Knitting Mojo

Despite the chaos that reigneth here at Chez Knit I have been getting a bit of knitting done. I have to do something to save my sanity.

And surprisingly…..

I have my sock knitting mojo back. I bet you didn’t even know that my SKM had taken a hiatus had you. I had been loath to speak of it but I had three pairs of socks “on the needles” and when I would pick them up all I could think was, “Meh”. I would put them back in their little zippered bags and move on to something else. Frankly my entire knitting mojo was sort of meh. That may be why I ended up with so many things on the needles and nothing actually getting done.

And then I started knitting on the blankets for the Hamlin Fistula Hospital. Those crazy, autopilot garter stitch blankets in various colors of acrylic yarn.

Acrylic!

And gradually, as I would sit in front of TV (rarely) or book or iPad, my knitting mojo made an appearance. It peaked it’s head up a bit and looked around just a tad and decided that it would return.

With a vengeance.

At a time when really I have no business knitting anything. I should be packing or doing more wedding stuff or getting ready to move. Anything but knitting.

That must be why I finished a pair of socks AND a wrap this week.

Because I shouldn’t be knitting anything at all.

Oh knitting mojo you are sneaky and cruel.

You Handsome Devil!

Embrace the MOB!

7 Quick Takes (Vol 223)

Egads!!! 14 days til wedding and 21 days til move. Perhaps we really are crazy like the people who are buying Chez Knit think we are.

Remember to do as I tell you. After you have soothed the inner crazy with a dose of blather you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, as the speed of Anthony Weiner’s SECOND fall from grace (can we PLEASE stop hearing about him), over to Conversion Diary to catch up with all the news that’s fit to digitally print.

Boxes and boxes of blather!

1.

Come August 16th in the year of our Lord 2013 this lovely place will officially become Chez Knit.

We are very excited.

And I can hardly wait to repaint the master bedroom which is currently a less than desirable shade of pale pink.

Gak.

And then there is the upstairs which is a pale yellow color. Have I ever mentioned that one of my LEAST favorite colors is yellow.

Heather K. we need to have coffee as it will no longer be such a long drive for either one of us.

2.
I am continuing to spend time each day cleaning things out in anticipation of the VOA pick up next Friday and then the major packing the week after the wedding. Despite the fact that I have spent the last 3 years or so decluttering my house (which never actually felt that cluttered) there is still more stuff that I find that I can live without. My bench mark really is if I haven’t used it in two years then it doesn’t have a place in my life and can be donated.

Now that rule doesn’t apply to some family memory stuff that will go with and be stored in the basement but for the most part everything that you have in your life can fall under this rule. For the most part I haven’t had a problem adhering to this although there have been one or two instances where I have had to make a hard decision or two.

But there is still a BOAT LOAD of things that we are saying bye bye to.

I can hardly wait.

Our goal is to be a “lean, mean moving machine” on August 16th.

3.
I had fully intended to knit myself a lace “something” to go with my dress for Shoe Queen’s wedding. We all know how much I love knitting lace. For some reason I find it incredibly calming to do so. And I actually started something….

But I have frogged it and decided that I will just not. Knitting lace with a looming deadline that is so very close is just a recipe for lacey disaster. Trust me, I will royally screw up and then just be very angry and frustrated.

So the Madelinetosh Lace in the lovely colorway “Cousteau” will just have to wait for a bit. I am still going to use the same pattern that I had intended to knit now as it has a lovely wavy quality to it. But it is not going to be now.

4.
I am making a concerted effort to use up a bunch of stuff in my freezer so that there isn’t all that much to move in three weeks.

THREE WEEKS!!!

I am almost down to the last of my homemade pizza sauce. And we are almost done with the homemade pasta sauce. Once we are a bit settled at the new place I will make a bunch of big batches to replenish.

But my freezer hasn’t been this empty in a LONG time.

Of course, if the local orchard sends me an email telling me that their peaches are ripe and ready for purchase then I will just have to process and freeze and then move. But that is a sacrifice that I am willing to make.

Cuz we are out of frozen peaches at the moment and I feel the lack.

As well as frozen corn.

5.
Because of the absolutely crazytown like schedule here at Chez Knit one of the things that has suffered is my ability to sit down and read blogs.

I read too many blogs.

But I cannot delete them. I love them so.

However one errant click fixed that dilemma for me.

