Hill Country Memorial Day Weekend

We spent the weekend at the hill country house and stayed over for Memorial Day. Fortunately, we got quite a bit done despite the thunderstorms!

From the balcony off the master bedroom, we watched the storm clouds roll in from the distance! 

I couldn't get a panoramic photo, but it made a dome over the horizon. We could see the lightening in the distance and could hear the thunder. 
Since we don't have a working kitchen, we had brought a grill and steaks to cook for our lunch. We were beginning to make alternate plans! As it turned out, we had a very hard rain until about 11:00, and by noon the sun was out and we were able to enjoy the fresh air! (Unfortunately, we got word that the Pleasanton area had flooding! On our way home, we saw cars parked beside the road because some people were unable to get to their houses!)

We came to some decisions about the kitchen while talking to the contractor, and because we needed to wait on him to do a few things,  we started on the downstairs.

This closet is 10' x 12'. We have plans to completely reconfigure the downstairs and this will become a guest room. We will add a large window and a closet will fit under the stairs which are on the other side of the wall on the left.

Here it is before hauling all the shelves to the workshop area. 

 I have a watercolor my sister painted of my granddaughter and me at the beach. This will be the room for that. Soft tan walls, white trim and linens, and touches of blue from the painting. We will reuse the white berber carpet from the living room and some of it will go in this room. 

I found the perfect lamp at Home Goods and made a couple of throw pillows. The pillows are made of canvas and burlap, with the bulap sewn to the top and edges frayed. I painted "beach" on one and "sand" on the other. 

I have a picture in my mind of how it will look, but I will have to wait a while before I can start decorating. Meanwhile, I have a little corner in our apartment where I am stashing my "finds"! (Oh, and I found a bucket of seashells in the yard, so I have more ideas for that!) Most of the house will not have themes, but this room will be  for special memories!  

Mystery "Plum" Revealed!

I have been looking forward to harvesting any fruit the deer leave me at the hill country house! I have also been very curious about what type of plum I had in the garden area. Well......now I know! It is not a plum at all! It is an apricot tree! 

This is the photo I sent my parents last weekend, saying "Here is the plum. Have you ever seen a yellow plum? I went ahead and tasted one and it tastes more like a peach than a plum!" 
In my defense, I had never in my life seen an apricot tree. They don't grow well as far south as San Antonio because they don't get enough cold hours. I also thought that apricots must have a seed more like a peach - all rough and pitted. Yes, I've eaten apricots, but never a fresh one! 
I drove back yesterday for the sole purpose of picking those apricots before they got too ripe! 

Here is the beginning of my harvest! I ended up filling this large tub. I have been trying to put them up in my mother's freezer so I can decide later what to do with them. (We really don't eat much jam, so I hate to use them all for that.) I've encouraged everyone to eat as many as they want! 
The kitchen is coming along slowly but surely.

The door to the garage has been moved to a different location. It was in what is becoming the pantry.

The pantry now has a kitchen entrance. We will have narrow double doors here. You can see the former opening for the garage door studded out to become a wall.

The "breakfast area" (it will become a sitting area) is a little larger now due to the built in buffet being moved down to my quilt room.
I have to do a little more thinking about the kitchen design because of a hidden problem with a beam. That has slowed us down until we can come up with a way to add a structural post to an area where the contractor thought a beam would do. It is actually fortunate that we discovered the problem or we might have had problems down the road. 
I am working hard on finishing my picnic quilt! I am ready to sew on the binding! Can't wait to finish! Hopefully, I'll be back before the picnic! Until then I'll brush up on my fruit identification! 

                                                    

Update on Hill Country House, Mid May

We spent Friday night and Saturday morning at the hill country house hauling construction debris to the landfill. On Friday evening, we walked around the property trying to think of ways to landscape. This is going to be a challenge. I'm used to planting tons of colorful flowers, but the deer population would have them eaten up in a night! There is also the problem of planting in rock! I have no doubt we will figure it out. It is not our top priority right now.

I would love to know the stories this interesting tree could tell me! I love that it has survived obvious adversity and has tripled in the effort!

