Moving is a chore. . .

 We were also use to 9 ft ceilings with lots of overhead storage. We are feeling the effects of going from a 2400 sq ft house to one just under 1600 ft. We just have too much STUFF! Downsizing is a good thing.

 

We have the office set up with the computers and a love seat and futon there as well.

The entertainment center is in a smaller living area with couch, chair and tables. Now, if we can just get some dependable tv reception in there - without the "WEAK or NO SIGNAL"!! I would mention how I feel about the HDTV but will save it for another blog -or maybe not!

Both bedrooms are set up. We are still working on getting pictures hung.

 

I have pretty well set up my sewing room, but have some concerns about the carpet. 

My ironing board is not too steady on it and I caught my iron just before it hit the floor. Also my roll around chair -DOESN'T - on the carpet.

My room is large enough but the closet is much smaller than the one that my HD custom built for me at the old house.

The "old house" was a 100 year old church that we remodeled into a home and did it our way.

 The kitchen and dining is working out nicely. 

 
HD installed a storm door at the back with a dog door in it for our 16 year old baby, Dora.

We are hoping that our portable building can be moved to our back yard. It would be a lifesaver since we have not started moving things from the old garage, shop, RV cover or the building. 

We are concerned whether the building can be maneuvered by hand between the tree and the house, using plywood and poles to slide it. We are going to give it a try when the ground dries out some. That will be another blog!

On the upside of moving, we are so enjoying being closer to family. Also shopping is so much more convenient, rather than being so far that it takes all day to run errands. Traffic is a bit different here - it's not like our previous rush hour being two cars at the four-way stop!!

But we are making some progress - we can get my little "toaster" car in the garage but not HD's big truck. In the garage, we still have boxes with fabric, garage sale items, misc boxes and large bags of teddy bears.

We are gettin' there!

She's Here!!

 

We have a new grandchild - a beautiful little girl named Kalina Michael. She arrived March 4th at 9:26 a.m.  in Sofia, Bulgaria weighing in at 6 lb 13 oz and was 19.3 inches long. Mother, Lili and baby are doing fine. Daddy, Mike welcomed them home from the hospital. This is Mike and Lili's first.

 Here is the family leaving the hospital on their way home. Mike, Lili, Kalina, Lili's Mom, Toni and a hospital friend.

 

 

She looks to have a good set of lungs!!

 

We so wish we could be there to welcome Kalina but will have to rely on Lili's Mom, Toni, and Grandma, Babetta, for that and for a bit of spoiling! We hope to take our turn later this summer.

Congratulations to Mike and Lili. She is beautiful!

It's Official . . .

 

- we have moved! OK, here's the deal. We have been actively looking for several months now. We wanted to find somewhere not too far from family and with taxes within our fixed income budget; yet closer to city shopping and medical facilities. We decided on Azle, TX.

We did not pick the best weekend to move - with Valentine's Day and lots of snow and fog, it made the drive challenging. We are very grateful to our DS, Jay for all his help and our DIL, Rosario for sharing him for the weekend. We could not have done it without him – organizing, helping load and driving the truck. Also thank DD, Sheri and SIL, Perry and nephew, Bruce for the help unloading and furnishing lunch.

We kept it a secret from my father-in-law as a surprise. My brother-in-law took him for a ride and when they drove by, told him he thought he knew the people who lived here and wanted to say hello. When my DH opened the door, my FILl did a doubletake! We live 16 miles from him now and he is very happy with that.

We are closer to DD, a brother & sister-in-law and about the same distance from everyone else.

Our old house, in a small town, is on the market and although we hope for a fairly quick sale, we will leave it in our realtor's hands and move to our new home close to the metroplex.

We will miss our friends here, those community neighbors from our crafting days and those very special friends from our local Senior Center.

I will miss this big house (even though we didn't even use a couple of rooms) and the outbuildings with storage room -a big garage with loft, a shop, a portable building with two lofts and a huge RV cover.

I won't miss us having to mow four lots or having to drive 60 miles round trip to the nearest Walmart ! !

Most of all, for the past year, I have worried about the distance to hospitals. My DH had a heart attack in August of 2008, early on a Sunday morning and the hospital was 50 miles away. I got him there in time, driving our little 'toaster' car (Scion) at speeds of 105 miles an hour. My HD. the good Lord, nor I wish to do that ever again. He is doing great now.

Our DS (middle child) sent me this doctored picture of my car after our quick trip to the hospital.

Anyway, I will feel more confident being closer to medical facilities and family, especially as we get older. And the convenience of a variety of places to shop within a few mile is wonderful.

Cedar Ridge Park

This US Army Corps of Engineers park, located near Temple, Tx at Lake Belton is very nice.

 It is very quiet and has a lot of deer roaming thru the park all the time. They come right up close to the RV. There are also turkeys roaming the park.

   I even got a picture out the window of our 5th wheel. It's a bit cloudy 'cause of the dirty window!

