I began this post a couple of days ago and then got really blue about what is going on in Italy and other parts of the world, not to mention my own country. But I think we need to carry on with “regular life” as much as we can (while we socially isolate and for some while we “shelter-in-place”), so I pulled myself out of my blueness and I am finishing up this post that might seem a little frivolous at this point but…
Remember mid-February? Remember when you had access to all the toilet paper you needed (or could possibly dream of) and terms such as “social distancing” were not part of your vocabulary/life?
Well let’s take a brief break from our global pandemic in this post and let me share my semi-failed experiment in my first planned “complete relaxation vacation” (but if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I would not have failed at the relaxation vacation experiment!)
Cabo San Lucas, February 2020
As mentioned in my previous post, Cabo San Lucas in Black and White, my partner John and I took a (nearly) week’s vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
You might look at these photos and think: “Wow, what a vacation/holiday in paradise”. This is what normal people would think. However for John and I it was a “Relaxation Vacation Experiment”.
And we may have failed at this experiment…
John is a widower and as many of you know I am a widow. Our former spouses were both the type who liked to do “Always Busy/Scheduled Activities/See As Much As You Can” vacations.
I was with Terry the Quilting Husband since I was 20 years old (nearly my entire adult life) and every vacation we went on was filled with endless sightseeing and other busy activities. I am not complaining we had some wonderful vacations and I got to visit some major historical sights and battlegrounds in the U.S. and Europe (Terry was a Military History buff) on our trips as well as fun and playful vacations like Disneyland, etc.
John’s previous life was the same – his vacations were filled with trying to do as much sightseeing as possible during the vacation time allotted.
So he and I came up with the idea that for the first time in our lives, we should go on a vacation in which we do something crazy…RELAX!
In our minds, we would enjoy our first completely relaxing, have nothing scheduled, lie around on the beach and read books, vacation.
John’s sister has a lovely condo in Cabo San Lucas and so we thought that would be a perfect (and not too expensive) way to have a mid-Winter relaxing vacation in a warm and tropical place!
Things started out promising – we managed to goof off a couple hours wandering and sitting around the beach and reading books on our first afternoon in town.
We even invented the “Shoe Coaster” (patent pending) for our special beverages on the beach!
Unfortunately we grew a little bored of just hanging out on the beach after a while.
There were lots of wonderful restaurants on the beach so we tried just hanging out for long stretches “relaxing” at restaurants on the beach. Here I am on the way to the beach or a restaurant on the beach, preparing for some more “relaxation”:
The truth is, after just a couple days of this “relaxation” stuff, we were bored out of our minds.
Yes we did do some sightseeing in the main area of Cabo San Lucas but everywhere you walked someone was trying to sell you something and after a while I just felt like a “dollar” walking around for vendors trying to get.
We did one afternoon however have a lovely lunch at the marina area of Cabo and we did have brief sweet moments of “total relaxation”.
But like the creature in the image above, after a couple of days we decided all this relaxation vacation stuff was “for the birds” and not for us!
After an awkward discussion where we finally both admitted (previous we were each secretly thinking it without telling the other) we were absolutely bored out of our minds with all this relaxation (we had even tried just staying the condo and binge watching a Netflix show when we’d had enough of the beach, etc.) – we decided to change our flight and come home early from vacation.
Are you shaking your heads in disbelief at this point?
(To be honest, now, with what is going on in the world, I too am shaking my head – I wish I had stayed longer in Cabo and embraced relaxation…)
We both accepted we had “failed” at the “Relaxation Vacation Experiment”.
Actually we did not fail, we learned.
We learned that we like to more active vacations in places where there are lots of museums and historic sights to see. We are not the “lie on the beach and relax” kind of vacation people.
And that is okay (smile).
Postscript
The day before we were scheduled to return home early our enthusiasm returned and we decided to fill our last full day in Cabo having a less traditional experience: we decided to go “Farm-to-Table” restaurant hopping. I guess there is a big farm-to-table movement in Cabo and we thought it would be fun to explore.
Luckily we had a car during our trip so we drove to a remote area for our first Mexican farm-to-table experience. The road to this farm, Los Tamarindos, was a quite bumpy (unpaved) and a little scary (in the middle of nowhere) but it was so worth the drive. We had an amazing meal and experience and here are a couple photos:
The food was not just fresh and amazing, it was sort of a spiritual experience!
