Saturday fun

Ok, I know I said I'd post the rest of my Memorial Day week on Tuesday but I ended up reading "The Circle of Quilters" instead. Quite enjoyable and I finished it in just over a day.

So, I left off heading to bed late on Thursday. Friday was a day to recover and pull things back together a bit. DH's aunt was moving and needed him to come move some things to storage for her and also pick up a sofa and loveseat set that she was giving us. DH had no luck finding a truck in the afternoon to move stuff and had given up until after dinner. Around 7, he finds a truck but the place is only open until 8 so he hurriedly called a friend and they set out for his aunt's house an hour away. When all was said and done, he didn't make it home until 2:30 a.m. Now normally this wouldn't have bothered me too much, after all, I got a free (except for truck rental) sofa, loveseat and even a dresser; however, I had been planning for over a month to spend the day out on Saturday going to a quilt show and just having a relaxing break. I usually try and take a few hours out for myself every month or two but because of different stuff coming up I hadn't been out by myself except for dr's appointments and a random trip or two the grocery store since Jan. I had found out a week or so before that there would be a big homeschoolers' used book sale that day as well which started an hour before the quilt show but was an hour away from home and from the show, but I'm not one to pass up on potential bargains, especially on expensive homeschooling books. To make things more challenging, S. woke up around 1 a.m. (around the time DH and friend dropped off the furniture VERY quietly) and simply won't fall back to sleep for nearly an hour and made sure I wasn't going to go back to sleep either by telling me every few minutes that she couldn't sleep. URGH! I finally gave up around 1:45 and went downstairs to read and wait for dh. After DH got home, he filled me in on what took so long (chatting with aunt, dinner with aunt, moving extra furniture given to our friend and the challenges of getting furniture moved out of a townhouse) we headed to bed around 2:45. Dh fell right to sleep, I wasn't so luck. Back downstairs to read for a little over an hour until I felt sleepy again. Now in order to get to the book sale when they opened, I would need to leave by 8 at the latest. It was 4:30 when I crawled back into bed only to find R. stretched across the top of the bed. I was so tired and frustrated by then because I knew the lack of sleep was going to cut into the enjoyment of my day off (and probably a dose of pregnancy hormones had something to do with it), I just sat there and cried for a bit. After a couple of minutes, I calmed down, moved R. over and promptly fell asleep. Amazingly, woke up at 7. Plenty of time to get ready and go, right? Not quite. While I was eating breakfast, R. woke up. I knew DH needed more sleep and I needed to go to the grocery store AGAIN since the kids had finished all of the milk, so I got the two of us dressed, and headed out. By the time I got back and gave R. some breakfast it was almost 8:30. It took two tries to get DH up and then I was out the door, grouchy and running well behind my schedule.

Fortunately, I found the location of the sale pretty easily and found some great bargains. I ended up getting a whole bunch of books for just over $29, where just one set that I bought would have run about $30 used elsewhere (if I could find them). On the way out, they had two tables of books piled up with free books which I also helped myself to. If I had bought all of the books elsewhere, even used I probably would have spent over $100 for them so it was definitely worth the extra gas and time to get there.

I ended up not getting back on the road until 11:30 and with traffic it was way to close to 1. I considered stopping for lunch before the show but had brought a little leftover pizza which I ate en route. (I know, I know. Shame on me for eating while driving! But, hey, it helped keep me awake.) I was in such a rush to leave that I forgot to grab the camera, but fortunately, Amy at Calico Cat also went and remembered her camera. She has lots of great pictures from the show on her site. I really loved the one she labeled "Lattices" as well as the bargello quilt that looks like twisted ribbon.

I checked out all of the vendors first just in case I got tired before I had a chance to get around to everything. There were over 70 vendors and more than 500 quilts on display so there was plenty to look at. I bought some fat quarters as well as some 1/2 yard cuts and ended up spending just over $50 but I could have done much worse in the spending department. I restrained myself since I don't seem to have much time to use up what I already have so I didn't want to add too much to the stash right now. I still haven't had a chance to take any pictures yet but hopefully this weekend I'll share my goodies.

This is the first time I've ever been to a quilt show and I loved every minute of it. It was also only the second time I've had the chance to see other quilters work up close and I'm so glad I did. Many of the quilts that I really enjoyed looking at were not "perfect" when viewed up close which didn't diminish from their beauty one little bit. It did, however, make me feel much more confident about my abilities. DH asked me how I felt my quilts compared and I can honestly say that I wouldn't feel bad about putting them on display with some of my favorites from the show. It's so helpful to see other people's work "up close and personal".

Now, I had looked for representatives from the two LQS at the show but neither place had a booth so I just had to stop by one of them on Sunday to see what they had to offer. I was also looking for the 4 patch posie pattern that Judy made but I only found it at one vendor at the show and they were changing $2 more than I'd seen it on-line. Now I had R. with me and he has made quite a few trips to fabric stores with me lately and the funny thing is, he just loves the fabric and asks (just like his big sisters) for "favric" of his own. Not only that but the last two times I let him chose, he always goes for polka dot prints. Even at 2, he knows exactly what he wants.

All in all, it was a busy week but an enjoyable one. I took a little time to rest after it and now we are back to homeschooling. This way I'll have plenty of wiggle room time-wise once the baby comes. One of the many benefits of homeschooling-we set the schedule and can work around events in our lives!

I've also decided to go ahead and find out the sex of the baby tomorrow at the ultrasound. My instincts say that it's a girl and they've been right every time before now, but we'll know for sure by tomorrow afternoon.