New Year's Recap

We left home on Wednesday morning, Richmond-bound. We took our time, following the Secret Route rather than struggle with the frustration of I-95. Last summer we'd discovered a terrific breakfast-and-lunch place in Millington, Maryland.

At that time, I wrote: "We stopped at an unknown lunch spot in an unknown town in Maryland and, friends, it was the kind of place where you'd expect to see Ruth and Idgie walk through the door at any minute brandishing their fried green tomatoes. The proprietress was doing it all -- clearing the tables, taking the orders, cooking the orders, delivering the food, and all with a style and panache that had us captivated. People seemed to know each other but the fact that they didn't know us --yet -- didn't daunt them a bit. We had a marvelous lunch and splurged on a chocolate milkshake to go, because somehow we knew she would make it just right."

We got to thinking about that place as we were driving on Wednesday and thought we just might get there in time for an early lunch. We did. And to our dismay, there was a sign on the door that the place had moved to Chestertown. Having no real deadline other than being in Richmond in time for dinner (because just who would want to miss Anastasia's lasagne?) we ambled our way over to Chestertown and the River Heart Cafe now located on the corner of Cross and Cannon Streets and there was dear Deb, the aforementioned proprietress, with her distinctive black bean soup and all was so far beyond well! If you go to C'town, don't miss her. She's open weekdays for lunch and First Fridays for dinner and she said something about Saturday breakfast, but I was so full of chicken cheese quesadilla that the details are a tad fuzzy.

Once in Richmond, we stayed at a very inexpensive motel, a Days Inn that was literally a four-minute drive from T&A's place. It wasn't elegant. But it had clean rooms with comfortable beds and decent showers. Couldn't get the wifi in the room, just the lobby. But for approximately $40 per night, I decided I could live with that and do my minimal internetting from Tom's.

It was terrific to have everyone together. Amy and Anastasia at various points looked exhausted but everyone pitched in and helped. Thursday night's dinner was a group effort and Friday night we got Mexican take-out.

One day Sherry, Amy, Amy's GPS and I made our way to this wonderful quilt shop, "Quilting Adventures," which specializes in fresh, bright contemporary cottons and they have a delicious and abundant assortment of batiks. I wanted to pick up a little something for my blog-revitalizer and also wanted Amy to select some fabrics for a quilt for her baby boy. It's a great place, and we had a marvelous time and left knowing we'd done our part to keep this fine shop in business a little longer!

Our trip home was uneventful. We left Richmond at five in the morning on Saturday because we'd been invited to a noon wedding. The traffic was cooperative (as it certainly should be on that hour of a Saturday) and we arrived home in plenty of time to change into our wedding finery and go off to see Herb and Elaine make their vows, followed by a lovely little party at their friends' home.

So it's a new year, filled with potential, certain joys and as yet unknown sorrows. I'm working today on finishing up a top into a flimsy and hope to post about it tomorrow sometime. I'm going to set a slide-show gadget on da blog to show all of my finishes for the year; now that is something I've never done before.

Wishing all of my readers a good new year, and all who work at schools abundant snow days.