Back in Independence

I got back to Independence last evening, exhausted.  This has been a rough trip.  Camping, even in a trailer with air conditioning, isn't always relaxing.  This trip was so HOT that Quinn and I were cooped up most of the time.  We did get in over 10,000 steps every day in our short walks around the campground!  Ceili is so small that Quinn and I are always changing places, I get to feeling guilty for making her move!  I'm sure she must just want me to take a nap so I'll stay in one place! If she were any bigger Ceili just would not work.  Actually I could come to hate camping, sigh.

Anyway, on Sunday I did go to the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln.  The whole reason I went to Lincoln was to visit this place!  They had quilts hung in hallways and offices as well as exhibits.  The main one at the moment is on Chinese quilting.  Very interesting, involved a great deal of cut work appliqued on top of other pieces and stitched down with couching.  Sometimes woven pieces were included, sometimes embroidery.  All very intricate and lovely.  I bought a few goodies!  I recommend a visit there if you are nearby but use google maps to find the place so you don't wander about until you find it!  (Like I did before I finally got smart!)

Today, I will empty Ceili of the stuff I need for the next 30 days, inventory the stuff I leave in her, and return her to storage.  Also get trash service started up again.  Tomorrow, I'll arrange for storage and packing will begin.  It's going to take a good long while to purge and pack!  I still hope to have the energy each evening to stitch a bit!

Iowa/Nebraska Moments

Yesterday, after I dropped off and picked up stuff from my house, I drove around Kansas City and then north. I stopped in Platte City for go juice.  Both the truck and I were in need of nourishment!  It was crazy there and had I known they were working on the roads near a MAJOR truck stop I might have gone on!  In more time than I expected - as usual - we were back on the road.  North of Kansas City the land becomes quite hilly until you get past St Joseph a ways when you dip down into the Missouri river valley and drive the flat.  You can see the hills off the highway a bit and the humidity hangs on them like mist.  It sounds pretty but really not so much.  Any who, soon enough I was in Iowa, it was a short trip.  I met I-80 at Council Bluffs and headed west through Omaha.  Which has become a MUCH bigger place than when I last visited!  I also picked up a side wind which is interesting enough with a trailer behind me but I also picked up grooved pavement.  I hate grooved pavement.  With every bump in the road I feel like either Ceili or I become a bit airborne and then slip sideways on the pavement.  It doesn't really happen, I hope, But that's what it feels like.  After all that I arrived in Lincoln to find myself a day early!  It seems I can't read a calendar!  The campground folks were lovely and found a spot for me-I'm grateful even if I only have 20 amp power!  Just enough to run the AC but not enough for anything else.  Didn't matter.  I took Quinn for a walk and while in the dog park received a call from the realtor, it seems there is an offer on my house!  After only 3 days on MLS!  Discussion followed and I turned down their offer and countered.  Message this morning said they had accepted my counter offer.  I'm going to read the email in a minute.  So on Monday, I will head back to pack up the house and deal with storage.

This is the strangest thing every.  Guess it means that this was the right time to sell it!

A Missouri Moment

I'm starting off in the morning for Montana.  Well, I left home on Tuesday but I went east instead of west!  I wanted to see Scott and Ryan-well Bri too but that's a long shot since she's running for office and is out knocking on doors etc.  Also, I need to have a shakedown cruise in Ceili!  Since she's stored in underground caves I have no access to her.  That's the only drawback, I don't have to put her away or winterize her-it's proved to be worth every penny it costs.  Back to the no access-I packed a number of boxes and totes ahead of time with things to put in the trailer!  It took a couple of weeks so by the time I was loading in I had no IDEA what I'd packed ( 14 towels I think-seriously.) Plus I just put stuff in, I don't necessarily put it where it will go!  I'm taking two non-stitching long term projects with me-the things I would normally call "Suffer for 15" projects!  Both of those are being entered onto the computer (ok external hard drives ) so the paper will be recycled where that's available and boxes will empty!  Ceili is stuffed!  The truck is stuffed.  I am stuffed.  Wait, I am not stuffed, I am a human!  After nearly three days I've organized everything (and will do it again in a week or so) and filled a tote with stuff I do not need-think some of those towels!  Tomorrow, I'll be going by the house to leave that and a few other things off and to pick up some things I either forgot or decided I wanted to have along. (Like my clock radio/Ipod.) I've fixed a couple of design flaws in Ceili as well and in general I'm happy with it.
After I do that I'm off for Lincoln, NE.  On Saturday, I'm headed for the International Quilt Study Museum!  Been wanting to do that one for a long while.

Speaking of quilts-we weren't speaking of quilts?  We are now!  Quinn and I went for a drive to take some photos and these were sighted!

 I love old barns anyway but the quilt block just added something special!

 The corn to the right of the barn-okay all around the barn is over six feet tall!  There are acres and acres of it here.  We drove through the tiny, historical town of Arrowrock.  I'll admit I was looking for a coke!  Didn't find one, sigh, settled for wine instead.  I turned down another country road to turn around and look what I found!

This barn was definitely in better shape though!

