Dorchester Center for the Arts

Our best friends in Maryland have a condo in Cambridge, Maryland. This is where they grew up. Connie discovered a couple of art galleries there and had Ron contact them. One wanted to have a display of Ron's art!

So the art show was set up to be September 12, 2009. We invited some friends - two of Ron's former bosses came and we had a fun reception!

Ron sold a couple of prints - he did not want to sell any of his originals. And he continues to sell some prints and note cards...

Trips across America

This posting will be changed with more details.

The summer we moved, we traveled across America five times.

The first time we drove our Durango to Utah. We figured with two cars, we needed to leave one in Utah. So Katie and Jeni used it after we returned to Maryland.

On the way to Utah, we stopped in St. Louis to visit with Ron's sister, Darlene and her husband Val. They recently moved from Fargo to St. Louis. They have a son, Tyler, who lives there with his family and also a daughter, Tawney, and her husband have moved to the area. Darlene and Val have a newish townhouse there and it is very nice.

While we were in Utah in July, we scouted out a reasonable house in Grace, Idaho. It looked like it was once on a gravel pit - so that eliminated that house.

We also had our annual Cousin Camp! (see Felsted Family website for details there)

Once we arrived back in Maryland, we had to get in high gear! We figured out we would need at least 2 trucks and maybe more. We decided to drive our first truck out the middle of August. We planned on hopefully renting a home and returning home quickly to get the next truck filled up. The story of us finding our rental home is in the previous posting. But neighbors came and helped us unload our first load. We hired three boys and when they showed up, with their shirts tucked into their jeans, jeans at waist level and work gloves in their back pockets, we knew we moved to the right place for us!!!

more later

Move to Cove, Utah

When we returned to Maryland from our trip to visit our family in the west, we now had a mission - to figure out how to move to Utah!

We knew our target settlement date - September 1st, 2009. So we figured out a schedule of driving truck number one and two across the country. We spent every available moment purging stuff: giving away unnecessary furniture and stuff, putting stuff on Craig's list, and also packing important things. So many books! ETC.

We arrived in Logan in the middle of August with our first 26 foot long Penski truck, full of stuff. We stayed with Dan and Cheryl in Hyrum. We looked at the available rental homes in Cache Valley and hated everything we saw. After living in rural Maryland for so many years, we rejected subdivisions and yearned for a more rural home.

Saturday, Aug 15, we discussed our options: put our first truck full of stuff into a storage place or ?? I was thinking it might be fun to go to Cove (north of Logan and still in Cache County) to Church the next day. I even looked up the schedule of the ward there. We liked the area out there. (Cheryl had taken us to pick some peas at a little family farm plot in Cove and we ended up looking at a house for sale there in 2008. We liked the rural area, mostly farms.) Ron wanted to go to Church in Dan's ward - Dan had some neighbors who were movers. Ron wanted to connect with them to line them up to move our stuff to a storage place.

When I woke up Sunday, I told Ron that I had the feeling that someone would have a house for rent for us in Cove. He looked at me quizzically? and said okay?!

Sure enough, The Lord provided! We went to Church in Cove. We went to Sacrament Meeting, then Sunday School, then Relief Society and Priesthood. After Relief Society, someone asked what why we were here. I said we were looking for a house to rent. "Oh, Maryanne has a house for rent..." Meanwhile, Ron was in Priesthood, he met Mark, the husband of Maryanne. "Oh, go up to the house and check it out... the door is unlocked!" So that is how we ended up in Cove.

BTW, later I heard our landlord's side of the story. Maryanne wanted advertise the house in the newspapers, but Mark said, just wait, someone will come....

Now, we are here and are wondering what the next step is... What does the Lord want us to do? What does the Lord want us to learn?

The Kitchen & the Move

Shortly after the kitchen was completed in March, Kathie went to Utah for a two week family history research session in Salt Lake City. Two friends, Beth P. and Dolly Z., went with me. We spent one week with Michael Neil, who had a research group at the Family History Library and another week doing more research.

During the time there, I spent some time with Erik and Missy. They made it clear to me that they felt our retirement years should not be spent in Maryland - far away from the family - but in Utah or somewhere closer to our family. This was not a new concept to me because I had been feeling for the past year or so that we needed to be closer to our family. Ron loved where we lived and loved being next door to his best friends, etc. He had poured his heart and soul into our property - and had made a literal "garden of eden" - with decorative and fruit trees, flowers of every kind, nearly rebuilt the house, etc.

How to break the news to Ron?

Part of the problem was the kitchen. The kitchen was supposed to be the first item done in our White Hall house. A new kitchen was the last thing Ron had done in the Sunnybrook house, in preparation for selling it - right before we moved to the White Hall house. However, there was always something more important that needed to be done in the White Hall house - the septic had to be updated, the roof redone, the porch repaired, the heating/cooling system updated, etc.

So, I really wanted a new kitchen - especially if I was going to be stuck in Maryland, so far from our family. (I was impressed that we should NOT spend the $$ on the kitchen; but I really did not want to hear this and did not "obey" this prompting. I could not see the future!) Meanwhile, Ron was similarly impressed not to spend the money on the kitchen; but he felt that perhaps by getting it done, it would entice me to stay in Maryland....)

