Life in Small Places

Driving home the other day I decided to take pics of our day to day spaces. I am very happy to have this little garage to park in. I don't get wet in the rain, I can close the garage door and unload groceries into the house. We have a tiny bit of storage space in the front and as soon as we get some shelves, it will be of greater use. There is a stairway inside the man-door in the front of the garage that leads up to our entry inside the apartment. Quite nice really. I like my little car too. The hatchback is nice for bringing things home. Thanks to R.B. for helping me find my Texas ride.

Below is our little laundry closet. It is right in the kitchen. As you can see I have a few appliances in there too that won't fit anywhere else. Our water heater is in there too. Not so pretty, but I like the hot water. It's pretty handy and beats going to a laundromat. I like that the machines are new, so no worries for now.




Above are the little shelves in the dining area. I'm sure they were meant for books and misc. but my pantry containers are occupying the space nicely. Works out very well for the most part. Below are some pics of my craigslist shopping finds this summer. I am very pleased with my pieces and we are quite comfortable in our little nest here. I didn't spruce anything up for the camera, so this is pretty much life around here.



So happy to have a little china hutch to put dishes in. It's no secret I love dishes, so it made sense to finally have someplace to put at least a few. I even have a little room on the top shelf still, so I can bring some more things from AZ. Yay. The dining table fits very nicely in our little alcove. I stole a chair for my sewing room until I can buy a roll-around one for the sewing machine area. We even have dinner at the table most of the time. Once in a while though, we eat in front of the T.V. like we did as newlyweds in our apartment then. Back then it was usually Mod Squad on while we ate. Now it is Criminal Minds or NCIS. Still watching criminals get caught.





I guess a lot of the apartments here in Midland have fireplaces, but alas, ours does not. I was happy to find this little gel burning fireplace (above) on craigslist, and can't wait for some winter weather to try it out. My friend Leigh has one in her cabin at Overguaard (?) and we enjoyed it up there. It came in handy for the DVD's and components too. Below is a shot of my little sewing area. Those IKEA units are serving us well. They were a good decision. At least the fabrics are contained and accessible. I am having fun with the projects I am doing and loving that I have time to do them. I am still getting to know my new Bernina embroidery machine. It may take the rest of my life to really know how to use it. I am determined to learn it though. Classes will be a must. I already found the local Bernina store and got a class schedule. I will wait until after the holidays to hit it hard.




I share the extra room with Grumpy's den. He has his beloved huge roll-top desk here and as you can see, he uses it well. This is also our guest room, so we have an areo-bed in the closet that we pump up when (and if) we ever have a guest.



This headboard I found on craigslist was a good find too. I don't have a bedspread here yet, I was hoping by not buying one, I would be motivated to make one. I don't know if I can hold out though. I really want something on the bed. The little pillows were Grumpy's find. He was online and found these funky little pillows. They are kind of like little bean-bags. Sort of. Very comfortable,and I like them but will have to get some regular pillows for a normal looking bed when it is made. I laugh every time I see them sitting so little on the bed.

Grumpy gave me the master bath and closet and he keeps his clothes in the den closet and uses the bathroom over there. It works out nicely in the morning when he gets up so early to go to work. There is a built-in desk in the Master bedroom that I use for my computer and stuff. I need some lamps and a shelf or two and I am good to go. I am working on getting some things for our plant shelf in the kitchen (on top of the cabinets) and buying 2 new pan racks for the wall for all the pans I have stuffed into the tiny closet in the kitchen. We are settling in and getting used to living in smaller spaces. Grumpy did a good job picking out our place here.

Now if I could just figure out how to get around this crazy town.

The Temple in Lubbock

Yesterday was my first visit to the Lubbock, Texas Temple. It was our first time to do a session there and was a great experience. We went with a couple from our ward and they had family names that we could take through for them. It is a small Temple, but elegant and beautiful nonetheless. I love taking in all the detail that makes each temple the jewel that it is. We left early enough that I could check out the JoAnn's Fabric store that was just down the street from the temple. How fortunate for me. Not so much for Grumpy. Me and my friend Margaret had lots of fun for about 20 minutes. It's amazing how much you can stack up in such a short amount of time. She wants to learn how to do these easy and fun pillowcases, so we shall do a few. Or maybe more than a few. After the damages at JoAnn's, we went in search of dinner and ended up at a Pei Wei's. Always good. On the way to the restaurant, I noticed an ice-cream place and made a mental note so that we could get some dessert on the way home. And we did. It was a wonderfully delicious Turtle sundae. Extra hot fudge of course.

All in all a very good trip. I like Lubbock so far.

