Put a word in

OK everybody, here's where you come in.

I just got off the phone with the owner of an online travel agency, who knows the owner of another similar agency, who both want to promote the quilt retreat.

The retreat, for those of you who may be new here, is a project that my partner Rita and I developed together.

I first met Rita over the phone (she responded to an ad Alex made me put in the newspaper, but that's a story for another day) about two and a half years ago. We must have talked for close to an hour on that first call, and we discovered that each of us had already been toying with the idea of creating some kind of quilt retreat.

We met in person at a meeting that was being held to organize an international quilt show, but didn't have much of a chance to talk that day, so Rita invited me to a social gathering at her house the following week. I stayed on when the other guests left at noon, and by the end of the afternoon, we had the retreat pretty well mapped out, including the tours we would offer and a first pass at the menus. Rita's property already included three cottages that she rents to tourists, so the lodging was a non-issue. I designed some Costa Rica-themed quilt blocks, and we had ourselves a retreat.

Of course we wouldn't know how it would all come together until we actually hosted one. We were prepared to have to make some changes after the first time out, but you know what? Our biggest "problem" turned out to be that we had chicken two nights in a row. We have made some adjustments since then - moving the workspace, getting the patterns into electronic form and switching one of the tour destinations for a better one - but the core of the thing really hasn't changed.

Rita and I both love doing it. We've got pricing that guests find fair and that works for us. Everyone who has ever come has gone home happy.

But. It has been soooo hard for us to get the word out. A week-long vacation in a foreign country isn't an impulse buy, and although we get a small but steady stream of visits to our website, actual reservations are very few and far between.

So when I say that I just got off the phone with the owner of an online travel agency who wants to promote our tour (and who, by the way, particularly works with church groups which, hello, are pretty much the ideal clients for a quilt retreat), you understand that this could represent a turning point in my fledgling career.

What do I need from you? Whatever you've got. Happy thoughts, if that's your style. Prayers, if you prefer. Good vibes, if you swing that way. Send 'em if you got 'em, people. Baby needs a new set of retreat reservations for Christmas!