I hosted my first retreat a few weeks ago. No one told me how vulnerable it would be to buy a house, spend tons of money to make it look nice, and then invite strangers to come stay in it.

I had a total of 5 guests signed up. I wanted to keep it small since it was the first one here. For Foundation Paper-Piecing retreats I like to keep the student count small because it can get quite technical if there are a lot of folks that have never done FPP before.

Hurricane Helene caused 1 cancellation. Growing up in the land of hurricanes (Miami), I totally get it. Thankfully, they were not hit too hard but opted to resked to a future retreat as leaving town right now just felt wrong.

4 guests left.

One more cancellation due to a family emergency. I totally get that too. Life doesn’t wait for a convenient time to shed emergencies.

3 guests left.

The first day of the retreat I was frantically cleaning to get everything ready. Most centers have a check in time of after 1pm. But then they also make you check out by 10 am on the last day. So do those days really count?!?! I decided I would have a 8am-8pm model and schedule a day off in between retreats or classes for a deeper clean and so that folks are not rushed to get in and unpack and pack right back up and go. This is supposed to be fun and relaxing after all….

My drop-in guest arrived and my overnight guest arrived. We tried to stall waiting on the other guest but she never arrived. I still haven’t heard from her. I hope she’s ok out there….

2 guests left. Guess it was more intimate than I planned for! But hey, I figured we have a whole 3,800 square foot home all to ourselves!

::sigh::

Lessons learned here: I need a couch (bought one). I need thicker blankets for the beds (I thought sheets would be ok). I need to plan for more than one guest sleeping in the house because that can be uncomfortable for some. And I need better lighting in the sewing area (got that planned out now).

All in all, I don’t think it was terrible although I did have a guest leave earlier than expected. Why am I writing all this? Because no one told me how vulnerable it would be to buy a house, spend a ton of money trying to make it look nice, and inviting strangers into the home to sew all day. So here I am telling you. IT IS VULNERABLE!!!!!!!!

I can only laugh. I have a bag-making class coming up on Saturday. If you are reading this and you are in the area, please consider signing up and joining us. It doesn’t take a special kind of person to make a bag, I promise. Oh, and I have a couch now!

-Crafty Glo