leaving, in a Ford Focus . . .

I'm leaving in the early hours Wednesday morning to go to St. Louis for my uncle's wedding. We'll be gone five days, and I've packed four knitting projects. Is that overkill?

Nah.

Things I have learned while renovating . . .

Things I have learned while renovating my house:

1) It takes a lot of demolition before you get to the part where things start to look better.
2) I love caulking. It's fun and messy and makes things look instantly pretty.
3) It is very difficult to remove splinters from your own butt.

You may be wondering, what has the Best Roommate Ever been doing while I've been slaving away on the house? Why, earning her nickname, of course. She's packing up the apartment, with some helpful feline assistance.

don't panic!

House update: kitchen that originally looked like this:

now looks like this:


OK. Breathing deeply. It will all be ok. I mean, how often do we really use the kitchen anyway? So what if it's not done in time?


Nope, not working. Urge to panic . . . rising!

Obligatory cute kitty picture:
And knitting update picture:
One completed Mom-sock.

OK, gotta go. I have a lot of panicking- er, I mean, work to do.

housewarming prezzies!

Yay! Look what Treats for Breathing got me as a housewarming prezzie!

Gorgeous, hand-dyed yarn! In what appears to be the perfect weight to use for socks! However did she know?

Here I am, popping up like a little groundhog to give an update and reassure everyone that the house hasn't killed me yet. I've been doing a crapload of cleaning and cleaning and yardwork and taking down seriously icky A/C window units (those things are freakin' heavy!), and yardwork and lots more yardwork. My bedroom looks so much better.

OK, well, you can't really tell from the picture, but believe me, it does.
And um, here should be a picture of the enormous pile of brush and lawn debris that my parents and I made, but I guess I was too busy trying not to pass out and die to actually get a picture. Crap. Just visualize.
My parents have come out the past two Saturdays and helped me bushwhack the yard. They are amazing. Aparently I have a pretty sizeable side yard, but you could never tell because it was horribly overgrown and covered in English ivy.
My next big task is picking out paint colors.

I have actually been accomplishing quite a bit on the knitting front.

Mom's socks have two toes and two heels, and lack only cuffs to make them complete.

The Branching Ferns shrug is almost three-quarters finished. I have one more lace repeat before I join for the sleeve.

The Best Roommate Ever's socks are coming along. I finished one toe, which I did not take a picture of, because I am full of picture-taking fail today.

And finally, I have a few gifts for guy-type people that I promised to make, so I snapped up some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky at Knitch. Soft, machine-washable, and on sale! If only guys weren't so boring about colors.