Moved In

Although we are a good drive from most conveniences the one thing I like so far is how close we are to fresh produce. Chris and I stopped at a road stand a couple miles down the road. They had fresh cherries for $2 a pound. They are the best cherries I have ever had. I noticed two cherry trees on our property but looks like the birds ate all the cherries. At the new place the garden & landscaping is almost nonexistent. I will need to start from scratch and add to it as I go.


Already started home projects

We moved in last Friday. What an ordeal. I packed myself and hired movers to move the stuff to the new place. We live on a road that winds up the mountain and there was concern that the moving truck would not make it up. Thankfully they did.




The biggest project last weekend was putting in a dog door. It is a major hassle to open the door every time the dogs wanted to go outside. So a dog door was high priority. It took us two days to put this in and build the steps. It kind of looks like we have Hobbits living here.


Porch



One of my favorite things of this house is the large front porch. It gets morning sun and has a gentle breeze in the afternoon. I am already day dreaming of once everything gets put away and done inside the house and spending quality time on that porch relaxing with a good book or some knitting.


Pain in the Butt



This is the back porch door. It is my enemy. It looks nice and seems to be friendly but don’t be fooled. While we were putting in the dog door, we had the extension cord winding through the house and out this door. I was trying to hold the electric saw and pull the cord to give more slack. I pushed my back end against the door to hold it open while maneuvering. I was suddenly aware that I had received a bite from the door in the form of splinters in my ass. The beauty about living in the country I did not hesitate to instantly pull my shorts back and have Chris assist me with removing the splinters. He could hardly see due to the fact he was laughing so hard. Unfortunately this was not the only splinter incidences of the weekend. Both Chris and I had our fair share of moments with the tweezers pulling splinters out of our hands from the siding. Dude if I get my hands on an electric sander look out I am going to go to war with the wood around this place.

Nice Long Weekend
Well thank goodness there is a long holiday weekend. Chris and I have a long list of things to do to the house. We live right next to a National Forest so fireworks are prohibited due to how dry it is this year. Of course there will be celebrating and clinking of glasses to toast our progress of our new journey.

It is Official

webshots photo

We closed on the house last Friday and are officially owners of a country home in a very small town. The town has no stop lights. It does have a post office and a corner store. That is it. At our new house there is no mail delivery up our road so we will need to use a post office box. There is no garbage pickup either. However the good news is we were able to get DSL through the phone company. Thank goodness, I don’t think we could handle dial up again.

Chris and I got the keys to the home last Friday and did a walk through to see what we needed to do to make it livable. Remember how I said there was one room that is in desperate need of a paint job. Well let me tell you, every single room needs a paint job. All horrible colors are up on the wall, and the walls are filthy. At least the floors look good. There is tile through out all the main areas and nice carpet in the bedrooms.


Charlotte

Movers are booked for Friday the 23rd. So I have been busy cleaning and packing. I cleaned out the garage on Saturday. What a job that was.

Look what I found in the corner.



A Black widow spider with two egg sacks. Creepy Jeebys! It was a two man effort to remove her. We have never been bitten by one but we find a couple every year, usually around the BBQ.


Busy Moving

I will try to post again after we move and I get my computer back online.
Cosmo is our official box inspector.



He is obsessed with each and every box in the house. This is his and Haley’s first move. I stress out about them adjusting to the new home. Brandy on the other hand she is an old timer and has been through many moves and does well with new places. I think she is going to get a kick out of all of the land we are going to be moving to. She is a true country dog at heart.

Packing Progress

First here is an update on my stole. I really like this Cascade yarn. It knits up real nice. I think it would work well in a fisherman’s sweater with lots of cables. It is not too heavy, very flexible and comes in lots of colors.


Packing

This weekend I was mostly cleaning out and getting rid of things I don’t want to pack or move. I am finding lots of cool things.



These I found in one of Chris’s old boxes. They are all Junior Deluxe Edition Classics published in the 1950’s.


I collect cards. Mostly ones with great art work or just ones that caught my eye, or made me laugh.

Here is a card I have in my collection. It is a Hallmark Fresh/ink.


The caption reads

“ …and in their purses were candy bars. How happy were they?”

I just love that. To start with as a kid I loved cats, and kittens were even better. If I was that age and I had a kitten to hold and was dressed snazzy with a cute little purse and to top it off to have a chocolate candy bar. That day would just be bursting with happiness.


New shows



Treasure Hunters on NBC starts this Sunday the 18th and will air regular night on Mondays. I think this might be good. I like the Amazing race & Survivor so this will probably get me through the summer. Also it is being produced by Ron Howard so it can’t be too bad.




Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet Friday nights. Did anyone else catch this one? I taped it and watched it Saturday while knitting. It was real cute. A 10 year study was done on this family of Meerkat’s and now has been put into a show. It is narrated by Sean Astin. It tells the story of the Whisker family headed by Flower the Female Mom. They showed two 30minute episodes last Friday and I am hooked and can’t wait to find out what happens next.

June Blue

The project spectrum color for June is Blue. I thought I would dig through my stash and pull out all the blue yarn. Not much blue in the stash. Top left is Mama-E-‘s cyber fiber sock “June Bug”. Top Right is Lorna’s Shepherd Sock in color sand ridge 112. Bottom Left is Mountain Colors Hand painted Mohair-Lupine. Bottom Middle is Rowan Chunky Cotton Chenille-SH394. Lastly bottom Right is Lion brand Wool ease-denim. I don’t have any plans with the blue yarn this month I am still working on my green stole from last month.


Blue Project



I did find this cool Hawaiian print fabric at Wal-Mart for $2 a yard. I am planning to make some chair pad covers for my Wicker chairs. I have a round wooden table that is currently outdoors and I have 4 wicker chairs I use with the table and I also move around and use some in the home. When we move to the new home I plan to move the table and chairs in doors to use as the kitchen table. I think the new chair pad covers will be a nice touch.


News on the Home



We have finally come to agreement with the seller on the home and are now finishing up the last minute things like the survey and getting the septic cleaned out. We are shooting for a June 16th closing and have booked movers for the 23rd. That gives me about two weeks to pack up the entire house. SCARY!

I really hope everything gets done with the bank and processing to make that June 16th closing deadline. I would like that week to be able to get a few things done at the new place before our stuff gets moved in. There is one room I would desperately like to paint before furniture gets moved into the space.

Summer Begins

June is here and another summer has begun. I already feel like I am running in place and have two many things to do this season. I spotted this too cool item in a magazine.



This is the Ice Cream Excursion Basket buy Red Envelope



This basket looks like summer to me. How cool would it be to have this and fill it with your favorite gallon of ice cream. Head out to a nice sunny spot with the ones you love to waste away the afternoon. Then to dish out the ice cream while watching the sunset for a perfect end to a perfect day. What a great idea.


Baby Name



We finally decided on a name for our newest member. We named her Miss Bianca. We are big Disney fans and tend to lean towards Disney character names. She was named after the Hungarian mouse Miss Bianca in the Disney Movie titled The Rescuers. We still have three more babies left to be born this year. One is due on the 15th and the other two are due on the 19th of June. Miss Bianca was born several weeks past her due date so we are thinking the other three might come late also.


Home News



This is the home that has been in the works. It is a 3 bedroom two bath sitting on 11 acres. We just got word that the appraisal was done and came in way under the agreed upon purchase price. I am not sure why this keeps happening to us. We will know more next week. Basically realtors will need to talk and then the sellers will need to decide if they will sell it to us for the appraisal price. The bank will only loan you according to the appraisal price of the property.

We have our fingers crossed that the sellers want to sell and move on. If the Sellers decide they want more money and will hold on to the property then we are back to square one for the fifth time. If this one does not go through we are definitely dumping our Realtor and looking for another one.


The Garden



This is my Mimosa tree. It is in bloom now and is covered with these pink fluffy blooms. I love everything about this tree. I love the intense green color of the leaves and how light and airy they look fluttering in the breeze. I love how the blooms are fluffy pink powder puffs. Plus the name itself is wonderful “Mimosa”. Champaign bubbles with sweet fruit juice.

This weekend Chris and I ventured into the yard to start the clean up and assess the situation. Chris is in charge of the lawn, and let me tell you it was in desperate need of some attention. This is also the time of year we check the irrigation system. My least favorite part of this garden is fixing the irrigation system. Chris handles the lawn sprinklers which is pretty much to make sure they are not clogged and they are facing the right direction.

I am in charge of the rest of the irrigation system, all the pipes and extensions that wonder to & fro beneath the surface. Unfortunately there were three areas of the piping I found that had sprung leaks. This is bad because when there is a leak any plants further down that pipe does not get the water it needs. It also is bad because I need to dig it up and cut the tube in half then put a coupler over it to stop the leak. This means trip to Lowes standing in front of the wall of small irrigation parts to find the exact one you need. Then once home dealing with fitting these parts onto the piping. Lots of cursing & crying and your hands get so sore trying to get the darn thing tightly into place so as to prevent leaks. Then once done you need to stick the piping back in the ground.

I am happy it is all fixed and all plants are getting water. The only thing is I am feeling the burn. I can barely walk and I feel like I did a million squats with 100 pound weights.



Looks like the peaches are growing. We have three dwarf peach trees and they are already starting to fruit.

Time to bust out the BBQ baby, pour yourself some lemonade and let the SUMMER BEGIN!