Life in the New World

This week included new doggie friends. 

We were invited into the small dog section of the dog park at Ponderosa Park, which will be only a few minutes' walk from our new home. It's nice we can visit the small-dog section if there are people there, but we can also join the big dogs int he other section. Dusty needs lots of play time. We found some big dogs to play with on Saturday, when we walked to the dog park for the first time, rather than to go by car.

The pups have a appointment on Thursday to meet their new groomer and get new haircuts. They are starting to look a little scruffy and maybe not so clean anymore. DBIL is very tolerant of having them on the bed.

Our house inspection was on Thursday. No new roof needed, and the structure is sound, but not much has been done to the house since it was built, other than small cosmetic items. I guess we have a house. New to our list of needed items: two new windows, as one of a pair of matching windows won't close, and both were crank-type windows, not quick to open in an emergency. The fireplace and garbage disposal were not working, but the seller lit the pilot light on the fireplace and got the garbage disposal to work, so I think those things are good. We have a new garbage disposal in our shipment anyway, one we never installed in the old place. My 1982 Maytag washer and dryer will be in our shipment, and we will need to install gas in the laundry room, which is upstairs, a good location but more expensive to reach with the gas line. I don't mind having stairs, but I don't like carrying a big laundry basket down the stairs at my age. Having the laundry upstairs will make a laundry chute (like that in our old house) unneeded.

Here's a look at my new "fiber studio" with all the furniture removed. If it looks a lot smaller in this photo, it's because I don't have a fancy wide-angle lens, like the real estate photographer.

The alcove is 6' wide X 5' deep. I think my sewing center will go there. The loom will have to fit into the large open area, which is about 11' X 10'. There should be plenty of wall space for fabric and yarn storage units.

Here's the "spacious" closet.

I'm visualizing shelves in there. We'll see.

We checked our voter registration online, and we are registered to vote. We are scheduled to receive ballots at our current location. Our new home will be in the same precinct, but we can change our voter information up until 8:00 PM on election day, so I think we're good.

This week's story introduces Mariah. You can read it here. My favorite photo from the story is where they all realize that their right hands are all the same, with two fingers stuck together.

I made a bit of progress on the Spring Flowers quilt. There is only one half-star to quilt, plus the background in the upper two corners, across the top (in this photo) and partway down each side, so not too much.

I was surprised to see the Coastal Skies Shawl much bigger.

It seems as if the yarn has hardly gone down at all. I have to sit on one of the dining room chairs to knit or quilt, because all of the furniture here is so huge. Maybe that's what inspired this week's story, where Mariah tours the house and finds everything so big.

What's on my needles: A few rows on the Kisu Cardigan, a couple of rows on the Coastal Skies Shawl.

What's on my Sparrow 15: Still sitting in our bedroom at DBIL's house. I think the next time I use it will be on the steeks for the Kisu Cardigan.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt, actually made some progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Welcoming the Newcomer, the first episode with Mariah. I'm scheduled through October 5th, the deadline for closing on our new home. 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill by Julie Klassen. I've made some progress with the story.

What's in my wine glass: Lindeman's Cawarra Shiraz Cabernet 2017. Surprisingly good for a big bottle of fairly inexpensive wine.

What's my tip of the week: Good lighting is important throughout your home for safety and to make tasks easier to do properly. LED light bulbs are a little more expensive, but they use much less electricity and provide a lot more light than normal incandescent light bulbs. A Wikipedia article says "The luminous efficacy of a typical incandescent bulb is 16 lumens per watt, compared with 60 lm/W for a compact fluorescent bulb or 150 lm/W for some white LED lamps."

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

Wild and Crazy

This week has had it's ups and downs. We managed to get to the dog park with the pups, where Rocky socialized with people and dogs, and Dusty ran wild.

The park is close to the neighborhood we hope to live in and where we are staying with DBIL. It's a "free range" park, where dogs can run free, accompanied by their human companions, of course. We met a lot of nice dogs and people. There were water bowls for the the dogs. We needed that, as both dogs ran a lot.

