Visiting Collierville

Our heart and prayers go out to those who have lost someone in the Virginia Tech incident.

It's been awhile since we've blogged. We've been doing things around the house and getting things done for school. The days just fly by. I was "visiting" Southern Heart's blogspot the other day and saw her Collierville, TN pictures. Which reminded me of our trip to Collierville in October, 2001. My daughter and I had taken the train out to Mississippi to visit my mother. Collierville was one of the places we visited. So I thought I would share our pictures of Collierville.
We had a great time in this little city and a wonderful time visiting my mother. We hadn't seen each other in 4 years. We had moved to California from Virginia and it was a lot further to travel.
Here's the log cabin and Kristina sitting on the log cabin's porch. She was so little then.

Neat Gazebo in the square. Or do you call it something else?

The entire square was decorated for fall. It was so nice being some place that actually gets Fall. Living in Southern California we don't get that kind of weather and the leaves changing color, etc. I think I miss Fall the most. We had beautiful autumns in Virginia.

Okay, enough about Collierville. I really enjoyed my time in the South. I'd move back in a heartbeat. Though California does have its advantages. Like fresh fruit right off the tree/vine. Got our first strawberries this past weekend from the local grower and the blueberries and blackberries will be ready in about a month. Citrus hasn't been that good this winter because of all the record cold temperatures we've had here.
Spring break was wonderful and we did manage to get a few things done. Got the pantry painted and installed. The cabinet maker hadn't installed it so that it would be easier to paint. Also got the doors to the cabinets put up. There's a rumor going around that I might get a digital camera for mother's day, but we'll see what happens. I'd probably rather have a new side door for the kitchen. There's always something needing money. We hope to have the door widened in June. I want to wait until school is out. Well gotta run to work. Okay, I'll walk. Hope everyone has a good day.

Yes We Love Our Animals

This is Charley and Cocoa in my mom and dad's room. This is two of our three cats. They're enjoying a pleasant afternoon on my parent's bed. They're always together.

Cocoa is our newest member to the family. She's very skittish as she was found a stray. She doesn't like you sneaking up on her or touching her without her permission, but when she wants to be loved she's very demanding. She's very fluffy and has a tail like pampus grass. She walks and runs with it standing straight up so it looks pretty funny.
This is Miss Kitty. She's hiding in a quilt that my mom made. She thinks that mom made it for her. My mom had it in her lap while she was binding it and she crawled right in. She has a prissy attitude and has earned the nickname "miss priss". She thinks the house belongs to her and she's merely letting us stay here. Of course it probably helps that we feed her. Miss Kitty is a munchkin. She has short stubby front legs and longer back legs. Earning her my little nickname of "miss hotrod." She loves to do this ferret stance where she sits up on her back legs and looks out the window or french doors. Usually a sure sign that she wants out or in. She has a very distinct meow which can always be heard. She reminds us of a meer cat when she runs because her tail is always sticking up.






This is Grandma with Charley. He is our most cuddly cat. He hardly ever purrs or meows but loves attention constantly. He's recently gotten over an "affair" with a different family who lives behind us. Charley was also a stray, but is not skittish at all. He's our cool joe cat. His favorite pasttime is running up and down the hall at night with Cocoa and fishing in the fish tank. We even got a sign for the fish tank that says "no fishing", but I guess he doesn't read it.



This is Rascal. Our 9 year old Jack Russell terrier. He's very protective and thinks the whole street belongs to him. He barks at anything that moves on it, but if you come through the gate he's your best friend. Some guard dog. He's getting old and enjoys sleeping in everyone's bed.

This is a rare picture. Miss Kitty must have been asleep when Charley got in the chair with her. She doesn't like other animals sleeping with her, especially Charley. They weren't always enemies.
Just thought I'd show off the other "members" of the family. As soon as I get pictures I'll show you my tarantula, Harry:-)

Seth

Ladybug quilt

I've been looking around at the blog sites and realizing what talented women are out there. So I thought I would share a quilt that I made last winter. It was for a friend who was expecting her third child, first girl. The theme was ladybugs and she likes really bright colors. The hard part was having all my quilting stuff packed away in storage. We had just begun our major remodel. All my quilt patterns, etc were not accessible. So I just drew a ladybug and blew her up on the copier. Then did simple pinwheels. The recipient just loved it. Neither picture scanned too well so hopefully you can get an idea what it looked like. That's me behind the quilt and I'm standing in the living room. The palladium window looks out on our front yard.
Well I hope everyone had a better weekend than I had. I didn't even get my pantry painted. I came down sick on Saturday morning and proceeded to get worse all weekend. That's what I get for forgetting my water all last week and drinking out of the faucet in the library. I've hardly been sick this past school year and now I have to blow it this close to Spring break. I'd better get well before then. Went to the doctor today and she gave me a prescription. So hopefully I'll be on the mend this week. I've got way too much to do to be down sick. I want to get the cupboard doors painted over Spring break and some of the walls. Guess I'll also be adding the pantry to that list. Hope everyone has a great week.

Catching up is so nice to do

Perhaps it's time to add to the blog. We got our first comment from a visitor and the kids and I were just ecstatic about it. We like to visit other blogs and leave comments, so it was kind of cool to get one from someone else.

I've been so busy these past days. Work has been outrageous. I believe the students have gotten into spring fever religiously this year. We had twelve suspensions on Wednesday alone. The library was overflowing with bad kids, test takers and classes in need of returning/getting books. I came home with a massive headache.

