Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Kitchen

What woman doesn't love a big kitchen full of light and tons of storage? Our new kitchen is to die for, even if, like me, you're not "all about cooking" LOL.
This is the desk and telephone area.

The actual kitchen with its 26 drawers. (I still can't remember where I put everything!)

The eating area with a big picture window and a beautiful view,

and a look in the other direction at even more shelves.

Some days it makes me feel so domestic that I actually think about cooking something!
Lisa

Friday, January 29, 2010

House Pictures

I thought I'd post a few pictures of our new house and hope to give you an idea of why we, who are moved all-too-often by the military life style, chose to move once again.

Naturally I start with the master bathroom, LOL. I love the way the door is painted. The tree reminds me of something from the Lord of the Rings.

And the inside of the bathroom is painted to resemble a foggy forest.


This is the stained glass window over the stairway. Notice the caterpillar. The former owners were big butterfly fans. The garden has milkweed for Monarch butterfly caterpillars and I can usually spot several Monarch butterflies cavorting in the front garden.


More pictures to come.
Lisa

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Crunch!

My husband returned home this morning not long after he left. Someone behind him decided not to stop when my husband was stopped for a red light. Crunch! That's the second time our silver Honda has been rear-ended. I don't think I want to buy another silver car.

The vehicle that struck our Honda was a small pickup truck and the damage to the truck was much more than to our Honda. Hondas are well-built to withstand rear-end collisions. The driver of the vehicle did not have a license although he did have insurance. I'm not sure how that works...

Anyway I'll be stuck at home for awhile until the Honda is repaired. More sewing time!

Lisa

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Frustrations

I believe I mentioned before that our new home is prefect. Except for the fact that there is no real internet connection. While we meander our way through the mysterious paths of Cox in an attempt to get them to provide us with DSL (they say it will take months, the former owners say it will never happen) we are using Cricket. Why Cricket you ask. Because it's the only internet service we could find that does not require a long service contract. Unfortunately their service is far from desirable. Some days we can get online without any problems, but those days are few and far between. Most days it takes innumerable tries and the resulting slow connection is extremely frustrating. If anyone has any other ideas I'm open to suggestion.

Meanwhile be grateful for what you have. I've been trying to post this for the last 4 hours.

Lisa

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Tree Down



The rains finally let up so Pierre and I had time to walk around the property. We were saddened to see that we had lost one of the larger ornamental trees on the property. It actually hit the shed a tiny bit, but we don't see any damage.
Lisa

Friday, January 22, 2010

Home From Road

I have finally returned from Road to California. I had even more fun this year than last year! Why? Because I did so many different things.

On Monday I helped put up and take down quilts for the photography for the show's CD. I found it to be much easier than I expected (they're really organized!) and the very best way to see the quilts.

On Tuesday I took 2 long arm classes. I don't have a long arm, but I wondered if it was something I'd enjoy eventually. While I enjoyed the classes, particularly the second one where we made confetti fabric, I don't want a long arm. Too much trouble. The machine I was on was in constant need of re-threading or else the bobbin ran out. I could only sew very slowly for most of the class and I thought a long arm would help speed up the process. Nope.

On Wednesday I had the day off, but by noon I was bored and itching for something to do so I went over and helped hang quilts for the show. This was as labor intensive and exhausting as you'd expect, but they were mostly done by the time I arrived. Instead I helped tweak the displays by straightening them out, raising and lowering them, etc. Then I helped with the signs and I even got to pin on ribbons!

Elisia and I attended the Wednesday night preview. I didn't know about it before because it's just for people who take classes and this is the first year I've done that. No vendors were open, but it was interesting to hear what Elisia (a non-quilter) thought about the quilts.

Thursday I got to shop the vendors and Thursday night I taught my class: All That Glitters. We had a great time and made lots of noise, LOL.

Friday I spent the whole day demo-ing Angelina fibers for Embellishment Village. It's just too much fun to be paid to play with someone elses products!

Saturday I shopped and vegged out in my room. I was pretty tired by then ;-)

And Sunday I had an all-day class with Gregory Case on photographing quilts. It was an awesome class, but I was so tired I'm not sure I got all I could out of it.

In the future I'd only take 2 classes, max, and none the last day, LOL. I'd also stay at the Ayres instead of the Doubletree since the beds are much more comfortable and breakfast is included at the Ayres.

All in all I had a fabulous time, but I'm glad to be home again.
Lisa

Saturday, January 16, 2010

We've Moved

Thank you to all my loyal readers. Huge apologies for not posting for such a long time. We found the perfect house and had to dash around getting our old house ready for sale, including dismantling my studio. Our house sold in 4 days!

My husband decided that we could move ourselves (never again! I'm too old for all that lifting!) so it took much longer, but we're finally in and most of the boxes are unpacked. There are still pictures to hang and my studio is lacking the design wall, but we're almost settled.

The new house is in Escondido and is so beautiful. We have a southern view over a meadow towards the hills and we see beautiful sunrises AND sunsets. Every morning I wake up and feel so happy just to be there :-)

The only down side to the house is that it is quite far from the main road and it shares a private drive with 3 other houses. Because of the distance there is no cable tv or internet. We could get satellite, but I've been spoiled by the superfast connection we've had in the past so I'm holding out for that. The company says it will take 3-4 months so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me often. (I'm typing now from my laptop in a hotel room where I'm staying while at Road to California.)

Just think of the extra time I will have to sew without the siren call of the computer trying to drag me off course and into the land of the cybernet.

Take care and keep checking back as I will be writing when possible.
Lisa