Quilts!

So, I am almost finished with the quilts for the girls. They are both tied (or tufted -- in lieu of quilting), but I need to finish the bindings for them. I have the bindings machine sewed on one of the quilts(I'm sewing one side of the binding on by machine and then hand stitching the other side). The other quilt is on the machine right now. And both quilts are getting packed up to go with us on our trip to Ohio next week, where I intend to finish the hand stitching.

I was surprised to find that my least favorite (and by that, I mean I absolutely detested the process) part of making these was layering the quilt parts together and pinning them. It was a royal pain in the patootie. The layers all stuck together, so if I need to reposition the top layer, I would actually have to pick it up and reposition the entire thing, because it would just drag the bottom layers with it. It took FOREVER to get them positioned correctly.

Here is a little peak at one of the quilts:


The tufting of the quilt wasn't hard, but it was dangerous. I used a rather large, and very sharp, darning needle for said task. Check out this monstrosity:


I have several deep puncture wounds as a result of the quilt making. I'm pretty happy with them so far, but I'm thinking I'll stick to simpler (and smaller) sewing projects from now on!

Moving Part 1: Complete!

So, today we sold our house here in North Carolina. It is really weird to be living down the street through this process. I really wish we weren't -- I'm having an overwhelming urge to get as far away from here as possible. That isn't because I didn't love our house here, but because it is just too weird to think about someone living in my house (let alone watching them move in). I never met the person buying our house, at my choice -- again, I just didn't want to be able to picture some weirdo in my home. I'd rather remember it with us living in it and not have our memories tainted with impressions of the new owner. I wonder how soon until my lovely annuals are dead and the perennials over grown. Every once in a while I still get the urge to drive by our old house in Columbus and I'm always saddened to see just how much the new owner has let the yard get run down. I know neither one of those houses are ours anymore, but I have an irrational, emotional attachment to them (especially to the things like the plants that I spent hours and hours of hard labor planting and caring for).

We did have a little bit of a hick-up yesterday. The buyer's agent came two hours early for the final walk through. This meant I didn't get a chance to do the last few things on my to-do list, which included removing the spare key from the counter. Guess what she took? Yep, she took both the house keys and the pool key, which is NOT GOOD. We didn't close until today, so neither she nor her client had any right to our keys. We should have called the police. I'll settle with complaining to her employer and the state board of realtors. The woman is just plain crazy and has absolutely no business having access to the realtor's lock box that hang on the door of thousands of homes in this city.

Whew...what a week!

So, for good reason, I haven't been able to post this week. We moved out of our house here in North Carolina. We spent Monday & Tuesday clearing the last of the stuff out that either couldn't be moved by the movers or that we needed to keep with us. The packers came on Wednesday & Thursday and the movers came & picked up our items on Friday. Whew...what a busy (and stressful and bittersweet) week!!!

I have the house about 1/2 cleaned and I need to finish that this weekend, as we close on Tuesday. I'll be glad to have this leg of the transition finished!!!

And, if you are wondering, we're now crashing at my in-laws. I feel like I've turned their house into a zoo (and am ever grateful that they'll let us do so)!

Last week we also celebrated Reid's 6th birthday. How did I forget to post about that? Hmmm...perhaps the 30 million things running through my head. Anyway, we had a small gathering and I made cupcakes for him. We were supposed to have home-made bon-bons (which he was super excited about), but they did not turn out. I rolled out the scoops of ice cream on Thursday night and awoke (expecting to have them frozen into hard little balls) to a sheet of gooey ice cream on my cookie sheet. He was bummed, but what is there to do about it? I suppose I owe the kid a grand party next year, to make up for the fact that we've now moved on his birthday twice.

Here are some of his official 6th birthday shots and one of him with his cupcakes:

Our new house!

Things are clipping along with our new house. We had the home inspection yesterday, which went pretty well. There are a few items that they need to address -- the only major one being that one of the A/C units didn't work (which isn't surprising considering how long the house has been vacant). The home inspector said the house looked to be well built, so we are happy on the whole with the inspection.

Both of us are happy to find ourselves liking the house more and more each time we go there. It really will be a great place for us. I also was pleasantly surprised by some of the features that had previously missed my attention. The kitchen cabinets have built in slide out shelves in several places (yay!) and there is under cabinet lighting in the kitchen as well.

