Happy New Year Y'all!! Here we are with our own thread. I think we should take this opportunity to introduce ourselves to each other since I'm sure we will be doing a lot of communicating over the next few months.
I'm a 60-yr-old grandmother to three beautiful girls. I have two grown daughters -- the oldest is 30, mother to my grandbabies (8 and 5 years, 7 months). My other daughter is 24 and is engaged to be married this April. They both live in the Houston area. My husband and I live in Louisiana, in a house in sort of a woods (what's left after Hurricane Rita a few years back) on the bank of the Calcasieu River. It's not a particularly pretty river by us (narrow with seasonal cabins across from us), but some areas take you back to primitive times when the Cajuns were coming down from Canada and settled the area. It's surrounded by cypress, moss, herons, pelicans, palms, turtles, and (alas) gators and snakes. I've been sewing all my life, but have only been quilting for the last 10 or 12 years. I quilt for enjoyment, meaning I like instant gratification. My quilts are not "heirloom" quilts -- they are curl-up-in-front-of-the-TV-with-the-dog quilts. When I do part with one, it comes with the warning that I better not see it in the bed of the pickup. I collect and hoard fabric and patterns shamelessly. I spend far too much time on the computer with "The Board" and drooling over quilt patterns and fabric websites. Lake Charles is sort of a small city, and I live in an unincorporated area (meaning we don't have our own police, pay our own trash pickup, don't get to vote in city matters that somehow still apply to us, etc.) It's an area that used to be dominated with chemical plants (almost all gone now) and oil refineries (also hurting, and you know why) and now gambling casinos. I guess you could call us a "resort" area. We're about half hour from the gulf, two hours from Baton Rouge, and two hours from Houston. Husband took an early retirement (lucky me) and has devoted his time to proving to the world that he is a triathlete -- and he is. He has competed in many competitions and won his age group several times. This spring he will go to compete in the "Escape from Alcatraz", then to Beijing, China to represent the US in an international competition there, and to Kona in the fall to compete in the Hawaiian Ironman (he qualified by winning his age group in the Panama City Iron Man this past November. For those who don't know what an Iron Man is, it's a 2.2 mile swim in open water followed by a 112 mile bicycle course followed by a 26 mile run. Yes, it is insane. My thoughts are that if God meant us to do that, he'd have given us four legs, gills, and a sprocket.) Though I will admit I am proud of him, we are running out of space for all his trophies and t-shirts and I still cringe when he dons his Speedo. While he's out training, I'm usually home with my 5 dogs (all rescues, none acquired intentionally). I gave up housekeeping, and have devoted myself to my own brand of retirement, doing what I want and when I want. So far things haven't gone bad enough that I can't find my sewing machine, but finding a particular piece of fabric may be a problem.
But enough about me -- how about y'all?