I was real intent on getting to church early today. I promised Connie I would arrive early so we could map out our plan for the Fiber Friends display in the church on Sunday. As a result, I woke at 5:45 and did my “have to” stuff. I planned to leave the house by 8:50. When it was half past the hour I readied myself and dashed out the door and off I went. I was ten minutes or more down the road when I glanced at the clock on the radio and saw 8:00. I wondered if we failed to change the time from (or is it to?) daylight savings time. I checked my watch and confirmed that I had rushed out of the house an hour early. Oopsie Daisy! I pulled into Ravenserra and got a white chocolate mocha with a dash of raspberry. When I pulled into church I went to the office and picked up the Fiber Friends newsletter Pam (church secretary) was printing for me for the Sunday display. After a chat with Pastor Paul I went over to the sanctuary, opened it up, turned on the heat and sat down at the grand piano to practice until Connie showed up.
It was 9:15 when she arrived so we quickly plotted our course and then set up for the Bible Study. We had nine ladies there today which included Glenda (pastor’s wife) who has joined the group. We are now into the book of James, our last for this session. It will take us through May. After we were done and had put everything away it was almost noon. When I got to the car I pulled out the cellphone to call Bill and let him know I was off to Allie’s. I pushed the button for “Home” and next thing I knew it was asking for my password. What? I hung up and dialed again. Same thing. Then I actually dialed the number and when I put in my password it kept taking me into Voicemail. It was totally weird. I called Alie and no one answered so I hit the road for her house since she knew approximately when I would arrive.
I found her house with no problem. She is on the road where McCormick Woods is located – where we went for Thanksgiving dinner. She said she was waiting for my call. I told her it rang five times and then I hung up. Anyway, she finished fixing lunch – a tuna and cheese sandwich on her yummy homemade bread. I told her Bill would love her bread. Unfortunately for Bill, Alie isn’t one to take that as a hint and send home a piece! 
After lunch we praticed the song “The Holy City” for me to sing at Easter. This isn’t my idea. She has been bugging me to do it for over a year. She was all excited about it. I sang through it a couple of times and we noted places where she needs to be sure and follow my lead as she plays the piano.
It was two’ish when I left there. I went into Key Center for the mail. By time I got home I was pooped again. I fought the urge to take a nap, as nice as that would have been. I did some stuff for Bill and finished knitting a second hat for the Caring for Kids bag for the March Knitting Guild meeting. Speaking of Caring for Kids, Barbara counted up the donated items for CforK from Madrona and we got 1 headband, 1 purse, 3 pair mittens, 8 sweaters, 5 blankets, 22 scarves, 3 pairs of slippers, 25 pair of socks and 197 hats – total of 265 items! And now to see if I can write about Madrona before I crash!
The sudden Tuesday snow was still on the ground when it came time to leave on Wednesday morning. Bill didn’t want to take a chance of backing up to the front door through the snow and getting stuck so we wheeled the suitcases through the snow on the sidewalk. Well, that’s not accurate since the wheels wouldn’t roll in the snow! We DRUG the wheely bags through the snow to the garage. We picked up the mail and my book at the library and headed into Tacoma. We went to The Kabuki for our Valentine’s dinner since I wouldn’t be home.
It was just after one when we arrived at The Murano Hotel. The bellman told me to check in and then he would unload the car. After I checked in we got my stuff loaded on the car, I bid Bill farewell and Madrona 2009 began for me! A new security feature had been added this year – you had to use your room key to work the elevators for floors 5-22. We were booked into Rooms 812 and 814 which had an adjoining door. Julianne’s daughter Lisa had been in earlier and left a bottle of sparkling cider in each room plus some special handmade candies on a plate along with a note welcoming us to the hotel. Lisa works in room service at the hotel and takes good care of us.
I claimed the bed I wanted and put up what needed putting up. I found the clipboard with all the vendor donation information and I was off to start my job of greeting the vendors and collecting their door prize donations. It was nice to see all the vendors from last year and to meet several new ones who joined us this year. As I made the rounds I eventually ran into Barbara. We took a load of door prizes and went up to the room. Julianne would not be coming that day so I had the whole room to myself for the night. That was a special treat for me!
