Dancing

So where did I leave things the other day?  Oh yes.  Blacking the stove.  It is now black and I survived the experience.  Heh.

Oh!  And the For Sale sign is now planted in the front yard.  Happy dancing all around The Sandbox, over the dogs and up and down the hallway.  La de dah de dah de dah.  :-)   No link yet on realtor.com but it should be up by the morning.  (And....there is already some interest.  Shhhhhhh.  We don't want to jinx anything!)

In other news.  Apparently there will be a hockey season.  Certain folks in New Jersey are celebrating.  :-)

And recently received photos show family life looking cozy in New Zealand.  So sweet.

The weather is quite warm and unusually humid for January which meant dense fog this morning.  Yesterday wasn't very bright either, but good enough for some Dog TV.

This afternoon the fog burned off and the day turned lovely.  It might as well be spring.  Trees and shrubs are blooming and daffodils are poking up.  But the natives are telling us stories of late January snowstorms.  So we shall see.

Feeder watching continues.  This titmouse was watching something closely.  :-)

I was pleased to spot a new-to-me bird yesterday, a brown creeper.  And today I was excited to finally see both the male and the female flicker.  I'm easily amused.

In the evenings I've been working away at the 148 leaves for Lilly Pilly.  After much burning of the tips of my fingers with the iron I'm pleased to be almost done.  Phew!

I think I need to take out the garbage?  Yesterday and the day before I prepped 113 t-shirts.  I filled both these large wastebaskets with the scraps plus one bin of larger pieces which will go into the garage as shop towels.

All the t-shirts are ready to back to Julianne to be designed into five quilts.  Then the sewing begins.

Sadly happy.

Is that possible?  To be sadly happy?  We met the realtor down at The Other House today and I can't help being thrilled that the house will be finally listed.  I also can't seem to help being sad.  Sigh.  Well.  As they say.  "Location, location, location."  This location suits us much better.  Still.....

I'm still in love with the new red front door.  When The Other House is sold maybe we can paint this one a happier color.  With a red front door of course!  :-)

 

Ok.  Enough of that.  Back to fun in The Sandbox.  I have always wanted to do one of Kellie's (Don't Look Now) quilts.  I was so excited to find out Julianne is going to carry them I practically snatched my favorite (Lilly Pilly) right out of her hand!  lol  When she suggested I make the shop sample I said SURE!  (Like I have nothing else to do??)  I ran my fingers through all the new fabric that's come into the shop, added a bit from my stash and I'm off and running.  Yippee!

Gulp!  There are 148 leaves.

I couldn't imaging tracing all 148 leaves out onto freezer paper so I let the OCD part of me take over and came up with a system that works for me.  Everything is lettered and numbered and I'm ready to go.

The backing fabric is ironed and cut to size and the tree trunk, branches and birds are ready to fuse.

Now the fun part.  Prepping all those leaves.  Yikes!

Therapy

As usual, I had to create a mess to clean up a mess.  I've been focusing most of my energies on The Other House but I just couldn't resist a little TLC on the home front.  All this stuff is now at the bottom of the attic stairs waiting to be hauled up that last flight.  I wonder how long I can put it off?  :-)

I also took a break to do a bit of gluten-free baking.  The banana chocolate chip muffins came out a bit like rubber balls, but this cinnamon raisin bread out of a new cookbook is pretty good.  I took this picture in a dark kitchen at 5:30 this morning.  For some reason I've been on a "wake up way too early" sleep schedule.

All day Thursday I was down at The Other House giving it a final cleaning.    Friday and Saturday are usually my Project FeederWatch days but we were so busy I missed last week.  The Friday morning, it was so nice to just sit at the big front window and count birds for a while.  Yes, we have a couple of equal opportunity feeders.  And yes those are Ivy's ears.

I've set up a third feeding station in an attempt to draw the aggressive mockingbirds farther away.  Here he/she is guarding the suet.  Sigh.

There were robins everywhere yesterday.  They are everywhere on the ground and in the trees but they don't come to the feeders.  So I was surprised when several were hanging around with the feeding birds.

There are at least three robins in this picture (yes that's Ngaire's ear), one in particular is watching the goings on.

I was so surprised when he came to the feeder!

He hopped around a minute or two examining it from every angle.  I was amazed.

It was cold out!  Think Woodstock and Snoopy playing hockey in their birdbath.  :-)  On his way to work The Tramp stopped for a moment to pour some hot water over the ice in the birdbath.  It looks like snow on the baffle but that's frozen suet bits.  I was pleased to identify a few different warblers.  This is a yellow-rumped warbler.

