Bye to Jane!

Today was a bittersweet day for me. I had to say Good-bye to Jane. It was such a wonderful week getting to spend time with her. After 3 years of conversing with her on our great art group and on e-mails, it was so awesome to meet her in person and share a little bit of our world with her. She is a very sweet person and so talented.
Yesterday was the greatest. We headed out early in the morning to take Jane to a store called Hobby Lobby. She doesn't have a Hobby Lobby where she lives and we wanted to take her there. We also had 2 other wonderful friends join us. Jill, who lives in Alabama and is in our group, made the trek up here to meet with us. And then Rosemary, who lives nearby us in Tn., also joined us. We all met up at Hobby Lobby, and did a little shopping. Jane really liked the Hobby Lobby, she couldn't buy much because it would have been hard for her to get it all in her suitcase.
After we shopped for a while, we went to a very quaint restaurant in a downtown Franklin, a place called the Merchantile restaurant. We had a delicious lunch of gourmet chicken salad sandwiches and fruit tea. We pestered another customer into taking a picture of all of us.

Top row is Jane, Jill, and Rosie, and thats Mom and I sitting at the table. Of course we all didn't like the picture,lol, but we all agreed we never like pictures of ourselves. But don't we look happy? It was great!
After that we left and went to sweet Rosie's house. I am here to tell you that she has the most prettiest house that I have ever seen. It is beautiful! The reason why it is beautiful is because it has the Rosie touch to it. As Jill said , "it looks like a home out of the "Southern Living magazine", but I thought it looked even better than the ones I have seen in it. It just has the most comfortable feel to it and just so beautiful,,did I say that already? lol I have been in some very nice homes before,,but hers is the best of the best. And her hospitality is what made it even more awesome. She is the sweetest of the sweetest, and a excellent hostess.
She had made some yummy Mulled Cider,,but we had to have some ice in it as it was pretty darn warm outside yesterday.
Then we went in her dining room and sat at her table and dear Jane taught us how to do Paper Quilling. Now that is a fun art to learn. Jane even brought us each a kit and was a excellent teacher. What fun we had learning that technique

Now don't we look like we know what we are doing? We made little ATCs with the quilling. I made a picture of Rosemary's candy cane, but my camera battery was croaking and it came out blurred. To see more pictures of our great day, go to Sweet Rosie's blog. She posted the best of the best yesterday,,her talent in art and in writing amazes me,,and this particular post is a riot.
After spending such a fun time at her house we said bye to Rosemary and headed back to Moms, in rush hour traffic,,yuck.
Once we got back there it was dark. We all got our comfy clothes on, ordered some Pizza, and gabbed the rest of the night away. Jill spent the night with us too.
Have you ever just met someone and felt like you had known them all of your life? Well I felt that way the first time I met Rosemary, and again when I met Jane and Jill , this week. I think you migrate towards friends who maybe you might have crossed paths with , somewhere or some other time. Thats the way this felt this week.
This morning we all had to part ways. I took Jane to the airport, Jill followed behind us but went toward the south and we went to the east,,we waved to her, and I know we all felt happy, but yet sad, sad that it had to come to an end. At least thats how I felt.
Jane rented a car and headed east, up toward the mountains of east Tennessee, to spend time with her Nephew and his family, she will fly out of east Tennessee on Sunday, back to her home in NY.
It was wonderful weather for her visit here, we couldn't have asked for more nicer weather. Warm and pretty,,very unusual for this time of year. But cold weather is coming in tonight.
High today was the mid 70s,,highs tomorrow,,high 30s,, and snow and sleet. But thats ok,,I had a warm and cozy week,,with some very special Women, and I am Thankful to my God for this wonderful week.