We started Monday morning looking at houses. Most of the ones we saw were not very appropriate, but our agent was trying to give us some choices. There was only one with RV parking in our preferred neighborhood, but we found another one we liked not too far away. Location and a lack of an HOA was weighed against a better house needing less work but for more money. In the end (so far), location won out. A second trip to that home helped us put together a list of things we could see needed to be done before the house was worth what they were asking and the expected costs. We've been watching the market in the area for some time, so we knew what houses went for with the amenities included. It's a nice floor plan with a big yard and was built in 1995. It was clear no maintenance had been done on the home since it was built, although a couple of cosmetic improvements (new carpet and granite countertops) made the photos pretty. Here's the house:

Here's the big yard we wanted. (It includes a chicken run and coop, the perfect place to put the garden.)

It had some play equipment, badly in need of repair. There was a hot tub "as-is," but at least the water was hot, which was a good sign.

There is a storage shed and a greenhouse, also having seen better days. Those two structures don't show up in any of the photos they posted online, for good reason.

We wrote the contract on Friday, deducting the cost of the obvious needed repairs and improvements (like AC, which most houses in the area have), but not allowing for a whole new roof, which we had no way to evaluate. We included our list with the contract, so they could see what we felt needed to be done. If the inspection (on Thursday) says we need a new roof, we may be back to "Square One." If the sale goes through, this will be my sewing/fiber studio (minus the furniture, of course). It's about 17' X 12', not counting the part on each side of the gable. It should be big enough for the loom and a full sewing/quilting area, but not for the daybed I was hoping to have for guests. (There's no pink remaining in the room.)

I had thought we could put the loom in another part of the house, as it's very attractive, but, DH nixed that. I've nixed a table full of papers in the kitchen. We'll see how that goes.

The other house we like has a bigger room for my sewing/fiber studio. This room should be able to house a complete sewing area with storage for fabric, my loom and the tools needed for it and a day bed as well. It only had one living area, though.

We should know Friday if the sale is going through. It's set to close October 5th. The sellers put in the contract that they wouldn't pay to fix anything. We think we have that built into the price, though. Fingers crossed.

As we were discussing the houses, DH said it didn't matter if I had a dedicated fiber studio, because there would be dolls all over the house (as if that were a bad thing). Unfortunately, the girls heard him say that as he was coming into the bedroom we're living in right now. I had to take a photo and show you the look they gave him. (I think Jolena had the best "wanna bet?" reaction, although Mariah, being new and not knowing him well yet, looks shocked.)

I managed to get caught up again on the stories, writing the first and second stories with Mariah as a member of the cast. The first one, which will come out this week, is about Mariah's arrival and sets up what her role will be. Then I had a sudden inspiration for a followup to that, so I'm scheduled through the end of September. If we do move into the house in early October, I know I'll be busy, so I want to get ahead another story or two.

We went out to eat Saturday night to celebrate DBIL's 80th birthday, which we missed in July because we weren't here yet, our 53rd anniversary on Saturday, and DH's 77th birthday this Wednesday. We went to Anthony's.

They have good food and good service, and it was a pleasant evening.

I also managed to register to vote online and get information on how to get an Oregon Driver's License and vehicle registration.

What's on my needles: Still as it was. At least my knitting is out of the trailer and into the house.

What's on my Sparrow 15: Still sitting in our bedroom at DBIL's house. I have a folding craft table in the trailer, if I really need to sew before we get into our new home.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt, again progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Flying or Lying. This is the last of the prescheduled stories. The first new one, introducing Mariah, comes out next Friday.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill by Julie Klassen. I'm still where I was when the trip ended, more or less.

What's in my wine glass: Concha y Toro Frontera Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot

What's my tip of the week: When you move to another state, carry stamps in your wallet, in case you need to mail in your online voter registration.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

Westward Ho!

Bottom line: We arrived in Bend on Sunday, and Mariah was waiting for me at the real estate office.

Jolena wanted to be the first to hear Mariah's voice, because she was the last new arrival up to this point.

The dolls are numbered 1 - 250. Mine is 152. I probably could have waited a few more hours to order and still had one, but it was bedtime, and I didn't want to risk waiting until morning. It turned out that people who waited those last few hours were too late to order.

