as an experiment for my totes. I've brought both pillows and totes to my last three shows. Pillows are doing great but no one looks at the totes. (I've only sold 3 over all.) I want to do a show where I ONLY bring totes and see if --
       a) pillows are overshadowing the totes & that is why no one is paying attention to my tote display rack;
       b) two different products are too much for my booth and shoppers only have time to browse through one thing or
       c) my totes just suck and that's why no one is buying them. #sadface
I talked it over with Wes (who has been promoted to Operations Manager of RagsReborn) and he agrees it's a good plan. If this show bombs, I'll know totes aren't for me and I can discontinue production. Gotta find out one way or another, right?

But as I actually gather information and prepare to apply, I'm starting to have second thoughts about being a vendor at The PC West Fest. I posted on the two Facebook vendor groups I'm a part of and it doesn't look promising in the sales department. But, all the comments do mention how great the event coordinators were. Sales were dismal but the event itself was supposedly organized and advertised well, which I think is also super important.

It's the luckiest day of the year and that was all feedback from the spring show. The fall show in November could be different. So, I'm gonna go with my initial gut instinct and apply. Wish me well!

Now, on to the next topic of this blog... The Summer Show.

I will say now that I will not be participating in this show again. I actually did pretty well at the show. I sold about as much as I have been selling at shows (Yay for consistency!) and I even made my booth fee back. But, the show was crazy unorganized. It was very stressful and So.Ridiculously.Unorganized. Before you think poorly of the show, I will list three pros (followed by three cons).

Pros of The Summer Show:
1. I sold pillows and made money! Obviously that is a good thing \(^.^)/ The booth rent was only $45 so it was easy to recuperate that fee. After Indie Trunk Show, I made a new rule that I'm only participating in shows that have booth rent of $50 or less. That way, I'm almost certain I'll come out breaking even. And maybe even make a profit. Cha-ching!!

2. It was a small show. I don't want to sound cocky but my booth display & products were better than a lot of the other vendors there. That's not to say I blew my neighbors out of the water but I did do better than some of them.

I didn't feel completely out of place at The Summer Show. At last, I wasn't the newbie! I'll definitely grow and become more professional in the future (I do plan on returning to Indie Trunk Show in a year or two) but I felt like doing a smaller show really boosted my confidence. My booth looked good and I was keeping up with my neighbors in terms of traffic flow and maybe even surpassing them in sales. It felt good being among my peers.

3. I really liked the hours of the show. It was 9 a.m to 4 p.m. It didn't start too early and it didn't end too late. Wes and I got there around 8 a.m  and started setting up. My mom brought us lunch around 1 p.m and the rest of the day flew by. We were cleaned up, pack & unpacked and at home by 5:30 p.m. Short and sweet day.

Cons of The Summer Show:

1. Sales weren't as great as they could be. I felt like this was a universal complaint among the vendors there. I was happy with my sales but there's always room for improvement. I heard talk all day that sales were worse than previous years. There was overall dissent with vendor performance.

I think this is because the show was scheduled for the week after tax-free weekend (Wes actually deduced this for me). Everyone was broke! The event coordinators should have considered this when they were scheduling the date. Also, August is not a good month for shows because everyone is drained financially from summer vacations and family getaways. Plus, after spending hundreds of dollars for back-to-school, a $10 pillow, $5 piece of fudge or $20 piece if jewelry just seems like too much.

2. "Handmade" crafters were outnumbered by boutique retail and direct sale vendors. I've heard this is common so I won't harp too much on it. But I did receive two complaints from friends about this. One friend came early in hopes of good shopping and said she was surprised how little craft items there were; it was labeled as a "craft show" after all. A woman from my book club came later in the afternoon and flat out said she was disappointed with the show because it had no good handmade items (although she went on to say my pillows were nice).

3. Now for my last and biggest complaint. THIS SHOW WAS COMPLETELY UNORGANIZED!! I felt like the event coordinators did zero research before planning this show. It was a mess and it was very stressful. This was the 4th annual show so I would think all the kinks would be worked out but I would be wrong. The show organizers were young and their inexperience showed; they were also not very nice and even less helpful. Throughout the day, the vendor information table was manned by high schoolers who were both rude and unknowledgeable.

