Happy New Year! It's so hard to believe that another year has come and gone. To be honest though, I am so happy for 2019 to be here. I love to begin the new year with a light planning session where I can look back to the previous year..it's good and not so good parts, and then make plans for the next year.
First a few of the good things of 2018! We began the year with the birth of a new granddaughter, Miss Lila Rose. It was also the year of a lot of travel and teaching! I loved it all. We were honored to win the International Quilt Market Merchandising Award in Portland (a dream come true) and then came the cover photo on Quilt Retailer!
Oh, and who can forget those darling nine puppies all born while we were in Georgia teaching. You know we couldn't let them all go, so our home was blessed with one big fluffy forever puppy, Little Bear. I received contracts for my first book and fabric line. Such a total dream come true. It was also the beginning of Belle Prairie.
While we were in Dallas teaching we received word that our entire town was evacuated for fire. We had left our son home alone, and he had to evacuate alone. It was one of my nightmares in real time. As a mom you always worry when you are away, but this helplessness was beyond anything I could have imagined. The fires and evacuation lasted over two weeks and we watched as those fires came within a few hundred feet from our homes. We prayed hard and hoped for the best, and were so grateful to return home with no homes lost.
A week after returning, we were then evacuated for another two weeks because of Hurricane Rosa and the fear of mudslides. Our yard and home were trenched and sandbagged...windows boarded up and everything left once again....and the mountain held and we came home. This was an entire month of 2018 spent praying, because there wasn't much else we could do. Tweetle Dee had to sit, no orders could be processed during our busiest season. Oh my, I seriously can hardly believe how crazy that experience was.
Fall ended and winter set in with two huge back to back conferences, teaching everything I love...and fighting off bronchitis. Did I mention the three weeks of pneumonia in February? This meant I had to be extra careful to get sleep and not stress. We were blessed to come home a week before Thanksgiving with 178 orders to paint and frustrated customers who for the most part, patiently waited for us to ship their orders. We made the decision to shut down the Tweetle Dee Shop during our busiest season to catch up. It meant lost revenue, but it was the only way we could fill our orders from the months time we were away.

Wow! What a year!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all - how did I miss that you are designing a fabric line?!? I'm sooo excited to see it! And your book, too.
I know I learned a lot this year about what really matters and what can be let go of when it really comes down to it. Hopefully 2019 will be full of things we love and plenty of time to enjoy them. 🤗
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