It really started 25 years ago

This weekend's festivities really started 25 years ago when I went away to college. For some reason my roommate had not been set until very close to when we were to be at school for freshman orientation. All we were able to do is have a conversation on the phone. No exchange of pictures and letters. (I guess that doesn't happen in today's college world. Facebook has probably taken care of that!) So I had no idea what my roommate would look like. I just knew that her name was Maria, that she was from Lenoir, NC and that she had the most amazing southern accent. Oh, and that she wanted to be a teacher. She knew that my name is Teresa, that I was (and still am) from Middleburg, FL and that I wanted to be a lawyer. (Yes you read that right, I wanted to be a lawyer, a corporate lawyer to be exact.) So over the phone we discussed what each of us would bring to our dorm room. I had a mini fridge, she had a fan (we didn't have air conditioning in our dorm) and what colors we would get for our bedspreads.

We found out, fairly quickly if I'm not mistaken, that we were not all that much alike. Maria went home most weekends and I stayed to enjoy the fun that is college. After a semester of hearing how she just wasn't happy with her roommate, Maria's mother told her to get a single room, or learn to deal. Maria got a single room, right across from the room we had shared, and we became the best of friends. Because even though we couldn't live in the same room, we found out that we really did like each other. In fact, you could find us together a whole lot more when we weren't roommates anymore, then when we were.

At some point during the 3 years that I attended what was High Point College, and is now High Point University, we decided that should we ever get married I would be the "token white girl" in her wedding and she would be the "token sister" in mine. About a year ago she called in my promise and on Saturday I fulfilled my duties. It was a wonderful weekend and I got to meet more of Maria's family and friends. Seems some of us have a lot in common.

I'm going to post pictures of the weekend, but it's going to take some time to cover what went on. It's not like I just got there and there was a wedding! This was an event and there is a lot to report. Not to mention I took a side trip to our old stomping grounds at HPC/HPU and went on a tour of the campus. I needed the tour since I barely recognized the place there's been so much change.

I'll start with arriving in Greensboro on Wed., skipping the 3 hour layover in the Atlanta airport where I had a couple of interesting conversations with two different women. One who wanted to know about knitting socks (which I was doing to relieve my boredom) and the other who was beading to relieve hers. Back to Greensboro, I had arranged for a rental car and while at the counter decided that maybe I should get one of those cute little GPS deals to help me find my way around. It was one of the best decisions of the weekend! I ended up driving around in a PT Cruiser. My DF Heather has one, but I've never really ridden in hers. I actually liked it. I would have liked it more if the one I had came with cruise control, but oh well.

I was met by my DF Judy and we were off to her house and then to do some shopping and dinner.That's a picture of the front of her lovely home. It is just as beautiful inside. We didn't stick around too long. We were off to This & That to look at yarn, ok, I wanted to look at yarn. I found a cute pattern for a scarf and bought a skein of the suggested yarn since it was one I hadn't seen or worked with. No pictures of that, sorry. I managed to get to see the "old" store since on Sunday they moved to a new location.

After that we headed to Belk so I could pick up a gift for the wedding for my parents. Seemed easier to do it that way in the long run. Didn't take long and then we headed to the shoe department. That was kind of interesting since we found shoes, NASCAR shoes. I'd never seen NASCAR shoes for women. I have pictures of what we found on my phone, but can't seem to get them to download, but if you're interested in the current selection, head on over to see what is in this season for women. By then we needed nourishment and something to drink. As luck would have it DF Judy had made us reservations with some other friends for a Beer Dinner at Brixx. We enjoyed 4 courses and a different beer paired with each from Bell's Brewery. I actually liked a couple of the beers enough to want to know where I can buy them around here. I was also intrigued by the descriptions of some of the others.

That about covers Wednesday's activities. I'll have to continue with more tomorrow.

It was a busy weekend

DF Jill was in town this weekend and we used almost every minute doing something fun. From having a wonderful dinner with friends we used to work with, to stitching and knitting with other friends, we were busy, busy, busy!

That being said, I have no pictures, so you'll have to head over to Jill's blog to see a few that she took over the weekend.

There is no rest for the weary. I'm heading to NC on Wednesday for my first college roommate's wedding in Lenoir. I'll spend the night with DF Judy on Wednesday night, since I'm flying into Greensboro and Judy is conveniently located in said city. Then Thur. morning I'll drive over to Lenoir for the festivities. I'm very excited to get to spend some time with Maria before the wedding. We haven't actually seen each other in several years, but do a pretty good job of keeping in touch. I'm sure I'll have pictures from that weekend when I return.

Tonight I spent some time working on a little something for the bride-to-be. I haven't done any beading in awhile, but I wanted Maria to have something special, so I asked her what she was planning to do with her hair. Seems she's not having a full veil, so I asked if she'd like some "hair jewels" to put a little sparkle and add something to her "do". She apparently trusts me to do something that she'll like so I'm making her some pins. I'm not going to put pictures up until after the wedding. She might be reading this and I don't want to spoil the surprise. I think they look lovely, and I hope she'll like them. I plan on getting a picture of her hair when it's all done and they are in. Won't that be something different?

A funny thing happened...

in front of the church tonight. Let me set the scene. I had just finished a fairly uneventful meeting of our church's Staff Parish Relations committee. I like uneventful meetings as I'm currently the chair and uneventful means things aren't all that bad. But, back to the story.