       A) there was very little advertising or social media presence leading up to the show.
       B) there was absolutely no traffic control in the parking lot for loading or unloading. I'm not saying there should have been a live person directing traffic but a few orange cones would have been nice. There were cars permanently parked on the curb even when they weren't loading/unloading. There were trailers parked every which way. Wes and I almost got hit by cars (not even exaggerating) while we were trying to load/unload.
       C) I requested electricity on my vendor application. I turned in my application way in advance (probably 3-4 months in advance) so I could guarantee myself an electrical outlet. I get to vendor set up day and guess what? I am nowhere near an outlet. My vendor paperwork is marked "No electricity." I went to talk to the staff about this and they just shrugged it off. I had to (the staff was not going to brainstorm with me) come up with ideas to get myself electricity.

       D) the layout of the show was absolute madness. The show was in a gymnasium type community center. The event coordinators wanted money, money, money so they took as many booth applications as possible. There was entirely too many booths. There was barely any room to walk through the aisles. Setting up was a nightmare. My booth was by the entry way and I was getting bumped into and stepped on. There were vendors smushed up against doors and lined up along both sides of a narrow hallway.   

       I had two friends complain to me that it was messy and overwhelming. One friend told me she just left after 10 minutes because it was too unorganized to shop. My other friend brought her young daughter in an umbrella stroller and said she couldn't maneuver the stroller around the booths or in the aisles because everything was so packed.

So there's my experience at The Summer Show. I guess I value my overall vendor satisfaction over sales made. I had a much better time at Indie Trunk Show and my sales tanked. It's hard to find a good balance of both, I suppose. I have at least 2 other shows lined up so we'll see how those go.

Erica is going back to crafting...

...that's not to say that I had abandoned crafting. (Oh no, I would never do that!) I just had a few weeks of recipes and a craft show taking up my time. Speaking of craft shows, I will blog about The Summer Show next week. I just wanted to give it a week or two to sink in so I had sufficient time to gather my thoughts before writing my reflection on it.

But it's called "Monday Craft Night" so I'm back to it. Way back, actually... back to when I had an old friend over each Monday evening for dinner and crafting. The original Monday craft night that started almost four years ago. I made this as a going away gift for my former crafting buddy last year. She moved to Texas and much has happened since. Sadly, both the occurrence Monday craft night and our friendship has dissolved but I think this project is very fitting for how we left off. Life moves everyone in different directions and sometimes, it's best to accept that life has come between us and let go.

Let's rewind to Christmas 2014. There is a Needtobreathe song titled "Keep Your Eyes Open" that I felt was really appropriate to use as a going away gift. The recipient of this gift is young and her life was ready to begin a new chapter. The adventures would be boundless and all she needed to do was to leave what was comfortable behind and start anew. She was very excited for this journey but I also sensed a little bit of hesitation. I decided that this would be a reminder of the goodness that lay ahead.

The chorus is:
Cause if you never leave home, never let go
You’ll never make it to the great unknown till you
Keep your eyes open, my love
So tell me you’re strong, tell me you see
I need to hear it, can you promise me to
Keep your eyes open, my love

Its a really great song. I don't know how to link to YouTube or Vevo from my blog so I took some screen shots of the video as it was playing. Find it and give it a watch.

I knew I wanted to use the lyrics somehow in her gift. I settled on wall decor because I figured that everyone needs something to hang on their walls when they move into a new apartment. And, we went to an arts festival several years ago and saw paintings with beaded jewelry hanging from them. We both liked the art and I really wanted to try that technique. I don't have step-by-step pictures but this tutorial is super simple and gives you a lot of artistic freedom.

Layered Collage Wall Hanging tutorial:

       Materials needed: three canvases for painting (I used different sizes.)

                                    card stock

                                    paint 

                                    string

                                    decorative items (I used ribbon, beads and charms.)

                                    hot glue gun & glue

                                    duct tape

1. String your beads onto the ribbon in any pattern and length. Leave about an inch of extra string at the top of each strand of beads.