The view is very nice across the lake. We really enjoyed our stay there for a couple of days, and the price, with our Senior Pass was great!

Connell Embroidered Blocks Quilt Series

My Sister - The Quilter

It's all her fault ! She got me hooked started on quilting. Now I am addicted but seem to have quilter's ADD. I have too many projects going at one time.

I greatly admire my quilting sister, Faith. She has put together and quilted some beautiful quilts. Her choice of quality fabrics and color matches are amazing and her tiny quilting stitches as well.

When I see her quilts, it makes me work harder to make mine better with perfectly matched corners and small stitches.

When I worried about a quilt, she always said "It's your quilt -make it any way you want it!"

Connell Chain Quilts

Mom decided it would be nice to try to make a quilt for all the girls in the family with her handwork on it. That was the start of the Connell Chain idea. She embroidered a number of quilt blocks for use in them.

Connell Chain #1

This green and purple floral quilt was started many years ago, worked on off and on by Mom and sister Faith and finally completed in 1988. The embroidery work on the blocks was done by Mom and pieced by Faith. Mom and Faith learned to quilt with this quilt and sister Teresa also learned some basic quilting. 

Mom originally had this one but gave it to Faith since she had worked on it so much. During the holidays this year, Faith passed it on to our sister Marge.

Connell Chain #2

This quilt was started with leftover blocks from #1 but embroidered in brighter colors of pink, lavender and teal by Teresa and Mom. Faith designed the quilt, Teresa chose her colors, then she and Mom embroidered the blocks. Mom was nursing a broken ankle when she embroidered these. Teresa pieced and quilted the top with Mom's help. This is Teresa's quilt.

Connell Chain #3

My sister, Faith, “the quilter” did a lot of work on the quilts. Mom embroidered these blocks in 1995. Faith pieced them and did most of the quilting with help from Mom and sisters; June and Teresa; sister-in-law, Dee Dee and myself. This one was made sister Barbara and husband John.

Connell Chain #4

For this last one, Faith asked me if I would put it together and quilt it, as her battle with cancer would not allow her to work on it. It is a beautiful quilt and I hope I have done it justice even though my quilting is not as fine as Faith's.

The embroidery pattern is a flower basket done by Mom in pink, rose and yellow with the basket in brown. The outer corners have a quarter floral pattern and when joined together form almost a rounded pattern.

Faith picked out the perfect sashing to go around the blocks, with dark brown floral along the sides and dark green floral for the corner blocks. The borders are green floral stripe, pale yellow floral and pink floral on the outer edges.

I found a striped greenish teal fabric in my stash that I felt would add to the quilt so I added two borders of it as well. The narrow binding is brown floral. Faith had one block pieced to get me started and I have did the remainder of the piecing and the hand quilting . This one was give to our sister, Kathy and husband Gus at Christmas this year.

This is some of the quilting pattern on the quilt. The block quilting and the border quilting.

  Now to tell you the error I made when I first put the top together. . .

look at the stripe corners!

But I went back and fixed them!

Family Christmas Part Two

Christmas in Amarillo

I am so glad we went to Amarillo a few days early, with the winter storm that arrived just in time for Christmas. Thank goodness, DD and family didn't try to make the trip there on Christmas Eve from the metroplex. The snow was beautiful but the temperature was very cold. 

We stayed in our lot beside Mom's house and were pleased with the performance of our 5^th wheel heater when it got down to 8 degrees one night.

Mom couldn't neglect her birds. She went out when the snow let up a bit and filled their feeders. She takes good care of them.

We took our baby Dora with us and she was rather put out by having to stay in a "jail" playpen but had some problems recently so we kept her confined. Although she still got her nap out with HD!

It was great to see everyone on Christmas Eve at my sister, Barbara's for our family gathering and gift exchange. Three of my four brothers were there and all six of my sisters made it. Since DD and her family didn't make it, we hooked up the computer using Skype and visited with them. We wanted to do the same on Christmas Day for our son and daughter-in-law in Bulgaria but with the time difference, it was not possible.

I am so glad that my sister Faith was feeling well enough to come and stay for the evening and again Christmas Day. I had been working on a special gift for our sister Kathy and husband Gus since July. It is the Connell Chain #4 quilt so I was especially glad they could make the trip from south Texas to receive it. It was a good surprise for them.

   
Barbara's home was filled with people enjoying each other's company. There were 57 family members present. The kids opened gifts, then we did the Chinese gift exchange for the women, then the men. That was so much fun!

There was a much smaller crowd there for Christmas Day but we all enjoyed wonderful food and company. Barbara & John are terrific hosts!

Brave souls, Teresa, Gus and Kathy built an igloo in Barbara's front yard and did a really good job.

For more pictures, visit my son's picture site:
 http://services.mercuryws.biz/public/photos/index.php?folder=/Users/jpbiggerstaff/Amarillo%20Christmas%202009/

When we got home, we discovered we had even more snow than Amarillo got!