This and That!

Once again its been more than a month since I posted on the blog. Sometimes I wonder where all the time goes, and then I look back, and just the big stuff sucks up lots of the time.  The ‘new’ knee for the DH is almost completely healed and he is almost done with Physical Therapy. He is young for a replacement and has sailed through the rehab. The only issues is some restless leg stuff and a gait adjustment, which will take time. We have joined a Fitness Club (otherwise known as a gym)… to help his continued rehab and my physic… and our overall mobility as we age. I have been wearing a Fitbit since June and I move much more than I would have thought, but I still eat more than I burn… in calories… so a little more work… and maybe a little less eat…

Of course the preparations for Christmas, also took a few extra hours… around here. Not that I went over board with the decorations or the the tree. But it was a enough for us. Santa was quite generous again this year. I have been wanting a Vitamix. I have a blender and a food processor, but there are some things that the Vitamix  just does better. So this morning I gave it a chance to turn a bunch of fruits and veggies into something tasty. It was not perfect, but close. A trip to the grocery… and we have everything we need for something tasty tomorrow.

We are just coming up on the 6 month mark for the move to 

Kentucky and completing the adjustments to the house, that we think will make living here

easier. The kitchen is large with counter and cabinets around the perimeter and nothing in the middle.
To fix that we built an island and had a top made of granite.

It was installed on Wednesday. It does not match the rest of the kitchen. We wanted it to look like a furniture, and are thinking about how we want to remodel the kitchen a little later. I am really going to like the extra counter space. 

I have also done some rearranging and reorganizing of our basement storage space. Much of what needed to go into the storage area, was in the main basement space, and we needed to get it all together and packed up. I spent a week doing that, so now it is Done Done Done. Now this space is ready for a new job.

Stairs Down

Looking back toward stairs

From stairs to the other end

Stay tuned for the next installment of ‘the room’, on the other hand if you've been on Facebook, you know why!!! I tried to post this several times, but once again their has been a software change that is not compatible with the programs I use.


More later - Beth

Fall Color!

The fall in Kentucky was slow…. Starting. One of the maples didn’t do much in the way of turning before dropping leaves, but the other…had some very nice reds and yellows, which are nearly all gone now. I did manage a few minutes at the little local lake… and thought I’d share.

Color! Just 2 red and yellow.

Color… across the pond, really a small pond.

A bunch of trees…. With some color

Almost a 2 color, brown and yellow and a bit of green.

Many trees are bare, and those that aren’t will be soon, as the wind patterns start to change and the wind begins blowing from the north, the oaks will finally let go of their dried brown leaves.

And Linzi! She is almost 6 now.

Enjoy these final crisp breezy days…. More later, Beth

New Stuff….

The new here is …. the DH (Dear Husband) had a new knee installed a couple of weeks ago…. No pretty pictures to go with that… In the meantime I have stuck pretty close to him and home. But he progresses daily, and soon it will all be a memory.

I have been working on some small projects. The first was a challenge put out by one of my new guilds -9 Patchers. We were told to select a magazine from the back table and to choose one of the published patterns for our inspiration. We were to take that pattern and make it our own. When we revealed the quilt, we were to bring along the inspiration pattern to display with the quilt. This was my inspiration pattern, from Quilters World 2010, called the Road to Kansas.

I suspect I should have named mine the Road to Kentucky, but alas, the name of the Challenge was “Just Do It”, so I named mine ‘Just Do It- with ZEST! I wonder why?

I also made some additional ‘Letter’ Quilts. Mostly because I will be teaching it to the guilds here, and figured I had better know more about what I am doing…. So I made the Letter “C” and gifted it. The whole thing…. Did not want to be made. Gave me fits and starts from the beginning, it was only about 11x14 inches, but I nearly scrapped it several times. But the recipient will like it regardless of the difficulties it presented.

These letters are all done with Free Motion.

I also made the Letter “S” which has also been shipped but I don’t know if it was received, yet. Approximately 16 x 20.

And lastly this Letter “L” quiltlet (about 12 x 12 inches) for a quilter named Lorie, as a thank you. Just as I was moving… a member of the Virginia guild gifted me with her dyes and books. I of course thought when she asked if I wanted them, I figured it was going to be a little of this and a few of those…. kinda stuff. NO way! It was dyes, and paints and books and much of the paraphernalia that goes with fabric dying. Very generous. I might almost miss Chicago and the snow, but I am hoping we will get a couple of inches… a few times over the winter down here in Kentucky so I can play with snow and ice dyeing…. Well or maybe just some fun making my own …. Colored fabrics!

And we fall back an hour this coming Sunday. Hooray! Next up some local color pictures.

More Later-Beth

Light Refraction

I stayed up late last night, did you? There was a total eclipse of the moon. Ordinarily I wouldn’t stay up to watch it, I mean once you’ve watched the Earth block the moon from the sun and cast a shadow…. what is different from time to time? What made this one different, was three things; the moon was nearly full, was at its closest point to Earth and due to the position and light refraction it was a Blood moon, so called because of the red/orange hue the moon takes on during the eclipse.

