Oh Joy! Oh Bliss!

The Kingwood Area Quilt Guild bi-annual Quilt Show is over and I have very mixed feelings about it all.

I organized the Fish Pond/Garage Sale part of the show and I keep wondering if there was more I could have done to sell guild cast offs for more money. I think I raised a lot of money... at least $1,500.00 but I can't help but wonder if there was a better way to do it.

I am VERY happy that it is all over. My dining room is empty of all the boxes and bins I had in there full of stuff. In the end about 50 boxes and bins went through this house to the store room and then to the Quilt Show.

The most positive note, besides raising a lot of money, is that I got rid of absolutely everything... right down to the bags we used to for scrap fabrics and for big grab bags. The final small box of scrap fabrics went to one of the charity sewing groups and the last six books came home with me of which only one is something I would not have bought.

I was lucky in that I got a lot of stuff from a past member's stash as it took some of the pressure off the rest of the guild to get me stuff. I don't know if we will ever have that much stuff the next tme we do this.

To make sure we have lots of stuff next time, I am thinking that every guild member could be asked to get a bin that they will use until the next show to gather their old magazines, books, scraps, dead projects and anything else the next Fish Pond chair can sell. Wtih over 100 potential donors that's a lot of stuff to sell off.

So I have been enjoying the joy and bliss of having my life back. I slept all thorugh the morning without once wondering if there was something I should be doing to prepare for the sale.

I do have one regret that it is all over... I no longer have an incredibe stash of reading material avaiable to me on a whim. I guess that is why one of the last things I did before going to set-up the tables of stuff, I went through the house looking for books and magazines that had migrated out of the dining room into the kitchen, the bathrooms and the bedrooms.

I don't miss that enough to volunteer to do it again!