Saturday Filled with Friends

Saturday was my day to meet up with friends. I drove to Rochester and got together with my old college roommate. We were freshman newbies at Mankato State College in Minnesota. Lori was a biology major planning on teaching and me, I was a going to be high school English teacher at the time. (I know what you’re thinking, this girl with all the typos and misspellings an English teacher??…well you can see why I changed majors..HA!)

We were both farm girls. Both of our dads milked cows…both of our moms were farmers too. We both came from small schools. Both of us were ready for the “big world” or so we thought.

We got along really well. Lori didn’t have a car at college, stayed the weekends and really got to know people and made new friends. Me, not so much…I was working. I had a car and often went home. I was dating a guy and he was from home so I went home often.

Lori loved the college experience….I just wanted to be onto the next thing. I started taking the maximum amount of credits possible. I wanted to be done. For our sophomore year, we stayed being friends but I moved into the apartments and I lived with my best friend from high school.

An unplanned pregnancy on my part, ended my college time. Back then there wasn’t online college. There wasn’t classes designed for moms to complete a degree in the evening. Shortly after Kramer and I got married my own family was my biggest concern.

Lori and I have stayed in touch mostly through Christmas cards. She moved to the Twin Cities area….I moved to Iowa. We raised our families.

Lori is the reason I met Kramer, my husband. I had driven to spend the weekend with her on July 12, 1985. I was staying the weekend. The Saturday night, which was the 13th, is the night Lori and went to friend of hers place and attended the piano burning party I mentioned. (that post is HERE if you missed it) That was the start of mine and Kramer’s romance.

Well Lori and met at Applebee’s in Rochester. We talked for over 4 hours when my phone rang. It was my friend Connie. I was supposed to meet her at the quilt shop at 3pm…AH…I was 20 minutes late. I had no idea Lori and I could chat for so long. No idea! ….and what did I do? I forgot to take a picture. I can’t believe it!! I am a blogger, how could I forget? I guess that just means I was having a great time.

We parted with the promise that it not be so long until we are together again. Seriously, that’s crazy. We talked about not seeing each other a bit and decided we both are pretty dedicated moms so when the kids were growing up, it was hard to get together, but her youngest is graduation from college before long and mine are all out so we best take advantage now and get together more often.

I did remember to snap a picture with Connie.

Connie lives an hour away from Rochester, MN. Me, I’m just over and hour and a half depending which part of the city I need to get to. We really need to get together more often too.

We shopped for a bit at Pine Needles Quilt Shop..and then the store was closing so we sat in Connie’s car and chatted for over an hour. It was crazy. We chat often via messenger but nothing is the same as spending time together. There are certain things that you just don’t type over messenger because it’s too long or too personal.

Of course Connie was loaded with things for me. She always is….admittedly, I had something for her for once. One of my pincushions AND all of those shirts!!

Here’s some of the things Connie sent with me…. Connie goes to thrift stores with me in mind…I love it.

All sorts of goodies….see?

Envelopes and embroidery hoops for the kids. I love the wording on the cover of the book..”early Singer, sewing machines not birds”.

She sent a bunch of doll patterns too. I’m guessing in two or three years, I’ll have little granddaughters needing doll clothes. I can’t wait!!

For my birthday, Connie made me pillowcases! She knows I love red….and kids.

Connie is so incredibly sweet. She came down for Kramer’s Celebration of Life and saw how awesome our fire department is. She wanted to support them so she was busy sewing for their upcoming benefit. She made two sets of two pillowcases that are fire themed.

She also made this awesome quilt. Oh my word….I love it. The colors are amazing. I can’t tell you how impressed I am, touch and honored that she would do this.

The Pancake Breakfast is on March 1st this year. I wasn’t able to work last year with Kramer being sick. He’s not on the department anymore but I’ll likely stay working the benefit for years to come, or at least as long as they want me.

I can’t wait to show the firemen. They are going to love it!

I can’t thank Connie and Lori both for taking time out of their lives to spend with me. I’m so lucky to have good people in my life. It was a fun Saturday. I really do need to plan to do things more often.