the up side

Now that I have the raving off my chest I need to point out the up side of traveling to Madison, WI. :o)
When you travel for work there isn't much to do during the time that you aren't working. So early on I started checking the phone book as soon as I checked into the hotel to see if there were any quilt shops in the area. As I mentioned I don't travel as often anymore and only travel to one client in Madison. I have on one trip or another visited all the shops in the area. My favorites are JJ Stitches in Sun Prairie and Mill House Quilts in Waunakee. Sun Prairie isn't very far from where we stay. There are 3 decent shops in the small community of Sun Prairie, but JJ Stitches is my favorite and they are open week nights until 5:30 so I can usually get there at least once. Mill House is more difficult since they close at 5 except on Thursday and this trip we left on Thursday. It's also a little more difficult when I travel with the guys from work. Funny they don't think that fabric shopping is that fun. Go figure. :>\ The first picture is my purchases from this trip. The top 2 are to add to this collection I have been working on for about a year. I collected the fabrics for the Morning Star quilt on my bed the same way starting with one I really loved and collecting from there. I really like how it turned out. I haven't yet figured out what I want to use for a pattern for this, but I think I have almost enough of a variety to get started. I am thinking of something along the lines of Whimsical's Fireside Cozy or Miss Rosie's Quilt Company Cracker Crumbs. Something very scrappy. Anyone have a good really scrappy almost charm pattern?

someone needs to tell me

Someone really needs to tell me who is safe to fly. I have limited choices flying out of our small airport in Maine, but I have tried them all. I used to have to travel a lot for work and for convenience of scheduling and problems with United, Continental and USAir, I almost always flew Delta. Until the day they called me at 2:00 am, 2:30 am and 3:00 am to tell me my 6:00 am flight had been cancelled and they had rescheduled me on a 9:00 am flight. After I got to the airport for my new 9:00 am flight I found they hadn't actually bothered to tell the other airline I was now going to fly with them and they didn't have a seat for me. Consequently I had to wait an additional 3 hours to catch the next flight out and then got searched at every airport because my tickets were last minute. NOT MY FAULT. The end result was that a flight that should have taken max 5 hours took over 9 and was very stressful because my bags and I got searched at every checkpoint.
After that horrible day I switched to Northwest. They worked well for a while until about my last 3 trips. Equipment problems and last minute gate changes plagued my previous 2 trips, but nothing major. Then was the trip I took last week. I left my house feeling fine and boarded on time and arrived in Detroit, but then sat on the tarmac for about 25 minutes because the airport was closed. I guess it was for weather, but since I had a fairly long layover I figured it would be fine. Got into the airport ate lunch and found our new gate. The gate had another flight listed so I went up and checked for sure. Yes, we had the right gate. After waiting for a while the announcement comes that the equipment for the flight is in the hanger for repairs. They were "trying to find other equipment" and would keep us informed. Shortly they say that they have a new plane and it is coming up to the gate, but that the ramp is again closed for weather, but "as soon as it pulls up we should be able to turn it around in 30 minutes". So we watch the pretty thunder and lightning and as the plane starts towards the gate they announce that they have changed our gate. We gather our things and hurry to the other end of the airport. It couldn't be a close gate. No way. We finally start to board and think we are under way. Not at all. After we got on the plane they announced that we would be waiting 45 minutes while they offload fuel since the plane had been set up to go somewhere else. Again not on much of a problem UNTIL they remove the air conditioning. By the time the plane was in the air it had to be 100 degrees and my sinuses were completely clogged. I had a very uncomfortable flight and was sick for my entire business trip.
I was anxious to get home in my own bed, but my return flight had a new adventure for me. As we check in we are informed that both my flights are delayed. Ok, at least I will get home. My sinuses including my ears are still plugged so I am not looking forward to it anyway. To make a long story shorter we arrived over half an hour late in Detroit and my second flight wasn't delayed after all. I had exactly 10 minutes to get from gate A23 to C32. Anyone who has ever been to the Detroit airport knows that is not a short distance and there is no bus. I run as best as I can carrying my laptop and other things and barely breathing because I haven't recovered physically from my first flight. Then I am still about 8 gates away as they announce that everyone needs to be on my flight for immediate takeoff. So I go flying down the escalator and wrench my shoulder trying to make it. The girl tells me as I am gasping for breath "I know you had a long run I just need your boarding pass" At that point I just wanted to smack her. Like they couldn't have held my plane for a little longer so I wouldn't have to kill myself since it was their fault I was late in the first place? It was obvious they knew I was there and when I had gotten in. Don't the airlines care about customer service at all anymore? I am still recovering. My ears have been plugged since I flew in on Thursday and I have had a horrible sinus headache that has only abated when I have taken pills. I used to love to fly. I still like to travel, but flying has become such an ordeal it's almost not worth it unless you have a day at each end to waste getting to and from your destination.
Sorry this has been such a long post. I had only intended a short rant, but after I got going I couldn't seem to stop myself. I guess I will have to look on the bright side... I only have to travel for business once or twice a year now.

round two

Silly me I waited until that last minute to do my Round Robin this month. Now I have to leave on a business trip on Monday and I had to rush to finish it up. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out though.
The tree is done with Heat 'n Bond crumbs. The person who made it took a class last year and had been looking for something to do with the block she made in class. She thought it would be great to have us all finish it up for her. :o) After the confetti triangle border I decided this tree needed wonky packages. I wanted the plain border to give it a look of dimension. It looks a little more dimensional in person than in the picture. I like the way the packages turned out. Tonya's houses inspired me. It is so far from what I usually do, but it was fun and I think it goes well with what was there so far. So far I am having a great time with this Round Robin. It is really making me work outside my usual quilting zone.

a couple fewer stresses

I keep hoping that pretty soon things will calm down enough so that I can breathe. I think we made some huge steps in the last week towards getting there. We have been working pretty steadily on getting the house all ready for showings. We have moved more unnecessary furniture to the new house and our dining room now echoes. :o) No interest yet, but when someone is ready for a showing we will be too.
My son graduated this afternoon. The last week has been a huge stress leading up to today. They had mandatory marching practices and Senior activities all this week. In his mind he graduated a week and a half ago when the Seniors didn't have to classes anymore. It's been a struggle. He said he wanted to have a cookout after the ceremony and invite his friends and families so we started working towards that. Opened the pool, started inviting people and bought a bunch of food. Then he decided that he didn't. We told him it was too late since people had already been invited, but he stopped inviting so we have a ton of food left over. Oh well, I will freeze the hamburgers and we will have lots of cookouts this summer.
We managed to keep a very big secret from DS to surprise him for graduation. DD told him she couldn't afford airline tickets to come for the ceremony. He had accepted that. We spent yesterday packing up boxes to take to the other house and we told him we had to take that load over. We dropped everything off and went to the airport to pick up DD and her boyfriend. We got home and he was watching a movie. She popped into the room and he looked at her like he didn't know who she was. He was so surprised. We thought that one of my friends had spoiled the surprise on Tuesday when she inadvertently told her husband that DD was going to be here in front of DS. Luckily, he was doing the teenage thing of ignoring everything that adults say. :o) I guess sometimes the things that annoy us can come in handy.
DD wanted to stand on the bleachers for the picture of them so she could be taller than he is again. She is 4 years older and he is about 10 inches taller now.

On a happy quilty note. I finished all the remaining 9-patches for my Sew Scrappy. Now I just have to sew the top together and piece the border with the waste hst's.