Whew!!!!

That collective sigh you hear is coming from Sara and I as we are finally safely in our room (well, my room) and I am particularly thrilled because I have finished doing tickets for everything (yes, for the first time ever we have priced every single item at market...oops, I can't find the Hoffman invoice so that isn't done but it's a small one so we're not counting it). Anyway, Sara is still putting tickets on the items and this could get confusing since she just made herself a drink (which she couldn't do with my room glass as she had to have a bigger glass so she went out to the car and got the tumbler she purchased for Vernon.) Oh My God....Sara asked me if I was putting something on the web site that would embarrass her. So I read her what I just wrote and she said she couldn't believe I would put that on there. I asked which part wasn't the truth and she said, "I needed a larger glass, because with the room glass, I had to get up too much," like that made everything O.K. People this is what I'm working with here....HELP!!!! I will say however, that Sara had my back today when I had a "Bitch-off" with a vendor who I won't name, but I will no longer be carrying anything this particular jackass sells...so we will not have her little gems in the store. Sara saw me raise my finger (and I don't mean the middle one) and heard the voices rise and knew things were getting rough. But I am pleased to say, after the jackass called me a liar and I told her she was the liar Sara and I walked away, heads held high straight to the bar where I got a Bloody Mary and Sara got a double Kettleone on the rocks. Inspite of the alcohol, or because of it, the day went smoothly after that. With the exception of that incident, the show was a wonderful weekend event for us where we connected with many of our favorite designers. And I do have a food story to report. Last year, if you remember, I had the $272 lobster one night. Before we left home, Michael said to me, "Nana, please don't order a $272 lobster dinner this time." He also reminded his mother to keep an eye on me in the restaurants. So he will be particularly proud of us for last nights meal. We got back in the room after walking for 6 1/2 hours through the hotel shopping at the event and were too exhausted to leave for dinner, so we decided to order room service as the food in the hotel has been very good. So we both ordered steaks, salad and I got a dessert. As we were sitting watching T.V. and stitching the time seemed to be marching on with no food in sight. After 59 minutes I said, "Sara, don't you think it's taking a long time for the dinner to get here." While I realized the hotel is full and everyone is eating at the same time, usually a lot of the people go outside the hotel to restaurants. So Sara called down and the young woman who answered the phone reacted to Sara's question regarding the whereabouts of the food in a "oops" fashion that let us know she never put the order in. She said it would take another 30 minutes and Sara had about had it, so she turns to me and asked if I wanted her to go somewhere else and cancel the order. But, I said, let it go and we'll eat in 1/2 hour. About 25 minutes later a young man came to the door and said, "I'm so sorry about your dinner, but it will be here in about 10 minutes." He was so nice and had delivered to us a couple of times so we said that it was alright and before he could have gotten off the floor he was back with the dinner. He again apologized and as he was leaving said, "by the way, by way of an apology, your dinner is on the hotel." I'm telling you, I don't know what it is about Sara and I but we always have issues with food, or with service. Anyway, that is my food story for this year because other than that we've had good food and good service. So this year instead of spending an outrageous sum for a dinner, we got a free one. That only seems fair doesn't it? But I got ahead of myself. Let's begin with our first day of shopping, Saturday. After a somewhat grouchy beginning... I seemed to have awakened Sara before she was ready to get up (she stitched until 2:30 in the morning the night before our shopping event). I made the mistake of reading parts of this and now Sara wants me to explain that she did start and finish the peyote stitch "Salty Halloween" fob which is why she was up so late. Anyway, we hit the floors running, Sara going in one direction for those limited edition plaques from With Thy Needle for some of the ladies who asked us to get them, and I ran to Hoffman to get the latest Impie, Hattie & Bea collaborative piece with Little House Needleworks. After getting my goodies from Hoffman I then ran to Praiseworthy Stitches to get the Pumpkin Kits some of the stitchers asked for, and still no