My Hamsta Gangsta Car

 This is my friend, the Rappin' Hamster at Kia Motors in North Seattle.  I love their commercials with the dancing hamsters, and have wanted a Kia Soul for a couple of years.  The sale of the farm finally went through, and my cars odometer was about to turn over the 200,000 mile mark, so I started doing my research and shopping for a new car.

 Wouldn't you just know the Soul won out!  I went in, planning on getting a nice racy red model, but the black one looked so sharp.  I feel really good about this purchase.  It makes me feel more settled.

 Here is a picture of my deck on the third floor, taken from my parking space below.  As you can see, living in an apartment in the city is not deterring me from having a garden.

And, I finally got started on the quilt for my niece, Rachael.  It's a wedding gift for the wedding that took place last May in Hawaii.  I was counting on getting snowed in for a week this winter, in Nooksack, in order for me to get it done.  That is usually when I am the most productive.  But, it has been an unusually mild winter, especially here in Ballard.  So, I had to bite the bullet and get started.  It's been difficult, because it took me three days to recover from working at the Pike Place Market on the day before and the day of Valentine's Day.  10 hour days on my feet on the cement with no breaks.  It was sooooooooooo much fun, but exhausting.  I'm still dreaming of gathering bouquets and wrapping them.  I walked into the grocery store and saw a display of them and almost ran away!!!  Oh, dear, am I not going to like tulips anymore?  Not a chance that will happen.

Oh, my Aching feet!

 I have been working the past couple days at the Pike Place Market it downtown Seattle, selling bouquets of tulips.  I have worked two half days, and today I work a full 8 hours.  I hope I can still walk when I leave there tonight.  It's tough on the old feet, but so much fun.

 There is a constant swarm of folks buying the tulips, and on Valentines day, we will have 9 people working the stall and 5 tents full of flowers.  WOW.

The owner of this endeavor, Alm Hill Gardens, has run this stall for 40 years at the Market.  They are the same people who own Growing Washington, the organic growers who leased my land at the farm.

Ironic that I move to Seattle and go to work for friends from Nooksack!

The tulips will be sold until April, and then the produce comes on and I will work for them at various neighborhood markets.

 We've been lucky, with two days of beautiful sunshine.

 Last week, I taught my niece, Erin, how to quilt.  First, we went shopping.  That was such fun.  She had to get herself a sewing machine, too.  Then we went to lunch.

I was so proud of Erin.  She completed a nine patch made with charms, quilted it and made it into a pillow in just two hours.