9 Days to Go and a look backwards

Only nine days to go before Virginia and I hit the airports, head to San Antonio, meet up with a rental car and drive to LaGrange for our month long artist(s) in residency program at Karey Bresenhan's Great Expectations Creativity Center.

To say I am excited is an understatement. I am tripping over boxes that are ready to ship out on Tuesday. I can't decide just what I am going to do so I have to take everything so I will be prepared for everything. Now that's a lot! The dye and chemicals have been packed. Some white fabric has been ripped off the bolt and folded for easier shipping. Paint has been ordered, mark making thingies have been added to the box, two boxes of silk screens are packed...now, what have I forgotten? Oh year, the heat gun, the teflon fusing sheets, tim tex for the support for some smaller pieces (I really don't have to do everything really big!). Have to pack more fabric...what else?

Checked with the airlines and I get to take two bags checked in each weighing no more than 50 lbs. Well, my clothes will hardly take up any room...black knit pants and tee shirts with sweat shirts and my Crocs seem to be my way to go in the studio...but I will take something a little nicer so I can presentably go out for dinner, go to church on Sundays (a must since I have so much to be thankful for) and for the open studio and gala party Karey is planning...

So, I can fill up a suitcase with STUFF!!!

But before I go, I have to get a new power point presentation together to show to a guild on Monday, the 8th and get the stuff together for their workshop on the 7th. Come home, sleep a little while and then hit the runways...airplane runways, that is...not fashion (they would never let me in the building!)

I have gone through many emotions this year. It has really been a roller coaster, starting out with the highs of having not one, but two, articles that I wrote published in Quilting Arts Magazine (spring and summer issues in case you didn't see them!), being written about in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, again, being written about in the Surface Design Association's newsletter with two pictures of my work, and selling a fair amount of work this year.

I have always been pleased and somewhat surprised at the interest in my postcards through FFAC. I was able to supply Virginia with a great number both for Chicago and Houston. I also participated in her reverse auction and am so thankful that Tomme Fent spared me from not having my work purchased by adding another piece of mine to her collection.

And the downs...my father almost starving himself to death...it forced action on my part which could only happen when he was completely unable to care for himself. I watched him drop down to about 110 pounds and looking like a skeleton, to now outgrowing some of his clothes. We have live in help for him and he is a different person. A mother-daughter team work with him and he is especially fond of the daughter who never had time with her own grandparents, so she now knows all our family stories. But most importantly, he laughs and is enjoying his life....far more so that I have every seen in him. My parents have always been the proper ones...I acted out everyone's emotions!

My grandson is growing, is happy and healthy and fun to be around. My daughter, her husband and my son are all gainfully employed in jobs they like and both have been able to buy houses (of course, my son's house in Ohio cost 1/4 what my daughter's did here in California!). Although I don't see my son very often (once or twice a year) I do see my daughter and her family several times a week. My husband's health is good, he entertains himself well in his workshop working on his metal lathes and doing whatever it is that he does (he shows me metal things he has machined and they look beautiful but I have no idea what they are for but I make the appropriate, appreciative comments)

I have enjoyed the contacts that I have made as a result of the articles for Quilting Arts...I've done some critique work for a couple of people and offered suggestions for improving and helped someone work through her first abstract design. What could be more rewarding? (expect for my grandson's for fiber art piece!)

This has been a good year. I am hopeful that the change brought about by the elections will bring more hope to our country and more of a sense of responsibility to care for those in need, in our country and abroad. I found that the world situation was really getting me down and I now have a more hopeful outlook. My church is working toward more outreach to those in need, a more Christ-centered atmosphere, and a desire to speak out on injustices. Tomorrow night we will have a vigil for those of our soldiers who have been killed in Iraq. I will be there.

So, the best to everyone. May the new year bring you a joyful experience with your creativity, may you recognise your God-given gifts, and may you use them wisely!