I found these Prairie Coneflowers growing there. I am assuming they are not as attractive to the deer as most of the vegetation .

I haven't done my research yet to find out what this Texas wildflower might be, but these are growing there also. These are the unopened buds.....

...and these are the opened flowers.
(My thanks to Donna, who let me know that this is Antelope Horn Milkweed. This is loved by Monarch butterflies.)

A contractor is starting on some kitchen work today. He will do the things that we know need a professional touch. We will come in each weekend and do the things that we know we can do! It's exciting to finally be on the construction side of this remodel instead of the demolition side!

I am reusing some of the kitchen cabinets in what will be my quilt studio. Here is my rough sketch. It has already been changed some because we no longer plan to put the media room beside the quilt studio. (It will no doubt change several times before we actually get to the stage where we are working in that area of the house. My husband has threatened to take away my "thinking license" because I keep coming up with new plans!)

Here is the rough sketch so far!

I just had to share this old photo here. 

My granddaughter was only 2 at the time (she is 11 now!) and we were remodeling a kitchen in our house in Georgia. She was so excited about helping! Remodeling has been a part of our life for as long as we've been married!

I am working on a picnic quilt for the upcoming picnic blog hop. I can't wait to share it with you!

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day! I was given a new Bible. (Mine was lost in the fire. I do miss the notes and underlined passages I had spent many years on. Fortunately, the message has not changed! I can start again filling the back pages with scriptures that fill me with joy and hope.) 

Have a wonderful week!

Hill Country House Progress - Mid-April

We have been having computer problems, so I haven't been able to post easily! I have a little catching up to do now on our progress. 

We're at the stage where we have gone into a perfectly good house and demolished it! I know that it will be nice when we finish, but I really dislike this part of the process. Here you see some of the rubble after removing cabinets and walls. We have also removed the appliances, which we will donate. We will reuse and repaint the cabinets, so we really worked carefully getting them down instead of taking a sledge hammer to them. 

 We have a plan to rearrange the kitchen and add a "dirty kitchen" (I know, most of us already have one of those and WHY would you want to ADD one!!!). Other names for this special room are "butler's kitchen" and "working pantry", not to be confused with a butler's pantry which is between a kitchen and dining room. This is a large pantry with a sink, dishwasher, counter for crock pots, toasters, etc. as well as storage shelves for food items. The idea behind it is that you do all the "dirty" work in there before company comes and the kitchen area will stay clean. We have a very open living space, so the idea appealed to me and I had the space, so why not? The extra dishwasher is for dishes during a party. Since we will get a free dishwasher when we buy our range and we have a dishwasher to use already, we thought this was a useful idea. The cabinets had to be removed so that we could cut a door through to the former laundry room (which we will move to a room near the bedrooms)  beside the kitchen. This 8' x 12' room will become the "dirty kitchen/pantry".  We have taken extra cabinets to the future quilting studio and will use them in there. (I have that planned out also! I'm big on re-using things!)
Here is what I am wanting for my countertops around the perimeter of the kitchen:
                     

    It is a grayed white "leathered" marble called Crema Marfil. It has the look of honed limestone, which is what we have on the outside of the house. The Texas hill country is on a limestone bedrock and there are outcroppings everywhere. I love the idea of something so natural decorating my house. Although marble is porous, it is not as porous as limestone! The honed marble is supposed to be a little easier to keep. (I haven't finalized my choice, but I LOVE this!) My dad is going to make us a mesquite wood countertop for the island. 

Here is a sample of a mesquite countertop. This  link will take you to the website of the Texas company who makes these!

We haven't talked to a fabricator yet, so this is not a "done deal", but after walking through row after row of glossy granite, I just wasn't falling in love with any of it. I told Doug I would know it when I saw it - and I did. It isn't anything like what I would have thought of on my own. I'm the same way with anything I buy. I have to have an emotional reaction to it before I want to part with my money!

