Audry in Opryland

I almost didn't get to go on this trip. When I suggested it a year ago to a group of on-line friends I figured I would be living near by. It would be an easy drive up and home the same day kind of thing. I had always wanted to go stay at the Opryland Hotel, with its world class gardens and restaraunts but a day trip to see the AQS quilt show would also allowed me to visit without the world class expense. Well a number of my friends thought that sounded like a great time and pretty quickly about 12 ladies made plans to come. A few even bringing husbands. Alas I was stuck in Oklahoma with an unsold house. And not wanting to spend alot of money at this particular time. But my heart really ached to see everyone. I tossed around a few ideas but nothing panned out to keep it affordable. Suddenly I was given the opportunity to back out of another trip I had promised to go on, freeing up just enough bucks to make Nashville a go. It didn't hurt that I had just enough frequent flyer miles to get free transportation. So off I went and everything lived up to expectation. The hotel was amazing, the food was delightful, the quilt show decent and my friends......the very best part of all. At the last minute we did lose a few ladies. One had a sick husband and the other had family coming to visit that could not be altered. But dear friends came all the way from as far as

New York City to the east

and LA to the west.

One even came thru Hurricane Faye to get there.

One of our younger ladies brought her gorgeous 10 month old daughter to charm us old grannys.

There were tons of hugs, lots of sharing, gifts galore and many many pictures taken. And best of all, we already are making plans for our next quilt show get together where hopefully more of our on-line group can make meeting face to face a reality.

I was a good girl at the quilt show. I didn't really need to be bringing home anything else that needs packed and the show itself was not all that huge. It seems the only really unusual thing I dragged back with me was a ferocious summer head cold. I had a sore throat during the week before I left but I didn't think much of it since it never went any further than just that. While I was there I felt perfectly fine but I did not sleep all that well. Not unusual for me even in the finest of hotels. But the second I got on the plane to leave Nashville the sneezing and runny nose started up and only got worse as the trip passed. If the guy in the seat next to me noticed he never said a word. Poor guy, probably is now suffering from same said virus as we speak. Now 4 days later I am finally starting to pull thru with the help of Robitussin and Aleve and I think I will live..

On the knitting frontier-I am merrily knitting on a pair of socks for a friend, almost done with them. The aran cardigan that was to be saddle shoulder has now been deconstructed and is being reknit as a raglan. There is plenty of yarn waiting in the wings as soon as both projects are off the needles.

I am almost afraid to say anything about this---but---we did sign a contract to sell the house right before I went to Nashville. But it is a contingency contract. Meaning they need to sell their house first. Our agent did do us well tho, by writing into the contract that the house can still be shown and if someone wants to put a bid on it they can. Then the first buyers have 72 hrs to decide what they want to do-go ahead and buy right away or pass and let someone else have the house. I really want these folks to get the house. When they walked thru they saw every single flaw that I see in the house and they still loved it. They plan on taking down the panelling, adding a covered back porch, replacing all the windows and eventually redoing the kitchen. So I would never have to feel guilty that I sold the house to someone and down the road they started to see the warts and freckles and come to dislike it as much as we do. So now if everyone would start to say a few prayers that this couple can get their house sold in the next few months so we can finally move on and get our lives settled before winter sets in.