Another year, another decade....

Another decade gone. It doesn't seem like 5 minutes ago I was partying like it was 1999. It is certainly true what they say about time going quicker as you get older.

I have had some HUGE life changes over this last decade.

I was married. I got divorced. 

I met Mick again after 14 years and got married again.

I sold a house, rented 4 more and bought another house.

I moved from England to California to Minnesota and back to California.

I abandoned all of my earthly possessions and had to start again.

I left my family and my friends.

I left my career as a head hunter.

I became a stay at home wife and had to learn how to cook and clean.

I visited 44 US states and saw some of the most wondrous sights this country has to offer.

I started making dollhouse miniatures.

I started to learn how to sculpt.


I started a blog and got a website.

My favorite part of the last 10 years….making my Mom’s dreams come true and taking her to Graceland. She is a huge Elvis fan and never thought she’d get to visit there because she was terrified of flying. She has traveled all over Europe by motorcycle, car or boat…but she had never flown and swore she never would.  Until 2007 when Mick flew back to England to fetch her. We knew that she’d never get on a plane by herself so Mick went back to fly with her.

We surprised her with the gold suite at the heartbreak hotel and a VIP pass to visit Graceland as many times as she wanted during our stay in Memphis.

And of course we added in Sun Studios and his birth place in Tupelo, Mississippi.

We drove south  from MN and went all the way down to FL and back up the east coast so they got to visit 16 states in that road trip.

It was a trip of a lifetime and I am so very grateful to Mick for making it possible.

I wonder what the next 10 years will bring. I’m not even going to venture a guess. In 1999, if you’d have told me I’d have done all of  this in the next 10 years I’d have laughed my socks off. Who knows that the future holds for any of us.

I wish each and everyone of you a Happy new Year and 

I hope that 2010 brings you everything you are dreaming of.

So here it is.....Merry Christmas

I am guessing most of you won't be around much over the next week or so, so I thought I'd say

 Merry Christmas

to you all now.

I have to confess to not loving Christmas much these days.  I used to be really into it but since I  moved here, so far away from my family and friends,  I just don't enjoy it anymore. If I could I'd just fast forward straight through to next year :-(

I truly envy those of you who have kiddies at home....the whole belief in Father Christmas is just so much fun.

When Aydn was little I'd wait till he went to bed and hang out of my bedroom window ringing bells. Within minutes he'd be in my room yelling 'Mom, Mom can you hear him' 

I would dip my shoes in flour and leave footprints up the stairs and in the hallway to be discovered next morning. Aydn was so little it never occured to him that there wasn't any snow outside :-)

One year my Mom, who lived 2 doors away, stuck an inflatable Santa on a long pole and started tapping it on the outside Aydn's bedroom window. Goodness knows what the neighbors thought seeing her walking though the streets with Santa on a pole lol.

I do miss those days....they aren't little long enough. Not that I plan on starting again mind you :-)

Our new neighborhood is beautiful at this time of year. Everyone's houses are decorated inside and out.  Except ours...I feel like the resident Grinch but really don't have the money to buy something as frivolous as as tree this year.

And then I'd have to buy ornaments. What I really want is a tree with old ornaments. Going out and buying brand new just doesn't seem right to me...far too sterile. I want old ones with history and character...not some plastic made in China junk. Oh well...maybe I'll see if I can organize and old ornament swap next year and have a tree after all.

Anyhow, enough from Tallulah the sad old drama queen.....I'll leave you with this clip to listen to. You Brits are probably sick of it now but to all you others...It just ain't Christmas in England till you hear ol' Noddy singing.

Merry Christmas everybody xxx

Some house pics.

I have finally managed to set up a new blog to journal the new house.

All I have up so far are 2 posts showing the outside of the house and the gardens but if you'd like to take a look just click on the photo below.

If anyone of you have more of a clue about gardening or home decorating than I do (and I am sure that is all of you ) I'd love you to follow me over there as well. I need all the help I can get :-)

Getting there....

