6.23.2006

Good things come to those who wait... and... I always get what I want.

After a month of wating for news and dealing with crazy bankers, crazy realtors and crazy home buyers (yes, us, we're going crazy), we have withdrawn our offer on the house. We went back to look at the house Wednesday night. It was storming pretty good and had been raining on and off for about 24 hours. We walked up to the porch and peeked in the windows. The house was empty except for a tv, a spiderman chair, a pair of little boy's underwear, random cd's, toys and cleaning products and a crib full of stuffed animals. When we walked in the door, I looked up at where we noticed water damage stains the first time through the house. We had examined the roof (from the ground) and it looked as though the water damage had been fixed and should be water tight again... well... we were wrong. Wet Plaster. We wandered the house and things we hadn't noticed before were everywhere; evidence of past water damage in the basement, stained carpet, shotty (shoddy?) cabinets in the kitchen. Seeing the kitchen with no appliances was a shock too. We knew they were taking them, but actually seeing them gone was weird. Made us realize that yes, we are going to have to drop a grand on appliances if we get this house. So, after talking to the listing agent about all these problems, he said we would be buying the house AS IS, which means we would not lower our offer because of the problems we would have to fix. Nor would we be reimbursed. So, they can keep it. We have found something else that is actually exactly what I pictured myself in. We overlooked it at first in favor of a newer house, but it turns out that the newer house has more problems. We're writing an offer on Saturday. And there is just no way that this deal can take any longer than we waited for the previous one. So we hope to have an answer in less than a week, and have a closing date set for mid-July with posession at closing. Which leaves me plenty of time if I decide to not pack another thing until then... and I'll probably do that. That's the way I roll. I like to wait till the last minute.

Everything with the house seems to be falling into place perfectly. If the process had gone smoothly, we would have taken their word for the pool being "opened" (which does not mean brown, murky water with toads living in it, as is the case right now) and we wouldn't have known that the roof does in fact leak into the living room, we wouldn't have seen all the stains in the carpet, or the water damage in the basement, or the stench in the garage that was so bad, we couldn't go in there. We would have bought the house, closed on it next Friday, and then had to spend $1,000 on appliances, at least $3,000 on a new roof, more on new carpet, paint and who knows what else. It was so frustrating, time consuming and maddening, but now it is over and it's for the best. I do not feel bad at all about losing this house.

Wait, what did you say? This is a knitting/fiber art blog? oh yeah... ummm

  • Skirt is done and seamed

  • Socks are done, as seen in last post

  • Heading toward the toe on sock 1 of the next pair

  • Mentally preparing to start my first garment... one of the lace bottomed tank tops from the current Interweave Knits. pink/cream wool/silk blend. (I guess the skirt was my first garment, but it was easy.)

  • I'm on a rail fence quilt kick too. I have ideas for about 5 more... those will probably wait till after the move though.

6.18.2006

Boxes and Soxes

I have had quite a productive couple of days. I've been ADD packing all week. I got a jackpot of boxes from a local produce store and started randomly packing things. I have 4 big boxes of clothes that either don't fit or I just don't wear anymore. All are moving with me, I'll go thru them after the move. Hopefully we'll have enough crap for a garage sale. The rest of the boxes I've packed so far have books and fabric. Ryan was very happy to find out that I alternated fabric and books in each box. So they don't all weigh 50 pounds. (When I moved out of my parents house I packed a lot of books in BIG boxes. He could hardly lift them... he didn't think it was funny) So this time, anything that is packed too heavy for ME to lift, gets unpacked and redistributed.

I still feel like it is too early to start packing. My lease is up July 31st, so regardless of not having a signed contract yet, I have to move somewhere by the end of July; whether it is into our house, or into a storage unit and live at my parents' house for a couple weeks.

Friday I finished this pair of socks, yarn is Lana Grossa Meilenweit 7018. My first pair of socks knit on size 1's. I don't think it was any more tedius than any other sock I've done. I love the tiny tiny any way.

And the most exciting accomplishment this weekend, was the almost 5 hours I've spent updating my website. I have redesigned the entire gallery. Here it is, Textile Stockpile Gallery, let me know what you think. The store section is up next, There are a lot of pictures that need to be redone, and I want the whole website to have the same format, just like the home page and all the new gallery pages. I think the white background is much more aesthetically pleasing than the black, and I think keeping every page with the same color format, really makes it look better, like every page is part of the whole.

