What a Difference a Year Makes

Well, of course a year makes a big difference. But for me, I'm having a hard time keeping up. Everything used to be the same. Year after year. I grew up on a farm, went to college for four years, then lived in the same house for 23 years. Things have always moved slowly with lots of time for preparation and even more time for recovery. I used to say that I hated "change". Well, things have changed again since my last post and I am fine, I'm going to live!

The best change . . . I'm a grandma!!!!!

Meet Little Miss Libby . . . the most beautiful baby in the world! Born March 8, 2008. Her whole name is Elizabeth Jean Marble.

The hard part is that she is in Kentucky and I am in Idaho. But I'm planning to see her soon again. Hopefully next month . . . but . . . the other big change may get in the way . . .

We are moving. And we are not moving to the farm! I'm OK with it now . . . actually more than OK. I've given up one dream and traded it for another. We are moving to Whidbey Island. Well, at least we THINK we are moving to Whidbey Island. At least we are going to be building a house there and if things work out, we will be able to move into this new house and live there for a while. In the mean time . . . let me quick add a picture of the house we are living in now, before it is officially sold. This is a BEFORE picture. This is how it looked when we bought it.

This is a WINTER picture. We had the GREATEST winter this past year. At one point there was just over 3 feet of snow on the ground. I really loved it. But the hard part was that Randy had to drive over Snoqualmie Pass to get here and back and the pass was closed a LOT. But Randy loved the snow here too. So much fun after years of living in Western Washington where it hardly ever snows.

This is the water access. It is used as a boat launch. But we are part-owners of this riverfront and had plans to add a dock so we could enjoy it more.

And this tiny little picture is the After photo. I did a lot of work on the landscaping. But I'm going to have to find a better picture.

If I wrote more often all of this would make more sense. I'll try harder . . .

A New Beginning

A lot has happened in the last year. We sold our house and our boat. We've come to our senses and are preparing for retirement. I can't believe how long it's been since I posted to this blog.

At my "old" house I had a little glass greenhouse. I liked to grow tomatoes in it because in Western Washington tomatoes are very suseptible to blight. Here in North Idaho, the summers are hot and dry, mostly, and this summer is very hot and very dry. So, I'm growing tomatoes "outside" in a raised bed. I just harvested the first one today! I also grew a lot of basil in my little greenhouse, big bunches of it. Now I've got basil growing in a raised bed next to the tomatoes. It is kind of a sad bunch of basil, I think I got the wrong kind of plants. Next year I'll be more picky! My dad was nice enough to build the raised beds for my new yard. I have two and they are 4-ft x 4ft and 8 inches high. I love them!

This is a picture of my "old" front yard. I really loved it and looking at this picture makes me a little homesick for it. My new front yard is very different, quite plain in fact. But much, much easier to care for. What you don't see in the picture are the tons and tons of blackberry vines that had to be cut out from the planting beds. Those blackberries would take over the world if I let them. I hate blackberries!!! The vines scratched my arms to pieces when I had to cut them out from the rhododendron hedge. The thorns even sometimes got through the leather gloves and into my fingers and there is a microscopic tip to the thorn that got stuck in my skin and it seemed like days before it would come out. And the blackberries themselves . . . they just have too many seeds in them! The people that bought my house don't have much time to garden. There are lots of weeds now . . . and those blackberries are gonna get them if they're not careful.