Slowly but surely :-)

I have finished painting my workroom, my main overhead light has gone up and I have my own computer (and all my files) back...whhheeee.

As you can see from the photos there is still a looong way to go yet but at least the basics are done.

I wanted adjustable closet shelving in the closet but after looking at the price I decided my old plastic shelving will suffice :-) 

I will put shelves of some kind up on the spare wall to the right of the closet. I'd prefer open shelving and it seems insane that I can buy flat pack bookcases cheaper than I can buy shelves and brackets. But I'll be needing somewhere to display all the flowers and sculpts I'll be making soon :-)

The workroom is at the side of the house and doesn't have a very nice view. I toyed with the idea of using the other bedroom, which looks out onto the back garden, but thought I'd save the nicest view for the guest bedroom. Besides, when I am in here I ought to be working not gazing out of the window. I'll plant something along the fence to make it somewhat prettier and I'll add some bird feeders out there.

The room would ideally be another 6 inches bigger all the way round as the desks only just fit ( they are pulled away from the wall at the moment) but I am grateful to have a room of my own so am not complaining.

The sewing machine won't be a permanent fixture....I am in the middle of making drapes for the front room.

At least once this room is finished I can move some of the boxes that are filling up the other rooms.  Then we can worry about what to do with the rest of the house and garden...something I am NOT looking forward to at all.

Well I best get cracking and start emptying some of these boxes. I thought you might like to see what has been eating my time up of late.

Two steps forward.....

and six steps back. Isn't that how it goes :-)

I decided to paint my workroom before unpacking everything. It was perfectly clean and freshly painted but in a very bland cream color.

Having spent the last 5 years renting, and dreaming of the day I wouldn't have to live with white walls, I planned on painting my workroom.

After moving in and realizing there was so much else to do it seemed really frivolous to paint a perfectly OK room. But that is all it was ... OK. So, knowing that once everything was unpacked I'd never find the inclination to empty everything out again, I decided to go ahead and paint it.

Now, I have a tendency for very dark, medieval, Gothic kind of colors. My last house was painted this way but that wouldn't work in my workroom where I need the light.

So...I went with a periwinkle on the bottom and french country blue on the top split by a white chair rail. I still have a ways to go and I can't say I am loving it much but I am not going to start again.

I have discovered that a decorator I am not. How hard is it to paint a clean line between wall and ceiling or wall and trim. How can I make such detailed flowers that are smaller than a penny but not be able to paint a straight line lol.

Anyhow, at the beginning of the week I ended up with an extremely sore right shoulder. I assumed I'd sprained it with all the painting I'd been doing but, when it got to the point I could barely lift my arm, off to the docs I went.

She thought I'd torn or stretched a ligament so sent me off for X-Rays. Turns out I have arthritis in my shoulder...oh the joys of getting older. Doesn't seem like 5 minutes ago I was dancing on bars with the best of them. OK so it was 5 years ago not 5 minutes but even so, I am only 42 !!! Too young to be falling apart like this lol.

So the painting has had to take a break while I let the ligaments heal up. And that is why I appeared to have come back to blogland only to have vanished again. It hurt to use the computer too much :-(

My shoulder has been giving me jip for a couple of years and I just put it down to the position I sat when I was making my flowers. Hopefully it won't affect me making flowers or sculpting in the future.

Hopefully within a couple of weeks things should be a little straighter round here, I'll have my own computer back and can get back into the swing off things.

Toodle Pip for a bit

xxx

HAPPY THANKSGIVING.....

....to all my American friends....I hope you all have a wonderful day.


Sorry to have been MIA for so long...silly me thought I'd be back to blogging a week after we'd moved in....now I am rolling around in laughter at the thought of my naivety :-)

We have been working none stop to try and get this place sorted...forget the fun things like hanging art or setting up our workrooms. So far it has been dealing with leaks, replacing faucets, showers, waste disposal units and the like.

Oh and dealing with an ex- landlady who pays no attention to the law and has withheld a chunk of our security deposit...guess we'll be seeing her in court shortly.

