Innovations 2010

Innovations, the machine quilting conference in Tacoma, WA starts tomorrow.  This is the third year I have attended and  I’m looking forward to reuniting with some of the great friends I’ve met at the conference and hoping to bring back a new skill or two to practice.

I arrived in Tacoma late last night.  Know what I did? I booked my flight Saturday, which was late in the game for booking a flight in the first place, and as I went to do my web pre-flight check in for my Monday morning flight, I got a notice that it was too soon to try to check in. What?? It was 9:00 pm and I was supposed to leave the next morning. I re-checked my ticket and sure enough...I had booked the flight for the PM not the AM flight! AARRGGHH!!

So, had to call my friend with whom I’m staying to tell her the bad news, as changing the flight would have cost $75, and I had used my miles to purchase the ticket. As always, she just shrugged it off and said "no problem". When she picked me up last night she said it was probably for the best anyway, as she had had a long night at work (she's a paramedic) in addition to the mandatory morning meeting she had attended, and was exhausted. So, other than not finishing my homework, it all worked out!

I even got to sleep with Elliott, one of the house cats!  Today, Chris and I are off to spend some time together.  I feel blessed to have such good, long-time friends.

On Saturday, I will be at the Hyde Park Festival.  I will be sharing a booth with a couple of other quilters and showing samples of my Bronco quilts and taking orders.  Please stop by and say hello!

Buddy the Cat

I have been making friends with Buddy the Cat. 

Now, this may not seem like a big deal to most cat people, but let me tell you more about Buddy.  He is my mom's gray and white, long haired, semi-feral cat.  He is 16 years old and was born on her property.  For most of his life, he wouldn't let anyone touch him, except for Mom, the ultimate Cat Lady, and even that took some doing.  Of course, I've seen him over the course of time, but he always would run under the bed, or go outside to escape anyone who came into the house.  Mom always keeps him in her bedroom, which has a slider door to the yard, so it's nice and bright and comfy.

At one point, she was coordinating cat schedules between Buddy and the other black, short haired cat, also named Buddy.  Mom names every cat "Buddy".

When I say "coordinating schedules", I mean exactly that.  They did not get along and it seemed to me that all Mom ever did was shuffle the cats around the house.  When the black cat came in, the gray cat would have to go out, and vice versa.  Dinner was timed so that they did not have to eat together.  This is what started the bedroom confinement scenario.  Now that he black cat has passed on, the gray cat is still confined to the bedroom; he gets scared when Mom tries to bring him into another room.

Since I've been staying with her during her foot surgery recuperation, he has decided that I might be all right.  He has "kissed" me on the face in the middle of the night so that I could get up to let him out, he has let me pet him, he laid on my shoulder so I could better cuddle with him, let me cut matts out of his fur (and there are MANY!) while Mom held him, he's let me hold him, and the other day Mom said he even was looking for me when I was not in the bedroom with her.

I hate to think that he is getting too attached, as I will be leaving next Saturday.  I will miss him.