Lemon Tree Tales

Our New Home

Not quite a full year after we packed up our Sunnyvale house, but we're finally in the new one. I'm still in the long process of unpacking and rediscovering items that have been in storage for a long time. Some things probably need to find new homes and others are welcomed friends. It's a wonderful feeling to be back in our own place once again. Steve and I are both so very thankful to his parents for hosting us in their home this entire time. We did spend almost four months total throughout this past year in hotels up here in Washington state during the construction phase. It was fantastic to see the house in it's bare bones.

My mom was kind enough to fly up to help us unpack for a few days. She helped get most of the kitchen and bedroom unpacked and put away. We also went and bought sheers for the dining room which will probably be turned into the library and another seating area. We got one of the bedrooms ready for my dad to move into ... we're excited about that. It'll be a nice change of pace for all of us.

The sewing studio and the longarm room are not unpacked hardly at all. Dad will help me get Freddie the longarm put together again. But here's the studio and the sewing desk as they look right now.

We had some very sad news that happened on moving day, but I'll leave that for a separate post. In the meantime we're getting all the doctors set up for Steve. So far they've been wonderful to us. And the new neighborhood is great. We've met some of the new neighbors. It's nice to see how many of them also walk their dogs around the community. We do hear owls and the train at night. During the day I've seen deer and a few hawks. One of the neighbors has seen a bald eagle but I haven't so far. 

It is duck/goose hunting season so in the early morning hours we hear the pop-pop-pops of the hunters across the lake from us. The rains have finally started and it's still gorgeous to look out at the lake. I think that this is going to be a really good transition for us.

New Beginnings

As always life doesn't always happen the way that you plan, but sometimes that can be a good thing. Steve and I went house hunting in the Vancouver, WA area back in March. We first looked at some darling, but old, houses with some land. Dreams of having a very large separate studio and perhaps classes, oh and of course perhaps some pygmy goats danced in our heads. But then reality set in. Can we really take care of five acres in our current situation? Do we really want to constantly be fixing up an older home? Do I really need to add more animals and responsibility to my life? We switched tactics and took a look at new builds. We looked at several different builders and their communities. Nothing really made us want to jump up and down. One builder had a nice community but the house plan that we thought would work for us wasn't going to be started until this November and finished by next summer! Yikes! That's a very long time to wait for something that wasn't a swoon-worthy house.

As we left that builder we saw a sign for another builder. What the heck we thought. So we followed the signs a mile or so up the road. As we drove through this community and saw all the finished houses we thought that the signs must be old, must be a mistake. But we continued on up the hill past all the pretty new houses. At the top of the hill we saw these two lots and this wonderful view of trees, lakes and waterways. Oh my! It was simply gorgeous. Of course it was raining like crazy so the sky was dark and stormy and there were puddles everywhere. Ah, it was truly love at first sight. 

 

 

We called the agent and the lot on the right was still for sale. Miracle of miracles that it turned out we could manage the price. More than what we originally wanted to pay, but doable. The floor plan of the model (about ten minutes away) was dreamy ... 12' high ceilings in the living room with tall windows to drink in the view. Ah, and the ability to carve away a few feet from the laundry room to turn a back bedroom into the perfect sized room for Freddie the longarm. How could I resist this siren call?

Right next to our lot, between the other lot is a kayak path to the water. Not sure I'll be kayaking of course, but it looks like a nice long walk down the steep hill.

 

It took a while for the permits to be approved due to the amount of new homes being built in that area. Last week they finally were able to break ground. Fingers crossed that we'll have the keys by the end of November. We can't wait.

Here's to new beginnings!

Goodbye Sunnyvale

Steve and I made the hard decision to pull up stakes and sell our home in Sunnyvale. We moved out just before the holidays, spruced up the house (carpet, paint etc) and put it on the market right after the New Year. As of February 6th, we are no longer homeowners. Yikes! Since Steve is very ill and no longer able to work we have opted to begin house hunting further up north. It's the end of a wonderful and interesting time in the Bay Area. I joined Steve up there in 2002 and then we got married later that same year. In 2005 we found this wonderful house and made it into our home. But the beauty of houses is that you can turn any one of them into a home. All it takes is some love and attention. Hopefully we'll find something before summer. We're both looking forward to discovering our new house so that once again we can call somewhere home.

Goodbye 2016 and Hello 2017

As we look forward to a new year beginning I just wanted to say a heartfelt goodbye to the old one. This year has been hard for our little family. Back in March my husband became very ill. He's been in and out of the hospital this entire year. Good thing is that it's not cancer but the only way to fix him is to get an organ transplant. We're quite fortunate to be a member of an outstanding HMO that is taking tremendously great care of us. We've done all the tests to get on the transplant list and now just have to wait until he's sick enough to be next in line. In the meantime we're hopeful that we finally understand what it takes to keep him stable and out of the hospital.

