New blog location

http://lindaquilting.blogspot.com

Week happenings....

Got out the bike and rode a bit. Just to change up exercising a bit. Weather has been comfortable with sunshine. Today rain but comfortable. Yesterday spent the day hand quilting under the umbrella overlooking our wonderful view from the deck. Liliacs are just about done, did a bit of top trimming so they do not get too tall. Day prior weeded my flower bed in the hill and lower side of house. A lot of purple flowers on display.

Still no movement on our home. Dan did spend the afternoon looking at current log cabins on the market should we get an offer. Some potentials, but would need to look at them.

Girls are working except Hannah who starts on June 1. Was able to defer jury duty as she really needs the money. Until next year...but who knows where her call will be. Cherith is at Sunset and will be able to pass meds that will help her with nursing. Abi is working at Gander Mountain sports on west side of Madison which will eat into her paycheck.

Able to work on many quilting projects...Ohmygosh quilt is coming along. Working on a quilt along with Ebony that will be a gift to Hannah for graduation/ new apartment next spring, using up some purples and a batik jelly roll blacks. Then working on an everyday quilt block in blues and one in Christmas fabric. Nice to spend 2-3 hours on the sewing machine. Other hand projects while driving or TV watching/listening.

Everyday blocks

Mini Downton Abbey

Ebony quilt along-hannah

Weekend ends...another showing....

Girls entertaining selves along with endless food, however they report no food despite food bills $50-100 each time Dan goes shopping for deals. They all have their specific tastes. Now with Abigail not eating any dairy due to lactose intolerance makes making meals more challenging. Cheese seems to be on everything along with use of milk.

We had a showing on Sunday, but they seemed to go thru home quite fast, so not a prospect. Got the house cleaned anyway.

Abigail had her first day of work ...bored with all the required stuff. Now concern if Hannah's car will make it the summer with the long drives to west Madison. It has some kind of oil leak witch could be expensive. Would like it to last until Hannah graduates and can trade it in for her car. We will keep fingers crossed.

I have decided to do Ebony's Sunday quilt along...Carrosel. I have decided to do it with scrap purples and black and white. I had a jelly roll of batik blacks that is perfect for the quilt. Today I did all the cutting and currently sewing the half square triangkes to prepare for next step. It will be a graduation/new apartment gift for next year. Will get some Washington Capitals hockey fabric for the back. Fleece or cotton. Will decide later. Here is the picture of the proposed quilt.

Summer begins for the all girls returning home from college.

Cherith returned home 2 days ago. We went to get  Abigail from Concordia early this am and returned home. Hannah followed a few hours later. All college dorm stuff has been out away for the summer. All shared their class schedules for next fall.

Summer jobs to begin for all. Cherith is working at Sunset Ridge in Johnson Creek passing meds and NA duties on pm shifts. Hannah has an interview at Target in Sun Prarie on Tuesday. Abigail announced she has a job at Gander Mountain sports store near west town. Abigail seems to be serious about study abroad in Auckland New Zealand.

Tuesday quilting

Quilting on a cool raw day. Be gain the blocks sent to me on "everyday patchwork". Cute simple blocks witch will number about 25. Have decided to do them in blues/greens with pop colors. Will work my way backwards. Will be a nice hand quilted project for Arizona next year. 6 inch blocks. Also found blocks from quilt mania that I would like to do but they are a bit more complex. May do these at a later time. Finshed two blocks, one in blue/yellow and one in Christmas fabrics as I recent went thru them and have a large selection.

I returned to the mini recent Downton Abbey mystery quilt. I decided to do more of some of the blocks for more variety for borders. I had it layer out in the mystery layout, but decided I wanted this to be small and decided to blow it all up. Mixed it up in my own setting. Currently sewing in sections and have a little more to go today.

Finally in the evening I worked on hand quilting the Downton Abbey quilt. I have one more side block of four to complete. Maybe this evening. Whiskers however tries to compete for lap space. Nice project while watching TV..last night the Brewers.

Today Cherith comes home...Wednesday. Other daughters on Friday...one we have to pick up and pack the car and hope everything fits.

Everyday Patchwork blocks

My Downton Abby mini...all blown up ...

Mother's Day follow up

Girls got me a orchid for Mother's Day. They will all be home later this week.

I decided to surprise my mom yesterday. Made lasagna, cheesecake Apple topping and some lilacs.
Nice surprise and spent a wonderful day visiting and watching the Brewers. Weather was cool to cold. Uncle Bobby was also up.

Wednesday news...or lack

The showing of our home yesterday went very well. Couple with 5 children, 3 boys would replace the girls. Near by Lakeside also a great perk. Husband is looking for an extra outbuilding...front would be reserved for backup septic. This could be a possible issue. We will see. Not looking for a offer for over a week. No word from previous second showing. We will send over another offer for Camp Douglas home. We will see where that goes.

Waiting game continues.

New viewing today of our home...

The weekend brought warm weather to sit out on deck, enjoy the views, listen to music and eat a few meals. Spent some of the time going thru basement stuff...downsizing. So much to downsize.

Last evening we go a call to view our home today. We have not heard from the second showing...thinking that they maybe considering, but who knows. We are going to hold off on our offer until later this week maybe Thursday. If no offers by then, we will out up some signs to direct to our home for some more traffic. Girls will be home in two weeks, making it more challenging to keep home clean and straighten up. Cooler today, bit liliacs are blooming and look great.