The land here is rolling hills.  Along with the 6 foot+ corn crops everywhere it's hard to get a good picture.  This is a place of tidy farms with lovely names like Rose Hill and Black Arrow Farm, contented cows, pastures which have had their first cut-big rolls of hay abound, the signs that wheat has been harvested and soybeans.  Very green.  I have to say though that if nature had it's way it would be a nearly impenetrable sea of trees and underbrush!

Sometimes right there inside a corn field is an old silo, no longer used but lovely to see! (More corn is

 all around!)

Last, but certainly not least are some roadside flowers!  First the Queen Anne's lace.  Considered a noxious weed by somebody who is somebody I have always loved it.  In fact I have some in my gardens at home.  That's corn in the background-I'm telling you there's corn everywhere!

 Lastly, are the lilies.  I don't know what they are called exactly, I call them cemetery lilies as you nearly always find them in old country cemeteries.  They have been moved around from old homesteads when roads are built and such and you see them everywhere.

I'm off now to learn how to link this post to Facebook!  Wish me luck!

I Did IT!

For the last couple of years I've been saying I was going to sell my house in Independence.  I was even working towards it being ready to sell but it just didn't happen, sigh.  Yesterday, I sign the paperwork to put it on the market!  The realtor expects it to sell very quickly- like maybe in a week!
This could seriously impact my summer in Montana!

Weather, Trips and other such nonsense!

There is an old saying here that "If you don't like the weather in Missouri wait a day it'll change!"  I think there are quite a few places that say that but I grew up here and heard it all the time.  It has certainly changed-seemingly over night.  We have gone from below normal temperatures to way above normal temperatures (like in the low to middle 90F with heat indices nearing 100F--HOT!)  Some of you might remember that I am not a big fan of hot weather, also Quinn is not a fan!  I spend a great deal of time opening a door for her to either go out or come in!  When she comes in she paws at the one floor register if the air isn't on-guess she thinks that will make it work!  We have also gone from day after day of rain-hoping it will stop long enough to mow the grass BEFORE you need to bale it as hay to I think I need to water the flowers.  Unfortunately for those of us who don't love the hot weather this is only the beginning, sigh.

But, Quinn and I are leaving for Montana on the 20th! (I hope.  Might be a couple of days later.)  Where it is cooler, much cooler.  At night you need a coat and three quilts-AH heaven!

Getting ready to load the trailer is messy.  Ceili is parked in underground caves and I don't have access to her unless I take her out.  I can't park her here at the house as city ordinances prevent parking her on the street unless she's hooked up and I really don't want to drag her around behind me for a week or so!  I decided that I would get everything sorted out that I am taking with me and put it into the garage.  That way I could clean the house so it will be ready to show.  I've taken nearly a week and it looks like a whole lot of stuff but Ceili holds a lot and some of it is stuff that once it's entered to the computer it will be tossed out.  I plan to be gone a long time so I have to think about things I want to do, especially in the evenings.

Yesterday, Brayden held his first "Drink and Think" Lemonade stand to raise money for brain cancer research.  The last I heard he had over $125 US!  At 10, he came up with this idea completely on his own.  None of us have any idea why he picked brain cancer but it's a good one!  Beth had to work so I helped him run it, in the heat.  About 3pm he stood up said "That's it, it's too hot out here we're closing up!"  So we did.  I am really proud of him!

Today, Kolby had a baseball game.  Machine pitch-which as Lucas says lasts about 3/4 of an hour too long!  He's 7.  He made an amazing play at first base-the ball was thrown way right and he just reached his bare right hand out and caught it!  No way he'd have gotten a glove on it.  It was one of those things you forever wish you had on video (or at least a photo) and could never capture!

No sewing going on but maybe later today.  Hot and humid takes it out of me and I don't like to sew when I'm tired.

New Suzie O'Connell coming for me to Beta read  maybe tonight or tomorrow-Can Not Wait!

The yard, sigh

I got home on  Sunday.  I mowed the lawn on Wednesday.  I need to mow again!  I spent most of yesterday weeding and deadheading the flower beds, as well as pulling some plants that had taken over but that didn't keep the weeds out!  If a plant takes over it should keep the weeds down!  I still have a bit to do, sigh.  Today, so far, I've trimmed the bushes in front and in the fence and taken out the old lilac bush.  As much as I love lilacs that one had been ailing since before we moved in, I nursed it along but this year it just looked horrid!  Turned out it was mostly rotten.  I still have to clean up the bush trimmings so I can mow this evening and weed whip.  I think today and tomorrow should wrap the yard up except for maintenance.  I will hunt up someone to mow for me while I'm gone this week.

Tomorrow, is full of Dr's appointments.  The last of the routine tests and a visit to the chiropractor.  Nothing major.  In between I'll do my usual Monday chores of laundry and sheets, as well as sweeping and dusting.

This coming week is all about getting the house ready for the market.  Mostly cleaning and some purging.  I also hope I can sew in the evenings-seems like forever since I've done that!  It's always like that in the summer.  Nothing I want to watch (er, listen to) on the telly while I stitch and I'm too lazy to choose a movie from my DVD collection!  I think I just want to stay outside longer while I can.  Soon it will be too hot to be out much-like the end of this coming week!  Then I'll be off to the mountains where at least the nights are cool!