That Getting Out of Town Syndrome

So much to do…and I’m not even talking about packing … just so much to do before I could even think of that!! One week away from my husband’s family reunion trip to Idaho I was teaching a Square in a Square (SnS) class in my studio – 5 delightful ladies and 5 almost finished Christmas Star quilts by the end of the day…Worship and rest on Sunday (actually, if you read the first post this was the Sunday 7/13 that I finished quilting my own quilt on my day off) and then round two of teaching on Monday– a different group of 6 delightful ladies who also went home with the SnS Christmas Star almost complete…I love teaching…but that’s another story for another time.

Count down ‘til departure… four more working days….oh why oh why do I try to squeeze in so many things when I know I really need to pack! No regrets on the time allotted to my ladies Bible study at church on Monday night, but gosh, everything else?? I have this standing 5 week appointment to get my hair done (couldn’t go on vacation looking like a shaggy ole’skunk now could I?) that just happened to be Tuesday morning before our Saturday main event. And then there’s the appointments squeezed in throughout the remaining days with customers who need to pick up their quilts (so I can have spending money on vacation – or more correctly, so I can pay the bills that are due before I can come home and quilt some more)…and don’t forget, there are two shop samples that I promised the local quilt shop would be done before I went outta town. Too bad, I’ll have to miss guild meetings this month (two of them scheduled on Thursday, one in the morning, one in the evening) – but yes, I can “run” a few items to morning guild on my way to deliver the shop samples, and yes, I’ll be home in the afternoon in time to greet two of my fellow SnS certified teachers who are making a quick road trip to Texas from Louisiana (they made their visit way too short but promised to come back through another time when we could really sit to chat and chew –ya’ll come back now, ya’ hear?) Then there’s the trip to the bank, the post office, and a last minute visit to another local quilt shop (I’m blessed with several in the area) in search of Mettler thread for the appliqué project I want to take (again, stay tuned for this tangent of the story) Goodness, what else can I attempt to accomplish before packing? The dishes? Did someone say dishes???

Okay, the Quilt Rambler will digress – doing the dishes in my household is a marathon event not for the faint of heart. Let me explain. First of all we don’t have a dishwasher – or at least not the automatic kind. The dish washer is moi and the official dish dryer ‘n put’er upper is my husband. And yes, we sometimes don’t have a lot of time to get around to doing ALL those dishes due to our work schedules or outside obligations, but at least we are trying to eat at home more (another story for another time, this Quilt Rambler isn’t known for her culinary skills) – which just means more dishes waiting to be washed! For the record, after a meal the dishes are scrapped – no garbage disposal here, mind you, just good old trash can or occasional treat for Pixxie – then rinsed and neatly stacked on the cabinet awaiting THE event. Oh, and did I mention this is my hubby’s contribution – he’s sooo good to me! He makes the sweet tea too – and is quite famous for it. Anyway….We’ve been known to wait to do dishes until the very last spoon has been used, or there are no more glasses for sweet tea (even though I have LOTS of glasses being the true Southerners that we are, we drink a LOT of sweet tea). I guess you could say we consider doing the dishes our bonding time. It’s one of those rare moments in our busy week (or sometimes week and a half) that we actually have uninterrupted quality time to talk – since doing the dishes takes a minimum of 45 minutes to an hour, it’s really a nice couples time and I highly recommend it – just not the night before a big vacation, especially when it’s already 9:30 PM and you haven’t packed for your 3:30 AM departure for a week long vacation with extended family…

So where was I? Ah yes…count down ‘til departure…did I mention we were going to Idaho? A ranch somewhere in the Sawtooth Mountains. Did I mention I learned on Sunday (the same Sunday that I finished quilting my personal quilt which undoubtedly I am very proud of because I keep mentioning it) at the family clan lunch from my brother-in-law, Billy, (who prefers to be called Bill now that he is an adult but I haven’t been able to do that for some reason so he’s still Billy to me) that Stanley Idaho (near our ranch) was 32 degrees the night before? THIRTY TWO DEGREES! Did I mention that I live near hot humid Houston and it was ONLY 105 this past week with 90 percent humidity??? Talk about throwing a curve ball in my packing – or should I say my planning for packing….as I tend not to pack until the night before…but who would’a thought to pack a sweatshirt for a July vacation! Certainly not this lady who lives for summer and avoids cold, freezing rain, snow and such at all costs (give me a tropical vacation ANY time).

So here it is, midnight on Friday night. The dishes are done, all the quilts that are going to get quilted this week have been picked up or delivered (we won’t talk about the one that was quilted and just needed 280 liner inches of binding put on – machine attached one side, hand sewn the other, it’s still a quilt in waiting – BUT I did manage to attach the binding to one side of my quilt “A Few of My Favorite Things” so I could take it with me to finish the hand binding while vacating – priorities ya’know!). The paperwork has been cleared from the computer desk, all computer related tasks are done, including that last minute email instruction to my eldest son who would be taking care of Pixxie. (Oh how hard it was to leave my pup – again, more on this tangent later). Can’t tell you how strange it was that the quilting machine frame looks sorta naked without the next quilt loaded, but I soon got over that – I had other distractions in the other rooms to busy myself with.

Finally! I’m ready to pack as much as I can get into my limit one - 50 pound suitcase prior to my goal to catch a few snoozes before the alarm goes off at 2:30 AM when I need to be bright-eyed and bushy tailed enough to shower, tame the new do and pack those last minute items such as hairdryer and makeup.

What a night! What a week! Countdown to green is now complete! And so is this post for today ~ stay tuned to the Kronicles of Karen the Quilter (AKA The Quilt Rambler) and my side kick Pixxie the Professional Quilt Model (whose story will be told in future chronicles I promise!) Look out Idaho – here comes the Overton clan!!