After our first farm-to-table experience in Mexico, we were hooked and headed to the next farm, Flora Farms, where we did not sit for a formal meal but wandered around and amazing cocktails and the most delicious ice cream cone in my life!
This trip and these photos seems like another lifetime, like another world.
Hoping you all stay safe in the reality of our current world. Hang in there.
Love,
Tierney and John
Inside this bag was a large collection of fabrics by a company called 
The package included yardage, precuts (charm squares and fat quarters), a panel (a Moda Fabrics panel) and some odd size fabric scraps.
The pictures above do not do the package as there is enough fabric for several quilts (there are at least 10+ yards of fabric among the yardage).
When I returned home, I trimmed these blocks to 5′ x 5″ (12.7 cm x 12.7 cm) blocks and began piecing them together and musing over how to finish the quilt including whether to machine or hand quilt it, etc.:
That’s where I left off in my previous post about this quilt – 
Here it is ready for hand stitching:
I bought a couple spools of gray Perle Cotton for hand stitching (I am not sure how much I need yet and did not want to over-buy):
And I’ve started stitching:
The quilt measures around 60″ x 60″ (152.4 x 152.4 cm) and it is going to take a while to hand quilt it, even with using large 
And I am tempted to start something from this book…
I love variegated yarn and I think the pattern created by the variegations in the yarn is yummy!
A handmade knitted hat is not enough to thank my sister for how much she was there for me during the most difficult time in my life but it is a little token of my appreciation.
Likely this is related to the worse winter of my life in early 2019 (after the worse Christmas season in my life when my husband died 12 days before Christmas).
The shop owner was delightful and she was working on gift boxes for customers with her monthly gift box subscription:
After a wonderful wander about this shop and delightful chat with the shop owner, we wandered around the other surrounding shops:
We stopped for a delicious lunch at a vegan restaurant:
And here are some unusual patterned fat quarters I bought at the shop (who knows what I will make with them but I just loved them and I do not know why!)
I put an arrow where the female turkey was and she did not seem very interested in any of them (she kept wandering away) while they took turns (or simultaneously) displaying their plumages!
Next post (which is the final one in this series of posts) I will share photos and stories from our Quilt Shop Hopping in Northern California!
Oh yes there we a lot more, but I figure four images is enough to expose you to 🙂
I spent a lot of the weekend cuddling with Riley (good therapy). She was a puppy of course and very active and crazy by nature but I set up a system of “Swaddling” her in a towel the evening to relax her and give us a break from her crazy puppy energy.
And for a beautiful moment in the midst of my grief, I felt at peace and quite loved.
On Superbowl Sunday (last Sunday), I had a “Stitching Bowl” and worked on getting the center of the piece sewn together:
I spent a brief time inside the ferry passenger cabin, which is HUGE! There are plenty of commuters that take the ferry every day. It was outside commuting hours, so the inside the ferry was fairly empty (or most people were sitting in their cars, as it is also a car ferry).
I got myself settled right in (sorry I am talking about me just a little in this post) and unpacked my most important quilt retreat accessory: my comfy fleecy ROBE!
I happily wore my robe most of the retreat...except when we went outside and to visit quaint little historic downtown Poulsbo!
But let’s back-up a moment, and tell you how this piece began and got to this point…
I began with creating a pattern with the dark gray framed blocks:
Then I worked on framing them with the light gray blocks:
In case you are new to this blog, my name is tierneycreates Beastie and I am a Monster, but the good kind of Monster. You can read my story at 
Well it is all GONE! The studio is gone and our cozy spot is gone!!!!
I am highly irritated over this (and Mikelet is none too happy either) and what has made it even worse is that Mikelet and I were relocated to Tierney’s home office to hang out with her creepy collection of giant stuffed animal schnauzers (well they are giant compared to Mikelet and me):
Mikelet and I are kind of disturbed by the giant schnauzer head we are pushed up against as well as the super creepy schnauzer hanging over the basket next to us!
He is just a little too close for comfort, I can feel him breathing down my neck!
I cannot show you what is inside because it is a surprise for Sandy to open!
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