My silver lining is made from Amy Butler cotton prints!

We went to Lake Tahoe over the weekend to attend a party (wedding vow renewal - it was very nice!), and driving home yesterday after a nice little break we ran into all this road construction. It's funny, because we were due to be back in time to sign re-fi paperwork with our mortgage broker and we left early thinking we'd be back before we needed to be. So we are still congratulating ourselves for having the extra time built in, for once in our lives, so that the slow traffic wouldn't be a problem.

Then the wheel on passenger side rear starts making this weird and alarming noise, and when we pull over the tire is going flat before our eyes. Probably some nail or ? from all the road construction. But there's virtually no shoulder, so changing the flat was pretty stressful with all the big rigs speeding by inches from our car. And time consuming, especially since we have to unpack the car in order to get the spare donut tire out of the trunk. So our cushion of time got a lot smaller.

hmmm... now we need to get the tire repaired because the little donut wouldn't make it home since we are still 200 miles away or something like that. First service station has no actual road service besides gas and a minimart. We drive on to Colfax. Again, nothing at the service stations, but they direct us to a tire place.  Well, they can't get to our tire for at least half hour, so we leave it there and follow the signs to the "Historic Downtown" of Colfax. I mean, if we are going to be late getting back we may as well stroll around a quaint historic downtown while we wait for our repair.  Here's the thing - there is a LOT of signage all over the place to direct you to Historic Downtown. I mean big signs over the truckstop, signs next to the strip malls, multiple signs pointing the way.  And I think the buildings and the potential for downtown Colfax to be quite historically fabulous is huge - it just looks like a project that didn't get finished, and now many of the storefronts are run down, and there aren't many shops or people coming to eat lunch or hang out. Except a few outside the bar smoking, and a few homeless, or at least fring-ey, people in the park with all their stuff, and several youth who look like they are up to little good (although I have to confess that it was Columbus day and they didn't have school, and probably I'm just suspicious of teenage boys because I have a teenage girl...)  I just wondered if Colfax used to have a vibrant downtown and this is another symptom of our Great Recession, or what?  It made me feel sad.

Anyway, we get out of the car, and first thing I spot is a quilting store sign on the corner! JOY! Maybe there is hope for this little Historic Downtown after all.

The Whistle Stop Quilt Shop is a lovely little store, and in the back I see the green dot special rack marked 40% off - filled with Amy Butler and other pretty bolts, including a Katie Jump Rope print.

What could I do?

Good thing, too - I was going to need the little boost of finding 40% off goodness to offset the news that our tire was not repairable. So we bought a new one and had to wait again for it to be installed.  Having lost all the extra time and more, we were late to sign our papers and still had to get home to do homework and laundry and get ready for school to be back on today and for me to go off on another business trip tonight.

We were all so exhausted!  It was In-n-Out for dinner (well, yum) and a flurry of activity once we got home. At some point I just sat with a glass of wine, fondled this fabric, and flipped through quilting magazines and books before passing out in bed. it's all good.