       I made mine varying patterns and lengths. This was over a year ago so I don't remember if I did that on purpose or not. I think it's probably better to measure your string to painting ratio and sort your beads before starting. Just so you don't make anything too long or run out of beads.

2. Paint your canvases and let them dry.

3. Paint your card stock. I did a solid color, let it dry and then added the lyrics. I chose black and white to give it a chalk board feel with the standard cursive handwriting. 

       Or you could buy card stock in whatever color you intend it to be in the end and skip the whole painting part. I'm sure mine was left over from some other project and I didn't like the color it was. 

4. Once the canvases are dried, hot glue the card stock onto them.

5. Turn the canvases over and hot glue the strings of beads onto the back. 

       Measure and lay the strands of beads on the canvases before gluing. I left a lot of slack at the top of each strand so I had plenty extra string for gluing. 

6. Once they are all glued on and the hot glue is dried, duct tape the strands on along the bottom margin of each canvas. 

       No one will be able to see the duct tape since its on the back so go crazy! Make sure those beaded strands are securely on there!

7. Flip the canvases back over and add whatever other decorative items you have. I'm not sure if you can see clearly in the picture, but the decorative items I chose were cages, keys and birds. 

Erica is baking Alan-berry muffins.

While there are no such things as "Alan-berries", I do have a friend named Alan who gives me fresh blackberries from his parents' farm. They are the sweetest & most delicious blackberries ever! He says his parents grow all sorts of fruits and veggies. I need to start getting more produce from him.

I used the first batch of blackberries he gave me to make blackberry cinnamon rolls for Wes' birthday. They turned out really well. I can't blog about them since I completely stole the recipe from the Internet and followed it step by step. This batch of blackberries will be used for muffins. My original muffins that I am literally making for the first time as I'm writing this blog.

This is my friend, Alan. He likes beer, I like beer, and we get along great. Greater than great, actually, I'd say we're thick as thieves. We used to work together at Accord Human Resources but it wasn't until after he quit that we really started to hang out. I don't know when we started this little tradition but we have a "beer on a Monday" theme to our get togethers. About once or twice a month, we'll meet up, have dinner and catch up on each other's lives. Over a few years of these Monday beer dinners, Alan has become one of my best friends.

We don't always pose and take pictures at dinner...this was his last birthday.

Dinners are usually beer and sushi on the patio with his dog, Sonja, at the Midtown GoGo Sushi. We've recently thrown pie into the mix. Fassler Hall and GoGo Sushi are walking distance from each other so why not? It'd be a shame to skip out on dessert. And Sonja loves it because she gets extra walking time and she knows she's getting a bratwurst each time she goes to Fassler.

Pretty Sonja!

I wanted to put beer into my blackberry muffins so I googled "baking with beer." Unbeknownst to me, there is a whole beer pastry movement out there. Beer cupcakes, beer breads, everything. I learned that beer is a leavening agent.  One blogger told me that you can replace a cup of milk with a cup of beer as long as you add something else in to replace the fat that's in the milk. So you can use a small amount of vegetable oil plus beer instead of milk. I don't really like vegetable oil so I wouldn't do that. I would try it with shortening, though...that's if I had any, which I don't. Armed with this knowledge, I set out to my pantry. I had all the ingredients needed to make traditional muffins--flour, sugar, eggs, milk and butter. To make "Alan-berry muffins," I'm adding blackberries, beer and maple syrup.

WARNING:  This recipe is completely experimental.  As stated earlier, this is the very first time I've ever made it and I'm sort of making it up as I go. After making these, I will taste them and write feedback at the end of this blog. Please feel free to tweak this recipe if you have a better experience or more knowledge in baking with beer. I love comments!!

Blackberry, beer & maple muffins:

      Ingredients needed- 1 1/4 cup flour

                                       1 cup sugar

                                       1 egg

                                       4 tablespoons (half a stick) of butter, softened

                                       1 teaspooon baking powder

                                       1/4 cup milk

                                       3/4 cup beer (I used a blonde because I hate dark beers. A few of the baking blogs I read suggested IPAs)

                                       1 tablespoon maple syrup

                                       1 cup blackberries

1. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl.

