A Day to Get Here!

Airports full of early morning travelers, headed to wherever they are going.

It seems I’ve spent more time in airports lately than I have spent at home!

One of those things I love to do is  to really people watch.

Humanity is an amazing thing.

As I stood in line to board my flight, there was a Chinese family – an older mother, a daughter perhaps in her 30s, and you could tell they were on a long journey.  Passports in hand they made their way up to the gate agent who scanned their tickets, all the while, an older man – probably the husband of the mother was talking to them rapidly in Chinese –hands were waving “Goodbye, I love you!” Smiles and last farewells as the mother and daughter made their way, soon out of sight down the jet bridge.

The father stayed there waving until they were gone, and his smile became bittersweet as he slowly lowered his hand once again to his side, turned and walked away.

There is a story here – be it in Chinese or French or Italian – families, friends, cherished ones.

Love is the one driving force that makes this crazy life we lead so worth it.

And no matter what our differences in nationality, belief systems, financial status, education level, career choice –all of those things that we use to categorize ourselves and separate ourselves into our perspective identities, one thing remains.

Love.

Hello, Seattle!

So these were the kinds of life moments that I observed while traveling from Greensboro, North Carolina to Atlanta, Georgia and finally to Seattle!

There wasn’t much of a story from there – my ride, Mary was right where she said she’d be when I deplaned and made myself to the baggage claim.

My bags were quickly delivered and off we went to grab a bite to eat, talking quilter-style all the way.

This weekend I’m at the Quilter’s Dream Retreat ,a twice a year gathering held at  Camp Arnold, a Salvation Army camp near Eatonville, Washington.

Awesome!

_{My goal for yesterday was just to get here!}

And it was all worth it – all of that travel!

Dining hall and office

My bungalo is here!

The gym!

The retreat holds a total of 111 quilters this weekend, including myself!  I’ve got 3 workshops going, with 50 students each.  The others will be working on their own projects for Open Sew, and it is bound to be a great time.

My only job today?  Meet & Greet everyone who is coming in!  We met some at dinner last night- One gal from Canada, a couple from Oregon and other points in the Pacific North West.  Oh, this is going to be fun, alright!

I sewed last night!

Some simple string blocks!

It’s all I had time to grab during my 24 hours home!

The goal of course, was to keep me up past 9pm West Coast Time so that I wouldn’t wake up at the dreaded 4am thanks to my body clock thinking it was 7am. 

I made it until 5am.

Hey, it felt like a total sleep in for me and I am up and raring to go….

Quilters arrive at 10:30.

Let’s get this party started!

Love from Camp Arnold --

PS...internet is also very slow here!  It took me another 3 hours to upload this post, reminiscent of the cruise!  But we got it done!

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