marylands past and present

Yesterday afternoon, on my way home from work, I passed an embankment of bare leafy spikes. It's been a few days since was at work, and the last time I saw that spot, it was full of sunshine-yellow nodding daffodil heads. Turn away for a moment, and they are gone.

Special moments are a lot like that embankment of daffodils. You enjoy them as they happen, no doubt about it, but you don't quite appreciate them as much as you do when they're gone. Like my boys not coming with me to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this past weekend. I mourned the whole weekend that I hadn't taken the time to appreciate them enough while they were there with me. I tried not to be too melancholy but it was tough.

OK, so there wasn't a ton of room for them.

But I would have made it work.

So I tried my darndest to enjoy my parents while they still want to come with me!

My dad, helping put up the sign.

That's Debbie, captain of the Coopworth booth, in the front.

My parents might disagree about the amount of quality time, because it is difficult to even talk to anyone while the booth is operating at full tilt. It is also difficult to talk when your daughter is cracking the whip and making you help.

My mom, pressed into grid assembly.

This is one of the many moments when we really, really missed the boys.

They are a wonder at putting these blasted grids together.

I did get away a couple of times with my mom on Sunday to do a little yarn shopping. Not a lot, dear husband, no worries, but there is a baby niece on the way and pink things must be knit. I also enjoyed a post-meeting conversation with them over a glass of hotel room wine, compliments of my favorite dad, after a long, long day in the booth on Saturday.

One of the most glorious parts of a fiber festival is various friends, from all walks of the fiber world, dropping by to say hello. Lynne from New York, and Christina who was-from-New-York and is now in North Carolina, and Jessica from Maryland, who sat next to me in my Franklin Habit class at Vogue Knitting Live in January. And an even newer one! ShoreSpinner, a frequent reader and sometimes commenter on this blog, who used her detective powers to search me out and stop by for a quick chat. How wonderful to put a face to the name.

The weather was beautiful, with one tiny exception. The American Coopworth Registry annual meeting was all set to begin on Saturday evening when a storm descended out of nowhere. Luckily most booths, including ours, had already been shut up for the evening and were able to withstand the brief but powerful torrent of driving rain and punishing winds. And afterwards:

Pretty much sums up the weekend, even if my boys couldn't be there.