The Weekend is Coming!

Because of the weather, I haven't been over to the Scrapshack now for over a month, and I am missing my friends. For the uninitiated, the Scrapshack is my friend Deb's converted garage studio. The name was inspired by the fact that the shack, as it is affectionately known, is not very fancy. The fun and camaraderie, the atmosphere, the end products, and the people, however, are second to none.

The most important feature of the Scrapshack, beyond the people, is the fact that we each have our own huge table to sprawl on! Most get togethers at the shack commence with those of us who don't leave our "stuff" there making trip after trip carrying in our boxes, sacks, packs, totes, and whatever else we rat-pack our goodies into. After about an hour of schmoozing, we sort of get down to business. The business of deciding what we are going to eat, that is. Sometimes one or the other of us cooks, sometimes we have a potluck and even allow our -gasp- husbands to eat with us, sometimes we go out to eat, and other times we order in. There is even the rare occasion when we don't have dinner, but just nibble on whatever we happen to have stashed.

After these important rituals have been satisfied and everyone has made at least one trip into the house for potty breaks or a beverage - along about eight or nine o'clock, we settle down and decide to work on something. Usually that is different for everyone. Sometimes we know ahead of time what we want to work on, but most often we just look at our materials or some new paper (At least one of us has a paper obsession and it ain't me) or a new tool or embellishment, and wait for inspiration to strike. (And why does inspiration have to strike? Can't it sometimes creep up on you?) Anyway. Sometimes one of us will just sit there and listen and watch and talk without doing a thing. Another favorite activity at the Scrapshack is fondling. Fondling is just going through your pretties and making feeble excuses about needing to be more organized while you touch and stroke all your cool stuff. Fondling occurs often. Fondling is satisfying. Fondling sometimes even results in a degree of organization. Fondling oftentimes leads to discoveries of things you bought while sleep-shopping. Fondling is good . . . But I digress . . .

Anyway, once we finally get down to the serious business of creating, we become totally engrossed. Time flies by, and before we know it, midnight has come and gone. Usually around midnight is when someone discovers that there is an extremely important tool or necessity that only a midnight visit to Walmart can cure. We all pile into whatever vehicle happens to have the most freed-up passenger space, cruise on over to Walmart and wander the aisles aimlessly, dazed by the hypnotizing florescent lights, until whichever person breaks the spell first calls the others on their cell phones and orders them to the front of the store to check out. The Walmart visits usually induce a sudden desire for eats; Timmy Hortons, Mickey-D's, Sliders from the Castle, or maybe just some gas station flavored coffees. My buddies have learned that it's usually not a good idea at this point to let me eat because I have a condition that causes me to want to go home when my belly gets full. If I don't let my "condition" take over after we come back from our Wally-World visit, we continue on with whatever creation we are in the midst of imagining.

As the night ticks away and we start thinking about it being time to go home we finds ourselves periodically asking, "What time is it?" Someone will flip open a phone and exclaim over the time, but more often than not, we get sidetracked by another technique or comment or conversational tack, and the time slips on unminded again. Finally, one or another of us realizes she can't possibly keep her eyes open another second, and we all start packing up the junk we dragged in the night before. Many times as we are loading our cars, the first faint light is starting to creep up in the east and the birds are stirring in the trees. Loading up takes a while again, and we all help each other carry and gather up, and, after rounds of "Be carefuls," and hugs and "See you's," we back down the drive yawning like mad and make it on down the road. But we'll all be back - ready to do it all over again the next week or the week after -