Packing for a move

I am moving into a house. My own house.

While being prequalified, I took a friend to hold my hand and sat down with a mortgage broker. He was asking the normal questions, budgets, what i would feel comfortable with as payments, etc.. He said make a quick guess at your costs for a month. My friend and I stated running it down: food, gas, electric, entertainment, yarn & roving, phone... The mortgage broker laughed and said" that's funny! yarn?!" He didn't understand that we were being completely serious. I mean, I knew I would have to cut back my yarn budget a bit to buy a house, but it is still important to my well-being!

One of the things I looked for while touring various locations, was how yarn and fiber friendly was the house it's self? The winner was the one with the "half" kitchen downstairs by the family/rec room. It had enough room for my yarn stash, and the extra kitchen will be perfect for washing fleece, dying yarns and rovings, drying and various other experiments. The rec room is large enough to hold a full blown spinning and knitting party and since the extra kitchen is down there, we wouldn't have to keep going up and down for more coffee and tea. I really feel that this house suites my woolly needs.

When I began packing this week, I discovered 2 things. One, is I had to carefully select what projects I'll be working on in the next few weeks and pull them aside. I also had to reach for emotional strength that I didn't realize I would need to put the rest of the yarn and roving into boxes and tape them shut. To be untouched for up to 4 weeks. No petting, wistful glances or just a quick snuggle. Nope, it was going to be off limits. Who knew that would be so tough?

Second thing i discovered is that yarn and roving save you on packing materials. delicate knick-knacks and glass? Pack it in roving and yarn! Saves multiple trees. Stuff some yarn in a vase and wrap it in roving. Perfect!

So the packing continues and my yarn wait patiently for it's new home. I'm just not as patient as the yarn seems to be.

Memo for next 3 day weekend

For any future three day weekends I have, no guests unless they have their own lodging or are willing to do something of mutual interest. The weekend started okay with weeding and an art festival that got cut a bit short.

It then turned to hell in a hand basket. With a side of torture and a helping of becoming a social outcast.

It got better when I did finally get to escape my "house guests" and attend a friend's bbq where I could knit, cry, knit, act goofy, laugh, knit and actually be accepted and loved for being myself. It didn't hurt that my friends, upon hearing the drama, determined that I was normal and being nice and considerate and the other party needs extensive therapy.

God, I love my friends!

So, some worlds I have been forbidden to walk in. Fortunately, I have my world. With knitting, chocolate, shoulders to cry on, hands to pull me up, and friends who are more dear to me than they will ever know.

My world ROCKS!

Frantic

So I have guests coming to visit and I am in a complete panic. Will they care if I haven't scrubbed the baseboards recently? Not really. They are here to see me and my lovely, newly engaged sister. Here I am running around the house frantic. This morning at 4:30 am I bleached out my trash can. Are they going to even notice? No. And really I hope not.

My Christmas knitting isn't near done, but there has been a development in the sweater for my sister. I've FINALLY figured out the pattern correction for the damn sleeves. It took calling in a Cal Berkeley Mathmatician, an honest to god Artist, a Seamstress, every engineer I know outside of family, and my own creative blend of proportion theory and astronomical calculations. (literally of the stars) And now, I can almost see the end in sight for this albatross. Soon it will be done. But I've been trying to get it finished for this weekend, so I've been knitting up a storm, frantic.

So, two days to go and here is the conclusion I've come to. I need to read a book. I need to paint my nails. I need to cast on a project that won't be due until next fall. I need to do yoga with Annie. I need to take a walk, hang out with the girls, go swimming, relax at knit night and enjoy an over-priced coffee.

My house will not look like a museum or a clean room for creating vaccines. It will be cozy and warm. Where you want to snuggle up on the couch and watch the fire. Sit on a barstool at the kitchen counter sipping coffee and chatting away. You will be over come, upon entering my house, to take off your shoes and run around in your socks. You will snooze gazing out the window, have homemade jam on warm toast, Put a few more ornaments on the Christmas tree, and stick you finger into and taste whatever is cooking on the stove.

You will feel at ease and not even notice that I haven't vacummed under the couch in a month.

And no one entering my house will be Frantic.