I have been using Feedly for a number of months now, ever since I heard the news of the impending demise of Google Reader. I love Feedly. And I was sitting at my computer the other day scratching my head and wondering how I was going to get through all the blog posts that I hadn’t read.

And I clicked on the little check button to say “Mark as Read” for one particular blog……..

Only I wasn’t looking at just that blog on the screen. I was looking at the main screen, the gateway screen. And I realized, after the click, that I had told Feedly to mark as read ALL the blogs that I read. I just sat there for a minute wanting to kick myself for my inattention. And then it hit me that maybe this was a good thing.

I wiped the slate clean so to speak.

Now to keep up in a better fashion.

6.

Look who I found hiding in the recycling bin on Wednesday. I am not sure how he got there but he couldn’t have been there all that long because we have garbage pick up on Tuesday and the bin was empty Tuesday night. Or at least I thought it was empty. But I will be honest to say that I didn’t check all that closely cuz when I went down to get the bins I was at a run due to the amazing thunder and lightening that was happening all around. He may have already been in the bin by that time and I just didn’t notice until Wednesday.

He liked it in the bin and was reluctant to leave until I dumped him into the garden.

7.
I will have a longer post on this later in August or September perhaps but I am both excited and nervous as to how the new house is going to work out as far as my “work space” is concerned. In one way it is going to be fab because I am going to take over one portion of the basement to have all my knitting, scrapping, sewing stuff in one place.

Squee!!

You would think, with the size house that I currently have, that I would have all of that in one place but you would be wrong. Sewing (which I love) is in my office. Knitting (which I REALLY love) is in my office. Photography (which I live and breath for) is in the office. Scrapping (which right now I am meh about) is in the basement. And obviously my computer and desk are in my office. The problem is where to put the computer and desk. I think, just think mind you, that my desk will be upstairs on the main floor but that everything else will be down in my woman cave.

At least that is the plan right now.

Day 126–Butterfly

Yes, I know I said that this project might be dead for the time being….

But you guys know that sometimes I lie about these things.

I was out in the back garden taking pictures to remember it by (longer post coming I think) when this fellow kindly posed on various flowers before gently flitting away.

Into A Brave New World

If you are a guy and you get squeamish about a discussion of women’s undergarments……I might leave now.

I ventured into a foreign country today. A land that is unknown to me. A fearful place where I do not know the rules and to top it all off I had to take my clothing off in front of someone that I didn’t know…..

I went bra shopping at Nordstrom.

I have this dress that I am wearing to Shoe Queen’s wedding. And I knew that it needed better “foundation wear” than I was currently providing for it. The “girls” (don’t make me explain that any further) are usually foundationally supported by something that I found on sale a Kohls.

TMI?

I warned you.

But for a while now I have been thinking that I have been shortchanging myself. I knew that there was something better out there for me. Something more…uplifting….shall we say. Something that just screamed..

YOU WANT TO WALK DOWN THE STREET WITHOUT A SHIRT ON JUST LIKE LADY GAGA!

Well, maybe not that but I knew that there was something better out there for me. But in order to find that elusive something, that Bra of Eldorado, I was going to have to sail into uncharted foundation garment territory. I was going to have to actually let someone else (beside HHBL and my doctor) see “the girls” in their natural state and measure them and evaluate them and make a judgment about them. Oh lordy, oh lordy. I am a tender shoot, easily bruised.

But I knew it had to be done. So off I went to the nearest Nordstrom to hopefully find some older, blue haired lady who had been fitting women with the perfect foundational garments since the turn of the century. Someone who would understand me and the girls. Someone who would find just the right binder for me (name the movie!!).

Nordstrom is a foreign land to me. I wasn’t sure, upon entering, that I wouldn’t have to pass through immigration and show my papers. Every thing gleamed. Everything shined. Everything is expensive. But I pushed on to my appointed final destination, after I inquired where I might find bras.

In lingerie I was told.

Duh.

Up the escalator I went, hoping that the thing would slow down or perhaps stop and I would be stuck there forever. But no so luck. I wandered for a bit, hoping against hope that I would look like I knew what department I wanted and wouldn’t be asked if someone could give me assistance. After a few minutes of wandering I found the department. It was fairly obvious….there were bras and other assorted unmentionables hanging in plain sight. My first thought was just to wander, grab something that looked like it “might” fit, try them on and be gone from this accursed land. But then I pulled myself up by my flip flop straps and went to ask someone for help. I looked around for the sturdy, blue haired lady who would help me. But she was not there. I could only see two employees who, if I wasn’t mistaken, were approximately 12 and 14 years old.