On a business front it's turned out that 2016 has been fantastic. I've increased my longarm quilting business (The Quilted Lemon) and hope to keep it going even more. It's been so wonderful to have a way to earn money that doesn't take me away from the house for long periods of time. And earlier in the year I was so happy to have two of my quilts accepted into QuiltCon 2016 in Pasadena, CA. There were also two client quilts in the show as well. It turns out that one of them will be featured in the MQG's new upcoming book. Woo-whoo!!!

Personal quilt projects have taken a back seat this year but I hope to make more time for them next year.

Our three dogs, Fearghus, Fiona and Frankie, aka The F-troop, are our constant canine companions. They have given us so much comfort and pleasure even though sometimes they are troublemakers, as are most terriers. Fiona now has a total of ten (TEN!!!) rat kills to her credit. This last one was twice the size of the normal roof rats that she gets. I'm determined to get a picture of her with some chalked rat stencils on her side just like an old fighter jet. LOL

2016 has taught us the true meaning of friendship and family. We've been blessed to have so many family members showing us tons of love and support and hugs, don't forget those all important hugs. And we've been so happy with the friends who spend time with us whether it's a simple lunch date or a phone call. It has meant the world to us. We have some incredible neighbors as well who have helped with the dogs when the going gets tough. If nothing else we have been shown how blessed we are.

We're looking forward to 2017! Happy New Years!!!

(Picture taken by my cousin, Bob Coan, at my Aunt Geri's wedding in 2012 ... still a favorite picture of Steve and I.)

Still here but life has gotten a bit crazy

I'm still plugging away at many quilts but life has been a bit crazy since March. My mom had a health scare and we lost one of my great aunts, etc. We're hanging in there. Next week I'll come back and show a few of the projects that I've worked on.  There have been a few quilts that I've been especially pleased with. And of course in all of this time I've been working away on client quilts. For whatever reason, working with fabrics always has a way of making life a bit sweeter, no?

Ever feel like the proverbial headless chicken?

It seems like I've been running around like that chicken with its head cut off ... lots of movement but not much to show for it. I have been getting more quilts in to my longarm quilting business, The Quilted Lemon, so that's been wonderful! But I can't seem to get my act together for my personal projects. There are quilts in the works that I'd love to get finished. I think that rather than run here and there doing a bit on that project and then rushing off to a bit on another one, that I just need to bite the bullet and finish up one at a time. In the meantime I need to get a commissioned project finished first. That's my immediate goal. But there's always time to put another client quilt on the frame since that takes priority. Maybe a better to-do list is in order. How do you manage your time? Any ideas? I'm definitely going to let my reading fall to the side since it's getting in the way. And it's more than time to get that studio a bit cleaned up from all the craziness.

Look for quilt pictures from the last PIQF show .. I'll post them on Monday. It was definitely inspirational!

The Tale of Miss Pinkerton

This is the tale of Miss Pinkerton aka Pinky. Yesterday towards the end of the afternoon, Steve and I were taking Fearghus on one of his daily walks around the neighborhood when we saw a little baby roof rat laying on the sidewalk all by itself. It barely moved when Steve nudged it with his thumb. The temperature was going to drop soon from the heat of day. There's no way this little one, the size of a pinky finger, would last through the night. Not to mention that one of the neighborhood cats would surely take it for a midnight snack. 

So Steve cradled it in his hand as we turned around and went back home. I cut a piece of batting and laid it on the bottom of a shoebox that we had poked holes in for air circulation. We took a fabric rice bag and microwaved it for heat. Turns out that little rats need to be kept at 100 degrees to survive. 

Next I ran to the drug store to buy an eye dropper and infant baby formula with the $20 bill that we had found in the gutter earlier that day. It seemed like it was meant to be spent on the little rat.

So far we've reheated the rice bag every two hours and are feeding it every three hours and once in the middle of the night. It turns out that after a feeding a baby rat needs to be bathed (with a wet tissue and wiped dry), massaged for circulation and has to have its little hind end rubbed with a wet Q-tip so that it'll go potty. So far Miss Pinkerton has eaten, gone potty and has survived the night. If she (I think that she is really a he because there's a nubbin but it doesn't really matter at this point) makes it another night then perhaps we can take her to a local rescue organization.

Wild roof rats can be released into the wild once they're about 6 weeks old and this little one is probably less than a week old. They wean at week 3 and begin to get furry around then.

I know, it is fairly ironic to be working so hard to save a little baby roof rat when just the other week we were cheering when Fiona killed the fourth one of its brethren. What can I say, it's hard to walk by and let a little orphaned newborn die all by itself. At least this way it'll have warmth and food. And maybe, just maybe it'll survive another day.

