A Sanity Break

It has been a surprisingly hectic week. I thought I would be able to be a lady of leisure but between packing and cleaning, I haven't had the time or shamelessness to do any sewing. Today, I decided that in the interest of sanity, I would take a break and do a block.

So I went up to my much more vacant sewing room and thoroughly enjoyed the wide open spaces. So did the girls.


Now that the longarm is out of the way, you can see the window looking out over the garage.



Evelyn, the best quilting buddy on the planet, immediately lapses into a coma of angstlessness when the sewing machine starts humming. Perhaps it is because she hears ME blissfully humming.


For some reason, Dixieland made the top of my humming list all morning.


Pearl is still too much of a puppy to be able to contain herself for very long.


Look at Evelyn's winter ruff. You know, I don't think she blew her coat, this year. It just doubled in size.


Evelyn got so depressed after we lost Jezebel that much of her tail hair fell out.


Husband doesn't agree but I think it is growing back.








Pearl just has to snuggle.





Sometimes, Evelyn just has to put her foot down.


Then, she goes back to dozing.



This is a picture of Pearl yanking on Evelyn's ruff. Anything to get attention.





That Pearl is such a pistol.






Evelyn is just the best quilting buddy.

Here is a front view out my sewing room. I am going to miss our neighborhood and the neighbors.



I spent HOURS shampooing, yesterday. My hands are wrecked and I literally have a blister on my right hand from operating the shampooer.



I put away much of my sewing stuff and am down to this little tiny ironing area!


I'm grateful to have it.

I miss my longarm but sure love the roomy feel to the room. I put up my bright Sylvias to add some color:


Here they all are, to date:


Here is the one I worked on this morning - I could feel the stress fade away...



I'd say we are at the peak of leaf color. The back yard sure is pretty and I am going to miss this when we get back home.


Off to do more cleaning. The realtor comes in the morning and she might want to take some pictures. I've got walls and bathrooms to clean.

Never Leave A Samoyed Where She Can Find Mud

So I ran out to get more boxes and tape, this morning. HOME DEPOT has the cheapest boxes, anywhere. They are 0.67 for small boxes and 0.97 for medium!

This is what was waiting for me when I got home:




Evelyn is almost as bad.

The Day After the Day After the Day After

Sunday morning (the morning after packing the moving van) was hell. I woke up about 5:00 because my legs were screaming in pain. I downed some aspirin, which usually does the trick but it barely made a dent. A couple of hours later, Husband stumbled out of bed, also straight to the aspirin bottle. By noon, both of us were feeling better and by Monday morning, most of the pain was behind us.

I spent a good part of Monday breaking down my office, throwing out trash, and dragging lighter items down the hall to the stairs. Some of the things are items that just didn’t make the truck. Others are going to Craigslist, a garage sale or the dumpster. I am pleased that my office/sewing room is not going to take much work to clean/repair. The walls and carpet are in nearly new shape.

The truck arrived in Oklahoma City, last night. The driver parked his rig at our house to sleep. Husband and I were both distressed that we weren't there to do our share. We are most appreciative of family who took off work to do the heavy lifting. We got a call before 11:00 from the driver who had dropped off our things and was on his way home to Colorado. Took them less than three hours!

The second truck will come back through after Thanksgiving. We are planning to head out around the 15th of December but I wouldn’t be shocked if it was a few days sooner. Anyway you look at it, less than seven weeks!

Evelyn pulled up lame on moving day but the limp is all but gone, today. She has been pretty cranky with Pearl and I don’t know if that is just because she has been sore or because she is just fed up with Pearl’s puppy silliness.

Pearl is about fifty pounds and has taken to hanging out in my lap. Seriously.

I’ve been reconstructing my resume and lining up references for a job hunt. That’s one of those things no one with any sense looks forward to. With the passage of time, some of the things I once would have included no longer seem as important. I’ve identified one job I’m interested in but working at the feed store appeals to me, more. Plus, it is right down the street from my house! I expect I will be ready to get back to regular work by the time we get back home but right now, it is not foremost on my mind.

Our barn’s roof was leaking and we had the flashing repaired and nail holes patched. The roofer thinks that will do the trick. We also had metal bracing installed. It is two stories tall and needed to be stabilized. We’d already repaired the foundation. It still needs new siding, especially on the east and west ends but that can wait until we get home.

I decided that in the interest of not killing my husband, I needed some quilting therapy to relieve the stress of moving. I planned to launch into some sewing after putting in a couple of hours doing “moving” stuff. My sewing room is one of the least cluttered in the house:



No luck. I got a new IPhone and was figuring it out for most of the afternoon. Maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, pray for my husband. He may not survive the night if he continues to be bossy.

A Major Milestone

I've not posted in a few days because I have been packing like mad and had court most days this week. We were up until late last night, packing and getting ready for the truck. The truck was due at 7:30 and the muscle men were due at 8:00. We confirmed the time, twice.

We were up bright and early, eager to get started. While we waited for the men, the girls and I hung out on the deck. The girls went toad hunting and had a blast.



They were good girls, all day.


However, by 10:00, the muscle men still hadn't arrived or called. I was furious. Husband was beside himself (probably because I was on the warpath) and we tried to find some emergency muscle men substitutes on Craigslist, to no avail. No call. No show. The telephone number was useless. So here we sit with a 40 foot gooseneck trailer out front.


It was set to take most of our household goods on a cross country trip from a three story house and we had no good no way to load the truck. For thousands of dollars.

Husband and I just about put ourselves in an early grave trying to load boxes in the truck, not knowing if the muscle men would bother to show up. Going up and down the stairs with those heavy boxes was a killer. I had no idea how we were going to get the heavy furniture down the stairs and on the van.

So when the muscle men called at 10:00 to say they were fifteen minutes away (not that we believed that rot), husband insisted I not say anything to them to make them angry and run them off. Of course, that was obvious and I didn't argue with him. The fact is, telling them off was not the real concern. I was THIS CLOSE to taking them out on sight and taking my chances with a jury.

But it all worked out. They worked like animals and managed to get far more of our stuff on the truck than we expected. Here are a couple of nearly empty rooms:



They seemed like nice men and we gave them a respectable tip and fed them pizza and Gatoraide. In fact, we even want them to come back for the second load. We even lucked out because the rain that had threatened us all day held off until late in the afternoon. The temperatures were perfect for moving. Really a lovely day.

After the muscle men left, we sat around and chatted with the driver, who seems like the salt of the earth. He and his wife have 5 big dogs and he said he could tell as soon as he walked in the door and saw the girls (and probably the dog hair although he didn't say that) that we would understand each other.



He is going to come back through in about a month to pick up a second load. That should just about do it for us. I have been telling people that we are camping out but that is sort of tongue and cheek. Right now, we still have a bed, chairs, TV and a microwave. After the next trip, we'll be down to not much of anything.

I am so in need of some quilting therapy. I don't know if I will get to it, tomorrow, but surely I will find some quilting time later this week. My next (and last) court date is not until November 4th.

Off to finish my second glass of wine.