Long Time, No Post

I have been having problems with my computer lately and have just started rebuilding my favorites file. I realized that I not only had I lost a lot of patterns and pictures, but I also lost my entire list of Blogs, including my own. After an unsuccessful search, I remembered that I had a link to it through my signature block on the HGTV Quilting Board, so I went there and clicked on the link. And, voila, here I am! OMG, I cannot believe that I haven't posted anything since last March 2013. I guess I've been really busy. Let's see. Well, in June of 2013 I got to do to my first COF retreat. It was held in Harrisburg, PA, right in the middle of Amish country. I decided to drive out there. I have always taken road trips by myself and didn't think that this one would be any different. I failed to take into consideration that it had been almost 20 years since I took my last solo road trip, and that I was now over 65 years in age. Suffice it to say that I decided that I would never take a driving trip by myself again. It is just too hard on my old body. I left at 2am on a Thursday morning with the expectations that I would be arriving at the hotel in Harrisburg around 4:30pm EST. WRONG! The first eight hours weren't too bad. I managed to get from Illinois almost all the way across Indiana in that time when I stopped for breakfast. I had made a couple of pit stops for gas and potty breaks, and just to stretch my body. And then I got to Ohio, where the tollway was under construction intermittently across the entire state. I called the hotel to leave a message for the retreat hostesses that I would be in later than I thought and to just bring my sandwich back from the dinner. If I thought, Ohio was bad, it was nothing compared to the 186 miles that I had to travel on the Pennsylvania Turnpike from Ohio to Harrisburg. It was up and down through mountain tunnels with 18 wheelers and only two lanes of the four open. Oh, what fun to head into a tunnel that dropped seven miles over the span of one mile with a semi to my right and one behind me. It only took about 8 minutes, but I was shaking by the time I got through it. And instead of being able to cover the 186 miles in about three hours, it took closer to five due to the construction. I finally got to the hotel around 8:15. I had been on the road for over 19 hours (for a trip that according to MapQuest should have only taken 14). I got checked into my room and went to the COF gathering place. When I walked in, they were playing "Fat Quarter Bingo". I introduced myself to a couple of people and found Lori, the Hostess for the event. She gave me my retreat bag filled with goodies and helped me find my roommate for the weekend, Kelley, who had taken a 3-day bus trip from Oregon. As bad as my trip had been, Kelley's was worse. When she had changed buses in Philadelphia, they lost her luggage. She had a change of underwear in her travel tote just in case, but nothing else. I loaned her the little house dress that I had brought (hadn't even worn it yet) to use as a nightie. While she was much taller than me, the size 2X dress fit her. It was just really, really short, but at least she had something she could wear. She also had her retreat t-shirt that she could alternate with her other top (the one that she was wearing). So she could wash out one set of undies and a top to have clean the next day, but she only had one pair of pants to wear for the entire weekend. Anyway, we put all of our problems behind us and started our classes on Friday with a bright, shiny attitude. The next three days flew by. We had classes all day Friday (one morning and one afternoon sessions). When we weren't in class, we were in the gathering room, working on projects, finding out about the other retreaters, and just visiting. On Saturday, we did a scavenger hunt through Amish country, visiting four or five different fabric stores along the way and ended up at a huge Amish buffet restaurant for dinner. Dessert was back in the gathering room, where we enjoyed games of FQ bingo and a speaker from the local quilting historical group who had brought almost 75 German and Amish quilts for us to oooh and aaah over. The retreat ended at noon on Sunday, but I had decided to stay over until Monday morning. Kelley had to get back to the bus station on Sunday evening in order to start the 3-day trip back to Oregon. She posted when she finally got home that when she stopped in Philly to change buses, she looked in at Lost and Found, and lo and behold, there was her bag, so she got to take it back with her. Things were looking up! I enjoyed a very nice dinner in the hotel restaurant, took myself back to my room, had a shower and finished up my packing. I watched television until about 11 and then lights out 'cause I had an early morning. Got up at around 6:30, got dressed and got ready to leave. I decided that I would pack my car first, then sit down to one last meal at the hotel (they had a wonderful breakfast buffet). At 7:30, I stopped at the front desk to turn in my key (bill was taken care of on Saturday evening) and headed to my car. I had gone to the Travel Center in the Hotel on Sunday afternoon to check on alternate routes so that I did not have to take that awful turnpike again. I found that if I head north on PA 322, I could connect with I-80 and then head west from there. And that's what I did. I stopped one last time in Harrisburg to fill up and then I headed north. It was around 8:15am. I have to say that the drive on PA 322 was actually fairly pleasant. There were only a couple of spots in the 95 mile trip that were under construction and the traffic wasn't too bad. I reached I-80 by 10:45 and headed west. When I got to Ohio, I-80 merged with the Ohio Tollway and I was back on familiar ground. Familiar, but slow ground. It took nearly seven hours, with breaks, to cross Ohio with all of the construction areas. I had planned on being home by 9pm, but I knew that wasn't going to happen when it started to rain. It rained for the last 80 miles in Ohio and into Indiana. Then it started to really storm. The rain was being blown sideways and there was lightning. I pulled off at the next rest area to wait out the worst of it. The only problem was that the storm was heading the same way that I was. I finally got back on the road and past South Bend. I still had about two hours left in Indiana before I finally got to Illinois and it was already after 9pm. I called my niece (who was my contact person while I was travelling) and told her that I would probably not be in much before 1am. My eyes were burning so much and I was so tired of fighting the rain and the construction that I planned on taking a little nap. And that's what I did. I was parked in front of a McDonalds at the rest stop and lowered my seat and went to sleep - for 2 hours. When I woke up, it was nearly midnight. I went into the McDonalds and got a cup of coffee with lots of sugar and headed home. The drive was easy and unexpected the rest of the way and I got home at just before 2am. I left everything in the car, except my medications, and went into my apartment, climbed into bed and went to sleep. At 8am, I got up and called my niece at work to let her know that I had gotten home alive and everything was okay. She said that she knew 'cause she checked my parking space on her way to work and my car was there. Smart girl! Anyway, I spent that Tuesday unpacking my car and putting things away. There were a couple of aftermath things that I had to deal with, though. Going up and down all of those mountain roadways killed one of my brake lines. I had to also have the brake caliper and drum replaced. It cost me $400. Added to that, my brother (who is my mechanic) told me that there is a piece in my transmission computer that is going out. Unfortunately, the piece itself would cost $1200, plus the labor to put it in. Since my car at that time was 14 years old, he didn't suggest I do that as it would cost almost double of what the car is worth to fix it. Needlesstosay, we did not fix that part. The good news is that I am still driving it a year later and while it sounds really loud inside the car, so far the car is still running. I am, however, starting to put aside my pennies for a new/used car. So there. I've caught up for the month of June 2013 and I think that's enough for now. I PROMISE myself that I will try to do a much better job of keeping this blog up-to-date. There are a lot of things I need to post about 2013 and several more about this year of 2014. I will get caught up soon.