Mariah was scheduled to be delivered on Friday before the end of the day. I learned from tracking that she was out for delivery, but expected to get a text when she had been delivered. When no text had come by the time we stopped for gas about 6:00 PM, I checked tracking (gotta love smart phones) and learned that she had been delivered about lunch time, apparently had been signed for. Yikes! Who could have signed for her? Where was she? I called the delivery company and learned that maybe no one signed for her, but she had probably been left by the front door. A quick text and email to our agent, and by bedtime, I had a text from him saying he had picked up the "package" and taken it to his office. He also took DBIL's trash can in from the street. 

You can read the gruesome details of the rest of our moving experience below, or you can just stop reading now and come back next week, or better yet, skip to the photos of the grands at the bottom of the post.

To pick up from where we left off last week, our problems with the pickup meant our scheduled Thursday U-box has to be postponed. With the long Labor Day weekend, that meant we couldn't get the U-box until Tuesday. More dominos fell. I had ordered more of Rocky's medications sent to BIL's place in Bend, but we wouldn't get to Bend in time before he ran out of his blood-pressure medication, so I had to buy extra from our veterinarian.

We also had to get out of our camping spot at the RV campground in Park City (a resort town, if you're new to my blog posts), because they were booked over the long weekend. We moved the trailer to the KOA campground close to the airport in Salt Lake City. We had a pleasant stay there, although we went back up to Park City each day to work. While at the KOA, I handed out a number of cards for The Doll's Storybook to kids and parents. I hope the blog has some new readers as a result.

DH picked up the U-box with the truck on Tuesday, and we started to load it. By quitting time on Tuesday, we had it about half full. We parked in the storage unit lot for $10 and drove back to the KOA in the Honda. We scheduled Jose, the gentleman who picked up miscellaneous stuff at the house, to come to our storage unit on Wednesday. He carted away a bunch of stuff, including many boxes of rocks. (DH is a geologist, and he did keep his dissertation rock samples, which he transported to Bend in the bed of the pickup.) I spent a good part of Wednesday at Utah Recycling, using their shredder to shred tax and real estate papers dating back to 1969, and went back on Thursday to finish.

Thursday was breaking down boxes for recycling, taking things to Savers to donate and cleaning out the storage unit.

Friday we pulled out of the KOA in Salt Lake City, but not until a couple of hours worth of tire inflation (no doubt to compensate for the rocks), which took us until after lunch time. Friday afternoon and evening, we drove to Winnemucca.

We stayed at another KOA in Winnemucca, one where we have stayed before. The tire inflator needed to be used again, but unfortunately it died a gruesome death and had to be replaced. DH ran to the local Walmart to pick up another, then couldn't get it to work. The problem turned out to be the extension he was trying to use with it to get it to reach the back tires. Without the extension, it barely reached the tires when they were turned so the filler valves were as close as possible, but he finally got it to work. Another late start, after lunchtime, took us to Burns, Oregon.

For the last part of the trip, DH wanted me to take the lead, so Siri could guide us. He warned against losing him in the dust (he was pulling the trailer, so travels more slowly). "If you lose me, I will hang onto your sewing machine until you come find me," he said.

"That's OK," I said, "I have my sewing machine in the car, ha-ha!" Then I remembered my girls were in the trailer. "I won't lose you, though," I added. "You could hold my girls hostage."

The latest story in The Doll's Storybook came out on Friday. It's about playing outdoors and having fun (not about driving all day during the beautiful summertime, ha-ha). I was on the road all day Friday, so I didn't get to post the link to the story anywhere, so some people who usually read the stories didn't get the word. I posted the link to it on Saturday. I'm scheduled through September 14th, and I have another for September 21st that introduces Mariah, but I haven't taken the photos for that one yet, because the star just arrived.

In other news, I finished the Bota Box of wine almost single-handed, so to speak, but only after we had stopped for the night. (The drink holder is in the trailer; no one uses it when we travel.)

Because I didn't get to take very many photos this week, here are some lovely back-to-school photos of the grands, snatched from Facebook. First, Zachary and Daphne:

Then Soren and Johan:

And Daphne again, this time at one of her dance classes:

What's on my needles: Still the Kisu Cardigan for Jolena, and still att the BO for the neck. A Ravelry friend has already finished hers and posted a photo. It looks pretty cute. It's a thrill to see my creations come to life. Also the Coastal Skies shawl for me, no progress this week. (I am in serious knitting withdrawal.)