Oh lordy.

Isn’t there ANYONE in the lingerie department who is older than I and can help me for the first time EVER get measured and fitted for a good bra?

No.

So I walked confidently up to the desk and pleaded my case. I tried not to wring my hands and look pathetic. If they had looked closely at the state of my chest they would have known that I was pathetic. A pathetic, Kohl’s bra wearing person who desperately needs foundational help.

Help me Obi Bra Kenobi! You’re my only hope.

Adrina stepped bravely into the gap and said that she could help me. She showed me to a fitting room, grabbed her tape measure and kindly (and without pity) asked me to remove my shirt so that she could measure my rib cage.

Icandothis.Icandothis.Icandothis.

Off goes the top and there I stand in all my saggy Kohl’s bra glory. I give Adrina credit, she didn’t laugh. But she sure did hurry out to find something that wasn’t so offensive to her innate sense of foundational style. She was swiftly back with several rather lacy and delicate looking pieces of confection. My first thought was to burst into laughter if she thought those things would do the job. I need 3/4 inch cables young woman! And heavy duty mesh! And wire, lots of wire.

But soon I wasn’t thinking about the make up of the bra because just about the time I was done mentally dismissing the lacy piece of confection it became clear to me that I was going to actually have to take OFF my catastrophe of a bra in order to try on the lovely thing that Adrina had brought in with her.

Oh lordy, lordy, LORDY!

But I am brave. I can do this. So I sprung the girls from their aged prison and then actually had this young thing help me put on a bra.

Let me say that again. I put my arms in the appropriate place, she settled everything else where it was supposed to go and did up the back. Kill. Me. Now.

And then I stopped and looked.

Well DANG the girls look good. They look happy. And this thing feels pretty awesomely awesome.

So I sent Adrina out for a couple more bras just to test the theory that I was rapidly forming. The theory that said that I might never, EVER buy another bra from Kohls.

And by the time that Adrina returned with more lacy confection in various styles we were such old friends that I was standing there, hands on hips, naked from the waist up waiting impatiently for the next bra. We were such good pals that I stripped down to my undies so that I could try on the MOB dress with the new bra. No shame!

And in the end…….

I bought FOUR bras. And one of them is “orchid” in color. And one of them has a sassy little bow on it.

And we are SO not going to talk about what I paid for the privilege.

Kohl’s lingerie department you are dead to me. I give my allegiance to Nordstrom.

Along with my money.

Life is Always An Adventure at Chez Knit.

Today I am doing all that I can to fill up my time and my mind so that I don’t have to think about the fact that 18 days from now I will be moving Chez Knit to a new location…..

And there is still some question as to where that new location will be.

Yes, you heard me right, there is still some question as to where our location will be.

I had fully intended to do a long post with pictures of the new place. HHBL and I spent 3.5 hours there on Saturday while Paddy the inspector did his inspection thing. Three+ hours that I could take pictures, measure and think to my hearts content.

Three+ hours in a house where the A/C unit is not functioning. Not at all. No sirree. It was hovering in the upper 80’s in that town house. I had sweat in places that I didn’t know COULD sweat. And we couldn’t open the windows because Paddy had the radon test already started. So we just had to walk and talk and photograph and measure in heat. And think about where we were going to put furniture. And talk to Paddy about a number of things that were a bit concerning but could be fixed.

And there in lies what might be a problem. The things that must be fixed by the seller. Cuz there are several.

The A/C unit must be repaired or replaced. Yikes.

The house failed it’s radon test so that needs to be taken care of. Chaching!

One of the sky lights in the kitchen is leaking and they all need to be re-caulked. I saw a picture of the caulking job that was done within the last year…messy to say the least.

There are carpenter ants.

And there are some electrical issues that need to be fixed as a safety measure.

We picked our battles and didn’t even mention some of the little stuff.

So I think I will hold off on showing you the new place for a bit longer just to be on the safe side.

Life is always an adventure!!

 

7 Quick (Vol 222)

Greetings from The Frozen Northeast Ohio where the temp all week has been in the 90’s with a humidity index in the 104F range. We are complaining. But then again we will also be complaining in January when the temp is 10F and it is snowing. We are never satisfied.

Make sure you follow your Friday directions to the letter. When you are done applying a cooling layer of blather you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the sweat quickly forming on my dewey feminine moustache (curse menopause!), over to Conversion Diary.

