Vacation Photos. (If you want some quilting content, skip to the bottom.)

This is where we were last week for spring break. We went to visit my dad and his girlfriend who have a farm in Middleofnowhere, Tennessee. She raises horses and donkeys, and with 9 horses, a mule, 5 donkeys, 3 dogs, and 2 barn cats, there was plenty to keep the kids busy for several days.

They all rode horses! Two year old Sophie is fearless! Even she got up on big Coyote and didn't want to get off!

One of the most special things for me was watching my middle daughter Molly around the horses. She really blossomed and was so natural and happy with them, in a way I rarely see. When she was the only one to get the shy donkeys to come to her, she was dubbed "the donkey whisperer."

Ok, back to reality.

Here's one of my most memorable moments. I was sitting at small kitchen table dishing out lunch for 3 kids. Chaos, as usual.

My cell phone rang and it was a PR lady for the Chicago Quilt Festival. She and I had been in touch for the past few weeks regarding a special exhibit at the show "In Full Bloom" and she had interviewed me for a press release that she sent out to local newspapers and tv stations. She started talking about a tv station that had picked up on her press release and wanted to come to my house next week (this week) to interview me and film me working. I got up from the table so that I could concentrate and started to walk outside where it was quiet. I opened the screen door and, cradling the phone on my shoulder and watching the kids behind me at the table, I pushed open the door with my shoulder.

Apparently, there was a wasp just waiting there, right where I smashed my shoulder against the door. So, I've got pain shooting into my shoulder as it stings me and I'm trying not to say "Ouch Ouch Ouch Ouch" and I'm trying to talk coherently, and it's not even so much the pain as the squeamishness I feel that I HAVE JUST BEEN STUNG BY A FREAKIN WASP and now it is kind of a blur but to make a long story short I asked to call her back, I came in and gave the details to Dave as my dad was rubbing some mysterious but in retrospect, awesome, ointment onto the sting.

I needed to get across to Dave that I would have 2.5 days when we got home to: totally clean my pigsty of a studio, totally clean my disaster of a dye studio (AKA corner of the garage), have some kind of quilt project to work on (hah!), have some yarn dyed since I sold it all the week before we left for vacation, and also, in general get the house back to normal after a week's vacation in the middle of nowhere, that involved stepping in a lot of horse poop. And that I would really, really, REALLY need his help and support in order to pull this off.

He said: Go for it.

So, I have spent the past 2.5 days doing all of the above, enabled by Dave and almost a dozen giant Rubbermaid bins, which are temporarily housing a ton of studio clutter in our bedroom upstairs. This morning CLTV news is coming to film me for a segment promoting the Chicago Quilt Festival, and I will give you all the details of the air time and date when I know them.

For now, please wish me luck!!!