Resolutions and Status

Yesterday I showed you the kids' current bedroom and mentioned I was looking for bedding for the girls to use with the quilts my mom made them.  After pulling out a ton of tubs from the balcony into the great room in an effort to start organizing, I spent some time on the internet looking for "white duvet covers" with a variety of additional phrases in the hopes of coming up with something.  I found several options, but finally decided to head over to The Company Store to see what they had available.  I was really excited when I found these duvets on clearance.

They are white with a "tonal dot" (white on white) and have a small green stitch on the border which will blend with the quilts and the PBK rug (and curtains if we use them again) that we already have.  I also purchased a Euro sham for each of them.  I'll have to wait until July to see them in person as I had them shipped to my parents'.  I hope they'll work.  If so, I'll have my mom help me with  throw pillows that I'll have monogrammed for each of them.

In this post I told you I had Yuri painting an original watercolor of my in-laws' home as a gift for their 40th wedding anniversary coming up this fall.  This is the picture my sister-in-law sent of their house.

Here is the finished product, looking more sober than the first time he presented it to me (it's so hard to get the true colors of the painting in a photo!).  When he met me the second time, he had taken out the very happy pinks, yellows, and oranges on the house and added brick detail that is amazing considering the medium. The magnolia looks stunning- each blossom is so pretty!  It's like the house is getting the light from an early morning sun.  Mr. YH and his sister were really pleased.

I'm going to try to get to the framer's this week so we can have it done before we leave.  We figured that it'd be cheaper here, and if we don't like the mattes, we can easily and cheaply switch those out- the moldings and glass are the priciest.

I've spent this week washing bedding.  I have the quilts, shams, dust ruffles, etc. done and packed into protective bags.  I'll wash up our sheets and blankets at the end of next week and we'll just use what was in our hospitality kit so I can put these in the piles for the correct shipment.  I've sold a few more items and the piano was taken last night.  Our great friends drove in from Sevastopal on Monday and enjoyed our last Hill.shire ham with us; they had to get new passports at the embassy, so I'm thrilled we got to see them once more before our departure.  I was able to hand off a bunch of spices and extra food items to Helen; we're not taking it back with us because it's such a pain to fill out customs forms for so little.  I've been making menus to plan out how to use the last of our stash so that we have almost nothing when July 1 rolls around.  We're also busy getting the apartment ready for Mr. YH's replacement and his family; they fly in this Friday night.

This packing business and moving overseas is all one giant puzzle to fit together!