What's on my Sparrow 15: Now sitting in our bedroom at DBIL's house.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt, no progress this week..

What's on my wheel: Stanzi is in our shipment. 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill by Julie Klassen. It was my on-the-road entertainment. Very good. I haven't finished it yet, but it made the miles fall away on the trip.

What's in my wine glass: Airlie Willamette Valley Pinot Noir 2008. OK, maybe past its prime, but it is alcohol. This is what happens when you clean out your wine cellar and wine fridges, having to drink it all or move it. I seem to remember it was good at the time we bought it.

What's my tip of the week: Don't plan on wi-fi at campgrounds. It isn't often useable because of band-with problems. Instead, make sure your smart phone is set up with a hot-spot. Even if you use so much data that it slows down, it's never going to be as slow as the campground (or hotel) wi-fi can be. You can also use it to bypass an insecure wi-fi, if you need to perform important transactions.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

This Week Will Make My Autobiography Interesting

Real adventures usually get off to a rocky start. And this is the short version.

As you may remember if you have read my recent blog posts, we sold our home 18 days after we listed it for sale. That was the easy part, as it turned out. Our contract allowed our buyers to research our property up until August 10th before committing. They tried to get more money out of us by bringing in contractors who gave estimates on what it would cost to tear down our bowed back deck, which they knew about when they made the offer on our home. We agreed to pay for radon remediation and a small amount for a new water pressure valve, as showed up in the inspection, but not the amount they asked for. Fine, they said. All was well, except that we fell behind in packing our stuff. (Well, I had packed my stuff already, but DH had held onto lots of stuff he didn't have time to go through. Monday the movers came to remove everything we had packed.

They packed everything into what they called "vaults," similar to pods or U-boxes.

We all worked until 8:00 PM, when the boxes/vaults were full, they drove off to put things into storage for us until we find a house in Bend.

At the same time, we had a cleaning lady affiliated with the woman who received our piano and came back to help us get ready to move. She worked tirelessly, moving around as needed to accommodate our moving workers. She finished at 8:30. Everything was cleaned except the floor under the items left in the house: bags of food and cleaning materials not possible to include in our shipment.

We had decided to give our guest bed and the matching dresser to our buyers, if they wanted it, and they did. Here's the bed.

Here's the dresser:

(It needed refinishing. We did find the connectors for the mirror, and we left them on top. He can repair furniture, and I hope they will send us photos when he's done.) With all the other furniture removed, our plan was to sleep on the spool bed. That was when we found out that the trunks under the bed (now removed) had been holding it up. It collapsed under our weight. We moved the mattress to the floor to sleep.

We were expecting to have to be out by the end of closing day. However, a U-Haul truck showed up early on the day of closing with three U-boxes full of the buyer's stuff. Shortly after that, the buyer showed up. I had been moving everything to the garage to have the house clear, but the buyer said he had to have the garage clear for him to unload the boxes, and we had to accommodate them because his wife had taken off two days from work. We hadn't even closed yet. We wanted to do our part to help with the situation, so we offered to move everything we could to our storage unit, instead of going for our trailer and moving everything we needed to take with us into it. With almost everything in the storage unit, DH went to pick up the trailer to take it to our local RV campground. He had misplaced the piece of paper (never use paper in this day and age) that had the site number on it. The office was closed. In the process of turning around, he took the corner at a tight angle--too tight--and the corner of our 5th wheel removed the rear window of the pickup. I found out from another camper that they had a folder with the list of who had which campsite by the laundry. Whew! We settled in for the night there, and DH discovered that not only was the pickup stuck in 4X4, it wouldn't start up again. He took the Honda went back to the house, where he worked until past midnight, removing everything left in the house and putting it on the front deck. I had put everything from the refrigerator/freezer into an ice chest and four refrigerator bags, and that was now in the storage unit. Unfortunately, they close up at 10:00 PM. Of course, all the canned and packaged food was in the storage unit, too. I had one bottle of water for myself and the pups, and no way to get food or more water except by walking several miles in the dark.

