MOSC Okinawa Christmas Social

When you live in a fishbowl, it's a fact of life that people and activities will be intertwined. You run into familiar people at the commissary, and have to go through the mental Rolodex to remember from where you know them. (And you will run into people you know at the commissary. About a dozen. Every time. It's a rule.) Or when you introduce friends, it goes something like, "This is Sue...we know each other from NOSCO...and our kids are in drama together at the high school...oh, and our husbands work together now...really we first met six years ago when our kids were on the same soccer team, two duty-stations ago." You get the idea.

Driving Patrick to Seminary yesterday morning, it finally clicked that the event for which he was saving his Madrigal costume, was the same event I was attending that morning. He had said he was going to Lester, so it threw me off...but it was actually in the 'hood at the Butler O. I was already looking forward to the event, this performance would be an added treat.



Do you recognize the jester hat in the back? I picked open the lining and stuffed it myself so it wouldn't look lame. I may not get the family's stockings sewn this year...but I stuffed and mended a hat. Woohoo!

I took some videos, but I'm not posting them here because they didn't turn out that great with the lighting. The window in back kept washing out the picture. They did a great job and really added a lot to the festivities.



Here's his reaction to my calling his name as he passed by my table on his way out. Doesn't that just scream, "I love you, Mom!"?


After the kids left, the real fun started. Have you ever played blind-folded, musical chairs? Have you ever HEARD of such a thing? Neither had I. The emcee was smart to ask for a volunteer and an asst. volunteer from every table before she even told them what was going to happen. She had the volunteers come up, and then the asst.'s come bring a chair. Then she announced it was musical chairs...THEN brought out the blindfolds. Craziness. This is the part where I was saying my prayers of thanksgiving that I thought better than to volunteer. Navy stands for "Never Again Volunteer Yourself," but it's a lesson I'm sometimes slow to learn.



It starts out harmless enough.



But starts getting a little scary as people lose their direction or trip over chair legs. (Who thought of this idea, anyway? Oh yeah...crazy Wing people were in charge this month!)


And here's the grand finish...it's down to two, and here's how it ends as the music stops one final time:

It was too funny!

But as entertaining as the musical performance was, and as fun as it was to watch grown women compete blindfolded, this was what made the event so awesome. These are all the toys, bikes, balls and other goodies (and essentials) that were donated during this event, to go to a local orphanage this Christmas.

It was a great time, and I met even more women to run into at the commissary and think, "Where did I meet her?"

Wanna see the finished square?

Finally finished the quilt squares. I ended up only having to finish 19 (not counting my test), since we had a few people drop. Luckily, Melissa had allowed extra people to join, otherwise we would have ended up with even fewer squares.

Anyway, this is what mine look like:



I spent weeks dragging a bag of these around town to spend every spare moment on the finishing stitching (which took about 5 hours per square). It was actually a great conversation starter. I was amazed at how many Okinawan ladies came over to get a closer look and ask questions. Handicrafts are a big part of Okinawan culture...and of course...the fact that it involved sushi had something to do with their interest too, I'm sure. Only my hairdresser thought I was nuts (shaking her head while saying something like..."Hahaha...Americans! Hahaha!"). Everyone else seemed to think it was great and worthwhile.

Eventually I'll post pictures of the finished quilt...like in the next four years or so. I was thrilled with most of the squares I got in return...but there were some lessons learned.

(1) No matter how specific the instructions, in a group that large, there will still be some people who will not follow them.

(2) When it comes to quilting, simple is better. Some ladies were apologizing for the simpleness of their designs...but they will stand the test of time.

(3) Embellishments are great in scrapbooking and card making, but they don't work well in quilting. One of the squares has already started to come unraveled because it had about 3 inch long stitches in the design. I'm going to have to do work on several of them and either remove things, or strengthen and/or shorten stitches.

(4) Overall, I'm glad I participated, but just FYI to any of you who might be considering doing this...I wish we had decided as a group to just do the piecing and each do our own blanket stitching after we traded squares. At the time I thought doing the same stitching on 20 squares would be a big time and money saver (having to buy less colors of thread). In actuality, I've now had to do my own...and will redo about half of the others to one degree or another, so that they will match better and last through the years...which did not save any time or money. If we had each done our own stitching after trading the squares, then we could have done it to our liking to begin with.

The stitching has been really enjoyable, actually. I used to cross-stitch years ago, and forgot about how relaxing it could be to sit and do something repetitive with my hands. I've come up with some other ideas for other squares to round out the 25-square, quilt-top pattern I'm going to use. I'm actually having a hard time narrowing it down. At least I'll only have to make one of each of the remaining six.

I've got my work cut out for me...maybe I'll have it done by retirement.