The Long and Winding Road

This year's teaching schedule is over. Always mixed feelings since I love teaching and the Long Island Quilter's were a great group. We had so much fun and I met some of the best ladies ever.
However, it is good to be home. Traveling and teaching is the best job in the world but it is almost like waiting to exhale....worrying about flight schedules, making sure you packed everything you needed, shopping for Ronnie and, of course, missing your new grandkidlet's arrival. Life is all about compromise and flexibility for me....go with the flow....and get to see the new baby this weekend.

Thanks to all who sent congratulations on the new arrival. We will probably have to wait awhile for any more new little ones....you mean there might be more? Oh yeah, my gene pool is becoming an ocean. Charles and Christy are waiting until her knee surgery gets the okay and then there is Thomas, our baby boy, has no babies...of course, he doesn't have a wife either, clearly a problem where trying to have babies is involved. Indeed, there are future Swain's in the pipeline just not for awhile.

Came home ready to focus on preparing for Quilt Market only to discover lovely Rita (this post appears to have a Beatles theme) is headed straight for the Texas Gulf coast. As long as it misses Louisiana....those folks don't need any more damage. Oddly enough, I think Texas will be ready but Houston floods at the drop of a hat....lived there for five years and often had water rushing down streets....so everyone keep your fingers crossed. Galveston is as well prepared as possible, but lots of small costal towns between Houston and Galveston and further south. Ronnie has his computer set on NOAA as an opening page so we will be tracking closely.

Just don't worry about us, we live in north central Texas...262 miles north of Houston and about 200 miles south of Oklahoma City. Our whole family is close so we might get rains but no major wind.

Ages ago Diane asked what magazines we subscribed to and I forgot to answer...among many things I forget. I subscribe to only two: Real Simple and the American Quilters' Society, because I am am member...free magazine with membership. Books are another subject....we are surrounded in every room by books...can't seem to control ourselves. Surely, someday they will find us both crushed under the weight of our obsession.....right after finding me buried in my fabric.

Back to the real world...have lots of tops to quilt and nowhere to go until January, discounting market, which may be in question. Now if I can just get myself off this one eye monster and go to work, I might be a quiltmaker again...what a concept!