On the other hand, there is a LOT of work to do yet. The backyard will need a major overhaul at some point (we think we'll need/want to add more substantial retaining walls to prevent erosion), which is the only major project. However, every wall in the house needs painted, including the ceilings. The paint is builder grade and the walls are un-primed. We knew to expect this, after having lived in a new house once already. I know it will eventually all get done, but I'm a perfectionist and want the house in tip-top shape when we move in.

Here are a few pictures of the new place:

My Newest Project

For a while now I've been contemplating what to do about furniture for Lucy & Hannah's room. I knew I wanted twin beds whether they shared a room or not, because I liked the idea of having a few spare beds in the house for when company stays. With the boys, we got basic metal beds and sturdy, but not top of the line, wood furniture. The boys have done a pretty good job dinging up the wooden stuff, so I'm loath to spend that much on furniture again (even though we really didn't spend much in the big scheme of things). After scouring design blogs for ideas, I decided to look for used solid wood beds that could be painted. I wanted something sturdy that could be spruced up with a little elbow grease.

Last weekend I found some on Craigslist and we picked them up. They looked awful!!! However, after 5 days of intensive work, they are looking much better. I sanded them, primed them (twice) and have one coat of paint on them. I went with a black paint, because we'll be doing a "board and batten" treatment on the bottom half of the walls, which means the backdrop to the beds will be white. I wanted something neutral, but something that would stand out. My inspiration for the room is very much driven by this blog post:

http://emilyaclark.blogspot.com/2011/03/paneled-headboard-project.html

The girls room will have sloped ceilings with short walls on two sides. So, I have decided to paint the ceiling (and top portion of the walls) PINK. Lucy will love it! Hannah probably won't love it so much, but the girl already has a room completely to herself at her dad's house, so I'm thinking this is pretty fair (and she's ackowledged that herself).

I had intended to show pictures of the beds, but my crappy little camera (the point and shoot I picked up for our Disney trip) isn't cooperating...the pictures are REFUSING to be removed from the darn thing. So, the pictures will have to wait until later!

Ugh...I feel a breakdown coming on!

Seriously, I'm starting to feel the stress of this move at a whole new level. I really, REALLY, can't wait to be done with this. Today I was wondering why we ever went down this road (optometry school, that is). It was an easy decision at the time: Jeremy needed a career that would satisfy him and we needed a life that we would both be happy with. But, at that time we were young, freshly married and had nothing to lose -- no home, no assets to speak of, and it was just us and Hannah. Now, 10 years later, we have a lot to lose -- we have three more little people to care for, equity in our home and a secure and comfortable life. In three years, I'm sure I'll say it was all worth it. Right now, however, I'm doubting our choices. I feel a bit like I'm standing blindfolded on a high dive and I'm just waiting to jump so I can find out if there is water in the pool or not.

Anyway, last weekend we went and house shopped again (as our first choice didn't pan out). We ended up choosing one we had checked out on our first trip (which was our 2nd favorite, but was so outshined by our 1st choice that I didn't remember much about it). We made an offer and it has been accepted. Now we're just waiting for the home inspection (ugh...another trip to SC this weekend for that) to firm up the deal. We're set to close no later than June 30th. The home is a "new" build -- it is still owned by the builder, however it was built in 2008 and was occupied shortly by someone who had a "lease to own" contract that went sour. I'll post some pictures after our trip this weekend (assuming the home inspector doesn't find anything wrong that would end this deal).

To top everything off, I've been working like a mad woman on some projects (quilts, furniture refinishing and prepping the house for the movers). I haven't gotten more than about 6 hours sleep a night in several weeks (and I'm one of those 8 hour sleepers). I'm EXHAUSTED. And I'm calling it a day...perhaps a good nights sleep will help my perspective just a bit!

Look at what I made!

As I am waiting (impatiently) for the batting for the quilts, I am occupying myself with decorative pillow making. Look what I made today:

It turned out okay, but I could point out a thousand flaws. I'm not sure if I'll make another one, even though I have the pillow to do so. It was a ROYAL pain in the patootie! On the other hand, I'm a stickler for symetry...if there are two twin beds in a room, they both should have the exact same trimmings (at least in my little corner of the world). We'll see...tomorrow we are house hunting, Sunday we have a fun day planned with friends and maybe by Monday I will have forgotten just how hard it was to sew the rufles on!