Crank up the blather and let’s get this party started!

1.
Shoe Queen and Slim Jim wedding in THREE WEEKS!

Moving to a new house in FOUR WEEKS!

Trying not to be overwhelmed by all that needs to be done. HHBL and I were ruminating that it is good that we have a solid and stable marriage because right now we have about 5 of the top ten stressors going on around here.

2.
Today I am trying to have a “Get the Big Picture” day. There is so much going on from so many different angles and there are so many action items floating around on different lists that I just have to take a day and focus on getting everything into one place and on the master list. If I don’t do that then something SURELY will get missed.

Normally I keep my calendar and to do lists digitally. I might start with a pen and paper list but then it all goes into the iPhone so that I have the list always available. But I have also purchased a small white board calendar so that I can see the big picture of what needs to happen in the next 28 days. That way I stay on track and don’t get side tracked….which has already happened once today. On a day when I have so much that HAS to be done I decided that it irritated me too much to have my Outlook and iPhone contacts all messed up (somehow doubled). So I sat here and did all the corrections.

Now back to the white board and the lists.

It is the only way that I am going to survive with some sanity intact.

Or at least some of the small amount of sanity that I actually possess.

3.
One more comment on the fist blankets that are on their way to the Hamlin Fistula Hospital.

Because I cannot just knit the basic pattern as it was written I had to fiddle with it. And because I did mitered squares rather than knitting in strips it took FOREVER to seam all 20 squares together. I figured out a faster way but it still took too long.

So now I am doing the pattern the way that they suggest…..for the moment.

But I am sure that I am going to get bored with that and then fiddle some more. I have until February because that is the next time I will send blankets.

I just cannot leave a pattern alone.

4.
I haven’t moved in almost 13 years. I know my little corner of the Frozen Northeast Ohio fairly well. All the little back corners have been explored. I know where to get things that I need.

And now I have to figure everything out again. That is both a frustrating and exciting prospect for me. I have to figure out where the bank is and the post office. I know where the closest (but more expensive) grocery store is. LL told me where the Giant Eagle is. I already know where the library is (THANK GOODNESS!) and the Honey Hut ice cream shop. But it will just add to the overall sense of confusion for a time not to know right away where I need to go.

BUT, and that is a big BUT (not to be confused with MY big butt), I can walk to a bunch of stuff.

HHBL and I are VERY excited about that. One of the things that I haven’t liked about where Chez Knit is located is that for me to do or get to anything I have to get in the car and drive there.

New Chez Knit is within a mile walk of just about everything.

SQUEE!!!

5.
I had been contemplating asking the new owners of Chez Knit if it would OK with them for me to take some samples of the plants that I have nurtured here for the last years.

But I have decided that a clean break is really what I want to do. No plants (other than house plants) will be going from one place to the other. I do have some planters that are filled with one thing or another and those will go with me.

Other than those, everything else stays. I will just be too busy to actually put stuff in the ground right away. And I don’t even know what I want to do over there. Most of the landscaping is taken care of by the association. Anything that I put in the ground I get to take care of . That seems reasonable.

A clean and uncluttered slate to start with.

6.
Tomorrow brings the inspection of the new place. I am sincerely hoping that nothing shows up that will be a major issue!

I am going to use the time to measure spaces and think about what furniture will go where. That way it gives me an idea of what furniture will not be going with us. Shoe Queen is taking several pieces for their apartment but that still leaves a bunch of furniture. I have a general idea of where things are going to go but I still have to do some measurements.

Hopefully then I can put an hour or so to thinking about where everything generally goes so that on the big day I can just stand there and tell the movers where to put the furniture.

And then I am sure I am going to make HHBL move some things around when I don’t like where I envisioned them going. Certainly in the big living room and the sun room the first things that will need to go down are the Oriental rugs.

Oh the decisions.

7.
And just because I need a laugh today….

How to turn your cat into a machine gun. This little ditty arrived via Cartoon Girl. It is a good thing that Zachary Mr. Crabby Pants is no longer with us because if he was…..

You KNOW I would so be doing this.

Ethiopia Here They Come!

I watch a lot of documentaries on Netflix.

I LOVE documentaries. LoveLoveLoveLoveLove.

And a while back I think I mentioned a particular documentary, A Walk to Beautiful, that moved me greatly. And as I was watching the movie I noticed something about all the women who had come to the Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to find treatment. All these women were wrapped in what obviously were hand knit blankets.

