a year in socks

Happy Thanksgiving, all ye of American persuasion! I was reminiscing the other day about this time last year, when I was working on the RPM socks and taking them for a little jaunt in the mountains of north Georgia. Which led to my wondering how many socks I had completed since them, which led to a little impromptu photo session on my new living-room rug.

Six pair, not counting the socks I finished for my Mom's Christmas present, or the socks I'm working on for BRE. Not bad. I'm no Quiddity, but I'm pretty pleased with myself. (How that woman can turn out so many socks so fast is a constant source of wonder and befuddlement to me. It's truly amazing. I would be jealous, but she's such a delightful person that I just can't. And she has the cutest cats ever.)

The house is coming along at a good, steady pace. Every day there's a tiny bit less chaos. Of course, Jaymie is helping as only he can.

I think we're ready for a housewarming party, which I'm tentatively scheduling for Saturday, December 6th, early afternoon-ish. Consider yourself invited! Email me for address and/or directions.

Last year I put together a really great Thanksgiving post, and while this year's will not be as full of deep thoughts and ponderings, I think it's important to be thankful and remind yourself of the good things in your life. So, in no particular order, I'm thankful for:

• my parents, who have basically given up their lives and all their spare time to fix up this house. This would absolutely not have been possible without them.
• the Best Roommate Ever, who proved herself even more awesome than I would have thought possible with all the renovation and moving chaos.
• my knitting friends, who keep demanding to know when I'm going to let them come over and paint my house for me. You can't get better friends than that.
• all of my extended family, whom I got to see this year for a big wedding, and whom I'll get to see again next year for another wedding. And for never asking me, "When is your turn?" because then I'd have to hurt them and that would ruin everyone's fun.
• the kittenbeasts, to whom I am the sole mommy for Thanksgiving week, as BRE is out of town visiting family. I promised her that if I sold them to the gypsies in her absence, I'd get a good price for them.
  

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I just haven't been the same since that house fell on me

Greetings, all! I am pleased to announce that the Best Roommate Ever, No No Bad Kitty, No No Bad Kitty 2, and I are successfully moved into our new house! And that we are not dead and no part of the process killed us (although it tried real hard). Rennovating turned into a much bigger job than we had anticipated, but I feel really good about it because now we know that everything is good and fixed correctly and there aren't any ugly surprises for us to find. Because we already found them all. The Best Roommate Ever took care of all (and I do mean ALL) of the moving stuff while my dad and I worked on all the renovation fun. She was absolutely amazing and made of awesome. I considered upgrading her to Greatest Roommate of All Time, but then I realized her abbreviation would be GRoAT, which doesn't sound very nice. So she will remain BRE, and my hero.

Everything is still kind of everywhere; it's box-palooza for now, but I have been assured that one day I will be able to find stuff again. I will post pictures as soon as I a) find my camera, and b) have internet at the house, and c) have all of the parts of my computer located and assembled properly. No guarantees on when that will be, but I hope to rejoin the world very soon. I've missed you all!

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.