I almost didn’t prepare for it, as we had clouds all day…. But just before the first picture… the clouds started to clear out…. I missed the moonrise due to the clouds… so no full shot… of the plain old yellow moon and I didn’t stay up long enough to get a shot of the plain old moon after either.

While in South Africa, we had a Blood moon eclipse and I tried to get some decent pictures, but due to my novice experience and the lighting (safety lighting that only went off in power outages) I didn’t get such great pictures. Not that what I have posted here will win any prizes…. But these are better than the ones I took in 2011.

The start

about halfway

and (nearly) done.

If you missed it, the next one will be in 20 years, so plan accordingly if you want to see one yourself.

Speaking of light refraction. It is spider season these days and most mornings… there are some huge webs strung up in the yard…. As I was preparing to leave one morning the light on one of the webs was beautiful. Showing a web…. in a different light… anyway, I did not have time to find a perfect web strung up in a perfect setting…. Or even harder… the perfect web in the perfect light…. The spiders are hiding… so nothing to fear in the pictures below.

And lastly, I think the trees are leaning a little toward fall. This is the first leaf I found with color on the ground in the yard, a couple of weeks ago. A maple… of course.

More Later! 

Beth

3 Month Mark

It is difficult to believe that we have only been here for 3 months!!! It feels like much longer and much less all at once. We have done so much… mostly just small things, but they have made a huge impact.

We still have some things that need to be done. We were hoping to remodel the master bathroom, but that may wait because we have detected a little heating and cooling issue, which in turn has found a small electrical issue.

The heating and cooling problem is in my Creative Space. My space is a 2 room area and part is an addition over the garage addition, and appears it may not have been insulated well enough, but we want to see what happens in the winter, so we deal with the whole problem… The electrical came about, when we moved the portable a/c to the Creative Space, and operated it while the DH was working in his shop below. Either there are not enough circuits or they are under size.

So what does my new space look like? From the entry… you can see the first room and the entry to the second room. The space is blue, actually 2 colors of blue and the lighting is 2 ceiling fans, (but those new LED Cool White lights are so much better…than florescent!!!

from here on the right, is a closet on the same wall as the door, and on the left a wall full of shelves, a cutting table, and some bookshelves and you can see the door way to the other half of the space that is mine.

Looking at the wall of shelves. I decided, after putting all of the fabric on the shelves in Virginia, that I like all of my fabric on view and most my crap hidden. On the top are bits of art work and gifts from quilty friends and family and my postcards!

Last is looking back toward the entry…

From the entry to the second room

again on the right is a closet and there window is directly across from the door, (you can see the a/c unit). I have a sewing station set up in this room…. with a cutting table too. This cutting table and the dresser (under the TV), we have had for 20 years and were a dark stained pine. So I decided that I wanted them white. So I spent about 10 days priming and painting both.

The design wall, TV and desk are all on the wall opposite the sewing station. I also moved a small section of our office furniture in, to house a computer and a printer. None of the walls are full height except the end ones…. so I am a little limited on wall space.

and lastly looking all the way back to the entry.

So far I like my space!!! I have finished a Challenge and have the other Challenge ready to quilt and as of today, a good start on 2 gifts and a piece for the Creative Space!!!

Have an questions about what you see in any of the pictures?

More Later-Beth

What's New?

Looks like I skipped right over July!  Can you believe we are nearly 2 weeks into August? Where is the time going.

Since I last posted… I have joined 2 quilt guilds. This little town supports 2 guilds!!! Not sure if I will stay in both… one meets at night and the other during the day. So far the daytime group has been way more fun!!!

Still working on the setting up the Creative Space. Slow going but things are looking good. I still have to build the table. I got the legs at Ikea, but I need to fabricate the top and paint it.

I am creating even though the space is not done… I am working on 2 challenges. One for the guild in Virginia, which I started before moving and a challenge that was issued by the daytime guild here. I also have a gift or two to make… one is a very late birthday gift and the other is a thank you gift, both will be inspired by my ‘Letter Series’.

Yesterday, I played at a Dyeing Workshop by the Daytime Guild. We had so much fun. The instructor, brought lots of dye and mixed up 8 very strong colors. She also brought along several tools to use for the Shibori resist type dyeing techniques. She supplied the fabric as well, which was great. She also allowed us to bring up to 2 yards of additional fabric. I had some PDF left over from a previous dyeing project so I took that. I had originally planned to do some stitching, but the fabric was a very tight weave… so I just folded and ironed it for some some folded resist techniques. We were also given a piece of a very soft bamboo fabric. While it is soft and nice on the hand, I don’t think it dyes up as well as cotton. In looking a bit deeper into bamboo, (Wikipedia or Google it)I don’t think we have been educated well about the process it takes to make it into a fabric. Very toxic.

I have a question, if making Bamboo into fabric caused serious pollution or poisonous working conditions, would you buy or use it?

More Later-Beth

A Day Out

I had a lunch date with a friend that I haven’t seen in person since 2002!!! I would have to say he is one of my oldest friends, that I stay in contact with, (I forgot to take a picture, actually we both did!!!). Since we last saw each other, he moved to Tennessee and now I am about 2 hours away… so we made a lunch date and met up in Bowling Green KY.