BUT TODAY the pantry came!!!!! Yeah and I love it! Tomorrow I shall have to paint it, but I don't care. Last weekend I got all the drawers painted and they look so good! Seth and I even got the flower seeds planted last weekend. As soon as I figure out which film roll everything is on then I will post pictures.

Slowly but surely everything is falling into place. But I'm a pretty impatient gal. I keep telling myself to enjoy the journey, but I'd just like it done. I'm on a new kick to just concentrate energy and resources (read money here) on one room until it's done. Instead of the 1/2 dozen or so incomplete rooms already existing around here. I didn't think hubby's work hours could get worse but apparently they can. So he's no help around here. Thank goodness I've got great kids who can be bought to do just about anything. Just kidding, actually they're really good about helping.

Well gotta run. Hubby is home early at 6:30 and I need to get to Costco. We're down to just one vehicle right now. We got pummeled with supplemental property tax bill and can't get the other car fixed. Drat old cars, but new ones cost a lot and I like not having a car payment.

Everyone take care and have a great weekend!!! Yeah, it's the weekend!!!

Change in our name

We thought we would change the name of our blog to something that would reflect more of our interests and what we are blogging about. Also because we kept getting all these visits from media type websites. Well I guess Stockton Story is really about a murder/political thing that happened in Stockton, CA. We thought it best if we changed our name. Tina is very unhappy about our name change, but until we can find something that we all love we'll stick to this name. Besides, I really like morning glories. This picture was taken at the end of summer 2005. The morning glory looks great, but the rest of the yard was played out. Morning glories are so pretty and easy to grow. They will take over your yard if you let them. I guess that's why their other name is bind weed. Plant with caution. I always pull the little seedlings when I first see them poking through. They have heart shaped leaves and are really easy to spot.

We've been busy getting a few more things done around here this weekend. I got to go to a quilt show this past Saturday. It was pretty nice for a small quilt guild and show. Got a few fat quarters to add to my political quilt stash and a few more for the shower curtain. Sunday I was on Grandma watch while Neil and the kids went to church. I managed to finish putting away the snowman collection that I have. I like to decorate for winter instead of Christmas. We don't do a tree, but I love plain pine trees and snowmen that have no Christmas markings. I take down all my pink and white stuff and put up the snowmen around Thanksgiving. Actually the pink and white stuff comes down around October to make way for the fall stuff. When we lived in Virignia I had a lot of lovely Colonial Williamsburg pieces that I refused to part with when we moved to California. The colonial pieces did not go with the house we were living in at the time, so I thought I could enjoy them a few times a year by bringing them out in the fall. So that's what I do. Maybe I'll try to post a couple of old decorating photos when I find some. I am always glad to see my pretties (as my two best friends call them) when I unpack them sometime in February/March. So it was fun to put the pretties back up and I never can remember where they were before so we get new arrangements every year. Well it's time to start dinner. It's been fun catching up. The kiddos have said they will blog soon, as they said they would help with this to get credit. I seem to be the only one doing any.

One last bathroom picture

Well here's another picture of the bathroom. The tile is in and now you will all laugh at this, I can't remember which of the 12 undeveloped rolls of film the rest of the bathroom pictures are on. So I just grabbed three of them the other day and headed to Costco. Wouldn't you know that 1 was of Thanksgiving last year, 1 was our trip to Utah in August and the other was the kitchen demolition. Somewhere there are more pictures of the bathroom. It even finally got painted last summer. A good college aged friend did it while the kids and I were gone to the coast camping. Came home to a blue bathroom that I wasn't so sure about at first. I really didn't think that I could like it, but I just love it now and it has grown on me. I just need to get the fabric I've been collecting for that bathroom out and get it cut up into 6" inch squares. I want to make the shower curtain look like patchwork. I've been collecting really cool fat quarters of floral and other shabby chic type fabrics. It should look good when done. That's the big one, when done. Well gotta run and get dinner.

Guilty conscience

Well I got to feeling guilty about not posting any pics. So I thought I would do a few more of the bathroom story.

Here's the bathtub after the tile has been ripped off. That was a messy job.


Here's what the shower looked like after the tile was ripped out. Yes, that is rot. The contractor who did the job said that it looked like it had been set on fire. He had to cut out quite a bit of wood and replace it.






Here's the sink vanity. I removed two of the drawers prior to the remodel because we didn't have a decent place for storing towels. Old houses are great, except for storage. I use a wicker lined basket that looks really cute. Yep, it's still there. Seth and I hope to refinish the sink vanity this summer.






More lovely pictures of the shower. That hole was actually there. The contractor didn't put it there. He asked if we had known about it when we bought the house. I said no. Our inspector didn't even mention it nor did all the plumbers who had crawled under there since we had purchased the place.

Bottom of the shower after the old plumbing has been removed. The new walls are up and looking great. We turned the shower into a much needed storage closet.
The whole process took about 3 weeks, even with grandma in the hospital, Neil and the kiddos in Utah. Grandma was supposed to stay home and let the contractors in while we went to get Seth who was visiting friends in Utah. I wound up staying home and visiting Grandma (my mom) in the hospital.

Drat, that is my finger. I thought I cropped that out.

Well this appeases my guilty conscience about never posting pictures of our house and getting to look at everyone else's lovely houses. Gotta run. It's off to the Land of Nod.