6.13.2006

"ABC's" or "I'm bored"

Accent: Michigander. But the lower peninsula, so we don’t say “eh” after every statement. We sound like we talk thru our nose, and it’s usually stuffed from allergies.

Booze: Sex on the Beach, dark beer, cheap wine (the kind that just tastes like fruit juice).

Chores I hate: cleaning the bathroom and doing dishes.

Dog/cat: Dog. Allergic to cats.

Essential Electronics: everything. I’m a city girl, can’t do without my hair dryer, computer/internet, tv, iPod.

Favorite perfume: DKNY Be Delicious

Gold/silver: Silver or white gold

Hometown: Chelsea, Michigan

Insomnia: nope, gotta get my eight hours

Job Title: Office Manager

Kids: in the next 5 years or so I hope

Living Arrangements: moving out of my apartment and buying a house!

Most admirable trait: Conscientious and optimistic

Number of countries visited: only two. US and Canada

Overnight Hospital Stays: when I was born

Phobias: heights

Quote: "I am like no one in the whole world. I may be no better, at least I am different." Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Religion: None. Was not raised in a particular religion, but do believe in God, or some kind of higher spirit. I love to read about Greek/Roman mythology and the Hindu/Buddhist religions.

Siblings: one younger sister, Shannon

Time you wake up: 7am for work, my eyes pop open at 9am on the weekends

Unusual talent: can’t think of one at the moment

Vegetable I refuse to eat: peas, lima beans, brussel sprouts

Worst Habit: sitting on my feet and crossing my legs when I sit.

Xrays: Arm when I was in pre-school. An IVP in 2001, looking for kidney stones, found two… whoopee!

Yummy food I make: spinach/artichoke dip; cheese ravioli with chicken, zucchini and carrots; lots of stir-frys; Chocolate/Cinnamon biscotti

Zodiac: Aries

6.09.2006

Don't I know you?

One night last week, my mom and I were in a Chinese restaurant. We were sitting in a booth along the wall, waiting for our food when the people in the booth in the corner stood up and walked past us toward the cahsier. One of the older men that walked by looked familiar...

Me: Where have I seen that guy?
pause
Me: OH MY GOD!!! I have seen that guy naked!
Mom: WHA?
Me: That guy standing at the counter, I've seen him naked! He was one of our Life Drawing models in school!
Mom: {Cringe} Oh god... I recognize him from your drawings!!!

We spent the next 10 minutes cringing and saying "ewwww!"

I suffered through that class. It was 15 looooooong weeks of drawing naked people and being ridiculed and tormented by the instructor.


Hey, I said I TOOK the class, I didn't say I was good at it.

6.06.2006

The mark of the devil

Today is 6*6*6. I guess there are extremely pregnant women out there who are holding it in so their new baby won't have this 666 birthday. A lot of them had scheduled C-sections yesterday too. My first thought when I heard the date this morning on my way to work was, "damn... shoulda tried to conceive 9 months ago to try to get a kid with this birthday" He'd probably come out with screamin' red hair, black eyes and fangs. We could name him Lucifer. My sister had a boyfried who turned 8 on 8-8-88. Sorry for reminding you Shannon!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my apartment complex management for hiring a bunch of guys to spread mulch around all the trees and landscaping. I really appreciate being woken up at 6 am for four days in a row by semi trucks dumping loads of mulch into the parking lot outside my bedroom window and then the hours of bulldozers and trucks moving the stuff from the parking lot to the areas of landscaping. Oh, and don't forget the leaf blowers that blow the red mulch dust out of the parking lot. Really, I would gladly trade a couple hours of sleep every day to have a beautifully landscaped yard. Really. I mean it. A** holes.

I haven't blogged about anything interesting lately because I haven't really been sticking with any one project for more than an hour. Here's a run-down.

Sock: One sock done, 2nd sock is ready for heel flap

Whole cloth quilt: taking forever (hand quilting)

Skirt: knitting part is done. need to fold and sew drawstring area... doesn't sound fun, so it's been sitting in the living room for a week.

Modular scarf: DONE!!! and blocked!!!


