Spring has sprung

Spring has been here in our part of California for awhile. I thought I'd share some photos of the neighborhood from our morning walks. Seth and I try to walk every morning but realize that life does get in the way occasionally especially on Tuesday mornings when they have to be at science class at 7:45 a.m. I'm not much of a really early morning person except when June, July and August hit around here. Then if what you want to do outside is not done by 8 a.m. just give it up. It will be way too hot for anything after that. Seth and I have been walking for a little while now. We're up to about a mile. I realize that for some that is not much of an accomplishment but I have a lot of weight to lose and I figure I'm doing pretty good for me. Now my walking partner tries to heckle me into, you know, running an extra mile but I just ignore him.

This little cutie is right on our street. A very nice couple bought it about 2 years ago. They've been doing quite a lot to it.

This one is also on our street and she has the greenest yard, which is quite an accomplishment out here.

This is one of the "main" streets we walk on. All the way to the end and there are days that seems a long way down there.

This is one of my favorite houses. The picture really doesn't do it justice. They even have an adorable pond in the front yard.

This is a side picture of my most favorite house. The backyard is so cute. It recently sold so I'm kinda anxious to see how they take care of it.

Here's the front of it.

Here's my two walking partners. Seth and Rascal. You can barely see the four legged partner though.

This little backyard is so cute. The house isn't much though. Hopefully if you click on the photo and get a larger view you can see how cute it is. I was being carefully so that people wouldn't think I was scoping out their house for robbery or something.

This craftsman's beauty is at the loop where we take the last "main" street home. This end of the neighborhood was built up in the 1920's. So the homes are pretty awesome and this particular house probably sits on at least a 1/2 acre lot. The sidewalks have the dates they were poured stamped into them.

Here's another cutie. I didn't get too close because they have dogs and Rascal hates competition.

This beauty was bought a couple of years ago and they have worked tirelessly on it to make it shine. Our neighborhood was built from the 20's to the 40's and even a few newer than that. We live in a county area even though we're city. Go figure.

Hopefully you've enjoyed your "walk" with us.

Till next time, Amanda

Catching up

I just can't believe that a month has gone by since I last posted. At least I have a good excuse, if there is such a thing. I've gotten tons done to include painting the new closet in the guesthouse, getting my father-in-law moved in. I even put spring break to good use by painting the living room, going through the closets and drawers, cleaning out my 3 filing cabinets and I managed to help a friend clean out her sewing room. I hope everyone has been doing well and had a great Easter celebration. We had the hubby's family here so I was glad I did get the living room painted. I've even worked in the yard. We pretty much have to get things done before June because it just gets too hot after that. We average a lot of triple digit days here in the summer. Way too hot to do much of anything.

I've certainly got a lot to share with everyone. Where to start? I'd also like to do several posts chronicling our remodel that we did two years ago today. I can't believe that it's been 2 years already.

Here's the guest house closet being built. We now have a glorified laundry room instead of a garage.

A small painting job that I got done. I've been wanting to do this for awhile now. This little phone niche is in our hallway. The niche is there but the phone line is long gone.

Here's the tables set for Easter. It looked so pretty. While I was finishing up painting the living room I got an epiphany. Hey, no one says we have to use this as a living room! Why not use the dining room as a keeping room (you can see it in the back of the photo) and use the living room as the dining room. All we had in here was one large couch. Our dining room is small (9x12) and whenever we have someone over or host family game night there's just not enough room to accommodate everyone in there. Someone always has to sit at the bottle neck of the dining room entrance. Everyone liked the idea so we made the switch. We've not made anything permanent yet. Just living with it to see if we like it. So far we do.

Here's Tina waiting for dinner.

Here she is in the backyard after the Easter egg hunt. You can see in the background that we did manage to get to our flower beds.

I'm so glad spring is here. Happy blogging everyone!

We have a winner!

I'm so sorry that I have been remiss in announcing the winner of our drawing. Things have been getting crazy of late at home and work. When we start getting nice weather the sap in the kids starts to run. They do all kinds of crazy things. You'd be amazed.
I'm not sure if anyone else has had this problem with blogger lately, but I sure have. Whenever I'd try to bring up my blog it would only load the top picture and a few of the side bar items. One time I could actually get in I changed the format, hoping that would help. It didn't. I also could only partially look at other blogs. What is up with that? I'm sorry that I hadn't posted our winner sooner. :-(
I'm almost done with my remake of the guest house bedroom. If you read a few posts back you would realize that my hubby's dad is now going to occupy our guest house. We had a guest house built behind our garage for my mom about 2 years ago. I really didn't think my father in law wanted a purple and green theme. So I've been busy taking care of that. I'll be sure to post pictures next time. I finally found my blank memory card for my camera. And now:
The winner is Manuela at the Feathered Nest. Please be sure to e-mail me with your pertinent information Manuela. Congratulations! I'll also get pictures of her prizes.

