May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14 NIV

Monday, May 5, 2008

A Visit to Fallingwater in PA

One more place to check off my "want to see before I leave the east coast" list. Today we visited Fallingwater in Ohiopyle, PA. It's a house built in the 1930's by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufman family of Pittsburgh, PA. The Kaufman family owned quite a bit of land near Ohiopyle and at their son's suggestion comissioned FLW to build a house near waterfalls that were on the land. He not only built it near the falls, he built it over the falls. It is a very modern house for its time. The Kaufman's son donated the house to the Western Pennsylvannia Conservancy in 1963. I had seen it in pictures but to see it in person is a totally different experience. We were blessed with a beautiful spring day. There are no pictures allowed inside but you can take pictures around the outside. Here is a small look at Fallingwater



I would suggest a visit to Fallingwater for anyone who is in traveling in the area. It is southwest of Pittsburgh. Frank Lloyd Wright had an incredible vision when designing this house. Every room in the house leads the eye to the outside and the beauty of its setting.
From Fallingwater, we traveled north to a small burg called McMurray. This was, of course, genealogy related. We found the cemetery at the Presbyterian Church in town and without too much trouble discovered the gravestones of Jim's gggg grandparents, Jane and Alexander Sweney. Tomorrow it's in to the city of Washington, PA for more ancestor searches.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Where Have I Been Lately?

Just got around to looking at my Blogspot blog and discovered I hadn't written anything here since March 10th. The probable reason is that I also blog at thequiltshow.com and I tend to hang out there most of the times.

So to catch up......we returned from CA on April 2nd. It wasn't all fun. We spent 5 days helping our youngest DS clean out and move to an apartment. But in the end, we got the southern California townhouse on the market. The real estate market has tanked and the Santa Clarita Valley has way too much inventory so we're just sitting tight and hoping for a sale. We tried to price it accordingly. Looking for a townhouse in a nicely landscaped area near freeways and good schools? Take a look at this link Fairways Townhouse.

From southern CA, we traveled up to Alameda, CA to deliver some furniture and to housesit for about 10 days for our oldest DS while he was in Hawaii with his family. We took the time to walk and drive through the neighborhoods we might want to live in. We also became "lookie-loos" and went to about 12 open houses. We're not even near ready to buy and there will be entirely different houses on the market when we are ready. But it was a good overview of the area.

Since coming back to MD, I've been to the AQS show in Paducah, KY. I had great fun with 7 friends including one of my best friends who came in from IN. We stayed in Grand Rivers, KY at Green Turtle Bay resort. It was perfect for coming back from the show for a rest.

This house had 4 bedrooms, each with its' own bathroom!

Current projects I'm working on include the TQS Block of the Month. I'm working on stitching down the fused edges of the April block which makes me a tad behind since today is May 1st and the May block is now out. I'm in awe of myself that I'm not further behind. I had hoped to make a small journal quilt for each month this year. I only got as far as January so that puts me 3 months (almost 4) behind on that project. While in CA, I cut out and fused 4 purple blocks that need some kind of inspiration for finishing. Then there is the "practice FM quilting" quilt which sits by my machine waiting to someday be actually finished.

Enough musings for today. The TQS BOM calls me to finish it.