sign of Sara. Finally after about ½ hour here she came as I was standing at Just Nan's door for her limited edition piece. Just Nan was already out of one of her limited edition pieces and it was only 1 hour into the event. Since her room was slow moving…we stood in the hallway for almost 1 hour waiting….not too tense as people kept just walking in the room not realizing (I guess) that all of us in the hallway were waiting…..but we let them know they had to get to the back of the line in short order. Since the wait here was so long I told Sara to run up to the 6th floor where one of my favorite designers was….Shepherd’s Bush. We didn’t go there first because we knew that line would be a mile long. However, one of the stitchers waiting at Just Nan’s room said the line up there was moving quickly so I sent Sara up. She went up, waited to get into the room, shopped, came back down and I was still standing in the hallway when she got back waiting to get in Just Nan's room. We hadn't moved an inch. I don’t mind the wait so much if you keep my behind moving like in Disney World, but my God, I’m standing there leaning against the railing and after a while I start thinking about the possibilities of the railing becoming loose and me falling 4 floors to a tiled floor in the lobby…I think we can all agree that wouldn’t be pretty. But the wait was so worth while because Just Nan had some cute and some beautiful items to sell. We got peep worthy peep items. Cute, cute, and cuter. And the preview of things to come in March indicates more complicated items on the way, like the "Twilight Pearls Leaf Ball." But we're bringing home her "Needle Tweets" which are cute little Needlekeepers. We did get her "Tulip Bunny" which was her show special. A cute little bunny head in a special WhimZi frame. And then her "Keep a Little Secret" is a new Peacock Needle slide, but in this one you stitch a peacock to put inside to hold your needles. New Garden Pins include a Peacock and Tail Feather for the Needle Tweet. Incidentally, we really paid attention to her "Pin Keepers Garden" model and it was gorgeous, especially with all her pins stuck in it. She had a gorgeous strawberry fabric with a black background and vibrant red berries and it's larger finished that it appears to be when you look at the packaging. But you might want to take a look at it if you are collecting those pins. And Lizzie Kate, as usual, had some cute limited editions, especially "Chicks Rule" with more little peeps. Their ABC's of Aging is also a hoot but it's their next release that Sara fell in love with and seems appropriate this year..."Cleaning up after children is like shoveling snow while it's still snowing." When I asked Sara what piece is she looking forward to stitching, out of everything we saw she said, "I loved Prairie Moon's Martini Witches." Go figure...she's still stuck on Halloween. We saw new Easter items from many of the designers but what we liked about the Etui's this year is some of the designers are stepping out of the box and utilizing things like the Antique looking Paper Mache Easter Eggs as containers for your smalls. Stitching Parlor's "Happy Easter Etui" uses one of the eggs and has attached silk to the top of the bottom piece of the egg and with a drawstring at the top of the silk she's made a bag to hold the pieces. It is really a unique idea and cute. Prairie Moon has done a series of Egg Pin Cushions which nest in paper mache eggs, much like the boxes they did for Halloween. Such cute gifts for a spring gift to a stitcher. Anyway, I'm going to be busy getting everything up on the web site, although not tonight since Sara has packed everything now and taken it to the car. By the way.....after finishing our final dinner here, my phone rang around 9:00 p.m. and when I saw it was Mary on the line I knew the news wasn't going to be good. Well, it's not bad, however, the 3rd grandchild apparently wasn't willing to wait 2 more days....Mary's water broke, and she and Brian were on the way to the hospital. They left 2 year old Solomon sleeping with his 16 year old brother in charge...oh, no! Although C.J. is a responsible person, Solomon is asleep for the night...someone will have hell to pay tomorrow morning when that 2 year old wakes up to no father or mother in the house. So now I have to worry about getting back quickly. When I called Sara's room and let her know that our best laid plans were screwed up, there was silence on the other line...so here I sit at 2:06 a.m. wondering what time I can wake her up to get us on the road. It's a 15 hour drive....ummmm is 3:00 a.m. to early to call her room? This could be another double Kettleone day...God help me! I'll get busy now trying to get something on the web site. Have a great day and I'll keep in touch.