Give Away Extension

I've been so busy that I'm going to extend our give away until the 14th of February. I've got the cutest little bird fellow to give away and a few other little things I've collected together. I've got a Valentine runner I'm finishing up and hope to put that in the box also. So don't forget to leave a comment so that you can win. I'm cleaning out my school/craft room. My father in law will be moving in with us. So the guest house won't be empty after all. We'll be getting to keep the biggest room as a family room, but I'll be giving up our school/craft/dumping zone room. If you could see it now you would understand why I call it the drop zone. I'm still trying to get it sorted out from when we tore through it to get things done for mom's open house. I've got to get my memory card on the camera cleaned up and then I can take pictures of the goodies I've got to give away.
We're supposed to have really good weather this weekend. I so wanted to work in my yard but I've only got this month to get that room done. Not even really this month. So I'm off to work in the room. Please leave a comment and I'll put your name in the drawing.
Amanda

1 year and still blogging + a give away

You know we started this blog a year ago to satisfy a school requirement. The kids have long since abandonned it and I struggle on with it. Actually I really love to write. What is it about words that is so addicting? I can find such beauty in words. My family thinks I'm nuts, but maybe that's why I so suited to be a librarian. Though there are days I don't think I'm that cut out for it.

While shopping a favorite craft store today I noticed they had great plaques with words and sayings on them. They were wonderful! But a little pricey for my budget. So I'll either wait for a sale or make do with something else. I've always thought a "word" wall would be fun. Not just random words, but beautiful, meaningful quotes that inspire us to be just a little bit better than who we are normally. Quotes that encourage us to reach a little bit further, dream a little bit more or maybe just make us laugh.

So with that said what would you put on your word wall? To celebrate one year of blogging we'll do a drawing. Leave a comment and I'll put it in a drawing. The camera is down right now, but I'll get a picture soon of the goodies to be given away. Because we all lead busy lives I'll give you until February 8th to leave a comment. Good luck!

Here's one from mine (yes I'll admit I've been collecting quotes for awhile.) "Children are the living messages we send to a time we will never see." Neil Postman

2 quilt shows back to back

My two best friends insisted that we keep our prearranged out of town trip even with all that has been going on on the home front. Actually it was really good therapy so to speak. We usually do our annual January trek to the Ontario quilt show. It's a wonderful weekend of just best girlfriends, quilts, quilts and more quilts. Oh yes and shopping the vendors to make quilts. I'm including a few of the great pictures I took during our trip. The quilts on display are amazing. They're more works of art than something you would put on your bed. There was even an apron display. The vendors' booths were just as fabulous and inspiring. I was really good though and bought only patterns that would help me use up my fabric stash. Okay and 1 panel of magnificent roses. Not sure how I'll use that up, but it'll come to me.
I also meet a really nice quilter and author, Judy Laquidara. You can visit her at her blog: Sunshine quilts. It's under my favorite blog sites. She's very sweet and talented.
SORRY I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THOSE NEAT FOWARD LINK THINGS. So please just be patient with me. I haven't had a lot of time to learn all the ins and outs of blogging. I'll pick it up eventually though. I'm better if I'm shown how to do something.
Here's the apron display. I can't remember exactly what it was about, but the aprons were cute.

Here's some of the really friendly vendors. Vendors come from all over the United States to participate in the Road to California Quilt show. It's really very huge. At least it's the biggest I've ever seen. These ladies were from Crooked Nickel Quilt designs out of Montana. Lisa Maki, the owner is the lady on the left. You can check out her story and her shop at http://www.crookednickel.com/ .

This picture really doesn't do this quilt justice. It was stunning in person.
This quilt is just awesome.
This past weekend, January 26, our local quilt guild hosted their own quilt show. Though much smaller, it's very apparent that we have a lot of local talent. This is a quilt down by Nancy Rink. Nancy has enormous talent and does stunning work. You can catch her at her website http://www.nancyrinkdesigns.com/

Mom's Open House

Here's a picture of the table set up that we did for Mom's Open House. We chose to do an open house as opposed to a funeral. Mom was a simple person and would have liked this format we did. I served a finger food buffet in the kitchen. Friends and Family came and went between 1 and 8 p.m. I pushed the dining room table against the opposite wall and put her quilt on it as a table cloth. My brother and I then went through pictures to pull out ones that we felt best represented her life. I typed up a brief eulogy of her life and then we put flowers, candles and her favorite turtle statue on the table. We'll do a ceremony this summer when we spread her ashes at the meadow. She's been a wonderful addition to our life for the last 4+ years. It was our privilege to take care of her for the last years of her life. I know she felt like she was a burden to us, but she wasn't. We miss out on a lot of blessings in life when we don't take care of the older generation. Mom was a big help to us the first several years when she was able health wise to help out. She's greatly missed already.
Love, Amanda