But I did start a small quilt over the weekend. I was cleaning my sewing room a week ago and had piles of dyed fabric everywhere. I was organizing them by color and I ended up with a considerably large pile of purples. So without using my rotary cutter or mat, I cut strips of varying sizes of purples and put them all in a box. (a smarter person would have ironed the fabric before cutting it. I am not that person... I ended up ironing a box full of one-inch and smaller strips.)
Then the strips got sewn together in no particular order and not paying attention to keeping things lined up or at all even. As usual, I am a natural at keeping things even, so my un-evenness is subtle. Then the longer strips got cut into square-ish pieces and arranged on the design wall. Now it is almost all in one piece. It is hard because things don't line up like a grid, so I am having to do funky things to sew pieces into an uneven corner.


The original plan was to cut into each piece with a diagonal line or two and insert some avocado green strips, but I didn't like the way it looked. So I might machine quilt it with green. I love purple and green together.

My mind is just consumed with house stuff. We wrote an offer on a house we LOVE on Thursday the 25th. We still haven't heard anything. It is driving me crazy!!! When the realtor called me yesterday to tell me we probably wouldn't hear anything until FRIDAY, my heart sank and the rest of the evening I had that same sinking feeling you get when you get dumped out of the blue. Like a mix of depression, panic and anger.

It's just a house, it's just a house, it's just a house...

6.01.2006

Jeopardy

I just now got around to uploading the pictures from this weekend from my camera to the computer. So here was our set up for jeopardy watching...

The view from Shannon's front door looking out onto the porch. As you can see, Leah was not as excited about this arrangement as Shannon and I were.

And the view from my seat on the porch.


Genius.

Whirlwind trip

We had a great weekend in North Carolina with Shannon! It was so sunny and warm and beautiful. We left very early Friday morning and drove straight thru to Asheville only stopping for fast food and bathroom breaks for us and the dogs. Here we are in my car before we left Ann Arbor. We tried to get a picture of all four of us in the car, but it turned out to be more of a portrait of Jada.

We got into town at about 6:30 and got settled in at Shannon's, then decided we all needed some exercise after sitting in the car for 10 hours. The dogs especially. So we went for a walk around Asheville to show Leah the huge gorgeous houses in the neighborhood. Then we headed out to Charlotte Street Pub for dinner at 10pm.

On Saturday we started out at Biltmore Village and went to the cute shops there (including Yarn Paradise!), then headed downtown to walk around a bit. We stopped for a rest and a smoke at this fountain. Saturday night we were at home, and it was so stuffy in Shannon's apartment, but so nice out on the porch, so we stayed out there. We wanted to watch Jeopardy though... So we rolled the tv stand to the doorway and turned it out toward the porch. The best of both worlds!!!

Later Saturday night we made Daquiris and sat on the porch for a good 6 hours. We played CatchPhrase for a long time, then just sat and chatted into the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday was Shannon's birthday. Remember that Knitting Olympics skirt that was to be Shannon's birthday present? Yeah, not done yet. We ended up spending most of the day sitting on her porch in the sun... well, they were in the sun, I followed the shade around. (I can not get a tan, it's impossible. I just go straight from pale to burnt.) At about 3 we were finally all ready to get out and do something. So we headed to the edge of town to a yarn store that we hadn't been to yet. When my mom was down there last week she and Shannon tried to go and it was closed. The hours were not posted on the door, it just said, "Tuesday and Saturday" Above the Closed sign. Who knows what that means, because they were there on a Tuesday and it was closed, and we were there on a Sunday and it was closed. So that was a bummer. Next we took the dogs to a park that had plenty of room for them to run around off leash for a while. We found a big stick and threw it for Billie. She even helped us get it off the tree. After we thoroughly exhausted the pups and worked up a good appetite, we took the dogs home and headed to a great restaurant called Provence 620. It was SO good. Seafood is totally different in North Carolina. Shrimp is a completely different flavor there than it is in Michigan. Probably because it hasn't been dead and frozen for so long before you eat it like it is in Michigan.

So we stuffed ourselves there and headed home to watch RENT! All three of us sat on the futon and knitted while we watched RENT. We had inteded to get to bed somewhat early, so we could get up early again on Monday to get on the road. Well, Midnight turned into 3am... and we weren't in bed yet. We got about 3 hours of sleep before waking up at 7:30. We were on the road at 8:20. Shed a few tears on the way out of the driveway and headed north.

And now I'm at work. That is all I'm going to say about that.