Texas Rain…and Texas Quilts

It finally happened. We had a really good rain and the storm was awesome. I love a good storm. The thunder and lightning were amazing - enough that it woke me up in the middle of the night. I laid in bed and listened to nature doing it's thing for quite a while. When I got up (rather late) the next morning it was to see leaden skies. It was beautiful. I had to take a picture. Even better was the fact that the wind wasn't blowing for once. I know we have all been praying for rain and it was with thanks that I listened to the beating of the rain on the ground outside. We don't live on the top floor of our building, so it was weird not hearing the rain on the roof.

I had decided to go to the Quilter's Guild Quilt Show while Grumpy went to the Warbirds Air Show Saturday. The rain was over, but the clouds were still with us. The airshow was going ahead, so he left for his adventure. Me too, only much later in the morning. I have been google mapping a lot lately, so that was my first step. I was pleasantly surprised, and impressed by the talent apparent in the ladies quilt guild. There were some gifted quilters on display as well as lots of merchandise that makes quilting a bit easier than it appears sometimes. I am posting just a few pics from my tour through the show.



This "Wedding Ring" quilt above is done Texas style. If you look at the diagonal square pieces, you will see the local flavor in the fabric prints. It was really a pretty quilt in the actual stitching too. A work of art. So was the "Irish Chain" in the first quilt below. I love stars and so took a close up shot of the star quilting in this one. I can see I have a lot to learn.




In the one above the quilter used fabrics from her and her daughter's dresses to make her squares. What a great way to preserve lots of memories. These next two reminded me of things I knew Nana would like. I love the retro fabrics of the little cowboys and western things. I even have some fabrics similar to these I bought in a Utah quilt shop a few years ago. I can't wait to do something with them now. The animal appliques in the second one below just brought Nana to mind immediately. She made such wonderful quilts for all our babies when they were born. I remember lambs, kittens, ducks, and so on in her works of art. I so wish I had taken pictures of those little blankets we used until they were threadbare.




The two below are Christmas to me. I am definitely going to try something like the stripy one. I love all the fabrics and the cabin feel I get when I look at it. The trees are fun and I liked her use of colors in the fabrics she picked.




Here's just a few more of some of my favorites:








These last three are just impossible to look at without thinking of our love of flip flops, especially Taya and her closet full of flip flops; all the many, and varied Yo's Yo's we have all made (and will continue to make I hope); and our crazy chicken ladies, Tracy and Stacie. I love chickens too, I just don't have any real ones yet. Maybe someday.





No wonder the phrase, "The fabric of our lives" was coined. Fabric is just another way we remember the events and the everyday things of our lives. The prints, solids and textures we choose to surround ourselves with says a lot about our personalities.

Maybe that's why I love fabric so much.

Creepy Sleep

I hope today is the day the pillowcases are delivered to my house in Mesa. It was cheaper to send them all to one address than it was to four addresses, so Robert gets the happy job of delivering the prizes. (Thanks mucho Robert!)I had a lot of fun making these and each one is different from any of the others. Except Faith and Rylee have twin cases. I thought about you individually and tried to pick fabrics (with sometimes limited choices here) that you would like. I can see one for each holiday in the future but it might take some time. I expect pics from all you guys so I can add them to my files. I don't even have a regular pillow here to try them all on! I hope everyone enjoys a little halloween in their room. Even you big kids–you're never too big to enjoy some funky holiday stuff. I'm not so great at getting things right on birthdays, but Grumpy and I try and do something fun for each of you every year. We love you all.

Today is Jade and Jeff's Anniversary. Happy Day to you guys, I still remember the wedding day. It was a pretty wedding. I hope Jaxon's leg is feeling better. Bicycles can be such traitors sometimes, fun one minute and cutting up your leg the next. Damn bike! Gotta love 'em though.

Speaking of creepy sleep... I hope R.B.'s kids are careful on their new toy so I don't have to worry. It looks like a fun toy, and I hope we can make it to the dunes this year to see them enjoy it. If we don't, again, I expect some pics.



Those are some crazy boys in there! Maybe I should worry just a little. It is my job after all!

October in the Apartment

I don't know what I was thinking (not) when I decided not to bring my fall decorations with me. What few I did bring and a few new pumpkins from Hobby Lobby will have to suffice to make us look festive this October.







I finally feel a little more like this is home as things go up on the walls. I took a shot of the grand wall (complete with spiders for now). I love laying on the couch and looking at the pics. I will love it even more when I get some more pics (hint, hint). One of these days I will go through my picture files and pull out candids of the various and many grands I am missing on my wall. I would prefer more current ones though. I'm just saying…




Grumpy is right at home though. Far better now than that camp chair and office chair he was using. He seems to be happy in our little nest here. Our cable entity, Suddenlink, does not have BYU channel in their line-up of channels. I will continue to entreat them to add said channel, but in the meantime we watched conference on my computer. It wasn't too different, but it would have been better on the bigger screen in the living room. We were glad to get it on the computer though. What wonderful technology we enjoy these days. I am old enough to remember dressing up and going to the stake centers with everyone else to watch it. It is definitely more quiet in the home. And I can have hot chocolate if I want.

