Brazos House Retreat - Chinese New Year - Guest Poster

Hey there, Y'all.  I managed to get COVID and not be able to attend retreat, but with the support of the amazing women who surround me, it is still taking place.  My dear friend, Debi, is handling it all and from this point --- she will tell you all about it.

Hi All!  This is Debi Kendrick, Guest Poster for the first Brazos House retreat of 2022!

Chinese New Year means marking the start of the new year with visits to family and friends, special meals, fireworks and gift giving.  All of this happened at the first 2022 Our Quilt World retreat in February, with ice pellets substituted for the fireworks!  

I normally don’t attend February retreats because of work obligations but I had contacted Deb in January feeling sad and needing some girl time so begged for a February spot – and she said yes!  Then, just a few days before retreat began things started just getting weird:  We got a very risky retreat weather report so we made arrangements with our wonderful Kay to allow us to arrive a day early ahead of the weather.  Then Deb called me on the Monday of retreat week and said:  “I have Covid – can you take this one!” – ummm I can but this has never happened before and just feels strange!    We sadly missed Deb but were able to Facetime with her and she kindly and patiently answered all my million texts of “how do I do this, or that, or this!” all while she was miserable with that dang virus.

With permission to arrive on Wednesday I hop out of bed and head to Brazos about 5:30am so I can log in to work there and also get everything set up.  Set up was a breeze with Stan’s help while he regaled me with a new true story he was just itching to tell – The Christmas Day Plane Crash in the Brazos River in Front of Brazos House – told as only Stan can!  Stan’s Punch Line:  “Crash (his grandson) forgot to say when he called 911 it was a two seater plane crash into the river with two injured passengers – so they sent 35 fire and rescue vehicles and two helicopters, expecting a 747!!”  It’s quite a story, ending with two passengers who were VERY lucky that it was Christmas Day, our Brazos House owners were on the fishing pier with their kids, and the Brazos house families were able to save both of them!

As Wednesday progressed unfortunately tables were removed as more ladies dropped out due to weather and illness, and at the end of the day “Eleven Fortunate Ladies Who Retreat” were all in the house, some just before the storm hit!  Janet made us a wonderful warm dinner Wednesday evening and we all gloated about getting an extra retreat day all to ourselves (our “fake” day!).  It was cold, cold, cold, so we bundled up to sleep and woke up to our own personal Texas winter wonderland Thursday morning!  

More and more snow fell throughout Thursday over top of the ice pellets we had received Wednesday and overnight so Kay and Stan couldn’t get down the hill to take care of Fatsy, the chickens and the goats!  There goes our Gwen to the rescue! – ready to break up their drinking water and feed everything! 

While Gwen was outside (she was the only one with boots!) she threw out some bird seed and wah la – Eleven Fortunate Ladies Who Retreat glued to the kitchen window for hours counting tons of red birds in the snow!  How gorgeous and special just for us!

You can probably imagine the sounds of Eleven Fortunate Ladies Who Retreat Stuck Inside – with ALLLL the sewing, napping, bird watching and eating time we could want for the next 3 days!  Oh, and snow angels!!

The Eleven Fortunate Ladies Who Retreat - with SNOW!

Sewing happened Thursday and Friday! Crystal twin worked on a colorful jelly roll race, and her sister Amber twin (this is  how I now have them saved in my phone 😊) worked on her pretty peacock quilt.  Jenn S. worked on a few different projects of course including a pretty autumn quilt and a row by row.  Janet worked on a few patriotic quilts and earned her golden scissors!  Susan worked on some bees and flowers; Terry worked on some pretty green, golds and blues; Cindy worked on a practice quilt which she will later teach at her workplace; Gwen worked on her Farm Girl project; Lydia finished a quirky squares quilt and spent some time with her embroidery hoop (while recuperating from hand/arm surgeries!); Kay finished a gorgeous swirly red and white quilt that no one could take their eyes off of; and myself – well I dug out my unfinished Woolies from several years of retreats back that were yelling at me to finish assembling and embroidering them all for my office wall!!

I decided to purchase a retreat angel to keep at Brazos for those we have lost far too soon.  Jenn and Paula –we love and miss you both dearly.   Our lives are forever changed from having both of you in our lives and we know you are sitting up there sewing together while watching over our work!  A wise woman said recently “Collect Friends as Paula did”, so off we go!

We implemented a new Bingo idea to begin in 2022 and we Eleven Fortunate Ladies Who Retreat tested this right out!  Payment of one fat quarter per game and the winner wins the fat quarters.  We played two games of blackout per day Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and a few games ended in a tie, so the pot of fat quarters was split.  We also played a few extra Bingo games without fat quarters but with Chinese New Year scratch off cards.  I gave everyone two each and then they had a chance to win another card with each game until all the cards were gone.  After all cards were gone everyone scratched (the cards, come on now!).  There were three “winner” cards and those three won commemorative 2022 Chinese Year of the Tiger coins (Terry, Crystal and Gwen? Correct me if I’m wrong!).  There was one “special winner” card (Jenn!) who won a Cherry Blossoms Tea Forte mug and a cute pair of frog children’s chopsticks 😊 

Friday night was our LRC game night!  We moved to the side of the work room where it was a bit warmer and pretty comfy!  Two games and two winners!  Look at those pretty costumes! 

As I was doing nametag charms and adding the cute little fortune cookie charms planned for this retreat, Deb had told me what to watch for when adding numbers of retreats.  Out of 11 retreaters we had FOUR advancements and I was so excited to present them even though I had to text Deb manyyyyyy times to make sure I had the tiara and pins correct!  So much pressure!!!  Haha!  Congratulations Kay, Janet, Susan and Lydia!

On Saturday we woke up feeling wonderful and warmer and pleased at what felt like an extra sneaky retreat day 😊   There was sunshine and some melting, so some decided to venture out to Babe’s for lunch and Sew Krazee, our fav quilt store in Granbury which is sadly closing soon.  Deb had sent us a wonderful take and bake casserole for Thursday night dinner from a Kay recommended place in Glen Rose – Sugar Biscuits – and some liked it so much they ordered take and bake casseroles to take home which Gwen picked up as well as lunch from there for those who didn’t want to venture out.  Lots more sewing happened! 

(Hmmmm - added by Deb --- )

All too soon, as usual, Sunday morning arrived and it was time to pack up.  Everything outside had melted just in time for safe travels home; and clean up was easy-peasy.  Except, sorry for one of the "box of boxes" I accidentally dumped upside down in the back of the closet Deb – I’ll clean it up in March, promise!  CHEERS!!