2. Add the egg and maple syrup. Mix well and then add the rest of the wet ingredients - beer and milk.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together - flour and baking soda.

In case you didn't know, chopsticks are the best utensil ever.

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well (I used an electric mixer for all of this.) I poured the dry ingredients in little by little as I mixed.

5. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

6. Add blackberries to the batter and mix together one last time. 

7. Spoon into muffin tray or baking cups and bake for 40-45 minutes.

8. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes. Serve with maple syrup drizzled on top. Recipe makes one dozen muffins.

After tasting these, I have some recommendations:

       The muffins turned out too moist for my liking. I kept them in the oven for quite a while but I felt like they never fully cooked.  They reminded me of the pre-packaged Otis Spunkmeyer muffins.

       Wes says the muffins taste good but there's too much wet ingredients in there. The top and sides cooked through but the middle stayed a little gooey. He could taste the beer a little bit but I couldn't. I could smell it, though, and the muffins smelled really good as they were baking. 

       For next time, I would add a thickening agent... maybe some corn starch or gelatin. I think I used too much beer. I could use a little less or I could use beer + more butter instead of beer + milk. That way I only have one liquid ingredient. Or maybe add a little more flour. 

       That's the fun in baking...it's like an experiment each time!

Wes & I had ours at breakfast with ham and eggs over the weekend. I never was a fan of breakfast (mostly because I hate waking up early on weekends) but Wes has really turned me on to it. It's his favorite meal and we have breakfast at least one day on the weekends. Married life is great : ) 

  

The Summer Show is this Saturday (8/15)!!

My next show is this weekend...exactly five days from today!!
       Saturday August 15, 2015 from 9:00am - 4:00pm
It is in Yukon, OK, which isn't that far of a drive from the OKC Metro. (Trust me, if it was "that far of a drive," I would not be doing it... I hate driving!)
      Come on out and see me...say hello, give me a hug, bring me a t-shirt and I'll sew it into a pillow right then & there. Getting things now and "on the spot" is awesome. Let me share some of that awesome with you. : )
       If you haven't bought a pillow or tote from me before, I'm almost certain you'll find one that you like.  I have been shopping around for shirts and sewing like crazy. The new inventory that I have made for this show is not on my Etsy shop, yet. It's for in-person buyers first. I have taken note of what sold at previous shows and what has been selling on my Etsy shop currently. I have tweaked my buying behavior and my new stuff caters much more to you... YOU, dear shopper, will be seeing more of what your previous buying behavior indicates that you like. What doesn't sell at The Summer Show will be put on my Etsy store later, but for now, you get first dibs.
       If you have bought a pillow (or tote) from me before, THANK YOU SO SO MUCH!!! If you just love that pillow immensely and it's gotten a little used and flat, bring it out. I'll re-stuff and fluff it back to life for you for just $1.

About a month before this show, I won tickets to a vendor/small business/crafter workshop. It was hosted by Indie Trunk Show and each winner got to bring a friend. I brought fellow crafter and coworker, Glass Soldier Gifts. She has helped me so much, this was the least I could do as a thank you.

My winning notices.

The title of the workshop was "Visual Merchandising: The Basics". It was a pretty good class & I learned quite a bit. I don't have the means to apply my knowledge to RagsReborn at the moment but when finances improve, I definitely have a to-do list. After the workshop, we had one-on-one time with our instructor and she was really nice and helpful. And, of course, I loved meeting all the other local crafters (our presenter was a crafter herself). We learned so much about booth display, product placement and merchandising/marketing in general. So much so that we came home with an entire packet of information to use as reference for later. The top three things I learned were:

