Blogging in the Real World

Have you ever met a blogging friend in "real life"?

It's funny, I've built relationships in this two-dimensional blogging world but then when I met Alicia face to face something strange happened... the reality that someone very real with a very real life and very real kids has been on the other end of all those comments and emails hit me. I don't think I'll blog the same way again. I think I'll be much more thankful for you, my readers. You're not just here to quickly skim the pictures of my latest projects and then leave without a trace, you really care. Thank you for caring.

Alicia moved to Asheville from South Dakota just a few short weeks ago. My husband had to be in Asheville for some business meetings this weekend, so we coordinated a trip with my parents to visit lots of family along the way to meet Alicia and her kids.

We met at Tupelo Honey Cafe to try the fare that has been raved about in Southern Living. I had the Sweet Potato Pancake. It's a large buttermilk pancake flavored with spices and sweet potatoes, and just to make things more interesting they added maple granola right in to the batter! A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!

Our kids totally hit it off! Owen even asked to hold Noah's hand at the end of breakfast on the way to our next stop. How cute is that!? I love how easily kids can make friends, it's like the only criteria is that you are remotely close in age. I wish it could be that easy for adults.

This picture was hilariously hard to take, but we finally corralled all of our kids just in time for a quick group shot.

Alicia really is a gem, one of those special people I can tell will be a friend for a long time. You know that feeling you get when you meet someone new and you kind-of experience your world in a fresh way through their eyes? You're always thinking, "I wonder what they would think about that?" and "I can't wait to hear what she'll say about this." Yeah, I have that feeling.

But just in case I didn't get a good feeling when I met her (I mean what if she were some crazy serial killer!?) I made her some pumpkin spice bread wrapped in a fun dish cloth. I guess the plan was to throw it in another direction and run if I had to! ha!

I appliqued North Carolina on the top there, can you see it? The fabrics don't stand out as much as I had originally intended, but I will be making more of these.
Side Note: Have you ever worked with sac cloth? It's pretty wonderful. Even after washing and pressing it still has all of these great, tiny little wrinkles. You haven't seen the end of the sac cloth projects, I can't wait to sew with it again. So it was a great weekend with wonderful company and tons of good food, and I have this little blog to thank for all of it... this blog and a very creative God who could coordinate the meeting of two perfect strangers from different sides of the country! Yay God!