Crazy Day

In Texas, most of us are preparing in one way or another for Hurricane Ike. Where I live, the storm will probably hit as a tropical storm just to the west of us, so we may be in for some pretty severe weather with possible tornadoes. What fun. 🙂

So I have spent part of the day trying to “batten down the hatches”. That included transferring my horse to the back pasture where he has shelter, getting all the feed pans and small buckets put in the barn, clearing the front porch and deck of anything we don’t want blown into the next county, and making sure we have our emergency supplies.

Needless to say, that has not left a lot of time for writing or keeping up with my virtual tour, or doing much else except keeping WinnsboroToday.com updated. But somehow I did manage to get everything done, and in the middle of it all the most amazing thing happened.

Well, maybe not THE most amazing thing to ever happen, but something so nice I couldn’t let it go by unacknowledged.

Last week I went to a local quilting store where I was going to buy a second hand sewing machine. I am not an avid quilter, although I did enjoy making a quilt for my grandson when he graduated from high school a few years ago. I didn’t own a sewing machine at the time, but a friend loaned me hers.

Now I have another grandson ready to graduate, and I want to make him a quilt. Problem is, my friend moved away and took her sewing machine with her. So I went to the quilting store to see if they had any second hand machines. A clerk at the store had an old Kenmore for sale, and I was thrilled to find one so quickly. When I went the next day to pick it up, however, it turned out that this old machine would not work with a quilting foot. A customer in the store heard me talking with the store owner who was pointing out this problem, and the customer said she had an older machine that she would just give me. She, the customer, was getting a brand new machine designed for quilting, and didn’t need her old machine.

Actually, she had two machines and I could take my pick. So today, I went and picked up a Singer that is probably about 20 to 30 years old, but it is a good solid machine. I offered to pay for the machine and the woman said, “No.” She hugged me and said she hoped that I could put the machine to good use.

I had to stop a moment or two to just savor the experience of being so gifted. What a generous lady. Not often that people will give a perfect stranger something like that.