Back at the Marketplace I continued making the rounds and I wound up having to go back to the room and print 13 gift certificates for folks who had forgotten them or couldn’t find them. Once I had done all I could do it was getting on towards dinner time. Barbara and I walked down to the Varsity Grill. I was delighted to find out that on Wednesday night you can get steak and shrimp for $5. Wow! No guessing what I had for dinner! We arrived back at the hotel by seven to help with registration. We stayed until it slowed down to a trickle and then went to our rooms. Our next job was drawing names for all the gift certificates and attaching winning names to the envelopes. Then I had to type all that info and email it to Mary so it could be posted Thursday. I was anxious to draw a hot bath and soak my weary bones. We have so much rust in the water till we can only do showers, unless you want to soak in a tub of brown water. I was sooooo tired by time I got into the tub I hoped I wouldn’t fall asleep in there. Once I was done I had to deal with getting the “beached whale” out of the tub. I thought “It’s going to be bad if I have to yell through two doors to have Barbara help get me out. There was no bar on the wall to pull up on so it was awkward but since I’m here, I obviously got out! 
Barbara woke me at 6:30 the next morning and we were off to breakfast by seven. Barbara had no classes but was working the table selling the Madrona Sock kits. All the money was going to one of four charities that Madrona sponsors. While she did that I went to Vivian Høxbro’s class on “Color in Knitting.” It was an all day class. In this picture you can see the little balls of yarn we were winding to knit our own color wheel – like the one seen at this end of the table.
Julianne arrived some time in the afternoon. At five we met in The Bite for the teacher’s dinner. My favorite waitress Fatima was there so we had a nice reunion.
We were beginning to wonder if our food would arrive before we had to head off to the Charity Night events. We had to get there and get all the knitted items spread out on the table along with the yarn donated by Coats & Clark and Skacel Collection. Thankfully the food arrived and we ate and then departed to do our “job.”
At the Charity Night event a lady from Caring for Kids gave some information about the organization. Then Stephanie Pearl-McPhee took the stage. She is a hoot when she speaks and those of us who have heard her before always remember her story of getting locked out of her hotel room wearing only a pair of powder blue underwear with the word "Cowgirl" on it.
When Barbara hailed me at 6:30 Friday morning I was borderline comatose. I dragged myself out of bed, had some coffee, dressed and we were off to breakfast. I caught myself putting Sweet and Low on my scrambled eggs. That did not bode well for an all day class! Friday’s class was Gloria Tracy’s “Magnificent Multi-Color Knitting” - a color, stitch and design class all rolled into one. Barbara was also in the class. When we are in a class we are “angels” if the teacher needs anything. Gloria had some patterns to sell so when we took a break she asked me to take care of that. At one point Barbara came up wanting a pattern. She needed $5 so I dipped into my money in the badge around my neck and gave it to her.
Gloria broke for lunch 10 minutes early so that gave us time to get into The Bite for lunch. We added the other two girls in line to our table. One of them was from Canada and her mother was a former French diplomat. That lunch was better than the buffet, in my opinion, and half the price. We had the butternut squash soup, half a sandwich and a salad.
We made it through the afternoon session of the class and then we were on our own for dinner. I had managed to revive somewhere in the afternoon. Julianne met up with a couple of her friends and we all went down to the Varsity Grill for dinner. Along came Lisa who sat with us at breakfast, I think it was. She was from Minnesota and always seemed to be alone so we just “adopted” her when we saw her roaming around by herself. When it came time to pay for my yummy Mushroom Burger, I opened my badge pocket and discovered my money was missing. As I panicked, Barbara reminded me of when I pulled out my money in Gloria’s class to give her the $5. Of all things, I added my money to Gloria’s money and gave it all to her. I thought at the time it was a fat wad of cash. DUH….
The “event” for Friday night was the Teacher’s Gallery. I went in long enough to track down Gloria and tell her what happened with my money. She said she’d take inventory later that night. Julianne stayed for the event but Barbara and I ducked out and worked on the Saturday door prizes – probably 50 of them! Cat Bordhi was the speaker for the evening and then folks could go around looking at all the things the teachers had on display.
I think I’ll close with that for tonight and continue tomorrow.
Youth is not a time of life, it's a state of mind. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. - Unknown
Hi Diane. Was finally able to get out cyberwalking again and wanted to check on you and see what you were up to ... 
Hi Carol, I get a "lump in my chest" reading your thoughts that you share .. thanks for reminding us how life is a 
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