My last day at Cris’s was excellent and she has 2, count them 2, owls that like to perch in the eaves of her house. If you are quiet and make no sudden moves they will just sit for a few moments and let you just take in all of the grandeur that these animals entail. They are SO beautiful and they are so very quiet when they fly. But the cutest thing is that they talk, or HOOT” to each other.
The drive was hard this year. I had really big storms again all the way from the Colorado, New Mexico border all the way into Nebraska so I got to Milwaukee tired and I do not think that I ever recovered. Saturday was a 4 hour drive into Milwaukee, set up the classroom, check into the hotel, airport pick up run and then hooking up with Andrea & Whit for dinner and that turned out to include Donna Mehnert and Illana from Israel. You know you are back in Milwaukee when there are loads of people at dinner with you and the laughter is raucous.
Well, workshops started bright and early on Sunday morning and finished up on Tuesday night. Everyone made such amazing things and I could not have been happier to see all of the strides that people made in their own skills and how far they thought outside of the box as they worked over those few days.
My remaining 10 classes started on Wednesday, as always, that day is my hardest day. I teach from 8am to 7pm. There are 3 classes a 30-minute "break" as you run across the convention center and get set up for the 3 hour meet the teachers. The day ends up being somewhere from 18 to 20 hours long because there is NO WAY on this green earth that you can just dive into bed after. It does take a few to unwind and try to breath again.
The rest of the weeks classes went so amazingly well. There was much levity and good humor as each of these people got to learn something new and to gain new skills.
Saturday night was the event of the week. Not only is it the Bead Social it is the silent & live auction for Breast Cancer and I received my Excellence in Bead Artistry Award from the bead & Button Staff. I was also given a $1000 gift certificate from Shipwreck Beads.
Mmmmmm Just Thinkin' 'bout what I MUST have…
Andrea, Terri, Cris, Gail, Stacey, Karen and a few others had been plotting to see how best to make me laugh the hardest… I think that they figured it out.... um the tiara and the flowers were NOT part of what the B&B staff had in mind but they played along with the joke beautifully.
The best part of the evening was the live auction. Andrea Guarino-Slemmons, Terri Caspary-Schmidt & I had pieces in the live auction and my friend Cris Leonard had one of her Dragon Fly Lentil Beads on a chain in the silent auction. I know that I am missing a HUGE number of people that participated in the event but we were the loud ones that made people spend more money on the pieces for a great cause.
The show was wonderful, classes went very smoothly and as always it is great to see all of those people that you only get to see a few days out of the year and there is never enough time to see everyone nor is there enough time in those days to get enough sleep and there is barely enough time for cocktails and good food. I would not trade these days for anything. This show is one of the highlights of my year and this year was made truly special for me by all of my friends and adored one that made a special effort to be there to support me and share in a very special evening with me.
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