5-11... Rejected our offer..no plans to counter at this time. No offers on our home...so sit tight for now.

Viewing home in CampDouglas a second time....buyers viewing our home a second time

Yesterday was another interesting day. We decided to take a second look at home near Tomah to answer some of our questions...mostly about space. We definitely would have to downsize a lot.

First greeting were the goats who were loose. They actually made it around to corner and up the driveway to greet us. It took a little coaxing back to their yard and pen them back in. But them seemed friendly as dogs might be.

We then took a look at the garage and the possibilities. It is larger than a two car so is quite roomy. It also has it's own fuse box. Wring is good for exercise equipment and my quilting stuff in the side as well as some storage. Remaining stuff would have to go to other shed with lawn equipment. So it passed. Kitchen looking at the pantry which is a quarter of our current size, but doable. Small corner China cabinet would not fit upstairs and wound have to go downstairs. Living room would be table and chairs in corner, 2 lazy boys and side table and purchase a loveseat for company. Will be tight for family gatherings. All Christmas trees will have to go.

Not much extra space in powder room.
Our bedroom would have room for massage chair only. Walk in closet mush smaller than we thought but would have room for Dans dads desk. Would have to pair down our clothes and split them with arizona.

Downstairs....

Main room was decided on 2 chairs, sofa sleeper, two end tables, maybe bar/stools, China hutch, TV and stand from sun room.

Bedroom...bunk beds and one or two dressers. One dresser small could fit in large downstairs bathroom.

Furnace area, small frig, freezer and some storage...being smart.

The extra storage shed would be overflow or things the girls wanted.

So it still is a great option to purchase.

Upon leaving we got the call for a second showing of our home. So we headed back to straighten up a bit. This time a few more questions and more looking downstairs and outside. Still seem interested. We think it is a single guy and parents. So we will wait to see if we get an offer. We will wait the weekend and then entertain another offer for the home near Tomah. It is possible that the guy may have cash that would move things along. Would like to try to spend most of summer here with girls..space and their summer jobs. We will see. Now to downsizing our stuff between two homes. 👧

April in review

April continues to be a month of news despite being recently retired. I have gotten a little behind in our escapades.

We began our return home with a search and view of several homes. We looked at several near the Dells, but they were not as private as we would like. Also quite a hike for friends and family. The home in La Crosse is also a contender, but does not have a garage. We viewed a log home near Camp Douglas and it really was a ringer. Just a tad some for get togethers but would fit our needs. Well built. We did put in an offer, countered but lost out as they needed the money to pay off bills. We continue to look around, but we may be willing to pay a bit more for this place. Then we also had a couple just few our home a few days ago and seemed very interested. Awaiting their decision. If not interested, we probably will put up some signs for a bit. We are again going to look at the above home again, just to see if our stuff will fit. We of course will have to do some real downsizing. We may decide to bid higher....
Today going back to old work place and look at retirement money and where to best inverts it. Then a belated birthday diner at Schweffels in Occomowocc. Sauerbraten....and scham..torte.

3-29 Farwell to Tucson ...until next year

Five weeks has come to an end. We both have enjoyed the weather and the lifestyle of Tucson. We have learned a great deal as well. I can say we did many enjoyable outings and just relaxed. We enjoyed having Hannah and Abigal visit us for a few. Hannah even had an extra week with teahing at Reedemer school. We were fortunate to have tow churches to visit during our time here.
Another objective of the trip was to do some house hunting. We met Mikey from Long reality. A wonderful person and a joy to be with each time we saw her. We must have seen over 25 homes. We were able to see what we liked and did not like. We also narrowed our area to the Sunflower community. This is an active community with many activities and does not feel crowed. It sits north of Tucson, but yet we can easily get to Tucson if needed. About half way into our stay we actually saw a home that we really liked. It was the week that Hannah was teaching. We were going to bid on it but someone bid on it 2 hours prior to us. But we also had not firmly decided that we wanted to purchase a home here yet. We had a glimmer of hope as there was some issue with the inspection and the buyer wanted the seller to pay for something's, that got the seller upset. But I. The end the buyer paid and the deal went thru. AZ market is very differnt than Wi. Things are in cash and go very fast. Loosing out to this home really was a lesson for us. We continued to look around. We even foud. A home for sale by owner, the neighbor actually talked with us at great length and felt a fair prince was much lower than his asking price. Each individual we talked to in the community was very nice and very forthcoming. We saw two homes with Mikey our last Thursday. One was one we could fix up...but a lot of fixing. The. For fun we saw one that was out of our prince range by a bit. It was a very nice home. We all agreed. The next day was a hike and the. Saturday we saw the for sale by owner. Also a nice home but comparing it to the other home, felt the other home was a better buy. We called Mikey and guess what...offer was placed already and accepted. Oh well...not be be...but.....
Monday we found out that the buyer had backed out...and it was back on...sellers upset. So we put an
offer in with Mikey the day before we left. Unbelievable!!!! Now the travel home. During our 3 day trip back, offers, counter offers and then the accepted offer!!!! We got it! We are really going to like this home. Mikey went by during the inspection as the owners were also selling furnature and turns out that we will purchase most of it. They also will close out the home so we do not need to go down to do that or have someone do it. Also a neighbor checks the home for use of their car from time to time. Not sure when, but at some point we will have a car. So excited and just wanted to put up the pictures of the home. Closing will be July 1st. We will take out a loan, but we can manage it. We also would like to sell our Waterloo home, but would like to have a WI home to move into. So much more to come.