Two guys get on a plane...

Okay, would that be a great beginning for a joke, or what???

Yesterday, I sat next to two very nice and respectable looking gentlemen on the flight from Cleveland to Houston. But, you guys know me and you know what I did. I stuck my earbuds in and pulled my sewing out and pretended I was alone because I'm still not all that confident about sewing in public and what people might think of me when I do it. Doesn't stop me from doing it, tho. But, I'm not fully comfortable with it.

Interesting side note: A flight attendant asked if I was quilting and later, after they'd done their three fast runs up the aisle with the beverage and trash carts and were spending the other two hours and fourty five minutes of the three hour flight sitting in the back reading, I brought it up again while I waited for an open lavatory. She had never heard of a man that sews and seemed surprised that one existed, until she remembered that there were tailors. That seemed to make it alright that a man could sew and brought it into the realm of possibility. Hmmm. I think of flight attendants as very worldly...moreso than I should, maybe.

Anyway, I can hear these guys talking and can tell they are friends and I think at least one of them may be gay, but I keep on sewing, engrossed in my own small world within the cigar tube. Finally, I take off my earbuds and give them a chance to talk to me and you know how it is when you give the universe the opportunity to give you a gift.

Turns out they are a couple, raising a nephew who is a couple years older than our Sydney. One of them turned 50 just 5 days after I did. Of course, we had nothing to talk about.

Right. We talked until we were forced apart by very tight connections. And, we talked about everything. We started with quilting and soon moved to raising kids and how we got our kids and how we never expected to be parents and expectations of our kids and then, after we'd just about said all the nice things we could about our kids, we talked about where we live and where we work and how we spend our time and our friendships and our birthdays. And, all because I made myself open to it.

Ya' gotta be open to new experiences, no matter how uncomfortable you are. I think that might be my new motto this year. Hey, I'm halfway to a century old. If I don't open up now, when am I gonna do it?

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I got home last night, and hour and a quarter late because our connecting plane out of Houston was taken out of service for safety reasons (better to find that out in the airport than in the air, right???) Anyway, they found us a different plane and we were out of there in far less time than I expected and the gate agent was wonderful; funny and informative. She made as light as she could of a difficult situation, giving us the facts and her own recommendations. As I gave her my boarding pass, I made sure I thanked her for that; for her humor and her ability to keep things light and funny from her end. I hope people appreciate it when I say things like that. I think they do, so I keep saying them, because I know how much I appreciate it when people recognize my good work.

This morning, when I should have been unpacking my duffle, I was in the sewing room, finishing up this block (more about it on the Jubilee post). I had the star pieced and just needed to add the background and then join the eight sections. Learned something new about paper piecing that I'll be including in that tutorial I promised...and haven't gotten to.

And, on the planes, I pieced these two quirky Dresden Plates.






I'm still using the theory of using 9 matching wedges and 9 non-matching, but related-in-some-way wedges. I keep reminding myself that this doesn't have to be the "greatest quilt in the world". It just needs to be pleasing to me and to give me pleasure in my hand work as I put it together. Occupying my hands is truly the most important part of it. And, if it ends up being pretty, all the better. If not, it'll make a great vintage fabric dog blanket.

Okay, so that's it for me today. I'm tired. I'm sore on my right side because I think I slept so hard last night that I didn't even move all night. This weekend, I need to do some serious gardening because spring has truly sprung here this week. The iris all over the yard shot up 6 inches each and anything that hadn't started putting on leaves before I left is covered with little furled up green points today. And, the lemon and orange trees are in bloom, so I've got to get them out of the greenhouses right away or we won't get anything this year either. Last year, I left them in just a bit too long and I think we got 4 oranges and 3 lemons...far short of the oodles of citrus we got during the holidays the year before.

Take care and I am so far behind on reading your posts that I don't know when I'll get caught up. But, I will. You just might not remember what you said by the time I get around to commenting.

Lane