Ft. Washington Show

What a wonderful time we had going to the show! I went with Anne, one of the graduates from our holistic health program, to join me, who was willing to attend even though she doesn't quilt! She is extremely creative and has long combined art and healing, both in her personal life and as a teacher to others seeking personal development. I knew she'd LOVE the merchant mall and she did, of course.

The quilts were magnificent - what a great 1st show for a non-quilter to attend! The World Quilt Competition was full of marvelous, inspiring artwork, as was the entire show. Anne kept saying, "I don't understand how they can JUDGE this work! It's all unique and so very different from one another. How do they even choose criteria from which to judge?!" Good point. Workmanship, of course. Creativity. Use of color. And more. So much more - much of it unconscious, personal, and beyond words.

By far the BEST part of the past two days was meeting Mary Manahan (http://quiltstudio77.blogspot.com/) from QuiltArt (and her family and friends!) in person. Mind you, we had never met, yet Mary blythly invited me (and my pal) to come for dinner, spend the night & make it a two-day extravaganza! Even more strangely, Anne did not remember me telling her that we'd be staying with perfect strangers... This she is told en route to the show! Fortunately, Anne was driving and she could 'just say no' if Mary was too scary!!! What a hoot! And today we met Sue Reno (http://www.suereno.com/) and a lovely mother-daughter team (whose names I have forgotten) at the show, thanks to Mary. So many from our list had ribbons, too! I am SO glad I found the QuiltArt list and dared to join...I just loved recognizing the names from our QuiltArt list! And meeting some of you, too!

Needless to say, we had all sorts of fun together - first at lunch (anyone who goes to the convention center knows the food court is NOT the high point of the show), then wandering the aisles together a bit, and the most SUPER fun doing our version of "show & tell" with all our newly purchased goodies and talking/sharing/laughing into the night.

Mary is an excellent cook and gracious hostess. Her husband is a delightful, charming Irishman - they make a wonderful couple! Anne commented today that at first she thought "they were too good to be true!" She hasn't met many balanced couples, I guess. Then again, healthy marriages seem to be in the minority these days, don't they? My DH and I certainly don't know very many couples that have been married as long as we have.

My honey and I are preparing to celebrate the 44th aniversary of having met each other - at the first freshman mixer of our college careers. I went to the College of St. Catherine in my home-town of St. Paul, MN while he (from Chicago) went to the College of St. Thomas (now the U of ST or STU) a mile down the road. It snowed in MN that night (September 30) - which he has never forgotten! He, much later, admitted to me that he 'knew' I'd be the girl he'd marry one day...Thank heavens he didn't ever tell me that until we were married! I would have cut and run for sure - marriage did NOT look like a good deal for a woman back in the early 1960's! And my sis was married and she had had 3 kids in the first 4 years of her married life - six altogether. I was in no mood to be tied down without first going abroad, seeing art until I dropped, and having some fun.

Goodness, this has stooped to the level of memory lane! Yikes!!! Long story short, I went to Europe (alone!) for 7 weeks following our graduation. We were married the December after graduation. We had our first child within a year... our second two and a half years later. Then God was good or something else was. Two turned out to be the final and perfect number for us! Now there are 3 grandchildren, one step-grandchild, and one Russian foreign exchange student 'grandchild' to celebrate.

And there is art, quilting, music, dance, quilt shows, new friends like Mary, et.al. - and creativity thrumming through my life, as always. Life is good...very, very good.