1. I need to create a visual brand identity. Right now, I have a brand name but its stylized a zillion ways. I have...
     RagsReborn Gifts
         rags|reborn
                      Rags Reborn Gifts
I must settle on one (I'm thinking the first one but I need to make sure it isn't already in use). Luckily, I have one definite logo: r|r. Check that off the brand identity list!
     Along with my name, I need to settle on one font--which I think I already am doing-- & only use a few colors --which I need to sit down and think about before choosing. Consistency builds brand recognition. Everything will flow... {blue business cards, blue logos, blue flyers. Come to the show and look for the blue.}
       As of now, I have no tax ID number. I am only doing casual sales so it's not necessary. I will be getting a tax ID in January 2016 (I want to take this more seriously), and at that time, I will be picking a company name style, font and 2-3 colors. Then throughout the new year (and forever more), my business cards, flyers, show announcements, etc. will all match. I don't know why I haven't thought about this before. It makes total sense.
     This not only applies to my marketing material, it also applies to my booth display. Right now, my booth looks like a garage sale. It's unorganized & unprofessional; it only consists of a few pieces of furniture (one I made myself). I need to focus on getting a theme with consistent colors and shapes. The instructor advised to avoid the same display materials as what you sell. So, I will be getting rid of my cloth clad double-decker couch. I'm not sure how much longer that thing will last so it's just as well.
      And, one last thing, I need to dress to match my booth and brand recognition. Once again, I have never thought of this. At the two shows that I have done to date, I just "dressed cute." Companies have uniforms for a reason. Everything matches, everything looks put together, everything will scream, "Rags Reborn is here, come here, come shop!"

2. I NEED a booth with walls. As mentioned above, my booth is hardly a booth. It's the best I could muster up as a beginner. I am hard on myself a lot but I did just start RagsReborn in November 2014. It's still a baby and I can't expect for it to be completely put together, yet. I have a vision of what I want my booth at shows to look like. Now, I just need to turn this vision into reality. I also need money...lots of money.
       The most upsetting thing to me about my Indie Trunk Show experience was how juvenile my booth looked. Everyone around me had much better & more professionally built booths. They had walls! No matter how awesome your product is, no one will stop by and look if your booth is shitty. It's like dating... personality is great but everyone wants to bang and they ain't bangin' an ugly chick. Well, my booth was the ugly chick of the Indie Trunk Show. My products are good & I am nice to customers; in my mind, my sales sucked because of my booth display.
       Our workshop leader spent a lot of time on wall merchandising and directing the flow of traffic. She advised for your walls to be useful: put some shelves on your walls, hang a sign from your wall. She taught us the concept of triangle merchandising and using our space wisely. She also said that displaying items in an odd number promotes more sales. I didn't understand the "why" to that concept but I will definitely try it and see if it works.
       I was relieved when she said that only one back wall is needed. She actually said that being boxed up with side walls hinders traffic flow. In the end, I want my booth to look like a lodge or cabin. I sell pillows and pillows are cozy. I want some shelving on my back wall, I want a few benches to display my pillows on and I want a mounted wall-hanging thing for my totes. (I have no idea what those are called... you hang your hats or keys or whatever on them.) I want these items to be made of wood so they look rustic but cozy once my pillows are placed upon them. And I want an area rug. When a customer walks into my booth, I want them to be walking into the cozy bedroom from their childhood vacation. Look, there's your favorite superhero t-shirt turned into a pillow laying on that chair!
     I have big dreams and big dreams cost money and SUVs. Seeing as I currently drive a Sentra, my imagined wood structures would never be able to be transported. Reality is a bitch. But I will start small and eventually build up to my dream booth (and eventually buy an SUV).

We got goodies at this workshop. Some samples of our instructor's work (see picture before this one), some discounts and a handwritten thank you note.

3. Offer free stuff. I have always known this works--I'm a major sucker for free and discounts-- and I have been wanting to do it at my shows. Most shows have "swag bags." It's where all of the vendors get to put a sample of their craft in a large bag in hopes of luring customers to their booth and the first 100 shoppers into the show get one of these large bags filled with goodies. For me, two problems arise immediately: 1. I do not have 100 uniformly sewn items & 2. a lot of the time, shows require vendors to pay a fee to participate in the swag bags. I will do this at a future show. I already know what I want my swag bag sample item to be. Once again, this stuff takes time and money...two things I desperately lack as a beginner.

        Other ideas our workshop presented were: 

*At-show discounts- ex. Buy today at my show and get 20% off!

