Market Trip Part II

After we were done at the Opry we headed for Franklin and checked into the Marriott. Nice hotel, the room was clean, they had a wonderful restaurant there called Lorraine's and even though it was past serving time, they still let us eat from the buffet. Yummy! We headed to the Embassey Suites after eating to register for Market and then we plopped our butts in a couple of chairs while we waited for Meet and Greet and watched everyone come and go. It was fun to see all the stuff the vendors were hauling in and to people watch. The vendors hung banners over the railings and we kept watching them as one by one the banners would appear. I had to keep asking Mary Ann what the banners said because I couldn't make it out most of the time. I think I better get my eyes checked!


So as we were sitting there, I mentioned to Mary Ann that I hadn't seen anyone I knew. She gave me that look she sometimes does when I say things that she can't believe I said because they are so ridiculous. Why in the world would I know someone at the Embassy Suites in Franklin Tennesee! I said it not because I expected to see someone I knew but because when my sister and I go someplace together she always sees someone she knows so I've started saying I haven't seen anyone I know when we go places because I never do. Clear as mud right? I do have a point with all this rambling......not long after that I was watching the elevator come down with a load of people and lo and behold there was one of our stitching ladies! I poked Mary Ann and said LOOK! There's Doreen! Mary Ann whips her head around and says where?? I point her out and Mary Ann looks again. Then she slowly turned her head back to me and says.....you really need to get your eyes checked Julie. That's not Doreen. So in my defense, the gal had the same hair and body type as Doreen and Mary Ann said if she squinted a bit it looked like her but it wasn't really her. Still, while I was sitting there I also saw, Deb, Linda, Mary, Carole, Nancy.....all ladies from our stitching group. The only one I didn't see was Connie and she's a one of a kind so I didn't really expect to see her as I'm pretty sure they broke the mold after her! LOL!! Love ya girl friend!

Meet and Greet was at 7:00 that evening. Since this was our very first Market, we weren't sure what to expect but by 6:45 there was quite the crowd outside the doors. It was nice to see previews of some of the vendor booths and to chat with the designers but it was a madhouse in there and I was really worried that the next day would be more of the same. A few of the vendors were going to be open that evening so we hung around and did a bit of shopping that night at Dessins. It was crowded and took forever but eventually we were done and headed back to the Marriot.

Saturday morning at 9:00 found us back at the Embassy Suites, rolling suitcase in hand ready to fight the crowds.....only there weren't any. I was thrilled for myself but felt really bad for the vendors. Everyone said it was very quiet and slow. I found the designers to be warm and friendly for the most part and quite helpful when they found out we were market virgins. I would have loved to take pictures of the different "shops", most were set up so cute and clever! But it wasn't allowed and while I could show you what we bought, most of you have already seen it online somewhere so I won't bore you with that. I will say I saw a lot of things in person that I had seen pictures of beforehand and believe me when I tell you pictures just don't do most of them justice.

For instance the Erica Michaels petites collection, the pictures are nice but when you see them in person they are gorgeous!!!


Kinda of hammered home the importance of shop models. We need to work on that I think!

Saturday came to a close with tired feet and fried brains. We opted for fast food for supper that night and I had my very first Chik-fil-A sandwich. It was quite tasty and now I know what people are talking about when they say Chik-fil-A. I was clueless before!!

That's it for today folks. Have a great day!

Finally! My trip part I

I would like to thank all of you who commented on the loss of my furbaby Missy. While her death was not truly a surprise, in the end it wasn't her leg, her back or her liver that was the deciding factor but her neck and that was a surprise, to me at least as she didn't have any signs of a neck problem until Tuesday night. But at that point I could tell it was a very big problem. The decision to put her to sleep was the right one and I know she is no longer in pain and hopefully she's up in heaven running around with Nicki, Willie and Poncho having a grand old time. She was a wonderful friend and will be missed by all who knew her.

I know this next bit is old news by now, but I'm gonna tell you about my Market Experience anyway. Mary Ann and I were barely over the bridge from Nebraska into Iowa when we had to pull over and back up down the highway. No, we didn't lose something off the car, we didn't have a flat tire, nothing like that. What we did have was a Convocation of Bald Eagles! Mary Ann thought at first they were turkeys but as we went by them, I'm looking at these big birds and I'm saying, I don't think those are turkeys Mary Ann, they looked more like Eagles to me! By this time we were way past them and Mary Ann had come to the same conclusion as I had so we pulled over, waited for traffic to pass and then backed down the highway so I could snap a picture! There were actually about 7-8 of them but I could only get these 4 in the shot.


