Judy’s 2023 adventure

 This past week I found I'm still accumulating new stuff (ugh, but I need it!) and meeting new people (yay!). I took a trip downtown on the bus to go to Watson Kennedy, a store filled with beautiful tableware, home decor, cookbooks and gourmet food.  I was very happy to find these Westie bookends, which made the perfect gift from book loving friends to hold up books in my stairwell.  I didn't bring many books with me, just a few art books and photo books, but Westies are a rather small dog and even iron ones need to team up to hold books in place.  I love this little corner os much. And my couch arrived!  It needs a good lumbar support pillow, but it's looking great in my living room.  All I need in there now is for the television that was reported by Amazon as "delivered directly to the resident" last week to actually make it here.  When I called Amazon to say that I was the resident and no one handed me a tv, they said it must have been mismarked as ...

I'm getting ready for the arrival of my sectional sofa midweek by assembling a FLOR carpet for my living room and getting art off the floor and onto the walls.  First, the FLOR carpet -- it's tiles that are joined at the corners with a sticky square. The idea is that you can easily pick up one tile and wash it, if needed, or even replace it if you can't get some dirt out of the carpet.  I love the idea, I think it's great for kids and dogs and possibly essential for Seattle muddy weather.  We'll see.  You can see how the tweed pattern (which I placed randomly) looks in the living room photos.   Life imitates art!  The flowers were sent to me and I put them on the table right below this painting by Christine Lafuente I brought some of my own work, but also brought work that I'd acquired over the years from other artists.  I don't have them all hung yet, but here's some photos of what's up so far. In my bedroom, the photos of the sunset light in Portug...

 I’ve been here a week now and I’ve learned so much!  The first notable thing is that I didn’t understand “muck” and now I get why people in Seattle always take their shoes off inside houses.  After thinking I’d figured it out by putting a shoe rack near my front door, what I did not understand is that the entryway mat needs to accommodate muck boots (I think of Fern in Charlotte’s Web in with the pigs) and that when boots come off, there’s mud and boot everywhere.  My coat rack, sitting on my wood floor, was not ready for dripping wet raincoats.  So I’ve now set up a rain entrance at my kitchen door.  Concrete floors in my kitchen can handle a coatrack, a wet dog and muddy boots. What fashionable Seattle dogs are wearing New storage shelves have been added to my utility room so I went grocery shopping today and actually have room to put food in the kitchen.  It’s all good!  My living room sofa comes on March 1 and once I have that and I put toget...

 I've now been in Seattle for 5 whole days!  So far I've been lucky that it's been pretty dry and Dr Scott is a magnet for making friends.   As I'm unpacking and setting up my house, it's clear that my goal of moving as little as possible still meant moving a lot.  That said, I also have another 3 weeks until my new car will be delivered and until it's here, I'm either on foot or on Amazon. Saturday, I have my first training session in the CityFruit program to become a master fruit tree steward!  While DC area street trees are non-fruiting varieties, it seems here there's quite a lot of apples, peaches, cherries etc growing streetside. The trees need care and the fruit they produce gets harvested for distribution to area food banks.  When I heard they were starting a new cohort of volunteers, I signed up!   My house is a mess but assuming it's tamed somewhat in the next few days, I'll post pictures.  I'm still too jet-lagged from my trav...

We arrived yesterday --  Dr Scott was a great flyer, who knew? -- and I have to say that I didn't want to see the sunrise .... but if you have to be up because you have no idea if you are in Europe or Bethesda or Seattle, I got lucky with a sunny day. So (sorry) Sleepless in Seattle.  But happy to be here and I'll report in with blog updates once things are a bit more settled.

 I’m close to the end of the last day of my trip! I saw this Edward Hopper painting at the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum today and I can relate! My early morning was spent on logistics, doing some laundry (thankfully it dries quickly, even on a drying rack, here) and realizing I needed to schedule the delivery of my worldly goods in Seattle on Monday (I had the movers, just hadn’t requested an access time for them with the POD company — not an immediately obvious issue, not covered in their FAQ page and their need for a phone call created hours of low-grade stress waiting for the East coast of the US to wake up and answer their phones). I’d considered making my last day a daytrip out of Madrid but decided instead to focus on the things I haven’t done here.  It is a little chilly so indoor activity made sense.  Top of the list was the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum.  My usual thoughts about crowds, tour groups and noise aside, it’s a beautiful collection and contained surprise...