*Coupons tied to your promotional items- ex. Staple a coupon to your flyer when you hand them out (I really want to do this because it encourages people to take your flyer and then it makes them want to find you at whatever huge show you are a part of.)

*Coupons to use later that are passed out at the show- ex. Don't want to buy now? Take this coupon and get 15% off at my Etsy shop later.

        One last thing that I really want to do is to let people know where I will be next. My neighbor at the Indie Trunk Show (who will forever be known as "the onesie lady") told me that she passes out flyers for her next show at the show that she's currently doing. By doing this, she has built up a massive fan base. People drive out from everywhere to attend her shows. She lures them out with promises of more onesie designs, sizes and discounts. 

      "Come to my next show for this and that...here, take a flyer so you don't forget when & where my next show is." 

This idea is brilliant. It takes the pressure off customers having to buy today but if they really want an item, they will come to your next show for it. It is a personalized invitation out to your next show. It shows you're established and actually are do shows on a regular basis. 

That is all I have. I really benefited from this workshop and I hope what I learned will help you in your future shows. I hope to see you out this weekend!

Wes is cooking again...

...and he's making chili. Last week's blog was a bit long so we'll keep this one short. I am also photographing and blogging and sorta helping in the kitchen as Wes cooks & dictates instructions to me (I'm a multitasking extraordinaire over here!) so I don't have much time for storytelling anyway. Wes is quick in the kitchen so this is just a little difficult. Hopefully, I won't leave out any steps. He's my proof reader anyway, so if I leave something out, I'm sure he'll add it back in. Enjoy!

--By the way... my husband's best dish is his slow cooker chili. So.effing.YUMMY. We haven't entered any competitions but if we did, I'm almost certain we'd place. We use the same basics each time: meat, tomatoes, chili powder but we also like to mix it up and do something a little different each time. This combination of meats and vegetables made for an amazing recipe. Its the middle of summer but, what the hey, let's go ahead and make some chili anyway! (Remind me to not get into children's poem or book writing.)--

Wes' Chili recipe-
       Ingredients needed:

• 3 stalks of celery
• 6 small peppers (You can use any combination of any type of pepper you want--all hot or all mild or a mix of the two. We are using banana peppers from our garden. They are a medium mild pepper.)
• 1 pound of ground beef (I was going to type 'tube' because that's what it comes in but Wes made me change it to pound.)
• 9 ounces of beef chorizo (which also comes in a tube)
• 1 16 ounce can of diced potatoes (We used the canned potatoes with jalapenos because we're using milder banana peppers.)
• 2 10 ounce cans of diced tomatoes with lime juice and cilantro (You must get the cilantro lime tomaotes...the other ones aren't as good!)
• 1 tablespoon green onions (because neither of us like traditional onions)
• A tiny "little bit" of garlic (Wes' measurement)
• Wes says he never measures the amount of chili powder he puts in there... let's just say a 4 tablespoons of dark chili powder & 2 tablespoons of regular chili powder

1. Remove the seeds from the peppers and dice them. Then dice the celery.

The man moves too quickly so I only got a picture of the peppers. The celery wasn't diced too small. I would say about pieces a quarter inch thick.

2. Put the diced vegetables in the crock pot along with the garlic and green onions. Also, add the potatoes. It doesn't matter what order you add them in since we'll be stirring them together at the end anyway.

3. Put both meats in a pan and brown them together. Make sure they are mixed up really well. (Check out my action shots!!)

4. Put both cooked meats atop the veggies in the crock pot.

5. Add tomatoes and chili powder. 

Cilantro lime tomatoes only!! I am obsessed with cilantro!!

6. Stir thoroughly to make sure everything is combined.

7. Cook on high for 3 hours. 

       I have no nutritional or serving size/amount for this recipe. I can tell you its pretty spicy, not gluten free and not vegan. We usually have a bowl each for dinner and then there's enough left over for us to do leftovers for lunch the next day. It keeps in the fridge for a few days and you can reheat it in the microwave or on the stove top. 

       Since taking a picture of a slow cooker sitting there for three hours is boring, here is a picture of Wes & Sadie resting after our hard work.