My First Quilt

In January of 2001, I decided to make a quilt. I had sewn a lot as a child and young adult, but after a while, it just didn't seem cost efficient to sew, so I stopped. My mom, who had taught me to sew also stopped sewing so much so there were several years where the sewing machine mainly just sat and gathered dust. Occasionally I got it out to sew patches on my son's scout uniforms, or to fix tears but that was it.
Then my mom started quilting, she seemed obsessed about it, but while it seemed like something I'd like to do someday, I wasn't all that interested. But, my daughter Tania . . . she was interested . . . and before she went off to college she was determined to make a quilt. So my mom, Tania and I went fabric shopping and chose fabric for a quilt. And Tania determinedly learned to cut and sew the pieces together until she had a quilt. It was very pretty. She went to college and then GAVE IT AWAY to one of her roommates. Then when she came back home for a visit she wanted to make another one so we pretty much did the same routine with my mom. Then something happened and my interest started to grow and pretty soon I had decided . . . I wanted to make a quilt. I gave myself 6 months to make a quilt and the deadline was that it would be donated to a raffle that would be held that summer at a dog show in Wisconsin. We were showing Springer Spaniels at the time, and the English Springer Spaniel 2001 National Specialty was being held in Oconomowoc, WI. I became obsessed with making a "perfect" quilt and had no picture in my mind of what I wanted to do. So I started looking at books and patterns until I found a book I LOVED. Folk Art Quilts by Sandy Bonsib. I chose the pattern called Lopsided Hearts. I modified the pattern to include dog bones and one English Springer Spaniel (ESS) in some of the places where there were hearts. Then I went shopping for fabric. It was a scrappy quilt, so it needed LOTS of different fabrics. Lots of 1/4-yard cuts. Some of the fabric was really weird because I wanted it to look REALLY scrappy . . . like it had REAL scraps in it. In fact, though, not a single piece really was a scrap, I bought each piece purposely and I agonized over almost every decision. Silly me!
It did take me six months to make it, I was sewing on the binding AT THE DOG SHOW! I put every single stitch into it, I even taught myself how to machine quilt it with stitch in the ditch, meandering and loops. Soon after I started sewing it on my old Kenmore I decided to buy a new sewing machine. Perhaps this quilt is the most expensive scrap quilt ever made!!! And of course, I was hooked into quilting.
I sold around $700 in raffle tickets for the quilt. I loved the quilt so much that it seemed like it should have been more like $700,000!!! The money raised was donated to the PRA Fund of the English Springer Spaniel Field Trial Association's Foundation. Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA) is an eye disease that causes blindness in dogs.
Now you will know where QUILTEDESS comes from.

A Favorite Quote

This quote was in a talk given by President Gordon B. Hinckley of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love it.

"Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he’s been robbed. The fact is that most putts don't drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is like an old-time rail journey...delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride."
(Gordon B. Hinckley, quoting Jenkin Lloyd Jones)

Getting Ready for Winter

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. This picture shows part of my back yard. I love how fall sunshine makes everything have a golden glow. After the heat of summer dries and bakes everything, the coolness of fall comes to give relief and here in Western WA, everything turns green again, almost like spring. The colors are absolutely the best. The smells are the best. The foods are the best. It is time for comfort food and warm sweaters. If there is any downside to it, it is that there never seems to be enough time to really enjoy the season. I want to sew and knit and cook. But, life gets busy and I never do enough. Then comes winter.

I love winter too, even though it isn't my favorite. Here is a picture of my dream house in winter. I've missed winter snows since I've lived in Woodinville and look forward to experiencing the pure white beauty of it again.
A part of me knows that it won't be as idyllic as it appears, but there will certainly be those fleeting moments that make it all worthwhile. Those are the times that I feel very blessed. There must be a reason that fall and winter bring us close in to home and family. There is an amazing balance to it all. And there's always something wonderful ahead.

A Farmgirl's Dream

This is a view of my new property. This shows just the front part of the empty 10 acre parcel. The trees planted towards the center of the photo are to the right of the gated entrance of the "community" which is called Saddle Ridge Estates. It was once all part of a 160 acre farm that my dad farmed many years ago. My cousin's son, Josh, had just cut the grass hay shown here, and was working on the bailer getting ready to bail it. The white rail fence on the left is the front of the parcel which faces Peone Valley Lane. We plan to build our house here in 2 or 3 years. In the meantime, I will have my cousin keep farming the parcel. We have chosen a house plan that is kind of a modern version of a typical farmhouse with a large front porch. The garage is detached and I envision a quilting/sewing studio at the top.