I know that you can't really see yet what we're going to do. I wish it were all finished so you could see that we haven't ruined our house! (Phooey! I wish I could see that we haven't ruined our house! ) The floor guy can't put in the floor until the kitchen is finished. We are getting some bids on help with the kitchen, but one carpenter can't even start until late June! The other hasn't found a chance to come out and give us a bid! I guess we are in a holding pattern as far as the kitchen goes. 
If you didn't see my last quilted wall hanging, I posted it last week HERE for the Superpower Blog Hop. The birds I appliqued are two of the hundreds common to the hill country - mockingbird and scarlet tanager. 
                                                

What is Your Superpower? Here is Mine!

My Superpower?

It is the one thing that has driven me every step of the way through my entire life.

What is it?

Creativity!

I firmly believe all children are born with it. Some of us have it "educated" out of us. (You know, "color INSIDE the lines!") For those of us who managed to hold onto it, this world is full of amazing possibilities! Don't get me wrong, though. We need those of you who think inside the box, too! Without you, things would probably be in chaos!

As you can see, I used a lot of embroidery along with my applique. I always do. To me, they go hand in hand. The embroidery can be used to add so many details!

Thank you for stopping by today! Be sure to visit the other sites on the hop:

MONDAY APRIL 21
QuiltnQueen
Malini's Quilting Adventure
Pig Tales and Quilts
My Stitchin-n-Stuff
pieces by polly
Buzzing and Bumbling (this is me!)
The Distracted Domestic
Sew We Quilt

My thanks to Mdm. Samm and Pauline from Quilt N' Queen for hosting this hop! Their superpowers have made this possible! 

  

A Gift and a Reflection

My dad just gave me an album of pictures to replace the wedding album we lost in the fire! 

 I no longer weigh 98 lbs. and I look a lot older, but Doug still treats me like a princess (just ask my sister!). He  has a little less hair and a few more wrinkles, but my heart still jumps when he walks in the door. The wedding rings were lost in the fire, but the marriage is solid! My love for him has never faltered and has grown stronger every single day. We have the most important things in life in common - our love for God, our moral values, our children. We both love to read, to take drives in the country, to visit new places and see new things.

We are also very different in many ways. He loves seafood; I am allergic! He loves sports; I don't, unless my grandkids are involved.

 He loves action movies; I love suspense thrillers. He orders something different at a restaurant every time we go; I order the one thing I'm SURE I'll like. Every time.

I go around danger; he meets it head-on! 

 

  I am predominately "right brained"; he's predominately "left- brained". 

  My thought process is very scattered. I jump around from thought to thought, idea to idea; he's a "linear thinker"! 

He climbed to the top just so he could "check it off his list"!

  My husband is a scientist. In science, you need to do things step by step.

 When it comes to working together, I want to just jump in and do what I can, when I can! He is frantically trying to keep me "in line"! Poor guy! I'm sure my "ah ha!" thinking is the cause of his hair loss!  He is calmly and wisely assessing the situation while I am dancing a jig on the sidelines, anxious to just do something! We've been married 43 1/2 very happy years, so I guess we compliment each other!
 On Monday, April 21, I will be sharing my "Superpower"! Please join me then and see the project I've made just for that hop. In the meantime, I hope you're enjoying what others have revealed. You can get there by clicking 
 here.


 

Flags on a Stick Blog Hop - My Day! No Foolin"!

 My flags today are inspired by what I am seeing this week outside my window!

Spring is here and this beautiful field of bluebonnets is right across the road from where we are staying! In my parent's yard, you will find a riot of color!

The bluebonnet flag is hand painted on canvas and then quilted. The last two flags are each embellished with fabric applique and pen and ink drawings on canvas, then quilted. Of course, I added ribbons to wave in the wind!

Thank you for stopping by to see what I had today! Be sure you the other blogs on the hop today and see what kind of flags they are waving! Thank you,  Mdm. Samm and Thearica for hosting us this time around! Here is the rest of the schedule for today:

                                                                  April 1st

                                   Sew Incredibly Crazy
 
                                    Quilt Doodle Designs

                                   Buzzing and Bumbling (you are here!)

                                     Why Knot Kwilt?

                                    Creatin' in the Sticks  
                                           Meadowbrook