When DH returned after midnight, we hadn't eaten all day. "Hey," I said. "We're homeless. There's a homeless packet in the Honda. Let's eat from it." (It's a plastic bag of food and other items we give out to the homeless we encounter while driving around.) We had chili beans and canned mixed vegetables from the homeless packet, and the bottle of water from the bag. We could have had the can of tuna, but we were full enough.

The next morning, we called the Auto Club to help with the pickup. They towed it two blocks up the street to the Chevy dealer, where it was determined that we needed a new battery. It seems that if the battery goes out, nothing works. That took two days, and then we needed to put in a new rear window. That meant we had no way to remove everything from the front deck, and the new owners were getting upset. It looked liked this...

...and this.

The new owner had told us we could leave it for the MS pickup on Saturday, but his wife apparently nixed that. (I don't know for sure, but he said it was OK, and then it wasn't, so I'm guessing.) I got on the Facebook group "Park City, Utah, Online Yard Sale" and said I was ISO someone to cart everything off for $50. I got a reply right away, but he wanted $100. We met him there the next day. I noticed the tarp was off, and the stuff had been picked through. Peeking through the front window, I saw some of the things we had left to be picked up, so it was clear that the new owners went through to see what they would like. I wouldn't have minded, if they had been more tolerant about our leaving the stuff on the deck. 

They also demanded we remove some items from the side yard. DH went back and picked that up to take to recycling, and we were done. 

My takeaway: They were not legally permitted to start moving in before closing. We did everything we could to accommodate them and allow them to move in early. Doing so created a number of problems for us and eventually caused us some difficulty in removing everything from the property (although some of that was caused by our problems with the pickup, not entirely because of them). When we were not legally allowed to have things on their property after closing and could have used some understanding, there was none. Things work better when everyone is cooperative.

The pups were happy to be able to lie down in the trailer, after spending so much time sitting in the car.

Of course, Jolena would be the first one to stick her head out of the bag to investigate her surroundings.

We had planned to go down and pick up another U-box on Saturday, but that had to be postponed until (because of the long weekend) Tuesday. 

While all this was happening, a new "Chosen" doll (limited to 250) was due to be released by My Doll Best Friend. I was only mildly interested, because the past Chosen dolls had been on the market for a few months before selling out, and I had no idea what the new doll would be. Lo and behold! the new doll was a nonwhite doll called Mariah. Of course, I had to have her to add diversity to my stories. So there I was, with no real address in Bend other than my BILs. I thought I would wait until I got there to order. Here she is:

Well, as the hours went by (I had nothing else to do, right?) it was clear, that I could miss out. I decided to order her and have her sent to my BIL's house and deal with whatever complications arose. Within hours after I ordered her, they were all gone. 250 dolls gone in 36 hours!

DBIL will be out of town for a few days later in the week, and we may not be there yet, so I may have to recruit our real estate agent to pick her up, unless I can reschedule delivery. I believe it will all work out. Our current plan is to leave on Friday, if nothing else goes wrong.


Fortunately, I had scheduled the stories through the middle of September, and the latest one came out on Friday.

On a bright note, we have been wondering what happened to DD's dolls. We found this lovely treasure trove in the storage unit on Sunday:

And Pumpkin and Bye-Bye saw the light of day for the first time in decades. (Bye-Bye needs new eyes to see, but I'm sure he felt the sun on his face.) Pumpkin wears a size 1 and had our DD's baby bonnet on when we found her.

We're now scheduled to leave Salt Lake City on Friday. Stay tuned. Next week's blog should be interesting.

What's on my needles: Still the Kisu Cardigan for Jolena, and still att the BO for the neck. Also the Coastal Skies shawl for me, no progress this week.

What's on my Sparrow 15: Packed away in my Honda.

What's in my hoop: Still the Spring Flowers quilt, no progress this week..

What's on my wheel: Stanzi is still waiting patiently. 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill by Julie Klassen. No chance to listen this week, but when we hit the road, it will be my entertainment.

What's in my wine glass: Bota Box. (Does a box wine have a vintage?)

What's my tip of the week: Get rid of stuff when you buy new. Life is too short to spend a week going through things and tossing them out or giving them away.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.