Just simple hand knit blankets. Every woman gets one. They are a badge of honor and highly prized.

But who knit all those blankets? Well, the internet and the Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia website told me that volunteers knit all those blankets. And once I knew that then I knew I had to knit blankets.

Today the first two blankets went off to Australia and ultimately to Ethiopia where they will serve as a gigantic hug to these women who have lost so much because of something that they have no control over.

These two blankets are really a joint effort with all my Knit Sibs at Tri County Knitaholics. I knit the squares for the top blanket. Frannie knit the squares for the bottom blanket. Many of my knit sibs dug into the back of their stash closets and gave me acrylic that was lingering from bygone days. These blankets, and all future blankets, would not have come about without their help and support.

I never imagined, once I understood what “good” fiber was all about, that I would EVER again knit with acrylic yarn. But I was wrong.

I may spend the rest of my knitting life producing complicated things such as lace and socks and sweaters, but I don’t think that I have ever been quite as satisfied with anything as I am with these blankets.

I had better be because it costs more to ship these things than they are actually worth.

But it is still SO worth it.

The full video for A Walk to Beautiful can be found on YouTube or Netflix.

My Schedule Harshes My Mellow

I know that there are many people who thrive on being always and constantly busy. Those who feel fulfilled when zooming from place to place and task to task. Every minute and second of every day filled.

I am not that person.

Oh don’t get me wrong on this, I have boatloads of things that I need/want/have to do on any given day. And occasionally I just sit and read a book. Or knit. Or experiment in the kitchen. Generally I get to about 4p and wonder where my day has gone. But I hate, hate, hate the feeling that I am under the gun and there are too many things to be accomplished and that all of them are time sensitive. That sort of frenetic pace just makes me jumpy and crabby.

And we REALLY don’t want me to be crabby.

It harshes my mellow. And I don’t like my mellow to be harshed in any way.

These next few weeks are certainly going to put a great crimp in my mellow.

In my schedule.

In my thought process.

And you know what else I don’t like about being so very busy?

It cuts into my blogging. How do people who are obviously super busy still find time to put out amazing content? It is Wednesday for the Love of Peter, Paul and Mary and here I am putting up some drivel. Gone are the days of my erudite thoughts on the world and gone are the days when I managed to do my 365 Project.

Let’s just call that project dead for the time being shall we and just all come to the agreement that I am a slacker at it for the moment. I am still photographing every day because I need to keep my sanity but they just aren’t getting up onto the blogosphere.

Sigh.

But sometimes life is just like that.

Oh, and there is one other thing……

We bought a house so now I actually have some place to move to. That helped my mellow a great deal. Well that and a good glass of beer that I am going to pour myself in about an hour.

 

 

 

7 Quick Takes (Vol 221)

I sing a tale of Crazytown. That is what life is like these days. Just when I think I have a good grip on the to do list it turns around and grabs me by the throat and squeezes. Sigh. You know the Friday punch list. When you are done reading about my absurdly packed crazy life you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of my fast approaching brain overload, over to Conversion Diary to see what’s been happening.

I raise my fist in blathery defiance!

1.
OH blog I am so sorry that I have been so neglectful of you in these past weeks. And the trend may continue which means that soon I will have no readers at all. I will be drifting alone in a vast see of blather.

I think that what is going to have to happen in these weeks until the wedding and the move is that I am going to have to blog shorter but smarter. Is that even possible? I really don’t like it when I look and realize that I blogged exactly once this week. It makes me feel like such an underachieving blog slacker.

But the list of things that must be accomplished in the next 6 weeks is ENORMOUS.

OVERWHELMING

GIGANTIC

Did I tell you that there is really a lot to do around here.

But I will keep blogging on…….

2.
On the house hunting front….

We are still looking.

And looking…….

And time is slipping, slipping, slipping into the future.

I believe that HHBL and I have looked at around 20 properties in the past week. Never finding one that makes our hearts sing. And it may be that we don’t find one that does that. It may be that we will (or have) find one that has the POTENTIAL to make our heart sing. There is a townhome that fits that bill but….

It needs some work. The thing that appeals to us is not necessarily the house itself but where it sits, a mere 5 minute walk from the town center. A mile walk from the library and the HUGELY ENORMOUS AND VASTLY APPEALING community center.

