More Time Gone

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I was sitting on the porch the other day and thought that soon I won’t be here anymore. So I took last pictures of the view I have taken for granted for seventeen years.

Then I turned and saw this.

The porch bar with high stools that Lee and I bought before we moved into the house. We took a couple of beers over to sit there for the evening. The electrician was working late and took pity on us. He turned on the electricity to the porch so the two of us could pretend we were already living there.

They are ready for new owners.

I took a walk over to the house earlier.

My shoes were soaked! Another drawing in the Meadow Book….

Yesterday a friend came over to have what is likely the last lunch on the porch. The furniture refinisher brought back the table and counter stools.

They are so much better than when he took them away. I can’t wait to see Amy and Patrick sitting at the table they grew up with.

The yard man came later in the day and took all the pieces from the yard to the new place where he will do some grading, etc. before getting it all placed.

This morning there were more changes at the house.

Just the bench to place in the shower…

And flooring!

About one third of the house is laid.

Today I went to the window treatments place and will meet them at the house this coming Tuesday.

The cats start their boarding time at the vets on the 26th. My movers come the 29th, I follow them to the new house and we unload all boxes with work tables and shelves in the garage. The furniture will be set inside the rooms they go to and appliances put in the kitchen and laundry. I take my pre-packed suitcase and move into a friends apartment closer to my new house. On the 30th cleaners come here to this house to spend the day. On the 31st is closing at the lawyers and I start a new chapter.

Yesterday while eating lunch on the porch I was fidgeting with my loosely folded paper towel/napkin. I thought if I folded it in quarters then I could try to tear a perfect circle. Here it is.

There is something about this torn paper that says so much…it could be an entire short story ,,. or poem.  But for right now it was a making of something that represented more than a torn paper towel.

My friends in Australia are getting themselves all sorted out for their workshop next March and their stay at the house we all shared for several years.  Some of them are following the yearly challenge we set for ourselves, some are lagging behind. One is preparing for a teaching tour for the Embroiderer’s Guild of America. Five weeks in nine different states. The thought is daunting! All of them have such energy and so many ideas for their art making. I look at my torn napkin and it reminds me that we have long been a circle,  the six of us.

Sometimes, with being so far removed physically from them, I feel a bit empty. And then I think of how they will all be together next year and they will do an early morning call that comes when I am having an evening wine. (I make sure it is Australian). They will crowd together in front of the camera to say hello and then individually show the work they did in the class, what they learned without me being there to hover and suggest. Next we share how far we did or didn’t get on the goal for the year. We wave goodbye and they get on with another day of making. I take a deep breath, a deep sip of wine and this next time I will have a nice place to lay out my project to start the next morning.

This torn paper towel is such a wonderful image and so evocative that I think a book with the hole slowly filling in, getting smaller is where I will start as soon as I get moved and have my things where I can make ideas come to life.

Til later….I have talked myself into a glass of red.

Riverwalk House Is Progressing

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Lots of puddles at the subdivision I am moving into. But my yardman informed me he will be moving the yard sculptures and my stone collection and pots this coming Tuesday. Another step forward.

Inside the house I was delighted to see the kitchen cabinets installed…also the bathroom vanities.

I like the way he staggers the upper cupboards. It looks like a good place for my foundry mould collection.

All the doors have been installed and the trim is around them and the windows.

The bathroom shower is well on its way to being finished.

I did some sketching in the house book.

The walk through the meadow is still inspiring but I have had no time to draw and paint scenes from there. Maybe this weekend.

I have been trying to give so much away to family and friends…but their limits have been reached. And lucky for me an Episcopal church in my new town is looking for donations for their sale. I took a car load out already and friends are coming next week to take a truckload of larger pieces. Then it is down to boxes and furniture that is going with me.

I wish I didn’t have to face moving myself and the cats into the apartment to wait for the final okay to move in. But that looks to be the way things will happen. All of the kitchen except food stuffs is packed. I kept the minimum for the cats and I to eat at the apartment. One large area rug has been cleaned with baking soda and is flipped in half to wait for the movers to roll. Two more to go. They are very heavy!!

I should end up with one pick up truck of things to be taken to the dump and three boxes to get to the shredders. All personal papers, sketchbooks, computer, alcohol and the few dishes will accompany me and the cats over to the apartment. Professional cleaners come to spend the day as soon as the movers take my things away. Looking at the piles of boxes and furniture, there is no way all of it plus the refrigerator and washer and dryer will fit into the garage of the new place.. I so hope I will be allowed to put the big pieces inside their rooms.

I called a local friend that I have not seen in about three years…pre Covid anyway, to come and take a very large box of basket materials and my 1985/86 framed posters of national basket exhibitions. She arrived with a large bottle of wine and some crackers. I had cheeses. The wine openers had been accidently packed but slow chipping away with a granny fork got us to the wine for the last two glasses on the counter. It was at least four hours of sheer pleasure in catching up and reminiscing.

This morning after having a very good listen with the men in town, I went to my house insurance business to let them know I had just received my annual bill and was wondering what to do with it. First of all, “Don’t pay it!” Then a quick calculation of the place I was moving and my new bill when it arrives in a month or so will be less than a third of what I pay now. The insurance man that did the numbers assured me he made no mistakes in the figuring. First of all he says, it is a new house and second there is a fire hydrant in that area. His mother lives in Riverwalk so he knew all about the area. Love a small town!