Frosty!

When not being harassed by the mockingbird the suet cakes are very popular with a variety of birds.

No ducks today, but the geese are hanging around.  Last year they would walk up into our yard every morning for a breakfast of persimmons.  Those trees are gone now and I have to say we and the neighbors are pleased not to have to deal with the goose poop or the messy persimmons.  If you ever got persimmon all up in the treads of your sneakers you'd know what I mean!

Geese all in a row.  Is that anything like ducks all in a row?  :-)

Today we spent a long day down at The Other House doing yard work and emptying the last piles of stuff out of the sheds.  Our wonderful neighbors loaned us their truck and after two trips to the dump Convenience Center we are almost all cleaned out.  There are just a few things left, waiting to be taken to the thrift shop.  Yay!

So this evening I decided I needed some fabric therapy and got the last two blocks of this BOM cut, fused and ready for stitching.

I couldn't resist pinning it all up on the design wall to see the effect.  Woot!  I like!  I haven't chosen a color for the sashing strips.  Suggestions are welcome.  :-)  I want to add a few touches of my own to the applique too.

Therapy indeed!

Exhaustion and the home stretch

Today around 4:30 I hit a wall (figuratively).  The Tramp and I are tired.  REAL tired.  We've spent every day since Christmas down at The Other House getting it ready for sale.  It's looking pretty good and we are just hoping someone else will think so and buy it.

The outside is looking nice and neat, with clean brick, new paint, fixed roof and some new landscaping.  Unfortunately, the front door still has problems and needs another redo.  (I think our current house should have a red door to match my car too!  lol)

The backyard still needs some trimming and spiffing but now the sheds are painted the view is getting better.  We came to our senses and hired a "junk man" to come and take away what turned out to be a whole van load of stuff from the sheds, leanto, workshop and yard.  Soooo worth it!

Inside cleaning is in progress.  Every surface other than the new paint needs scrubbing.  Well no.  I take that back.  The flooring people left scrapes and large dirty handprints on walls and woodwork.  Sigh.

Besides paint, there are new vanities, new light fixtures, new toilets, new carpets and vinyl.  Existing light fixtures and ceiling fans have been shined up and bulbs replaced.  The mailbox has been painted and reinstalled.  Mirrors and medicine cabinet installed.  Vent covers replaced, repaired or painted.  A door trimmed to fit over the new flooring, doorstops replaced, new screws in some hinges to stop sagging, gluing of loose tiles, a bit of grouting and caulking.......  You know.  All the usual small stuff one does over time.  It's just tiring to do it all in one week!

Yesterday I finished washing all the windows.  It turns out there are 21 windows, four french doors, 3 half-light doors a sidelight and a transom.  Whew!  But they are looking good.  From the inside.....

and the outside.

While I did windows The Tramp cleaned carpet.  They look brighter now though are far from perfect, but we decided not to replace them.  The outflow of money had to stop somewhere!

Floors are looking shinier too.

Since we had rented the carpet machine, we brought it home last night and right about midnight (Happy New Year) ....almost as if we weren't tired....we cleaned until the solution was finished up, which worked out to be the stairs, hallway and a bit of the master bedroom.  Actually The Tramp did the bulk of it.  (Love you honey!)  I don't do so well with noisy machines.

Today The Tramp installed a new exterior lockset, as well as sets on 14 interior doors.  I touched up paint in nearly every room (10 rooms, two bathrooms, one powder room, and workshop).   Then I scrubbed crayon, chalk and marker off the fireplace stove and brick.  Washing certainly doesn't make the stove look better or newer though.  I've ordered stove black from Lehmans.  Now that's going to be a new experience!

The big family room floor is finally washed and all I have left to do is scrub down the kitchen and hallway, and give the bathrooms another lick and a promise.   Then of course is the yard......

BUT.  I did open the red case and play a bit with my new machine.  Very cool!  It needs some work as it seems to be suffering from lack of use.  I joined a couple more Yahoo Groups that deal with these older Berninas, bought and downloaded a service manual, and think this one was manufactured in 1978.  It was originally bought from a shop in Raleigh which is kind of cool too.  I'm hoping to find a day soon to concentrate on bringing it up to snuff.  I'm all signed up for a retreat in May and hope to go to Symposium in June and this is the machine I want to take with me.  :-)

It's rainy and chilly here but no snow (thank goodness).  Stardust makes a really cute pink snow bunny! I wonder if her dad has her on a snowboard yet?  I wouldn't be surprised.  :-)

 And The Viking's first Christmas.  Awwwww.  I can't wait to see them again.