Fall in SW Va

I let my wonderful husband talk me out of sitting around the house again today throwing my own little pitty parties and go with him to my parents house to pick up the wood splitter. My dad and Danny co-own the splitter and my dad used it for all his firewood back in the summer when it was so burning hot outside but Danny likes to use it when it is cool enough not to die with a heat stroke. I thought fast and grabbed my camera, I had a major pity party yesterday because I just knew that I would miss the changing leaves due to my illness that I no longer want to talk about ;-)

We had to stop at our local store for gas and I got this one of the church across the road.
We left my parents house and took the Blueridge Parkway home.
We are so fortunate to have this beautiful road that winds thru our county on the way thru the Blueridge Mountains!
We are also very fortunate to have the changing of the leaves that we get to witness every year.
Of course this is no Vermont, Robin!
Robin and Eric are in Vermont and Montreal Canada for the week. I have already received texts and facebook messages that she wants to move up there because of the beauty. I guess she will have better pictures than I do but I beat her to it anyway!
This is one of the overlooks on the parkway, the only one he would stop for.
Most of my pictures are from a moving truck and thru the windshield.
This overlooks Patrick County, home of The Fairy's Rest.
Behind us is the direction of our home.



People were stopped all along the side of the road for picnics today.
We used to do that every year but I guess we are too old for that anymore????
I love where these guys decided to stop along side the hay bales.
I am sure they had some good photos too!


I love this time of the year on the parkway.

This Buffalo Mountain. You can see it from almost anywhere in our county!

I plan to hike it one day.

The leaves have turned really pretty colors West of the Blueridge Parkway, which is shown in this picture and this is my side of the parkway too.

I also have a beautiful drive to work each day too.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE!!!

I have no idea who lives in this house but it was such a beautiful place that I just couldn't help myself. I could so live here. Couldn't you just see my Nubians out there on the hillside? That's my tractor up there. Fishing in that pond? The house looks all country and cozy.

Ahhhhhh a girl can dream now can't she?

The worst part of this dreaming is that Danny and I looked at the property across the road and almost bought it before we bought our place. That land was so flat, ours is so steep. It had a creek running right thru the middle of it, ours does have a spring. It had a PERFECT pondsite, our pond was barely able to be a pond. It had a riding ring, ours doesn't have a flat area big enough for a riding ring. It had a huge barn, ours...well you all know that story. It was 6 acres of flat pasture, ours 2 3/4 acres of steep billy goat pasture.

Now think about that for a while country gals..............

This is overlooking The Fairy's Rest!!

Can you see it?

My winter painting project?

Maybe!

Now this is the view from my front yard!

You do have to walk across the road to see it because of the neighbors fence line being overgrown with bushes. It is lovely over there!
See the Buffalo Mountain?

This is the opposite side of it, from the previos pictures.

My Buckeyes were really enjoying the beautiful fall day too!

I came home with another pair of banties from my dads today.

They are tiny little gray speckled beauties right now but who knows what they will look like when they are grown.

It was really nice to get out today and have a low key ride around the mountains and take in all the beauty that surrounds us.

Hope you enjoyed your little tour thru my county!

I have seen it all now.....

I just stumbled over a great new blog that is too cool to not share with all my blogging friends! This is so way beyond cool. This lady is going places with all her talent!! I have a new grandaughter on the way and I sure hope her mother can build up an imagination and capture her daughters dreams on film. Go on over here and see what I am talking about. WOW!!!!!

Enjoy!!

I am doing OK today, so far, I do have a lot of new breakout but I was expecting more so it was a treat not to be any worse yet. Thank You Lord for inventing the Lidicaine Patch!! I had such a nice and peaceful rest last night!!

Well bless my little heart......

I have to bless it myself cause no one else will.....teh hee. I have had a terrible week since Sunday morning. Got up and had this burning raw extremely odd skin deep pain on my right upper abdomen. I MEAN EXTREME PAIN...as if someone took a dull razor blade and scraped all my hide off. It went around under my arm to my center back. Are you following me here? All you medical folks out there are probably right on the same page as I was on Sunday, doing the self diagnosis of "Shingles", right?

