No Babies!

Friday, October 20, 2006

Well, I'm not preggers like half the knitting world even though it does seem to be contagious lately...

The official unofficial news is that I'm finally buying a house!

It was a shock even to me when I found The House about a month into my first semester back at college. The first question, of course, was "Holy crap, can I even afford this right now?". Maybe it's my creative budgeting, but it seems possible if a little tight. Thankfully I'm able to work extra hours during off times at school, like winter and spring break and my employer is very flexible with when and how I work my regular hours during school. If I absolutely can't make it to the office, I can work from home or come in on nights and weekends.

But the house! You want to hear about the house! It's a two story, three bedrooms, one and a quarter baths, a fenced backyard and beautiful drafty old windows - some even still have the sash weights and cords. (I'm not sure why but these old windows with the sash weights have just taken on a magical quality in my mind. They are, at the moment, my favorite feature of the house even though they're currently letting a gale of a wind through. I'm exaggerating. It's not that bad.)

I had my inspection last night, the bank will do their appraisal probably next week, and then the city inspector has to come if I end up using the city's downpayment assistance program. As my inspector put it last night: "I hope I look this good when I'm 98!" Basically, it's an old house with a lot of old house features (good and bad) but overall, it's a good house. And it's exactly what I wanted in a house. If everything goes well, I'll be moving exactly one month from today. And I haven't started packing. :)

Knitting is good. I will have completed my first cabled fingerless glove by the end of the weekend and probably another dishcloth too. Once I get the other fingerless glove done, I need to get cracking on my mom's other sock, my sister's Christmas socks, and my little cabbage (Mon Petit Chou).

Have a great weekend!

Time Flies...

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Hi all! School is getting the better of me but I have the great grades to show for it so I guess it's okay. It's been busy here at the Red house. I've officially declared my major as Chemistry and received an A on both my latest Chemistry test and Pre-calculus quiz. I've decided that Art classes can suck it. Ceramics is not as fun as I thought it would be because glazes do not look like what you want them to look like. And... there's been knitting. Not a whole lot but a little.



My mom's first Christmas Baudelaire. The picture is actually from last weekend. Sorry about that. I finished it up last night during our Friday Night Movie Night so I could use the needles to restart my cabled fingerless gloves from last winter. It's been cold here and it snowed already! Granted, the snow is gone but I know it won't be long until new white stuff comes to replace it. I need me some gloves to match my scarf!



Mon Petit Chou, restarted on brand new US 5 needles. I think the fit will be much better now. But it's been a neglected project while I worked on my Mom's sock and a dishcloth (which is finished but already in use so a picture wouldn't be so great.)

Lastly, I went on a yarn crawl with some friends a couple of weekends ago. I bought some Mountain Colors Bearfoot in the Juniper colorway for my sister's Christmas socks (probably with the Classic Slip-up pattern from that book that look like a sock that a friend borrowed me.) Sorry, no picture of the yarn but it came from Pieces of String, a "store" about an hour from where I live. The owner was kind enough to let us in to buy yarn from her basement mail order stash. While there, Kurt bought his first "real" yarn. Check this out, it's Brown Sheep Burly Spun and he's making a garter stitch scarf with it.



Holy crap, huh? It's huge! And here's a picture of Kurt knitting away on a mini scarf for one of his stuffed animals.



There's one more piece of big news but I don't want to jinx it. I'll tell you when I know for sure. Just cross your fingers for me. :)