In early January of this year when it appeared that "old lefty's" problems were not going to be solved any time too soon, I shortened up my bucket list to contain only 5 items~one of which I am going to "tackle" soon, come this Saturday, April 14th.
Bucket List Item #3-"To bid on and purchase a quilt at the MCC Sale in April".
This Friday and Saturday, April 13th and 14th, the City of Hutchinson plays host to the 44th Annual Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale, held only a few blocks from my old home in Hutch, at the Kansas State Fairgrounds. For those of you who have never been there....wow, maybe you should give it a try this year. In the early evening hours of Friday and pretty much the whole day on Saturday, visitors can be treated to a vast array of items including home made crafts and foods, a live auction, garden plants and trees, a 5K run down at Rice Park, a silent auction, and my favorite, the quilt auction. If you can't find something to do, see, or eat during those two days then it's your OWN fault friends :) Consider this my "shameless plug" for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and all of the hard work and love they put into this event. The proceeds from this annual gathering go to provide (according to their brochure for this year) " relief, development, and peace in the name of Christ in 55+ countries".
I've been to the relief sale many times, the first being the year I was a sophomore at Bethel College in North Newton, KS. I was just beginning a 3 1/2 year journey in a 4 year teacher education program that ended up taking me 6 years to finish. Did I lose anyone there? Because Bethel is a private college affiliated with the General Conference Mennonite Church, I was exposed to many of the cultural aspects of a religion that was rather unfamiliar to me. I learned early on what verenika, bohne beroggi, and borscht were (sorry to my Mennonite friends reading this, I never learned to like them) and marvelled at the beautiful quilt work that many of the mothers of my college friends did.
Later, as a teacher at Yoder Grade School (a predominantly Amish school) for 20 years, I learned even more about the Relief Sale. I'll never forget the day I took a young Amish student home after school and happened upon a "quilting bee" where a dozen Amish women, wearing head coverings and plain color dresses, were working on a quilt they were going to donate for the sale later in the spring. I admired their handy work and how the tiniest of stitches were sewn with such precision and great care. I thought to myself that day, "Some time I am going to have one of those beautiful quilts." Well, I'm hoping that "some time" is this Saturday.
When I decided back in January that this was my bucket list goal to fulfill in the month of April, I knew what I would have to do......save my money and a lot of it! I was determined to amass sufficient funds in the four months ahead to have at least a small and tidy sum to take with me to the auction. I filled my coin jar up with spare change until it was overflowing, then emptied it and started all over again. I taught after school programs 3 days a week and saved what money I earned from there. The money that I didn't use for pop at school or in the Bogey's drive through went into the "kitty" as well. And before I knew it (actually last week) I had saved a respectable enough amount to at least TRY to bid on a quilt.
I checked out the quilt offerings, over 200 of them, on the MCC's online page. Although they all are beautiful works of art in their own ways, I narrowed my search down to 5 possibilities. One of the special ones, called "Double Dutch", is shown below. Because my favorite color is blue, it was a given that this one would catch my attention first and knowing how "Murphy's Law" and "Miller's Uncanny and Bad Luck" are now first cousins to one another, it will probably be the one that goes for over $1,000. We'll see~can't hurt to dream.
Hopefully "183" is my lucky number! I guess I'll be finding out soon enough. I've never bid on anything at an auction and with my "limited" bidding abilities I'm a little concerned that I may say "yep" to a bid of $10,000 instead of $100. Being a school teacher, as you can imagine, there's no way that's going to happen. So I'm taking along my good friend Mike who has more experience with this kind of stuff than I do, to help do the bidding for me.
I've put off bidding on a quilt now for more years than I can even remember. I could never quite justify spending what could be the equivalent of someone's house payment on a covering for a bed. There was always something else that I thought I should be spending that kind of money on...say, for oh I don't know, maybe bills? LOL This year I still can't justify it and you know what? I'm not even trying to! I can't explain why it's important to me to be able to purchase a quilt....it just is. And if the turn of events that morning don't go my way and I leave empty handed, well at least my pockets will be that much richer with funds that can purchase some other needed item. And I'll have the fun of bidding and watching what others buy.
Friends, it's been a while since I asked you...so here goes again....Have you thought about a bucket list of your very own? Have you given thought to the brevity of life and decided what you want to do before you are no longer able to accomplish it? I encourage you all, after reading this post, to sit down somewhere and grab a piece of paper and think of at least ONE thing that is important to you to do. Write it down immediately~don't wait to have to write it while lying in your hospital bed like the character named Carter from The Bucket List had to. Do it right now and don't waste another moment in time. And by the way, I'm not your boss, just bossy! You all are the ones that have to decide what are the most important and meaningful things left to do in your life. I pray peace will be your journey friends....and by the way, "thanks" for being my friend! Life for me is so much better because of you.
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