Well being a nurse in an office I knew I was covered by Dr's and other nurses who could confirm my suspicions. However the typical shingles rash with the watery papules were not there. I took mega doses of over the counter analgesics with very little relief from the pain. Worked Monday and Tuesday as scheduled but the pain was horrible. Still no rash. So onto the world wide web for some research. What do ya know.....the biggest reason for "skin pain" is sarcoidosis! Oh no! I did not need another terrible symptom of sarcoidosis. The inability to breathe is enough isn't it?

I already had an appointment with a new family Dr scheduled for Wednesday so surely I could wait til then to discuss this pain. With shingles most all the time it is only on one side of your body. Tuesday evening the pain was going down my left side. So of course this was sarcoidosis.
I told the new Dr about what was going on and she agreed with that diagnosis, and it would just be something else to live with.

Then 2 days later.......I woke up this morning with the shingles rash that followed the same pathway as the extreme pain did!!!! Great!! Well actually this is a good thing cause
shingles will be treated and leave,eventually, I hope!!! If it was sarcoidosis I would always have problems with the pain. I don't think I could stand very many weeks like this one. I have a slew of medications to take and a nice 6 day break from work since this is contagious. I can not use my arms enough to quilt with my new quilting apparatus but I can sure get some piecing done while I am recouping!!!

So that's what's going on in my world. What's going on in yours? I will have time to do some way overdue blogging too!!! God Bless you all!!

My Quilting Frame......

Here it is!! Yay!!

He is finished with constructing it but we now have to get it into the house.

They are 12' long and are built in 2 pieces...pretty smart huh?

At least we can move them in sections.

How about that great storage shelf he added underneath??

They are soooo loooooonnnngggggggg!

The tracks are one continuous board so as not to have any bumps while moving the machine along the tracks. They will be screwed in place once we set everything up exactly where I want it.

We used most of the Handi Quilter frame that I already had.

These end pieces will be adjustable with some bolts with wing nuts.

I will be able to quilt up to a king size quilt on them.

All I have to do is sand them down really good and then get them put up tomorrow evening.

I can't wait to actually use them!!

He did such a good job!!!!

Jelly Roll quilt....

I have to get ready for my new frames!

Danny is doing such a great job on them, he is really into this project for some reason?!?!

Is it to get me quilting and let him hunt as much as he wants to????
Yep! That will work Honey!

Of course I already have a stash of pieced tops awaiting quilting but I just couldn't help myself and start another one today. I got this idea from Natalie, The Hideaway Girl....if you haven't been to her blog you should go. She has the most amazing pictures EVER!! I told Danny I was going out to the west coast soon!! He laughed at me, again!

I am using a Batik Jelly Roll that I got at Joanne fabrics for a steal last year. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with it til I saw hers and this fabric is perfect. You use a 2 1/2" Jelly roll strip and alternate rows with a 1 1/2" solid, I am using an off white cotton. You just go around and around with a long strip of pieces sewn together end to end. Easy Peasy!

Now I have a dilemma....again........ I need another sewing machine!

I am so dagum in love with this Juki that I don't want to give it up and put it in the frames to quilt with it. I know it will be wonderful for the frames but I love piecing on it. I don't know what I like the best about it either....probably the heavy duty-ness.........or
the thread cutter? Or the throat space? Not sure but I think it is a dream package for a quilter/piecer.

Do you think if I sell a couple more machines that he will let me buy another one?

After all I do work hard for my money!

My closet!!

Well gals here it is!

I know that all of you were just dying to see my closet!! hahaha

I have to say that blogging about something that you are getting ready to do helps hold you accountable to actually get it done!

Everything is so clean and organized in there right now.

I know it looks like chaos to you but you have to remember that I only have 2 closets in my whole house, this walk-in and one more smallllllllll bedroom closet that is actually in our office. The one in the office shares space with the heatpump cold air return so it's only a half closet.

This red chest holds my sheets and pillowcases. The mirror has been in the garage until I got the closet ready for it. I will be painting all the furniture white soon.

It will be really nice to finally have a full length mirror in my house!

(It is a LOT bigger than the picture makes it look)

Maybe I will look better when I leave home now?!?!?!

I did not get a really good picture of the closet from the bedroom because I would be showing in the mirror and you did NOT want to see me today! Me in sweats is not a pretty sight!!!!

