We were up in Fillmore, Saskatchewan this past weekend for the boys to do some hunting.  As a reminder, Fillmore is a wee bitty village of 300 and the Kosiors are related to a percentage of it, and so my usual M.O. is to roll into my father-in-law’s driveway, roll into my pajamas and slippers, and roll around the countryside in my au natural glory because the only person I’m impressing is no one.  This time, however, my sister-in-law, Jenn, said to me,

“Hey, I signed us up to make sea glass art with a bunch of other ladies at the library; do you want to go?”

“Yes,” I said, because no one in their right mind would say no to that.  “Although I didn’t know there was a library.”

“What?”  Kyle said, which was a fair question since we’ve been together for over 20 years and Fillmore’s Main Street is one singular road wholly comprised of a restaurant, a bakery, a grocery store, a post office, the town museum, the town hall, a car wash/fire station, a couple of other buildings – and, apparently, the library.  It was also a fair question because I had walked past the library earlier that day carrying caramel rolls from the bakery and said hello to the women unloading the stuff for the sea glass event.

“I didn’t bring any normal clothes,” I said, gesturing to the random crap I had thrown on the moment we crossed the border.

“Meh, no one will care,” Jenn said.

Turns out the Fillmore Public Library was the cutest, coziest little brick library I’ve ever seen.  The sea glass art event was set up in what appeared to be the room containing the check-out desk, library office, children’s area, and DVD rental shelves.  I say “looked to be” because the majority of the room was temporarily set up for the event, with two long tables of ten chairs each set with shadowbox frames, and two more tables absolutely covered in rocks, sea glass, branches, moss, gems, wooden words, and knick-knacks.  In the corner by the office were bowls stacked with popcorn.

“Oooooooooooooooooo goooooooooood stuff,” I thought, because no one in their right mind would walk into that situation and not think that.

“Hello hello,” I said out loud, because several of the women were greeting me – because, again, cutest, coziest little library ever.

The event was led by an artist named Jocelyn Paslawski.  Jocelyn had gathered her tables-full of goodies in her travels around Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada, and she gave the women in attendance some instructions on what we were to do: 1) pick out a frame we liked; 2) pick out the goodies we liked; and 3) glue the goodies onto the frame backs using either a pattern or free-for-all.  It was at this point I went from normal excited to wind-wooshing-through-my-ears excited because, and I don’t think I’ve ever told you this before, but I really, really like craft projects.  Really really.  And I have a really, really hard time controlling myself when given carte blanche to do whatever I want when it comes to craft projects…which was not exactly convenient in a room full of my sister-in-law’s friends and neighbors whom I had never met and wanted to make a good impression by on behalf of ‘Merica and the Kyle Kosior Family.

“Be cool, Amanda,” I thought as I shoved several people out of the way in order to shovel rocks and sea glass onto my frame.  For their part, my fellow crafters either sat patiently waiting and chatting at their tables or respectfully taking the minimum amount of knick-knacks one at a time for their art.  I sat back at my spot, chair far enough back that two women had to kindly ask me to push in a bit so they could get through, and began aggressively laying out my picture.

“How long are you visiting?”  My fellow tablemate asked, pausing in her lovely crafting to await an answer.

“What?” I said, reaching behind me to grab a branch and also cut off another woman from getting her own items.  “Oh, Sunday.  Unless you have another one of these craft events coming up, and then we’ll postpone so I can attend that.”

“Haha,” they said because they thought I was kidding.

I glued for 45 minutes.  I wanted to glue for an hour, but remembered there was popcorn and that the only thing I liked more than crafting is popcorn.  Jenn got us a bowl of popcorn and root beer-flavored sparkling water which, like the sea glass event, was some kind of amazing Canadian magic.  While I shoveled popcorn and root beer-flavored sparkling water into my gullet, I walked around and admired everyone else’s art projects (which were awesome and so different from each other; you can see them on the library’s Facebook page here).  I also chatted with another one of the attendees, who had purchased my uncle-in-law’s house and was in the process of an extensive renovation.

“Come over and see it anytime,” she said, which was the polite thing to do.

“Oh, I will,” I said with gusto.

“Haha,” the other ladies said because they thought I was kidding.

When we returned to ‘Merica, the first thing I unpacked was my sea glass art.  I put it in my office as a reminder of some of the things I like: cozy libraries, kind women, craft projects, popcorn, and Fillmore.

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The ladies told Jenn and I to take our picture with our art projects as if we were holding prize-winning fish. The photo above is that picture.

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This week on North Dakota Today we talked about Jean Dejardine and Beverly’s Cafe, my Nice Person (and cafe) of the Week, as well as a spooky spot in Leonard raising money for the Honor Flight. (Valley News Live)

Here’s the first paragraph of my most recent column in the Grand Forks Herald: “Earlier this year, I attended a luncheon of the Grand Forks Retired Teachers Association. Teachers are the gold standard for meetings because they approach them in the same way they do classroom education – well-organized agendas, lessons and information delivered through storytelling, stickers – and so the luncheon was a great time.”(Grand Forks Herald)

If you only read one news story this week, this one was sent to me by roughly 200 people because it’s basically everything I like about North Dakota Nice. (Grand Forks Herald)

Here’s a great look back at “Madd Frank” and his Saturday night film showcase. (Fargo Forum)

The Napoleon fire department has some unorthodox volunteer firefighters and responders this year. (KFYR TV)

Elementary school teachers – apply now for one of North Dakota’s butterfly pollinator kits. (NDDA)

North Dakota’s libraries want to hear why libraries are awesome [see story above]. (Jamestown Sun, found via Oops Only Good News)

Do you like $500?  Are you the sexiest farmer or rancher in North Dakota?  Click here. (US 1033)

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