I left early, since I have not driven down that way… and didn’t want to discover a road mess… we hear about an accident nearly everyday…and  I know why now.The interstate is under construction for most of the drive  I also didn’t need to leave early, because some where between home and Bowling Green, there is a time zone change, (I am on Eastern time and Bowling Green is on Central time) so I got down there about an hour early!

I am so glad I took my camera along! I did what I usually do, kill time by driving around on roads I’ve never been on, and spied a field full of wildflowers.

One day last week in my own backyard… I spotted this little guy… it is a hairstreak or elfin. The wingspan is between 7/8 to about 1 1/4 of an inch when open, and when folded like this barely large enough to cover a thumb nail. As you can see a common clover flower is large enough… I should have millions of these little guys in my mostly clover lawn!!!

One day while sitting out back with the dogs, watching the clouds try and build up to thunderheads, I noticed that some of the clouds would get this hazy top… I’ve not noticed this phenomenon before.

How about that blue sky?

More Later!

A Little Local Flavor

I took a little break from harvesting the box farm… and took a History Walk in town. It is free and includes many of the famous folks that lived or spent time in the town, some historical buildings and events that shaped the town. This tour is in its 28th year and is free.

While waiting… I liked the way the lights on the building… lined up.

Local innkeeper, that hosted General Custer, PT Barnum and Jenny Lind.

Custer

Jenny Lind- this young lady sang ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ for us.

PT Barnum

Carrie Nation

First Free Black (my memory fails me on the rest of his history)

President Lincolns stepmother, Sarah Johnson

Tour Guide, Haycraft, son of a founding father.

Stained glass on 2 different churches in the downtown area. 

It was a fun hour, and since they do this free… I think I will go again… when the temps are not quite so warm!!!

Next tour… some distilleries, and there are lots of those nearby!!!

More Later- Beth

 

The new place

All the issues with buying this house…. and all the issues for selling the other houses are hopefully also complete and behind us forever and ever!!! Lets just talk about stress for a moment… It is bad enough when you have to coordinate the departure of the house you reside in to purchase a home in the same vicinity, but when you add in a terrible experience looking for a home… in a different state…  and have to make a second visit to find a home. A car that needs attention and a dog that needs to see the vet in between and a house that still needs to be packed. While doing all of the above, I also had to come up with a contingency plan of where and how to live if we did not find a house or a delay between closings. Fortunately everything worked out and pretty much on time, but not without lots of prayers and hard work by our Real Estate agents!!!

There was a slight delay between the two houses… so the dogs got to visit the kennel and plants had a short and dark stay at climate controlled storage locker (along with a trailer full of other stuff), while we made a short visit to South Bend, IN. I have not visited with my in-laws since November of 2011.  So it was nice to visit and catch up, (and a bonus laundry!!!!)

The new house is bigger and more functional, as we do not loose several hundred square feet to staircases. BIG BONUS! It has a Creative Shop for the DH too! There are only 2 staircases compared to the 4 of the townhouse, a more normal number of bathrooms (2.5 compared to the 4.5 of the townhouse), 1 wood fireplace compared to the 3 gas ones in the townhouse and a fenced yard that is about a 100 times bigger! The dogs enjoy running from side to side and chasing the ball again. Well, Linzi does, Axel is nearly 12 and showing some real signs of age. Sad part is, that dogs of his size have a relatively short life span, (12-14 years).

The furniture was delivered. A quick shout out to Campbell Moving!!! After my last experience with United, (I DO NOT recommend Untied as a mover), I was a bit apprehensive using a mover. But they treated our belongings with care and concern and so far I  have only found one item that was damaged and quite frankly glad to see it go! I did all of my own packing, because I am conservative and prefer to unpack boxes of stuff not just air filled with paper!!! This is a picture of the Creative Space on June 3.

We had our first visitor the following morning!

He was crossing the driveway, just before I snapped a picture. It was a big guy…. about 9 inches across and about 12 inches long. We have been so lucky that nature has been welcoming us daily. It is amazing the green of trees and grass. Lush is probably the best word. I cannot wait to start planting shrubs, flowers and more trees.

The robins are fat and happy, full of song, and are currently fledging their young. There are several other birds… that are familiar, house finches, cardinals, sparrows, and a mockingbird that copies all the other birds… it needs to work on the cardinal calls  though. There is a resident bunny that lives under the deck. We will have to remedy that …. so the dogs don’t have a rabbit meal, and so far the dogs are not aware of the squirrels… I have also viewed a raccoon, running though the yards, (it was well after sunup, so need to keep and eye on the dogs… Don’t need a rabies scare too.

The resident bunny and a fledged robin.

I am still unpacking and waiting for the dryer delivery… This will be the 3rd dryer for this washing machine. Every time we move, it seems the dryer connection… is opposite of what we have. I am also waiting for the delivery of a new kitchen range and having a gas line installed in the kitchen.

This is the living room now

and soon there will be blinds on the windows too!

More Later! Beth