home again.....

Back home again after being gone for 6 days up to Puyallup, WA for the Sewing Expo. Sorry there are no pictures - I didn't want to keep track of a camera and the pictures I took with my phone are very blurry.....not the best for photography, it's just a phone after all.

Friend Pat and I left last Tuesday morning ahead of a snow storm, our only one of the winter. Pat's good friend Louann rode with us as far as Portland - so nice to get to know her better on the ride up and back. Thank goodness we decided to go up a day early or we may not have made it until Thursday. Only stop on the way up was for cheese, crackers and wine at Trader Joe's. Terrible drive up with pouring rain....but at least it wasn't snow!

Wednesday morning found us at Shipwreck Beads - whoo hoo!  Lots of time spent shopping there. After that we went to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma - what a great museum. The featured exhibit currently is of paperweights/orbs by Paul Stankard. These are no ordinary paperweights/orbs though - they're beyond belief incredibly detailed ones. We were lucky to see a film of how he works with the glass before we saw the actual orbs. We braved the pouring rain and cold winds to walk up to the bridge of glass, it was well worth it. We finished up the afternoon with a stop at Hello Cupcake for cupcake & tea.

Thursday, Friday and half of Saturday was spent at the Sewing Expo. Oh my gosh - so many people, so much shopping! I saw many fashion shows and took some great classes.....and got just a bit lots of shopping in. I left with the creative juices flowing...now if I could just find extra hours in my day so I can follow through.

We decided we had enough of Sewing Expo mid-day Saturday so we headed south to Portland for the night. A fun trip to Ikea was in order as were swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and ligonberry jam from the eatery there. Found a few treasures. And of course, a stop at Trader Joe's on the way home yesterday. Our Trader Joe's is under construction and will be open in the fall - whoo hoo! It will be around 45 minutes east of home but 3 minutes from Sam's office.

I would have loved to have jumped right in today being creative but I spent my morning boxing up orders from my etsy shops and catching up on bookkeeping, inventory, etc. Now it's off to the post office but I need to go find a rolling cart to get all these boxes in the van and into the post office....such problems.....