The post office there in Hayesville will hold my mail for up to six weeks when I get a mailbox in place there so it becomes my official address. Now I just need to inform those who need to have the new address, have my WIFI taken out of my name at the time of closing and my electric changed to the new address where they will also be handling a new hi speed internet service. Neither service will be totally cut off, just switched to other names once the new owners inform them that they will be taking over on the day of closing.

I am not sleeping all that well with waking up and worrying for three hours until I drop off. Hustling things into boxes and filling in with clothes I might need is not helping either. But really, other than a rain coat, couple changes of clothes and shoes, what else is there?

This evening it will be a nice cold single malt while I relax and listen to thunder.

Til later….

 

RAIN!

Posted on by Sandy Webster

Last week they started the shelves on each side of the fireplace. This morning those were finished and the fireplace mostly stoned.

Here is more stone left in the garage. It is a fake stone but the best and only option for a “stone” fireplace. It already looks inviting and the cats will love it. The pocket doors have been installed and almost all trim is in around windows and doors. So progress.

At home here it is endless packing. The studio as of yesterday…almost completely packed.

And the last two artworks bundled up. The large 4′ x 4′  blackbird and the Looking for a Good Woman are ready for movers to load.

And upstairs here I can barely move for the boxes!

And this morning while it pours down more rain I am working on the kitchen. Packed almost all pots and pans and bowls. Amazing how much room they take up in boxes. Once a cupboard, drawer or closet is emptied I try to clean it. The kitchen is the worst. It would have been helpful if I had had a once a year clean out of those cupboards, but it seems I neglected doing that. Now it is a bit of a scrubbing!

I am trying to get down to three milk cartons of alcoholic beverages. A little over an inch to go in those large gin and vodka bottles that have been around a while, and I think I can fit them in Of course some are empties that I save for making small bottles of variations of flavors. I do think that I will have to take the alcohol over myself. No sense bothering the movers with that. They will have enough to do with furniture and what looks like three sections of eight cubic feet of cartons. Not to mention large artworks.

I have pared myself down to just what I will need in the apartment should I have to go there and am keeping it in large oak baskets on the kitchen counter. Easy to carry over and pack into the car when I move on.

 

The thing I should be doing something about is going to see the window treatment people and get the shades ordered. I don’t want blinds but need to see what there is new in privacy shades. Maybe later this week.

The furniture refinisher could not come today because of the rain but hopes to make it on Wednesday.

I will start packing up whatever is in the pantry. When you live alone, you wonder why it was necessary to have four quarts of marinara sauce and so many varieties of pasta! Some of the kitchen cupboards have very old spices and small things I bought in Australia and couldn’t bear to open and use up. Silly.

And so much artwork was sent north. Here is some in their new homes.

There may be more to give away after I move.

It is almost time for some wine and a movie.

Til later…..

Losing Myself

Posted on by Sandy Webster

The more I put in boxes the more of me disappears. It’s not so bad if the box is still open, but once the flaps go over and it is sealed up with strap after strap of packing tape, the more of me is gone. The artwork is the worst. Slices of myself are hidden, out of sight, and waiting to come back. I won’t see them or myself for more than a month. I won’t be in the new house for probably six more weeks. The new owners will move in sooner than that. So I take my cats and an overnight bag, some food, certainly wine and scotch, a computer with no internet, and stay in the studio apartment that has been reduced to a single bed and a few towels. I am glad they are letting me wait out these last days in the apartment. Hopefully I can get some writing done while there. It should not be long.

The builder is letting me me have the movers store everything in the garage at the new place. He says some of the big things can be moved into the house. Surely the refrigerator, washer and dryer. And hopefully the beds and dressers…all the heavy things.

I am hoping to get the area rugs cleaned and rolled up here so it is easier for the movers. Also a local furniture refinisher is willing to pick up my dining room table and the three counter stools to work on next week. Every time I go to the new house I try to visualize everything in place…and every time I wonder if I kept too many things. Almost all the cupboards have been packed up. I will keep a plate, bowl, mug, glass, single place setting and a pan to cook in over to the apartment. Everything else will be in boxes. My yard man will come sometime soon to take all the things from here that will be in my very small Japanese garden at the new place. He will even put in a small pond and waterfall….nice.

So onward and upward……

I love this meadow and the sky views when I walk from the gym to the house. The tile man working on the new shower lives on a hill that overlooks this spot and he told me yesterday that an occasional bear and even once a mountain lion was seen out here. Grey foxes, deer and ground hogs wander through as well. Trying to keep the observations recorded in the Meadow Book.

I have moved the necessary sketching materials to this one basket that I can carry wherever I go. That grey computer case was a perfect fit for my wooden watercolor box. The pockets have all my pencils in one, homemade pigment, glasses and eraser in another and my new set of small watercolor brushes in the third. The basket also holds a legal pad, the old laptop, house and meadow books, sketchbook of Burke and Wills story, spray for graphite drawings and a paper towel.

Like I said I met with the tile man and we double checked the tile choices and discussed how he would do the small corner bench and niche in the wall of the shower.

Doors and the interior are going in.

That is my kitchen pantry door. The refrigerator will be just to the left.

And a detail of the trim around windows and doors.

All the lights and fans are sitting in the garage here waiting to go over when I get the call. The mantel Patrick made from Lee’s wood has been taken over but still sitting on the hearth. It is best if I only check on the house twice a week. That way it seems like more is getting done.

There is progress. And in two months I should be all settled with nary a box in sight! My etching presses will be set up with work tables in the garage and maybe, just maybe I will be sitting out there with a carving tool in my hand. It’s a plan!

I am off to seal a bit more of myself in a box…

Til later…..