Getting Closer to a Complete Kitchen and Fabric Farm Fun!

The counter top was put in Tuesday!

It is a solid Quartz surface. I watched the three guys put it in for awhile, but there was too much tension between two of them that I had to leave after I felt confident they knew what they were doing.  They were friendly to me but you could tell one guy didn't like another one. Oh well, at least I have counter tops!

Yesterday the plumber came!

By the way, birds have made a nest in that fern. It is fun to watch.
The plumber got the sink working. Yippee, no more washing dishes in the bathroom! He hooked up the gas stove and plumbed the dishwasher although, we have to use an extension cord to use the dishwasher because the electrician hasn't come yet.

We have one very happy cat, Binx. He will only drink water out of a facet and struggled finding us at the right time to get a drink in the bathroom. We are usually always in the kitchen and can turn it on for him.

We ate our first meal tonight. Here I am cooking, without a glass of wine because I have to go to Church later to help polish the hand bells.

We have the fridge plugged in but since the electrician hasn't been by, it is in the living room.

And we still don't have lights in the kitchen. I am second guessing getting pendant lights. I don't really like them and I think there will be too many hanging lights around here. I love recessed lights but was talked out of getting those for over the peninsula.  The two holes on the right, right above the window will be the eyeball lights. They are recessed but have a part you can move to direct the light where you want it to shine.  The two lights at the top of the picture is where the pendant lights will be and the last hole, will be a flat ceiling light. Hopefully I will like this.

The electrician will be here Monday. Exciting times.

Last night we had tornados all around us. I forgot about all the tornados they have up here in Iowa. Luckily, we can hear the sirens. They are extremely loud and scary.  When I was taking care of Dad last year the sirens went off and I ran into his bedroom and asked him what should we do? He said "nothing". So we didn't do anything. Of course when they went off last night, I ran outside to take pictures. Everything was yellow for awhile.

We had extreme gusty winds and some rain. The wind was the scariest and I always have nightmares about tornados.  Luckily, all of our dead trees made it through. That is what Mike was worried about.

Today I went to the Fabric Fun Farm to take a class on painting fabric. My friend was teaching it and they offer this great fun once a year with different types of fabric classes. Before I left, I told Mike I wasn't feeling very creative today and was struggling thinking of what to paint on my fabric. He suggested this, his drawing

He thought maybe it looked too much like a bunny, so I drew this.

I had a great time there. The following picture is of my friend, Terre and some of her art which is painted fabric. Isn't that beautiful?  She quilted the fabric and the gold is the paint.  Sitting next to her is my other new friend and neighbor, Carolyn.

We are actually in a barn where there were stations to learn new fabric things. It looks empty but it was very busy before this picture. We were one of the last courses of the day.

I showed everyone what Mike wanted me to paint and they all thought that was cute. I am not sure if they thought I was really going to do that, but I did. I told them Mike was getting a cat pillow for Christmas. As I was painting this, I thought out loud that it looked really elementary. All agreed except Terre. She said all art is beautiful.  Notice the added footprints. This was a suggestion from a person across the table. She also asked me if I planned to paint a garage. I was a little confused because since I have been painting the whole house, I thought she really meant my garage. I then figured out she was telling me in her own funny way that I was wasting paint by making huge piles of it on my palette paper.

The reason why I had huge piles of paint on my palette paper was because of my second piece.

Everyone thought it was beautiful! I think they were worried about me when I did the cat. I surprised myself.
All the other artists were painting birds and trees and other beautiful things but I can't do that. It would end up looking like the cat.

When I placed my two pieces together, I realized I had just made the back for the cat pillow. Mike will love his Christmas present!

Now that I look at it, my abstract actually looks like skyscrapers in the sky.

And, one more look at the kitchen. Before and After.