I know, you can only see 3 in this picture but if you look closely when you click on the picture, you can just see the 4th eagle in the upper right hand corner. He took flight when we backed up. I think the tires crunching on all the gravel on the road scared them.

I saw lots of cool wildlife and items of interest on our trip. Unfortunately, when you are driving 70 mph in a car it's really hard to get decent pictures! We saw a coyote, an oil well on fire, deer, lots of cars in the ditch, and in Tennesee, the natural rock formations leak water and when it freezes, it's makes these really cool frozen waterfall looking things. I tried to get a picture of these but I'm just not that good a photographer. We drove through parts of Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and finally Tennesee on our journey. Got lost in St. Louis when the exit we needed was closed and the GPS kept taking us in a circle back to that exit. Saw the arch:


Visited quite a few rest stops along the way too. When we arrived in Nashville, we happened upon a big antique show so naturally we had to stop and look around. I didn't buy anything but I did see some beautiful old needleart and gorgeous old beaded purses.



Most of the needleart was in frames pressed right up on the glass or had acid matting on them. It broke my heart to see that. I'd have bought them all up if they weren't asking an arm and a leg for the pieces! Most were over $500.00!!

After we finished browsing the antiques, we went over to the Grand Ole Opry. I'm not sure what I expected, I just know the reality wasn't what I had pictured. When I showed Dan my pictures he said the same thing. Not what he expected either.


We didn't take the tour of the backstage that they were offering. I'm sorry but $15.00 to see an empty building seemed a little high to me. I told Mary Ann she could go if she wanted but she decided not to. We thought about buying tickets to the show for Saturday night, Kelly Pickler was performing, but we decided we might be too tired from Market so we passed on that also.

While we were trying to find the Opry House, we saw this sign that tickled our funny bones.


Speed limit 24. Not 25. Speed limit 24. I've never seen that before. It could be I lead a sheltered life and that is normal in other parts of the country. But here in the Heartland it's always 25, 30, 15. Never 24.

Before this becomes an epic novel, I think I will stop here and continue the story in my next post. I don't want to bore everyone just once, I want to bore you over and over and over! Wicked of me isn't it?

In the meantime, please have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

Market apology and bad news.

I am so so sorry I haven't posted. Market was great but I came home to a sick Missy and on Wednesday I had to put her to sleep. I will post about our trip this weekend if anyone is still interested but between getting the market stuff priced and displayed and dealing with the loss of my baby dog I just haven't had the time nor have I felt like posting. I promise to get to it this weekend though. Thanks for your understanding.

Julie

We are here, we are here, we are here!!!

Well, we made it to Nashville/Franklin safely. The trip was uneventful and best of all, the sun has been shining and I didn't have to wear a coat today! When I checked in with Dan today, it was snowing. I may never go home!

Tonight was the meet and greet and then we were able to go upstairs and shop at a couple of different places. Based on what we saw tonight.......tomorrow is going to be a very long day requiring a lot of patience. It's fun though and the sneak peeks were impressive! Autumn in HRH was gorgeous! I don't think we are going to have any trouble finding things to buy. The problem will be weeding it down to manageable amounts.

Quote of the day from Mary Ann: Well, we spent $xxx.xx there but that will probably be our largest expenditure! I say.... Bwahahahaha you naive woman you! :)

Till next time!

Oh my Bags are Packed.....

I'm ready to go, I'm standing here beside the door....

I hate to wake you up to say goodbye.

If you recognize these words, you're dating yourself!!

Heading out as soon as Mary Ann gets here. Have a great day!!

A Not so Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day!!

I'm sorry to say I'm not really in the Valentine mood. Things with Missy are not good. Her back has improved but due to the muscle weakness she has been falling a lot and has blown out her right back knee. When they did the x-rays of the knee they also included her back and her liver as the ER vet had mentioned her liver was enlarged. Nothing showed up with regards to her back as far as boney changes go but it did show an enlarged liver so we ran the necessary blood tests to see what was up. She does appear to have some kind of liver disease which they are going to treat with medicine for the moment. If the medicine doesn't work, they would like to do an ultra sound to see if there is any kind of a mass in the liver. That runs between $300-400. They won't even address the knee issue until the liver issue is under control but it would require surgery so we're looking at somewhere around $1500.00 in vet bills and Dan says he doesn't want to spend the money for that. He would rather spend it on college tuition or fixing the rotting garage door or Abby's car. My head understands where he's coming from but my heart doesn't which is why I'm not in the Valentine's Day mood. When he asked what I wanted for V-day I told him I didn't want or need anything. He didn't listen to me though. I found the 3rd season of Army Wives on the kitchen table this morning.

