Clover update:  I answered so many emails about Clover and posted on Facebook about her, but I forgot to mention here, that she was OK.  She had an abscessed tooth that got so bad, her tonsil got an abscess that grew so large it was cutting off her breathing and she needed emergency surgery to drain the swelling.

She woke up feeling "super" as she told the nurse. She's on antibiotics for now and is home from the hospital and back in school.

Its terrifying to think that a tooth ache can become life threatening!

Now that my little chicks have flown the coop and my studio is empty once again, I've been reflecting on just how lucky I am to have such a wonderful group of ladies come to see me. 

Here is a before photo, taken while I was waiting for the group to arrive. Who knew my studio could clean up that well??  I was able to comfortably (at least everyone assured me, they were okay and comfy) seat   25 ladies. 

To save space, I didn't do centerpieces, instead I simply drew on the plastic table cloths to foof them up a bit.  At first, I was going to do a seating chart and write their names on the table (my pal, Lori's idea) but Beth told me that I should let them chose their own seats and I think she was right.  Lori meant that I needed a personal touch, not just a seating chart.

I went with inspirational quotes featuring birds instead and added some quickie pictures. It was about a 15 minute project to do all five tables, so not the greatest art, but it was just "atmosphere".

Each table had a roll of paper towels and a box of baby wipes.  Not so fancy, but necessary.  I was going for practical and comfortable instead of gorgeous. And every inch of space counts when you are trying to create at a full table!

(I snitched this photo from Beth's blog- its taken before the table cloth got put on the garden tables)

Luckily the weather mostly cooperated and we could have meals outdoors. On Sunday, things got chillier, so I decided to build a bonfire for everyone to warm up by if they didn't want to stay indoors during lunch break. You should have seen me scurrying through the woods grabbing fallen branches and twigs for kindling!  But by the time lunch was ready, I had a roaring fire going and was pretty proud of myself.

But its not easy to build bonfires while setting out lunch and I had a nagging feeling that I'd forgotten something.  And yep, in my fridge sits a neglected vat of homemade coleslaw.  It looks like a lifetime supply, but coleslaw does not quite last a lifetime. 

My studio feels so empty with everyone gone. 

About half way through Sunday afternoon, I was already starting to miss them and they hadn't even left yet.  Luckily, the ones who weren't too worn out and those who weren't travelling that night or early the next day started making plans to go out to dinner and I was able to join in. I wasn't ready to say goodbye!

And the next day, I still had Sherry and Lisa at the house. Sherry treated me to lunch downtown before she flew home, and that helped.

But today? I miss them all!!!

Over the weekend, it was just too hard to express how much the weekend meant to me. I tried a few times, and would start to cry when I attempted to tell the girls.

So maybe I can say it here, in writing. Where you can't see my nose turning red and my eyes welling up.

When I cry, my nose goes all Rudolph on me.

You know I love blogworld, right? I've met some wonderful people online.  And at various events around the country, that I've been lucky enough to attend.  There is such a feeling of community, and creativity in the air at these places. 

Silver Bella was the first that I attended and it got me hooked. I'll miss going there and am sad about its demise.  But it wasn't the event itself, it was the people I met that mattered. (That place had its flaws, which I was able to overlook till this year.) Now, after flying out to Kim's weekends in CA,  hosting my own, and making plans to go to Jenn's and to Paper Cowgirls, I see that we don't have to go to Omaha to capture the feeling.  We can snatch it no matter where we gather, and honestly, I think that these smaller, more intimate gatherings are even more chock full of that glittery glow than the giant affairs are.

It meant the world to me that these women travelled from all over to be HERE, with me, that they trusted me with their precious time off from work and family and would come all the way to Kansas (a place not exactly in the top  ten of vacation hot spots) to play in my studio with me.

Life has not always been golden for me, and I think it takes some really bad times to know just how blessed the good ones are.  But having gone through rough periods, it can also be hard to have a healthy sense of worth, being beaten down can always leave a person doubting themselves no matter how hard they have worked to build up a new and positive life over the ruins of an old one.

So, I have to say that at some points during Birdsong, I was overwhelmed thinking that all these kind ladies flocked in from all over the country to come to my cottage in Kansas. And that caused some verklempt-ness.  I felt a bit like Sally Field at the Oscars when she said, "you like me, you really like me!"

But luckily, I just got weepy instead of embarrassing myself with dopey words.  Oops, I just wrote them for thousands of people instead of saying them in front of a couple dozen.

Am I a little too worked up over such a small gathering?  Well, it wasn't 200 people that is for sure.  But I know how hard it is to budget time and incomes and to pull off a girl's weekend for most busy moms or grandmas. So whether it was 5 people or 500 people, it touched my heart that these ladies each chose to come here.

I hope they know how much I appreciate that choice they made with their vacation time.

But now, its back to my every day life, with no big weekend to plan for. I thought I'd feel let down and lonely, but with this little fairy friend to keep me company, how could I? Plus, the weekend was just too good to feel down now.