“I’m tired of doing nothing,” I said. “We never do anything anymore except sleep, do chores, do errands, watch TV and go back to sleep. We need to do some fun things. We are in a rut.”

“I’m ready what do you want to do?”

“Well, I heard about something that sounds like fun – a tomato festival.”

“What’s a tomato festival?”

“I don’t know. I think it will be sort of like Oktoberfest that we went to a few years ago.”

“When is it?”

“Saturday.”

“I’m shopping for school clothes with your grandson on Saturday.”

“I know and I have to take the cat to the vet Saturday morning.”

So it goes… the reason we never have any fun… too many things to do and not enough time for fun.

Wait, we can make this work. The cat’s appointment is in the morning. “Can you shop for school clothes on Friday after work?”

And that’s how we made time to go to the tomato festival. It was about half over by the time we got there, of course. Honey somehow managed to parallel park in a place about half big enough for the car and we were ready to have fun.

It was so hot that I wasn’t sure how long I could last in the 90 degree weather. I wore my sun hat from Egypt, but the sun was beating down. It should have been a sun festival.

We missed the morning parade, but there were vendors, entertainers and activities — like throwing tomatoes and bobbing for tomatoes.

“This looks just like a street fair,” observed honey.

“It IS a street fair. That’s probably why.”

I was interested in looking at the various crafts and artisan jewelry. I like crafts… but the prices! “Some of these people really think a lot of their work,” I observed, looking at a $70 price tag for a wall plaque.

 There was a lot of tomato art, if you like pictures of tomatoes. I didn’t think a tomato picture would go with my décor, even if I could afford it. I also found some cute tomato necklaces, but figured I wouldn’t wear a tomato hanging around my neck. I passed by the booth selling sliced tomatoes as I am probably the only person in the world that doesn’t eat tomatoes.

I did want something tomato-ish, though. After all, it was a tomato festival. I ended up buying a cute dish that looked like a tomato. It was one of the first things I saw when we arrived. I had passed it by as I thought I might find something I liked more. I didn’t, so I came back.

“Don’t you want to get anything,” I asked.

“I need a brush to clean the barbeque grill,” he grunted.

They don’t have something like that at an arts festival, so we found a Dollar Store behind some vendor booths where honey bought his brush.

We sat in the shade and listed to a music group, I was sweltering in this heat and starting to feel sick. I was ready to leave.

The best thing I saw at the festival was some unique wooden folk art pieces. My cheapness genes shifted into overdrive, however, and I refused to pay the prices. “I could make that!” I declared.

On Monday I went to Hobby Lobby and bought craft paint for ten bucks and brushes for two dollars.  I was way ahead if you don’t count time spent crafting.

 I’m now on my third coat of paint and haven’t even started on the good part yet. That craft paint doesn’t cover very well.

But we had a fun time and I have a fun idea for a project — if I ever get it finished.  To tell the truth, I’m beginning to see why they charge so much for that stuff.

 Copyright 2013 Sheila Moss