Speaking of Abby's car.....we filed a police report earlier this week and they came out to investigate. In their opinion, a snow plow hit her car or someone with a plow on the front of their truck. We haven't taken it in yet to see what it would cost to fix but for those who asked, we did keep full coverage on it however our deductible is $1000.00.

I framed this up for Mary Ann last week. I think it turned out spiffy! I like how the grain of the wood mimics the overdyed threads.


Stitching time has been scarce this last week but I'll share what I have gotten done. Just a teeny tiny part on Quaker Diamonds, the Z and the two diamond shapes to the left of it.

I've gotten past the area of concern on the Princesses and I don't think you can tell that I stitched one row twice which means I don't have to rip anything out. Last night I stitched on the darn thing for 3 hours and only got a hundred stitches done. Very frustrating!!

Before:

After:


Oh! I need to share this, Amy has her very first official date tonight. She doesn't think it is a date because "V" didn't actually say would you like to go on a date. BUT! He is picking her up, they are going to that Valentines Day movie, it's Valentines day and he drove by the house yesterday just to make sure he knew where we lived so he wouldn't get lost tonight when he comes to pick her up. To me that says date! What do you think?

Thursday Mary Ann and I will be leaving for our trip to the Nashville Market. We're driving so I hope the weather will be good. Adam is going to loan me his laptop so if I can figure out how to get on line I'll try to keep you updated on our trip and the show although I know they say no pictures can be taken at the show.

Here's a question for you, has anyone here ever stitched with Sullivans Floss? They will be at the show, they apparently have all the same colors as DMC, and supposedly better quality. I'm just curious as to whether anyone has ever used it and did you like it or not.

Enjoy the rest of your Valentines Day everyone and thanks for stopping by and commenting!

Julie

OOPS!! It happened again!!!

It's another cold and gloomy day here in Nebraska but at least we haven't been slammed with snow like the east coast has! Thank God for small favors! Meari asked in the comments last time where I was from. I'm in Papillion Meari which is just outside Omaha. Just a couple hours from Des Moines.

Our trip to Des Moines was good. The roads weren't too bad, we drove right to where we needed to go thanks to the help we got from my friend Eloise. She loaned us her her Garmin. Handy little device to have on a trip! Amy feels she did as well as she could in the competition and that is all we can ask for. 400 seniors are vying for the 6 full ride scholarships and 10 tuition only scholarships and they are all the best of the best. We are keeping good thoughts in our heads about it but it's going to be a long wait until the end of March when we find out the results! Right now her focus is on getting her portfolio ready to send in to the Journalist of the Year competition. We are having a bit of a problem with it though. The competition rules state that she needs an official copy of her transcripts open and in the portfolio. The school refuses to give her an official copy unless it is in a sealed envelope. Amy showed them the rules of the competition but it did not matter to them. It's a sealed envelope or nothing. I hate schools. Why do they have to make everything so difficult for the students who actually are trying hard in school and so easy for the slackers??? I could rant for quite a while on this subject but I won't. While I was in Des Moines, I visited the last remaining (to my knowledge anyway) cross stitch store. To say I was disappointed in the store and the staff would be an understatement. I found absolutely no reason to ever return. There was no greeting from the staff, no asking if we were looking for anything or needed help of any kind. I found very few new items and although it is a wealth of older charts, I found it hard to browse because of the sheer content. If you are looking for something older this would be a great place to look but you need to know what it is you are looking for. And don't expect a warm fuzzy from the ladies there. You won't get it. At least I didn't and I have heard the same from others.

Moving on.....our luck with cars just continues to amaze me. Yesterday Abby went out to her car to leave for school and she found this:


Close up of the worst of it:


Yep! Someone sideswiped her car and drove off. Thanks a lot people! !!*@!!!**#** We just paid off the car last month. I am so mad I could spit nails but that's not going to do any good.

I have an update on Quaker Diamonds finally. I feel like I have been stitching and stitching on this and making no progress at all but I guess when I compare the before and after pictures I am making some progress, just not enough to suit me. I need to get this one finished and framed for the cross stitch exhibition the shop is hosting in April. I'm not eligible to win any of the prizes but I'd still like to have it up for the show.

Here is was at the end of January:
and here it is as of last night:


I need to get Missy girl to the vet this morning so I am going to leave you with......Have a Terrific Tuesday! Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I'll see ya in a few days!