You can see in the pic of Grumpy that there are pieces of fabric with leaves drawn on them lying about. I am working on table decor for the women in our fam to have for the fall. I hope I get them done in time to actually enjoy them out on the tables for awhile before it's time for the Christmas decor. Speaking of Christmas… I found a wonderful store here in Midland that is dedicated to the holidays. I went in yesterday knowing I would buy nothing and really did buy nothing. Quite a feat, I must say. They even had the most glorious ribbon, and we all know how I feel about ribbon. I stood in front of the ribbon display and drooled for bit, then made my legs take me to a different part of the store. I saw things I wanted to buy for everyone. Me too. I wish I had more money than I knew what to do with. I love Christmas stuff. When I left the store for the parking lot, of course the wind was blowing. I think it always blows here. So far anyway. I am including a pic of what my hair looks like most of the time here. I went out on my little balcony and took this shot of myself. Hair everywhere. Such is life in our little west Texas town.

Going to the Temple

A happier time I can't remember. Summer and Jamie were able to go to the Arizona Temple on September 10th to be sealed together, and then have Taylor, Jordyn and Rylee sealed to them for eternity. I can't even write about it without tears of joy running down my face. Such a special day for our family. All our family that could come did, and they had a lot of support from their ward family as well. Grumpy and I went about a week early so we could spend some time in AZ, and I was able to make Summer's temple dress as well as her after the temple dress. Both turned out well, and it made me happy to see the smile on her face. I hope they can always remember the feelings they had in that sealing room, surrounded by people who love them. I've heard the saying "No empty chairs" speaking from an eternal perspective. We are a few chairs closer to that in our family now.





Jade was on hand to beautify. She did a great job on Summer's hair (complete with feathers) for the occasion.




And the kiss for Dad. I love these kind of pics. Precious memories.



Such a wonderful event to go home for.

Ten Days at the Goodwins

I spent some time at the Goodwins while Taya and Kevin took advantage of a free cruise Kevin won from his company. Well, there were some good times, and then some not so good times. I went shopping in Arizona before the trip to buy some Halloween fabrics to make pillowcases for the kids beds. I found some really cute stuff and even some ribbons to doll (dude) them up a little. I figured I would start them on a Tuesday, so all the kids would be in school. Emmy's is only 3 hrs. long, but hey, I'll take 3 hrs of kid free time anytime! Taya and Kevin left about noon on Saturday and all was well until Monday afternoon. Emmy doesn't go to school on Monday and Daron, Madison and Lauren are all home by about 1:30. We were all just doin' our things when I hear a commotion on the stairs. Did not sound good. After all the months and months of two story house stair climbing, Emmy mis-stepped (or something) and came tumbling down about 12 stairs. At first all seemed okay after the initial tears were over. Then I noticed she was sort of holding her right arm funny. After watching her for a while, I decided she needed to have it looked at, so I get out the medical info Taya left me and Madison and I took off with Emmy. The first place was an Urgent Care, but they couldn't X_Ray (they never can), so we ended up at the E.R. Small town, small ER. That was good. They weren't busy, so it only took 3 hours instead of 6. After all the drama there, it was determined she had fractured a small bone in her hand, just below her little finger. They put a splint on it, and a sling (that lasted about until we got to the car), and we went home. Not exactly the best photo to be sending to the parental units via text messaging. The caption Daron sent with the photo said "please check your email". We got an email the next day responding to the one I sent with the diagnosis and treatment info. I really hate it when kids get hurt.



On a happier note, the kids pillowcases turned out great. I went online for a tutorial on a tricky way to put them together so all the seams on the cuff, or hem of the case are inside. It was fun to get them done and on their beds.





I saw a cute table runner while shopping with Taya the day before they left, so decided to try and get one done for her dining room table. I haven't done anything very craftsy for a long time, so it was fun. Kaitlin and Maddie helped out with some yo-yo's (they are supposed to look like grapes) that we added. It was lots of fun to do something seasonal. I so love the holidays.



Now the pressure in on to get pillowcases done for the rest of the grands.

I even had time to get Taya and Kevin's China Hutch loaded for them while I was there. Grumpy and I got our Christmas shopping done in July this year, so I was able to take Taya's to her when Papa and I took her and Maddie home from AZ in August. Yep, craigslist was my store of choice for the kid's presents this year. I tried to pick things they would not buy for themsleves, so Taya and Kevin ended up with a china hutch to put her pretty things in. I wish I had bought one long ago.



It's on the small side, but I figure someday they can buy a big, really nice one and this one can be used more like a curio. Fun times in California. Wheee Haaaaw! I'm still recovering as I write this. I'm old.