Our church sits on Main Street. Of course in our town Main Street is no longer the main thoroughfare, that has long since moved to the 4 lane state road about a block away from where our 184 year old church sits. However, Main Street leads to the public boat ramp, and in these parts and in this kind of weather that means Main Street gets a fair amount of traffic. Like all good Methodists there's always a few folks who want to chat after a meeting. I'm fairly sure this is true of other denominations as well, but I could be wrong. Tonight it was just myself, our Pastor and another lovely lady we'll call Brenda, mainly because that's her name and I'm not good at making names up for people. Brenda and I were standing on the sidewalk talking about something when this nice large pickup truck, a Chevy I believe, went by with a nice boat attached. As he pulled up next to where we were I heard what almost sounded like a cat-call, you know a whistle, like construction workers are accused of making only this wasn't human, it was electronic. That's right, it was a horn of some sort on this guy's truck. I was speechless for about 2 seconds and then turned to Brenda and said, "That must have been for you." To which she replied, "I think not!" I love Brenda, I've known her since I was in high school. She's a lovely woman and by no means "elderly", but she's seen the half century mark and moved past it I'm sure since she has kids a few years younger then me. We both laughed and finished our chat and got in respective vehicles to go home.

Why am I telling you this? Mainly because as I was driving off I realized that only in small town America could something like that happen. Plus it put me in mind of the famous phrase made popular by Jeff Foxworthy. You know..."You might be a redneck if..." you toot your cat-call horn at a girl standing in front of the Methodist church after you've been fishing on the creek.

Yep, only in small town USA!

Long awaited pictures

Well at least some pictures, but not all of the pictures.

Let's start with this
These lilies crop up in our yard after it rains. Well, to be technical they crop up in some pots we have. They only bloom if it rains. You can water them with water from the well, and nothing will happen, but a few days after it rains, maybe even just a day after, they will bloom. They last a few days, then they're gone. Mom & I want to naturalize them in the back of the yard, but can't until we've done some other things. Aren't they pretty? My Great-aunt Grace always called them "rain lilies".

Then there's the flowers we bought from a catalog. They came as bare roots and my aunt laughed about us planting sticks. Well, this is what one of the sticks produced.It's a type of hibiscus. The company calls them Sub-Zero Mixed Hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos). The bloom is really big and so pretty. Although apparently they taste good too since something has been eating on it, even with the spraying that it's been getting.

In case you were wondering this is what it looked like when we'd gotten part of the backsplash taken apart.The yellow part is without Formica, just the board underneath. It's all done and now we have to go look for tile. Not something I'm looking forward to if I'm totally honest about it. Gotta say I actually like the shade of the board with the new Corian, so we may go with something close to that with some black accent tiles. Who knows though.

That's all for today. I'm tired from band practice and the heat. Plus today is my dad's birthday, so I should at least have a piece of birthday cake with him before the day is through.

Really?

So, as most of you that read this on a semi-regular basis must know by now I belong to an online group called Ravelry. If you knit or crochet or spin or love yarn then you should join this group. Within this lovely online community are smaller "forums" groups of people who share interests. It's amazing how many different and diverse things we're all interested in. I mean everything from Dr. Who groupies who also knit or crochet, to groups for almost any university or college in the country to well, NASCAR. Yeah, NASCAR. The main group is called "go fast, knit left", and if you know anything about NASCAR you'd get the play on words. Yes, I belong to this group and the other group who are knitting or crocheting in order to send afghans to Victory Junction later this year.

So, in the "go fast, knit left" group today there was a link to a quiz to find out which driver you're like. Seems this is me...



Interesting. At least I thought it was. He's actually becoming one of my favorite drivers, more for what he does off the racetrack then on it. And let's face it, he's cute and single (yeah, he has a girlfriend but as mom says they ain't married they're still single!) and I think he could support me and my yarn/fiber/stitching obsessions. So he's kind of got a lot going for him.

I'm a bad blogger!

Seriously, I know I am because I haven't posted anything in over a week. That's pathetic. And to be honest, I probably have stuff to post, but no pictures to go with the, at least not right now. So, here's a quick update in case you were wondering what's been happening in my life.

1. No, I still don't have a new job, but thanks for caring enough to ask. And yes, I'm still looking.
2. Mom & Dad made it back from my their vacation. They had a great time and enjoyed spending time with family. I've been promised a visit to my cousin Ronnie's house near Emory, VA if we get to go back in August, as well as a trip up to White Top Mt. where my father was born.
3. I'm scheduled to teach more classes then ever at my LYS in the next two months. Hopefully people will sign up for them. Apparently someone already has for a couple of them so that's good news.
   
4. I finished my cropped cardigan and need to block it. Thankfully it fits and looks pretty darned cute on me. (Picture forthcoming when Kathe gets back from her trip and can download and send me a copy of the picture she took of it last week.)
5. Today mom & I took all the Formica off the backsplash and from around the window in the kitchen. Now we know what we have to work with and can go find tile to put up in it's place.
6. I need to stitch my ornaments for the upcoming ornament exchange, but I haven't even started. Even worse, I don't think I stitched a single thing last month. That's sad. Stitching has taken a back seat to getting ready for knitting and crochet classes, but still, there must be time for everything!
7. Yes, I did get my room cleaned. I'm still sorting through some drawers and things like that, but the hard stuff is done!

So, that about does it for today. I'm going to try and do better and blog on a more regular basis. But please bear with me. Oh, and if you read this and I normally read and comment on your blog, know that I'm also woefully behind on that as well. Right now my reader says I have 855 entries to read. Needless to say I probably won't read all of those, but I will be reading some. It seems I've needed some time away from the computer. But I'm still around, lurking and reading!