I have spent the last 3 weeks doing nothing but scrubbing the kitchen cupboards to within an inch of their life and priming, painting, and lining the interiors. It has taken this long because they were so gross and whatever they are made of required a minimum of 4 coats of paint. I am about halfway there now and I don't' even want to think of what we'll do with the exteriors.

Once the cupboards are clean enough to put things into, then I'll think about my workroom.

I know I promised pics and you'll get them soon. I'll likely start a new house blog to keep as a journal...just need to think of a name for it :-)

Anyhow, thought I'd fly by to wish you all a great Thanksgiving.

xxx

I'm early but.... 'Happy Halloween All'

I won't be here on Halloween so thought I'd wish you all a good one early.

With luck we'll be moving into our new place Saturday. We still don't have the keys but should get them at the end of the day Friday. This week has been a last minute flurry of signing papers and a whole lot of stress.

Mick is off work now so today we will be packing a POD...and unfortunately that isn't a euphemism for something more fun ;-)

We did a final walk through earlier this week and as we pulled into the street I was horrified to see the neighbors house covered in police 'Do Not Cross' tape. As we got closer I could also see cobwebs, bats and the like so I am hoping this is part of their Halloween decor and not anything to be concerned about.

We also met the previous owner who was completely crazy and makes me think we will end up having to get a restraining order to keep her away lol.

Anyhow, hope you all have a super spooky time and find that inner kid that is bursting to get out.

The only flying going on in my house is me...by the seat of my pants !!!

Moving....not quite !

Than you everyone for Aydn's birthday wishes yesterday. Although he doesn't have a blog account he can post from, he did read them all and I am sure his head was swelling with all the 'handsome' comments :-) And I didn't get into trouble for publicly calling him Pudding Pants :-)

Well the house buying hasn't been going as well as expected and not only are we still here but we no longer have a closing date.

It was 28th October. However, that was before the appraiser went in..... or should I say the second appraiser. The first one had a week to come back with her valuation report and informed us on the last day that she wasn't able to do it as her laptop had crashed. Great !

So, another appraiser was arranged to go in. This time he did actually turn up but he valued the house at $20,000 less than our offer.

The house is bank owned and at first the seller couldn't understand why this was a problem and why did we not want to carry on and pay more for the house than it was worth...well hello !

So, we asked them to drop the price. After some back and forth they agreed to do so if we paid their closing costs. We had already agreed to buy the house 'as is' and to cover the cost of all the repairs ourselves so paying for their closing costs on top of this wasn't something we were prepared to do.

At this point I was trying to convince myself that I didn't much like the house anyway and that we'd find something else.

On Tuesday we eventually we reached an agreement where we'd pay half of their closing costs.

As much as this gripes me to do so, if we were to pull out now, we'd lose all the money we paid for the inspection and the appraiser so it seems better to cut our losses and just go with it.

And our poor realtor, who has absolutely busted his as off for us, wouldn't get paid a bean.

Yes I love the house but, more than that, the thought of having to start all of this from scratch was just beyond me. It has been so much more hard work than I ever anticipated.

I've bought homes before but only in England and the process is very different over there. Add to the mix my lack of knowledge of the terminology used over here and I was getting rather stressed at times I tell ya :-)

While Mick was away in MN for a week I made a point of watching the home buying programs on HGTV....well....this purchase has been nothing like any shown on TV so that was no help.

Still, we are nearly at the end now. Hopefully in a day or 2 (or probably 6 if things follow the pattern they have so far) we'll get at least a closing date.

Then we can figure out what we'll do during the in between time when we are vagrants. A tent on the beach is sounding good to me right now :-)

In the meantime I'll continue to pack I guess...although I've started to reach a point now where there isn't that much left to pack.

Gives me more time to read all your blogs though ...yay ! And to find a wonderful pressie for our realtor. He wants to learn how to make stained glass so I am looking for a beginners kit for him. I think he'll like that.

Happy birthday baby

Wow....where does the time go.

This time 18 years ago I was about to give birth to my only child.

(Aydn...when he was a WIP)

And before I knew it, my little boy grew up into a wonderful, smart and thoughtful man......and an artist to boot !