Eventually, Ron agreed to put our White Hall house up for sale. The market was terrible. Our realtor told us it was the worse market she had seen in 35 years of doing real estate work. I told her that if the Lord wanted us to move, the house would sell.

We put the house on the market for $589,000 on March 12, 2009. We lowered the price after a month and sold the house for $535,000 in July 2009, right before we left for our annual summer trip to visit our family in Utah/California. We settled the end of August. (Another posting about the move)

Kitchen Complete!

Here is the view looking towards the side yard and the garage. This was before we put the round table back in place. Also the cushions have still not been designed and ordered.

The scene has changed drastically since this picture was taken. The flowering cherry tree has bloomed and is now green. The hanging plants are now outside on the porch.

The wonderful pantry for most of the food needed in the kitchen has roll-out shelves. There is still some organization needed to make this fully functional. Above the pantry is a very handy space for cookie sheets, large platters, 9 x 13 pans and serving dishes.

Note that Dad has put up two of his smaller pictures on the brick wall separating the kitchen from the family room. The other one is opposite this one.

This is a good overall picture of the island, the sink and the stove-top areas of the kitchen. This is the view as you enter the side kitchen door.

This is a close-up view of the tile we used for the back-splash. The decorative 3" x 13" tiles have the brick tone to complement the brick wall.

Overall we are very pleased with the functionality of the kitchen upgrade. It is easy to keep clean and it is so easy to use. We use the island all the time for everyday things like using the Bosch (cookies, slicing/shredding), dehydrating (we have done spinach and celery already this spring), making sandwiches, and having a place for items that we are taking out of the refrigerator to make a salad, for instance.

Thank you Melinda, the kitchen designer, and Tony at T & J Kowalewski Contracting!

April Fool's Day?

This is a picture of today's work. The backsplash tile is in place.

Willie and Glen worked all day measuring and cutting the tile pieces to fit around 5 electrical outlets (determined by Baltimore County Code).

Ron determined that the decorative strip of tile ( 3 inch x 13 inch) had to be placed on the wall using the rule of thirds (an art thing...), which meant that the bottom 6 inch tile had to be cut smaller. Then the decorative strip had to be cut to fit around the electrical outlets, a whole 6 inch tile fit above it; but the top tile also had to be cut. So there was a lot of measuring and cutting to fit our small space of about 28 square feet.




The contractor boss, Tony, gave us homemade gifts today! I was so surprised. How darling was that? You can see another reason why we have really liked him. The bird house is for Bluebirds, with a rotating side to clean it out when it gets gross. I had wanted a new one to put in another place in our yard!! (We actually had a pair of Bluebirds in the one by Ron's orchard last year.) AND the little wooden bowl Tony carved out of a piece of wood! Very nice - plus he gave us some cinnamon apple potpourri to put into it.

Kitchen Nearing End!

This morning, Glen, the carpenter, came and unhooked the water connections and took the temporary sink out. Then about 2:30 PM, 3 Spanish speaking workers from Classic Granite and Marble came and worked for nearly 3 hours putting in the new granite. The trickiest part was the huge slab that was specially cut for the sink and window.

Picture: Here you can see the large piece with "specialty cuts" to fit the garden window. Pretty super job of cutting!!!

Al, the granite boss, who came and measured last week, said at first, that he thought he would make the slab on the sink top all one piece. Then he measured the wall that the stove top was on and said perhaps the sink piece would be too large to handle and the way the pattern was (see pattern of the granite above), the stove top side would have to be cut the other way. That was the way he left it.

However, you can see that he must have an artistic sense, because he decided that it would not look too great the other way and had his men cut the sink slab in one piece. They had a very difficult time fitting it in the space allowed. At first, it appeared that the window base was off about 1/2 inches. But they cut into the hall side wall board to allow the granite to ease a bit into that space and it turned out perfect! And the stove top slab was cut the corresponding way, so the seam is practically indistinguishable.

Picture: This shows the pattern of the granite on the stove top matches the direction of the granite of the rest of the kitchen.

Tomorrow the plumber comes and I am afraid that he will have a most difficult time. The sink is very large (19.5 x 21 x 11 in deep) and has the drain hole offset on the far right back side next to the window. The granite installers thought it might be best to put the faucet on the left side so all the water pipes and the disposal would not be squeezed into the small right back corner , but we did not think that would work, since the handle is on the right side. That would have meant that you would have to be careful when you turned the water on or you would get water all over your arm. We opted for the faucet hole where we originally thought - in the right back corner. So under the sink, in the far right corner, will have to be all the water pipes going to the faucet PLUS the drain with the disposal. Al, the granite man, said the plumber would not be happy!

Picture: Here you can see the faucet, which is just placed in the hole. And it is also a good view of the garden window. If you look closely, you can see how the one piece of granite forms the base of the window.

We heard today from Direct Buy that our tile for the back splash is in. We will probably pick that up tomorrow and let our contractor know. That will be the last large item for which he is responsible. The trim around the granite also needs to be completed.

Picture: Here you can see most of the kitchen....