But it needs a kitchen redo. I can handle BLUE formica counter tops and white cabinets for a small amount of time……

And eventually the basement, which is “finished”, needs to be reworked.

And it needs stuff immediately…like ceiling fans.

The list is long.

Now I remember what I hate about looking for a house.

I am sure that there is a longer post in my brain about the whole house hunting and downsizing thing we are going through. But it isn’t quite ripe yet.

3.

I had the most awesomely fabulous time last weekend hanging with these crazy people.

And they even let me take their picture.

When I finally got them all to stop talking. The phrase “herding cats” was muttered more than once.

More pictures to come I am sure, whether you want it or not. Cuz I love these people.

4.
Many years ago I had an Audible account.

Do you know what Audible is? If you listen to a boat load of audiobooks then most likely you do. It is audiobooks. You pay a monthly fee and get credits that make it cheap for you to buy the books and then keep them forever.

Yes, I know you can get audiobooks from the library and free ones from Librivox. Believe me I do use those services A LOT. I use them a lot because I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts. All day I do. I am not a TV watcher and I listen to the radio at times but not all that often. But I do listen to audiobooks. And sometimes I want to own the audiobook that I listen to.

The Lord of the Rings being case in point.

Now, I have all three books in audio form. But I “borrowed” them from the library. That means that I checked out the audiobooks in disc form (we won’t say how long ago), painstakingly put them on my computer and then just kept them. I listen to them once a year or so….but I never officially bought them and that bothers me.

And there are some other audiobooks that I would like to add to my collection.

So back to Audible I have gone for a period of time.

I am really excited. So excited that I am almost too afraid to spend my first credits because I want to be wise about it.

But really, the first thing that I am going to do is replace my library copies of LOTR with legit copies that I have purchased. I will feel better after that.

Oh yes, and there is now an Audible app. And that means that if I want to listen to one of my Audible titles (of which there are many) I can just download it from the cloud, listen and then send it back up to the cloud. AND it will also let me listen to the audiobooks that I have on my iPod that are in iTunes.

Sweetness.

5.
As I write this……

I am still in my jammies.

Such a slug I am. But I am going to try to get a couple of hours of yard work done this morning so I didn’t want to shower before that and I just came downstairs to make my coffee after hopping out of bed all happy and rested…..or semi-rested…..and so……..

Still in jammies.

Such a slug.

What I REALLY wish is that I could stay in my jammies all day and knit and read and listen to audiobooks and watch something on Netflix.

But that is so not happening til, oh I don’t know, 2014 maybe.

6.
Because of the craziness that my life has become I haven’t had a spare minute to work in my yard.

And it shows.

Weeds! Overgrown plants! Wildness!

Yes, I know that in approximately 40 days this will no longer be Chez Knit. Someplace else will be Chez Knit. But I don’t want to hand over the house that I have loved for the last 13 years in a less than nice condition. I wouldn’t want that for myself.

So it is out to weed I go.

Actually, I really need 2-3 hours of uncomplicated weeding to soothe my crazy life.

Knitting would be better but weeding will have to fill the bill.

7.
One more thing about downsizing. And this is a cautionary thing that I would say to every person.

When you are getting married thinkthinkthink first before you sign up for things like silver pitchers. And silver serving things. And all sorts of vases. And STUFF

I have all these things.

I have never used them.

EVER.

And I have been married for 28 years.

And I have moved them from Wheaton to Solon to Chagrin Falls to Solon to Aurora….

And they are NOT being moved again.

Do NOT collect things that you don’t use on a regular basis and that you don’t think you want to move around for all of your life. Otherwise you will have to be dealing with them all your life and you will be kicking yourself in your bahookie about it.

Or is that just me?

Noah Should Be Calling Soon

I like rain.

Really, I do…

But it is time for the rain to stop now.

I do not ever remember a July with this much rain. As I write the liquid sunshine is absolutely pouring down. Thunder and lightening are just an added benefit. I was going to try and take a picture to show you….

But I am not going to even think about opening a door or a window. Nope.

It is at moments like this when I am very, very glad that the current Chez Knit sits up in one of the highest parts of the town. And that the stream that is normally mostly dry is WAY down at the bottom of a 25 foot drop.

Oh yes, and right now……

We evidently have a tornado warning.

Fortunately I have a bunch of stuff to do in the basement.

And that is where I am heading right now.

Exactly and Totally the Same

My sisters of the heart. We haven't changed A BIT!

