Today is THE day. M and I have an appointment with our realtor this afternoon to draw up the offer paperwork on the house. I am so nervous! Up till now, I’ve been fairly confident about making the offer. I think we’ll get the house. But then every so often, my mind stops for a moment and I get this empty-bellied feeling of PANIC! (at the disco) and I think, oh no what if we don’t get it! Or, what if we get it and life is dandy, la di da, then one month we can’t pay our mortgage?? I don’t really have any reason to be worried about these things…I’m just jittery and freaking out, I guess.

In a sense, I feel like we’re taking somewhat of a risk because nothing in life is guaranteed, right? I mean, recently a tornado swept through a neighboring city in this area–a TORNADO!–and a bunch of people lost their houses. What governs the universe? Is it all chaos? It doesn’t help that my parents seem intent on freaking me out even worse than I already am. They are convinced that the neighborhood is borderline ghetto. When I came home from work last night, how did my mom greet me? “You know someone got shot in that neighborhood. In the HEAD.” My response was, “ok?”

We could buy this house and be perfectly safe and happy and content there. Or we could buy a house in a “good” or “better” neighborhood (whatever that means) and get shot anyway! Or hit by a bus, or I don’t know, a plane could fall out of the sky! Or maybe NOTHING bad will happen. You can’t live your life in a bubble. That’s just weird. And I, for one, refuse to walk on eggshells in life, too afraid to take chances and have fun and actually LIVE. I have always been a pessimist but this static from my parents is just ridiculous, even for me. I think if you go through life EXPECTING bad things to come, then I don’t know, maybe the universe bestows that upon you because you set the bar so low for yourself. But I think you just have to *try* to do better. And sometimes, that should be enough. Quite frankly, I’m sick and tired of the negative juju from them and I just want to move on. From the past, from my previous mistakes, from THEM. [/end rant]

Now let us discuss the matter of yarn, and test knitting! (I always have to switch gears and talk about knitting, otherwise my blood pressure will skyrocket and I may give myself a mental breakdown.) Recently I was watching the Ravelry forums radar (interesting, the things that pop up on there!) and saw a post about South West Trading Company needing test knitters. I read through the thread, and people were saying that SWTC had put out a call (on the SWTC group, I believe) and so people had contacted them, and they in turn sent patterns to test knit and they pay in YARN. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I sent them an email and sure enough, Jonelle emailed me back to say that she could use my help! This week she emailed me the pattern and the yarn is on its way. I’m not sure what I can or can’t say so I’ll just mention that it’s a baby item so it shouldn’t take too long to knit up. I skimmed the pattern and it looks pretty straightforward and I’m really curious to see the yarn I get to work with! Then once the item is finished, I’ll send it back to her and I get paid in SWTC yarn. Very cool!

I still have dreams about setting up a yarnspace in the new house, and I try not to get TOO ahead of myself–we haven’t picked out furniture or anything yet, but I sure have been looking! I think it’s good to have something to occupy my mind in the meantime…otherwise I’ll think about the Galactic Empire* and get depressed.

*or the Death Star, or Darth Vader, or whatever other geeky Star Wars reference you’d like to insert here. On my mobile phone, I have different ring tones set up to play depending on the caller. My ring tone for my parents is The Imperial March.