Well, just got back from my niece's wedding, then a trip to Mishii in San Antonio, then a trip to San Angelo to see Jonna and the murder room!  what a trip!!  Spend over an hour trying to find Mishii's house, cause it was dark, and the only road I needed to get on was closed for repair (the after dark close the road thing), so I drove all around Mishii's house till she finally found a road I could tell I was on and she could direct me in !!  But I got to meet PITA, Lilly the dog and the parrot.  Ellen, PITA quilted the Denise quilt you sent me, did a much better job than I would have, I put together the purple and black quilt top on Sharon's design wall,  we both cut and sewed another "easy" quilt from Missouri Star Quilts,-diagonals with rick- rack, but PITQA was quilting it and lit looks good!!

I also cleaned out her scrap bin-s (plural!!) And she started quilting a quilt for me, had a tension problem we didn't see at first (I think the machine hates me-LOL) and PITA spent the afternoon picking it out.  He really is a quilting elf, she should talk nicer about him-LOL!!  It was awesome and I wanted to take Lilly the dog home with me!!

On to Jonna's, it was easier to find her house, altho I did still have a smaller SNAFU with road construction again!!  She took me out to a steak dinner Sunday night, so I have to up my game and get to organizing (mostly moving around things where she wanted!!)  Moved her DVD dresser around against a different wall, took two shelves in to the bedroom so she can make the dining room her sewing room ( now to be referred to as "sewing room"), moved tables in to said clear sewing room, as well as setting up her cutting table, unpacked her big TV and put it in a shelf in the bedroom, helped her unpack and organize her utility room, and I snuck off and broke down boxes in her box room (has fabric too), so we could get into the room more easily)  Moves some smaller book shelves where she wanted them (tried to fill up her little dumpster-it's so cute, and the Texans have little metal dumpsters instead of plastic roll-aways-guess so the wind doesn't blow them away!), that was the first day!  We did then go to town and eat lunch and she showed me the steam room at the library.  It was closed because someone had crashed thru the glass window of the library, and class crashed into the kids books, so the had to be moved and them sent off to be cleaned, so the were crowing the steam room.  But it was so cool, two LA's, a sit down quilting machine, sewing machines, critcut , 3d printer, big printer, laminator (I think), lots of other cool machines you can do stuff with!!  Really special!!

That was most of the heavy lifting, second day we changed light bulbs (the kind that are recessed in the ceiling and one was wonky and hard to get out!) and one in the bathroom that the bulb had popped out and left just the base in the socket.  Made several trips to town, went to the Chicken Farm Art Center, both of us won prizes (I think we were the only ones that returned the cards) but it was fun. Then drove thru the San Angelo Christmas light tour. Also got a tour of Jonna's back yard and all the little buildings she has.

All in all a great trip, husband told me not to brig anything home (silly man!) and the car was fill to every nook and cranny. Stocked up on my Texan pecan coffee, HEB had rib roast on sale for $4.77 a lb, limit one, so we made several trips to get more that one. Froze them and brought them home. Jonna got one for herself also.

Now I know where Mishii and Jonna live--watch out!!  I could be back!

Can't wait for retreat next!!

We sure did pack a LOT of activity into a relatively short amount of time, but you did most of the "heavy lifting," both figuratively AND literally!  

Patty didn't tell about another fun thing that happened while she was here.  I posted this on the FB page of my local quilting group.  It only happened because of Patty wearing one of her quilting T-shirts.  

A quilting friend from Oklahoma came to visit me here in San Angelo. When we went to H.E.B., she was wearing her "Serial Quilter" T-shirt, and a woman in the store approached her and asked if she was a quilter. She said she had just moved to town and was glad to see another quilter because she hadn't been here long. My friend said "Well, I'm from Oklahoma but my friend lives here, and she has been telling me about her quilting group." So, I met this very nice lady and gave her the information about the name of this group, told her to go on Facebook and join up. She told me her name but I promptly forgot her first name, just that her last name is Huffman, and she had just moved here from Carrollton. I told her to be sure and come to the next HBAT meeting in January.

While we were having a big conversation in the middle of the salad dressing aisle at H.E.B., another young woman was standing behind with her cart and I thought we were in her way and she was waiting for us to move. But no, as it turns out, she is also a quilter, just now a beginner but eager to learn more. We exchanged Facebook pages and "friended" each other. I did get her whole name, but I won't put the whole name here until she introduces herself. But her first name is Velma.

Who knew that a relatively short trip to H.E.B. would result in meeting TWO nice ladies who have both recently moved here to San Angelo, who just happen to also be quilters?! So, I hope they will soon join the group too.

EDITED TO ADD -- I forgot to say that the second young lady lives in El Dorado. I am going to follow up with both of them and really try to get them to the January meeting.  

I forgot about that!  I was wearing my line green Serial Quilter t shirt.  We were having a quilting meeting in the HEB isle, it was great!!

People are just naturally attracted to quilters!  

Wow I am worn out just reading that. Sounds like a really fun time!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  I think next year will be a great year for me, health-wise.  This year has been terrible so I'm not sorry to see it go.  I'm doing really good with my new knee.   A week and 4 days and each day is better than the day before.  I will be going to my son's house today.  It's going to be a huge crowd, as usual, and I'm looking forward to it.

Carolyn

Merry Christmas Carolyn.I did not realize that you had your surgery. I don't know why I did not know about it.I am glad that you are doing so well. Glad that you are able to go to your son house. It will just be two of us. My family get smaller then larger. It is vary wind since yesterday. Temp is in the 70.

We visited and exchanged gifts with our daughter, son in law and 4 grands. Such a joy this year even though DH has a bum knee, this was the first year Piper (16 months old) walked around to see what everyone was unwrapping. Her new words are “Ho,Ho Ho”. They left to go to the big dinner at his folks. I cooked a small Turkey breast and the trimmings. So it was quiet but nice. Thankful DH is able to move a little now, just not a whole lot of weight bearing. 

Sounds like you had a busy productive trip.  Fun, too.  Are you flying into retreat or driving?  We are looking forward to that also.