 

Posted with Blogsy

7 Quick Takes (Vol 220)

Well, it is officially July. How can this be. That means we are over half way through 2013. Gad!

You know the Friday Declaration. When you have done your patriotic duty and read my blather you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of Edward Snowden trying to find asylum somewhere, over to Conversion Diary to see what everyone else has been doing.

I’m a Yankee Doodle Blatherer

1.
Well, we are going to look at houses today. I haven’t shopped for a house in fourteen years. SO strange.

But exciting.

No, we haven’t heard how the inspections went but it is a holiday week. And we have heard through various grapevines that the buyers have told people that they are moving to our development. So unless they have made an offer on more than one house in the development…..and the only other house that is for sale is our neighbor….then I guess we are really moving.

Now to find some place to live.

2.
I am of the firm belief that everyone should treat their possessions as if they are moving every couple of years. It forces you to clean things out, or at least it aught to.

HHBL and I spent a good portion of yesterday cleaning out, organizing, going through. Even though I have been doing that off and on for the last four years there is STILL so much that we just don’t want to take with us. A lot of it is going straight to the area in the garage designated for a Volunteers of America pick up just before the move. Some of it can be “monetized” and sold on Amazon or Craig’s List. And several things we have given away.

SO going for a simpler life.

And once I divest myself of the mountains of scrap booking stuff that I KNOW I am not going to use but continue to keep I am going to feel even freer. More on that later I think.

3.

I am SO EXCITED for the weekend. I am going to get to hang, for about 36 hours, with these lovely ladies (minus Pilot Man). We haven’t seen each other in a LONG time.

A. LONG. TIME.

I am so excited that I can hardly stand it.

And they should be glad that we are going to be no where near Cantigny Park cuz if we were I would SO make us recreate this photo.

Brenda, Barb and Mary I’m comin’ to see ya!

4.
I tell you guys, I am really having a hard time with my 365 project these days. It isn’t that I don’t take pictures daily. We all know I obsessively do. It is just that life is conspiring against me to have anything on my brain other than work or wedding or house moving. June was a vast waste land and July isn’t going to well either.

I hang my head in shame.

And I will try to do better.

And now that TSiL has purchased the same camera, has started a 365 project AND is a better photographer than I (darn it), I had better get back on the ball.

But I am not competitive or anything.

5.
The obtaining of the MOB dress has been achieved!!! And I didn’t even have to buy it.

Short story (I hope).

Tuesday was the designated “I must get my MOB dress” day. The pressure was on. I took my fashion consultant, Kim, along with me. She would keep me in line and she has a better “eye” for these things than I do. I really hate shopping for dresses. We found a dress that looked good but Dilliards didn’t have the right size. But they DID have the right size at the mall another 30 minutes down the road. So we bought the bigger dress, drove over to the other mall, tried on the smaller dress (which fit perfectly), did the exchange and were on our way.

And then Kim reminded me that she had a dress at home that I should try on as we are the same size. So away to Kim’s house we went. I tried on the dress……

It was the one.

So, I am going to return the other dress and borrow Kim’s dress. Now to get shoes.

And because I have so much time on my hands (insert sarcasm here), and the wrap that I was knitting for the dress doesn’t go with the actual dress as well as I might have liked………

I am casting on another wrap today.

No need to tell me I am an idiot.

I am well aware.

6.
Finally got out to pick some cherries this week at our local orchard. I have never actually picked cherries straight off the tree before. A very easy and VERY sticky proposition. Thank goodness it was early and the bees weren’t out yet.

I have to say that I didn’t think these cherries were as sweet as I was perhaps anticipating. But that is OK. I picked 5 pounds and froze them. I can use them for jam or more likely for fruit leather during the winter months. They will bring a burst of color, flavor and summer.

7.
Burlap is a pain in the bahookie to work with.

I just thought you should know.

In order to get the smell out that stuff needs to be washed multiple times. And then your washer will smell like burlap for a bit.

Nice.

But the table runners are about 50% on the way to being finished. So pretty soon burlap and I can have a trail separation.

The table decorations are going to look SO cute so I guess it is worth the pain and burlap smell and all the burlap “fluff” that floats around when you work with the stuff.

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

Evidently during my formative baby years I looked like Uncle Fester dressed as a clown.

With the added drool on my chin….

Lovely.

The Lord Has A Sense of Humor

March of 2010, Chez Knit was accessorized and put up on the market for sale. We hoped. We prayed. We waited.

