"Bottles"

A friend in Tucson is a very gifted artist and does graphite pencil drawings which are truly amazing.  He decided to branch out into using color pencils and sent me pictures of 3 samples of his work.  I fell in love with this picture and really wanted it to use in my new house. He finally ended up giving it to me which was a big thing for him since he doesn’t part with his work. I have it on my cell phone plus an 8 x 10 print that was used extensively in choosing colors, styles, accessories, etc. for the whole apartment. The picture is currently at the framers and I can’t wait to get it home and hang it in a prominent place on the dining room wall where it will be visible throughout the dining room, living room and kitchen which is all in an open floor plan. 

Colors and Fabrics Overload

By brain is on overload with colors and fabrics for furniture. I decided to work with one locally owned furniture store that has 3 stores in the KC Metro area and use the services of their decorator.  She is probably in her early 30’s so I was leery about what she would want to go with.  I give her credit for quickly realizing that I was rather conservative so then she switched to slightly stretching my comfort zone on colors and fabrics. When I left Arizona I had planned on going with brighter non-brown colors since I had lived with browns and tans all the years with Larry. Those were his colors and I gave up early on but celebrated when I finally got him to wear a red shirt… All of the furniture I ordered is custom ordered (they don’t sell the floor models)  so there were hundreds of colors and fabrics to choose from for each one. I had to choose fabric for the sofa, recliner, accent chair and dining room chairs. It took me 5 minutes to choose the style of furniture and many, many hours to choose what color/fabric to have it made in.  I was at the store 4 days straight and finally ordered the pieces on the 5^th day. I started with a burgundy color scheme and then she and another designer nicely pointed out that I will be locked into that if I get tired of it in a year or so.  Then it was back to the drawing board to start over. I ruled out dark colors because I didn’t want to see all the orange Morris hairs when he got off the fabric.  There were some bright contemporary colors/fabrics that I really liked but I just couldn’t see living with them every day. I would think I had the perfect color but it completely changed when I brought it home.  My generation did not mix stripes and print so that was a big stretch for me. I ended up with these colors. The print in the picture is the recliner, the stripe is the occasional chair, the solid is the sofa and the light color is the dining room parson’s chairs. And yes, I have had second thoughts almost daily but kept telling myself that it will work.

Settling In....

Morris and I arrived here 3 weeks ago today and are getting settled in. About 1/2 the boxes are unpacked, furniture is ordered and today I'm going to buy a snow shovel. There is a storm coming in this weekend that could leave 6" of snow in it's wake. Yes, the streets and area in front of the garages is plowed.  However, I found that they can't get right up next to the garage door so you can have a high pile of now right by the door to back out over to get to the plowed area. I hope to get more boxes unpacked this weekend when the weather is bad and can't get out much. Yesterday I was with nieces from 11 am - 8 p.m.  I went to lunch  with Sheryl and then we came back to the apartment so she could see it and wait on Vivian to get here.  Vivian arrived around 2 p.m. and after visiting awhile, Sheryl left. Vivian and I went shopping for "house accessories", had dinner out and then she went home. I know it will be hard for some to believe but I didn't even check email until around 9 p.m. and NEVER set down at my computer all day! My thoughts last night was "Oh, so this is what it is like to be retired and not have a long list of appointments, things that must be done, etc". Pretty laid back day....

Vegetable Seeds

I was in Home Depot this week and walked through the Garden area.  A huge rack right along the aisle was filled with little packages of seeds for vegetable gardens. It brought back memories of my mother spending a lot of time each winter going through the Burpee seed catalog that came in the mail deciding on what to order for the garden that year.  Mom and Dad always had a very big garden each year. She always planted her leaf lettuce on February 14^th and potatoes on St Patrick’s day…. Good Memories.

Cultural Differences

Missouri/Kansas and Arizona/California may both be states in the United States but cultures are so different in many ways.  Having lived in the west and now back in the Midwest, I am really aware of the differences.  An example was last Sunday’s dinner at Bill and Vida’s (my brother and sister-in-law). First of all, I volunteered to take a salad and dessert to go along with the spaghetti and meatballs Vida was fixing for dinner.  My dessert was a Apple Raisin pie that I made fresh that morning, pictured below,  and store bought cranberry walnut cookies.  There was 8 of us there for the 1 o’clock dinner – Bill, Vida, 3 nieces, husbands for 2 of them and myself.  Yes, Sunday meals, if after noon, are “dinner” back here even if it is 1 o’clock….   The thing that really impressed culture difference on me was what happened after we were through eating…  The guys adjourned to the sun porch and the women settled in around the kitchen table. For over an hour, we discussed everything from the fit of jeans to decorating.  As we sat there chatting, it struck me that I have never seen this happen in the west… In the west, after dinner everyone (men and women) adjourn to the same room and the topics are usually very different.  No one was in a hurry to leave to get to someplace else as is usually the case in the west – especially California. Dishes were eventually done, leftovers were divided up and we all headed home leaving Bill and Vida to rest up for next Sunday.

And the weather is....

When I lived in Oregon, you knew the chances were pretty good that you would not see the sun that day and that went on for several months of the year. In Arizona, you knew the day would probably be sunny with completely blue skies.  Here in the Midwest, it can be sun, rain, snow, clouds – sometimes all in the same day.  And this is only winter….. Yes it is cold!  However, so far, I can deal with the cold easier than I could with a week of 100+ degree weather in the desert.  

Officially a Kansan

I now have both my Kansas car license plate and my Kansas driver’s license so I’m official. I was surprised that they only required me to have a current, valid license and pass the vision test.  It’s the first time I haven’t had to take a written test when moving to a new state. My eye doctor in Tucson warned me that I might have a problem with the eye test due to my cataracts.  Sure enought, I looked into the little machine and the numbers were blurry so I closed the bad eye and passed it 100%...... I only had to read off 8 numbers on a specific row.

Life’s Next Chapter

I said I wasn’t going to do the blog when I moved to the Midwest – but guess what?  It just seems right to continue it although I DO NOT plan on writing every day.  It won’t be a travel log like I have done in the past on trips. It will be a snapshot of life with Morris and me as we start the next chapter of our life. And besides, I may need it when I write a best-selling biography of our life together…….

Three weeks ago this time we were just settling in on the I-10 freeway heading east for what was going to be a very long drive. Morris was protesting at full volume and I’m thinking “How long can I stand this?”  I don’t mind road trips by myself because it is much easier when he isn’t in the car.  By myself, I can take as many stops as I want to, go in and eat a leisurely meal, etc.  With him, it is stop as little as possible since it takes a while for him to settle back down once we get on the road again. The good thing is that he does settle in very easily once we get into a hotel room and I can leave him in the room while I go have dinner. The only bad weather we ran into was in Oklahoma City where Morris saw his first big snow.  We got up the next morning and there was about 3” inches of snow on the ground, the car was completely covered in snow, it was really cold and a strong north wind was blowing. I waited about an hour before starting out so rush hour traffic could get out of the way and the roads were not as slick.  We had no problems on the road but it was a longer than usual drive to KC due to the roads not being totally clear and dry.  They were ploughed but the lanes were not quite as wide and were wet in places so I wasn’t taking any chances with ice. It was complete, total relief when we pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex on Thursday afternoon! The blow-up mattress felt really good that night....