Hellos & Goodbyes

What fun to be here at the CreativFestival! I got into Toronto yesterday morning at 7:20 am after a 4am wake-up and arrived downtown at the hotel only to find that my room wouldn't be ready for a few hours! Luckily a stitcher is never without something to work on, especially a designer with some things to finish off on a class model! I got into the room by about 11:45 and started to unpack then snip floss for kits. By 2 pm, when I still hadn't heard anything from Teresa, I began to worry that she was stranded somewhere and headed downstairs to see if they had any record of her. As I checked with the concierge to see if my package from Zweigart had arrived... the cell phone rang. It was Teresa wondering where I was since she'd been in her room for over an hour with no sign of me! The hotel had checked her into the wrong part of the suite (Lily Chin's part)and I'd been sitting one wall away from her wondering where she was!

Last night we went to see the musical WICKED after a wonderful sushi dinner and it was FABULOUS!! I used myt birthday money from my grandfather this year towards the tickets and am SO glad I did!!

Today, I finally got the emergency delivery of the missing stitchband from Zweigart for my class that day, much to my immense relief. The class was a lot of fun and I had just turned the room over to Teresa for her class when she needed something from our hotel room. Off I went through the human habitrail of tunnels to get the missing plastic bags. When I got to the hotel room, the message light was blinking so I checked it and there was a message from Nick asking me to call home as soon as I could.

All kinds of terrible things go though your head at that point. When I called, both girls were still in tears. Our beloved dwarf hamster, Wuffles, had had a second stroke and they had just returned from the vet. The vet had explained to them how much Wuffles was suffering and so they made the decision to put him to sleep. My faithful "old scraggy fella" won't be there when I get home, but he lived a very full and friendly life. It is hard to love something that rarely lives to be 2 years old, but I would not have traded a moment without him, despite the hurt I feel tonight. I comforted the girls the best that I could long distance and thanked Nick for being brave enough to make that decision while I wasn't there.

Life is full of both Hellos and Goodbyes. Each should be treasured.

A Silent Dragon Is Usually A Busy Dragon...

A few e-mails this afternoon asking if I was OK prompted this quick entry. Whenever this blog gets quiet, it usually means that the dragon is tangled up with something. In this case, it has been having a houseful of company for a week while Nick's Dad and his wife came for a visit over the Thanksgiving weekend. It was great fun having them here, but the week before I go to a show is chaos at best. Toss in a project with a crazy deadline and a bunch of illegal pattern sharers getting all riled up about albums being closed on Multiply... and you get more chaos in my day than this dragon can handle!

If you want to check out the adventures of Rick Mercer's jeans and see how they turned out or read my latest rant about the boldface lies that sharers tell each other about designers, just click on the appropriate links.

I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to heading to Toronto for the show. I can't wait to spend my time with honest, creative stitchers and one of my best friends, Teresa. I need this time to get inspired all over again after dealing with the nastiness of some people who keep trying to justify that they are doing nothing wrong by sharing.