The Lord said not yet.

There wasn’t anyone that wanted to buy our house. I was disappointed but if I REALLY have to be truthful…..I wasn’t. I really wasn’t ready to go. I talked a good game. I knew that we really needed to downsize. But secretly I was not ready to go. I clung to my house.

And so we took our house back from Joyce the Stager and went on with our lives. 

We enjoyed the summers. We cursed the winters. I worked in the landscaping and the Community Garden. HHBL looked at houses on Realtor.com (he loves doing that). We continued to clean out what seemed like a lifetime worth of tidbits and big items.

The Lord continued to work on us.

We still needed to learn some things. We still needed to let go of things, specifically material things and what they meant in our lives. The Lord continued refine us. I am using the “royal we” here but you could just as easily put “I” in there because it certainly applied to me.

We waited. And prayed. And sought the Lord’s counsel.

And then last year we dipped our toes back into the house selling market. We fluffed. We buffed. Our hopes soared with each appointment and then came crashing down to earth when no one wanted to stay here and live here and love the house as much as we did. We continued to pray for the potential buyers that we knew the Lord was preparing for us…for some time. The year ticked by. Summer and holidays and winter came and went. The leaves turned lovely colors and fell onto the lawn and we had to spend endless hours blowing them into the woods. We had to pay for another year of snow plow contract. A whole year came and went. A year when sometimes, if I wasn’t paying attention, I would forget that there was a “For Sale” sign prominently displayed in our front yard for all to see. Oh there was a flurry of activity at the beginning of the selling process. And there was a flurry of activity at the end of the selling process. But the flurry at the end was really because our next door neighbor put her house up on the market and realtors like to combine visits if they can.

And as time ticked by HHBL and I continued to clean out. We continued to long for a simpler life style. A smaller and simpler house. We prayed for the Lord’s wisdom and guidance and PATIENCE (that was mine). I know it may come as a surprise to you but I am not always a patient person. We longed to go. I longed to go. I really did. As much as I love Chez Knit and as happy as I have been here I knew that it was time to go. Or at least I hoped that was so.

But the Lord continued to say wait and not yet.

Time ticked by and the wedding of Shoe Queen and Slim Jim came ever closer (AUGUST 9th!!!!!). And as the time ticked closer and closer I began to worry that if someone DID, somehow, someway come along and want to buy our house we might be looking at finding a new house, packing up and moving before the wedding. My poor feeble 53 year old brain (and body) didn’t think it could take the thought of having to look for a house before the wedding and pack and do all of that stuff. Lord you couldn’t POSSIBLY mean for us to do that when we had found just the right place for the wedding, so close to Chez Knit with a nice hotel conveniently located nearby that even had a relationship with the venue. And secretly in my heart of hearts I wanted to see Shoe Queen walk down the staircase at Chez Knit in her wedding finery. I lobbied. I quietly wheedled. I suggested.

And so we took Chez Knit off the market AGAIN and decided that this time we would stay for two, or possibly even three years. We even spent the money to have the riding mower fixed!

That was on May 6th.

And then last week, clear out of the blue, our realtor called and said that there was a couple who had found our house on the internet and their realtor wanted to know if they could come and view it. HHBL said he would ask me but he wasn’t all that confident that I would say yes. But I did. My thought was, what the heck why not. I made sure that the realtor knew that I wasn’t going to fluff and buff the house. In fact I wasn’t even going to leave the house when they came, I was scheduled to work at home that day. They could walk around and open doors to their hearts content and wander in the back yard amidst Max’s open air toilet and I would stay out of their way.

I had no hopes at all that they would ever be back.

I was wrong.

It may be…..

It might be…..

It could be possible……

That we have managed to sell Chez Knit without it even being on the market. Well actually, the Lord sold it. It could only be Him.

They offered. We countered. They countered the counter. We said yes.

Now we still have to get through the inspection process and there is always the possibility that the deal can get squirreled. And if that does happen I am fine with it, not because I want to stay here but because the Lord has given me an incredible sense of peace through out this turbulent period of time. If we go, great. If we stay, great. But as of right now………..

It looks like we are going to need to find a new place to live.

OH, and the whole “the Lord has a sense of humor” thing where I was SO totally worried about having to find a house and pack up and move before the wedding?

No problem!

We have to find a house and pack up and move…..a week AFTER the wedding.

See!

A sense of humor.