UPDATE: Miss Pinkerton survived the entire weekend. On that Monday morning we were able to drive her to a rat/squirrel rescue group where she'll be able to grow up with a few older rat babies. Once she's about 6 weeks old she should be released to the wild where she'll have her chance to live a rodent's life. Of course it then took Steve and I the entire week to recuperate from two nights of little to no sleep. I'm sure that Pinky appreciated it.

Pismo Beach Walks

Steve and I, plus the doggies, took a quick trip to Pismo Beach. We love walking along the beach during the off season. It's less crowded and the weather is still nice. This was Frankie's first trip in the RV as well as going to the ocean. He did very well but has a ways to go in walking on a leash. We tried walking all three of the dogs, Fearghus, Fiona and Frankie, but that was a handful. The next time we walked with just Fearghus and Fiona. Of course I didn't get many pictures because my hands were full. It was beautiful as always. Lovely blue skies. There's nothing like the ocean air to recharge your batteries.

I only managed to snap this one picture of Fearghus before realizing that it was not going to be a good picture taking trip. Instead we decided to just relax and enjoy ourselves. We can't wait to take another mini break there. Maybe next time I'll get a few pictures of Frankie and the water.

Goodbye 2014 .. Hello 2015!

With each passing year I'm constantly surprised when that year comes to an end. It seems like they're beginning to pass us by quicker and quicker. 2014 was full of changes for our little family. At the beginning we were still experiencing the winter cold of Wyoming.

In February we made a trip back to LA to attend my grandparents' birthday party. My grandpa turned 90 and my grandma turned 85 just a few days later. They're still very active and drive their RV between Simi Valley and the Thousand Trails RV park near Palmdale. They even make the four hour drive in their little pickup to spend mini vacations in Laughlin. Wow, way to go. This next year they'll celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary.

In May we decided that as much as we were enjoying life on the prairie that California's siren call was beckoning us back home. By June we had moved back to our home in the bay area, sad to say goodbye to new friends in WY but happy to be near old friends once again.

In June I welcomed Freddie the longarm to the family room and by August I had opened my new longarm quilting business, The Quilted Lemon. So far Freddie and I have been busy quilting charity quilts and some beautiful client quilts. Building up my client list will definitely be the priority for 2015. New patterns are being added to my pattern library.

In October I learned that my quilt was juried into an exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. It's in the second show that will open in another week. Yay! That's my very first time with a quilt in a show and I can't wait to share it with you. First I'll share some of the quilts that were in the first half of the show.

The fall saw quite a bit of RV travel including a trip to visit Frankie when he was still only 8 weeks old. Of course we were more than happy to pick him up a couple weeks later. I'm afraid that it's been mostly all puppy all the time here at the Levin house while we work on housebreaking and basic training. But the fall also was family time with a quick visit from my dad in September, and one by my mom in October and another trip to LA to see my in-laws. Finally in December we had a visit from our niece before and after she went on her birthright trip to Israel. That was a nice time and she liked playing with Frankie. So now we're a family of five ... Steve and I and three cairn terriers - Fearghus, Fiona and Frankie. (We call them the F-troop.) We're all looking forward to a wonderful 2015. Happy New Years!!!

The Sad Tale of an Unwanted Table

Poor little retro 50s era dining table and chairs. The chrome is dingy and needs to be cleaned with some steel wool and then polished. The chairs need a new vinyl makeover. But overall I loved this little dining set. I got it back when I was a single girl living in Burbank near the studios in a little 1-bedroom in a four-unit bungalow apartment building. It was perfect and fit nicely in the dining nook. Then when Steve and I got married it made the move to northern California and for a brief time it went with us to Florida. It was the ideal size for that tiny apartment that we rented on the ocean. But once it came back with us to California it didn't do too much. For a long time it held a second tv in the family room. Want to know how many times we used it? Maybe a handful. It had happened, we had outgrown the dinette set.

I placed it on the sidewalk hoping that it would find a good home. No, after a few days I realized that no one was going to sweep it up. Then I tried to take it to the Salvation Army and they said no, we don't want to take any furniture that's not perfect or almost new. Sigh. I didn't have too many options at that point. It was off to the dump where I had to give them $16 for the privilege of letting them take it away. Oh I do hope that one of the dump employees took pity on it and took it home with them. It's so sad how hard it is to get rid of furniture nowadays. But I didn't want to advertise it on craigslist and have lots of strangers coming to the house. None of Steve's coworkers wanted or needed it. I feel a bit bad for the poor things but I no longer could use them and needed the room. Goodbye dinette set.