These wire shelves work pretty good to hold accessories such as scarves and belts.

Look at all my jeans....I didn't know I had so many pair til I organized a little.

Can a girl ever really have too many handbags?
Of course not. I purged a few just in case!

This is my DRESSY corner of the closet, (other than Danny's robe that he wears out to the hot tub) you can tell that I don't get dressed up very much by the small amount of clothes there! The sweater organizer hanging here houses some sweaters and the rest are our swimsuits.

(jewelry, my socks are now in the hatbox, clever huh?)

Danny's clothes are in the dresser and about 6" of a closet rod is all I can share with him!

Not really, he has his suits stored in the office closet to keep them dust free. I did not want a door on this closet because most closet doors are either left open anyway or the closet is so messy that you don't want anyone to see in there and keep stuffing it full of more stuff.

I felt that this way I would keep it cleaner if anyone could see in there. Hahaha that didn't really work! Well the bedroom actually is messier than my closet!

After cleaning this I have some new found space for more shoes!!

Of course I have purged about 87 pair today!

I have a truck load of stuff for the Goodwill.

I can even add to my Dansko collection now!

Do you think he would notice a few more boxes?

Nah!

I still have a lot more to do such as cleaning out my dresser in the bedroom and purging more from there. I will move the bedroom around a little to fit the quilting frames in there. I guess I will go ahead and make a silk curtain for my closet door to keep some of the dust from the quilting....(from the batting)...from settling on my clothes.

After all every Princess should have a silk drape as her closet door! Right?

Whew.... I am tired now!!

I am inspired........

With this new job of mine, that I really really love, I am making so much money that I can't even figure out where to spend it all!!

Hahaha

That's a little white lie, I have it spent in so many different places that it would make your head spin if I told you ALL of my ideas!!

A chunk of my very first paycheck went to Lowes for the supplies for my dearest spouse to build me a new table/frames for my new quilting machine!!!! Woot Woot!!

We both sat down with my Handi Quilter, Youtube videos and my king size mattress and designed the perfect table to accommodate a king size quilt!!

The only problem is.....where in the world could I put a 12 foot long quilting frame??

I really begged for a new room but he laughed at me, he also laughed a while back when I told him they were going in my bedroom!

Well guess what girls, they are going in my bedroom after all.

It is the biggest room in the house besides the living room and he really frowned upon a quilting frame being between him and his TV!!

So as he is working on the frames, I am cleaning and rearranging the bedroom making room for them. This all led to cleaning and organizing my walk-in-closet too.

I never got around to showing you all my closet because it has been sorta topsy turvy for a while.

My bedroom was an addition that we added on about 3 years ago and turned one old bedroom into a walk-in and a small hallway. This is my very first ever real closet in my entire life!!!!

When I moved in there I told Danny that I felt like a Princess!!

I had/have room for furniture in there!!

I have a dresser for Danny's clothes and I had a dresser vanity in there for my jewelry and such with a nice mirror on it but I moved it into the hair studio. I have been sorta on the look out for another highboy type dresser but haven't found the right one yet........but I now have a steady paycheck, hmmmm??? LOL!

I will post pics as soon as I get the closet finished, I am purging and revamping it trying to get the excitement back that I had 3 years ago when I first moved in it!!!

This teensy tiny little picture was borrowed from Flickr and depicts what I really want my closet to look like! (maybe you can click to enlarge)

I have the white walls and cherry wood floors. I need to paint the furniture white and get me a cool chair in there and some stars on the wall and I will have it!! hahaha almost!

I dream of having my closet stuffed with Anthropologie clothes such as this sweater, in a size 6, that fits!

Lots and lots and lots of cool shoes such as these sassy black numbers from Anthro too!

They are only $460 or something like that!

Maybe some Frye boots?

Some more Danskos to add to my collection that I already have?

How about a chest full of Sabika Jewelry?

All the other nurses at work are now adorned daily with this jewelry that matches every scrub that they own. I am way behind them and I have a lot of catching up to do......well there are a few ideas of how to spend my paychecks right? As if I needed any help!!!!

Back to the purging and dusting!

Don't forget about my giveaway!!