busy, busy

Hung a bunch of my quilts at Cups, a local coffee shop chain (better than Starsucks!) yesterday with my friend Chris. I wish she lived a bit closer to my regular orbit so I could see her more often, but it was fun spending some time with her, and meeting the owner at Cups. The work will be hanging through the end of Sept, then some of them are off to the show in Hattiesburg, and hopefully some will be off to the casino in Vicksburg shortly after that. No word on acceptances for that yet though.

An email the other day about putting together an exhibit at the local community theatre at the end of January in conjunction with their performance of the Gee's Bend play. No, before you ask, the exhibit won't be Gee's Bend-ish quilts created for the production but a variety of quilts to tie in with the quilting theme. I have to go down next week to see the space and how to hang them and that sort of thing. I love that the theatre has related art exhibits for each play too. They had an invitational for the current "Sherlock Holmes" and local artists created SH related work. The next production is To Kill a Mockingbird, so much a favorite that my cat is named Boo Radley.

Some other stuff coming up or already happened, but I've been up, glued to Ike reports since about 2:30 and my thinking is a little fractured, so you're getting stream of consciousness more than any real thoughtful posting. Hey! At least I'm putting a post up!

I had big plans to post a picture too, but I'm on the laptop so I can watch the weather channel so the pic will have to wait.

I'm off to a sew day today with a group of other quilters and I am inordinately excited about it. I know a couple of them, but not as well as I'd like to, am acquainted with a couple others and don't know a couple of them at all. Judging from the ones I do know, I'm sure I'll like all of them and would love to get to know them better. No idea why it's so hard for me to reach out and do the work involved to make friends, but I'm always grateful when others make the effort to include me. There's probably some deep psychological reason for that, or maybe it's just because I'm in the habit of being solitary and a bit isolated in my daily life. I do try to get involved with stuff, and don't mind volunteering and being active, but that's different than making friends.

Speaking of being active, another surprise the other day when I was asked to be one of the committee chairs for the upcoming quilt show this fall. I scribed last year and absolutely loved it! I can still scribe this year since my duties won't overlap the days of judging. We've also put together a very basic crit group and I'm hoping my scribe duties will expose me to some real critiques from the judges. I'd love to be able to apply some of that to my own work also.

After much angst (and laughter with Cindy) we have finally gotten the October gathering put together I think. We even got the info together for the newsletter, which Leslie got out even though she was in the middle of Gustav! The gathering is on the coast, and I'm hoping to get word on a training seminar in Ocean Springs I've applied for through the Arts Alliance that will be held the 3 days following the seminar. One trip to the coast instead of 2 would be nice since the following weekend is the Hattiesburg show, and that's halfway to the coast. Lots of driving (and gas!!) in a week and a half if I have to go down and back for each.

Big prayers for everyone in the path of Ike, and I am dreading the aftermath with so many people deciding to ride it out. I can't help but think of the hurricane party at the apartment complex on the coast during Camille, and the result of that.