Our Arrival

I woke up when Chris got up. I could have gone back to sleep, but it seemed right to get up and moving since I had to finish preparing for the trip and the class. I read e-mail and exercised and listened to an audio. I was unable to pack before breakfast for some reason. So I ate a little early. It rained hard in the early morning so I checked the basement for water. The only water was in the garage, and it wasn't much. I packed several boxes with stuff for class and special foods for the trip. I took my supplements and made egg salad for lunch. I filled a water bottle and a water jug with filtered water. I cut some fabric pieces for a demo. I hunted up some flannel to cover the whiteboard, also for the demo. I moved the items to a location in the garage to keep it all in one spot and away from items not going. When I had it all assembled, I opened both garage doors and waited for Lisa. I swept out the water. I checked my garden. But I was waiting when she arrived. It took almost no time to put my stuff in her Tahoe and we were off. She stopped for a green tea at Starbucks. We drove north and east, past places I had seen before and then places I hadn't. We arrived in Murfreesboro just after 4. We checked in at the hotel and brought our suitcases up to the room. Then we checked out the classroom space to see what we had to work with. It was a ballroom divided into thirds. We were unable to find out which third would be ours. The tables were different in each 'room' but none of them had many outlets. Then we got the rest of our stuff from her car and moved it up to our room. We chatted for a bit until dinner time. It was in the same ballroom, but with different tables. We each had a card with our dinner choice on it. The card came with our nametags. We sat at a round table with 6 other women. Salads were already on the table. I ate mine without dressing. Then the entrees were delivered.

After that, a luscious-looking upside down bowl of cake with pudding in it. Lisa and I skipped ours. After the meal, there were door prizes. And there was a speaker. She was very good, and it was evident that she had given this speech many time before. She had her quilts all lined up to be shown in the order that they came up in the speech. After the speech, we were dismissed. Lisa and I went up the room. I had forgotten my laptop, so she gave me her keys. On my way to get it, I investigated the pool area. It was partly inside and partly outside. There was no changing area, and no pool towels. And no hot tub. So I got the laptop and went back to our room. We chatted for an hour or so. She wrote notes for her class tomorrow. Then she turned in while I stayed up to post to my blog.

* This is Lisa's quilt for her class, and our hotel room. *