Biffle Day at the Races Shadow Box

In July, hubby and I spent an enjoyable night at a dirt track not terribly far away (it certainly would have been more enjoyable if I had a cushion to sit on and blanket for when it got cold when the sun went down - I had no idea that the races would go so late or that the benches would be so hard!). The track doesn't look like much, but it had a big draw that night: NASCAR driver Greg Biffle.

He's never really been one of my favorites, but I didn't dislike him either. He was just okay. But it isn't very often that a driver makes it to our neck of the woods, so favorite or not, we came to see a NASCAR star and even paid extra to ensure that we would have the opportunity to get an autograph.

He may not have been one of my favorites when we got there, but he was quite a nice guy and I have to say that won me over. It didn't seem like he was just "going through the motions." He cracked a joke when I asked if I could get picture with him and my husband and generally just came across as a really nice guy. In my book, personality and manners are more important that money and looks (maybe that's because I don't have tons of the last two or maybe that's just because I realize they are both superficial - yeah, that's the one I'm going to go with).

So I've had this autographed card and some autographed tickets sitting on the edge of my craft table and a shadow box all picked out sitting on my craft room floor for quite some time. I've been carrying around the picture of him with hubby as a bookmark for weeks. But I've never gotten around to arranging the items in the box until Saturday night.

I was on a cleaning jag because, well, the house was freaking dirty. It's amazing how much work it is clean up after two adults and five cats. So after loads of laundry (which I'm proud to say is completely done with the dryer empty and the laundry room empty except for a few shirts hanging on the bar because I refuse to dry them in the dryer), vacuuming, dusting, sweeping, mopping, carting a dishwasher full of glasses down from the master bedroom, finally hanging the new artwork in our bedroom and the cross-stitch a client made for me years ago and the candle holders in the guest bedroom, well I'm sure you all get the picture, I plopped down exhausted in my craft room, where I listened to the hockey game (they lost - thankfully it's only pre-season) and watched a muted TV to see Tony and Jr. make the chase (Whoo-hoo!) and finally put together the shadowbox. I didn't want to put any adhesive on anything with a signature, but that was pretty much the only challenge (conquered by photo corners). I was too tired to be terribly creative. I just matted the photo of hubby and Greg and printed out a picture (taken on a Blackberry of all things) of the car that Biffle drove that night and called that good. Maybe some day, I'll jazz it up, but hubby was happy with it and that's all that really matters.