What else could a Mom wish for.

I love you and am extremely proud of you.

Happy 18th Birthday pudding pants Aydn.


(Aydn now......always with girlfriend)



Follow your dreams and do what you love.

x x x x x x

Bye bye Kendo :-(

Poor guy. Barely born, let alone had any time to get into any rock star shenanigans before he gets stuffed into a box ready to move.

Still I wanted to make sure he gets to his new place safely and then I'll let him out and get into whatever mischief he wants to ;-)

Just wanted to let you know I am still here....still packing.

I started out with good intentions. Every box was labeled with the room it will end up in and it contained things for that room and nothing else. Well you know how that goes...that little gap in 'Jayne's Workroom' box that wouldn't fit anything but the pestle and mortar from the kitchen. So my boxes are now full of whatever will fit into them.

In the beginning every box was labeled with it's entire contents. Well that soon got old. Now boxes are being labeled 'stuff' or misc'






I know I'll regret this at the other end but hey ho.

See that roll of clear stuff. It is saran wrap (cling film for you Brits) on a roll. I have had to wrap all my storage drawers with it to make sure none of the tiny contents fall out. A lesson learned from my last move lol. Well you know how difficult regular saran wrap can be to handle...you should try this stuff. Total mare but hopefully it'll do the job.

Not much news on the house. We had the inspection done and that went fine. There is a lot of work to do but nothing that we hadn't figured for ourselves and nothing major like a dodgy roof thankfully.

We are waiting for the appraiser to go in and should know the results of that my mid next week. Hopefully it will be appraised for at least our offer price or more otherwise we have a problem.

Because it is a bank owned house there is very little give and take. We've already had to sign a bunch of disclaimers saying we are buying it 'as is' and won't try and sue the seller if something wasn't disclosed.

There are no negotiations, no repairs made, no help with closing costs etc...just a case of if you want to buy it as it is fine...if not we''ll go to the next offer. So hopefully we won't have any hiccups with the appraiser.

We had the Natural Hazard report done (same as surveyors report in the UK) and that seems fine.

Just the usual stuff, we aren't in a flood zone, we are in an earthquake zone (hello this is California) the ground is susceptible to mudslides after an earthquake, there are farms and horse ranches within 1 mile etc, etc etc.

The great ? news is though......

The property IS NOT located within a California Red-Legged Frog habitat sensitive area.

The property IS NOT located within a California Tiger Salamander habitat sensitive area.

And.....

There has been no ground surface displacement within the last 1.5 million years


Those ones had me cracking up.


So aside from having to sign gazzilion papers that is about where we are at now.

Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments on my last post. I tried to comment myself and it wouldn't let me...got some message that I needed permission...lol.

I will post photos as soon as I can. I do have lots already but it doesn't seem right to post them publicly until the house is actually ours...I promise I will then.

There was mention that extra rooms could be used for dollhouses. Weeeelll .....there is this one room off the living room. I think it might have been used as a dining room as it is long and narrow. So long and narrow it would be the perfect place to display the Pickled Vicar...what more motivation do I need to get building it :-)

I also seem to have given the impression that the house was brick. Oh Jodi I wigs it were....I crave a brick built house. Unfortunately this is standard wood construction with siding at the front and stucco at the back. There is a lot of brick used in the gardens though in terms of raised brick planters, columns etc and one whole wall of the family room is brick...real brick to boot.

In fact I am not sure I've ever seen a brick built house in California at all.

I do feel though that this is the right house for me and although we put offers in on others I loved I didn't get the same feeling as I do with this one. And every time I look at the photos I just love it some more which is good.

It is in the same town...only about 8 miles from us. One of those situations where a different part of the same town makes all the difference.

And thanks you for following Miss Mustard Seed. I think I might start another blog just to journal all the house stuff once we have the keys. It will be great for me to share it with my friends and family that way plus all my mini followers won't have to be bored by it :-)

And that's about it from me for a while....I'll be back shortly. I miss you all :-(