I need more time in the day! This weekend I was off from my second job, but my time was consumed by homework (got it done, mainly) and house stuff.

In random news:

• I got an A- on my lit paper!
• My second lit paper is due Friday, blah.
• I bought a Learn to Spin Kit from Flawful Fibers! Spinning, here I come!
• I have no time to play with it this week. Hopefully this weekend.
• I now have a sewing machine! New curtains/pillow covers/placemats for the house!
• Again, I have no time this week.
• Really, really, really awesome design plans are in store for the house, involving my newly acquired sewing machine and some creative brainstorming.
• I haven’t knit a stitch in weeks! Will spinning and sewing overrule knitting? Will I amass a larger fabric/fiber stash than yarn? oh, the suspense!!

I’m hoping to update Flickr by this weekend some time. I never realized how tedious and time-consuming it is to set up a new house. It seems like there is always something that needs to be done, and I’m still working on each room…everything is in progress. The good news is that we have all of our furniture, including the 4-piece living room set that I got for free. Someone at my day job was getting rid of the set, and I jumped at the chance to claim them! So now we have a TV stand, cabinet, side table, and sewing table (!)–what luck!

I know I always say this, but pictures really are coming soon!

Posted: July 21st, 2008 under My So-Called Life.
Comments: 3

My weekend, in a nutshell…

- 4th of July: M and I were both off work. I woke up around 8:30 AM (because I am CRAZY) and began assembling my bookcase and desk for my office/yarn room. Took the better part of the afternoon, as I assembled my bookcase with a regular screwdriver and my muscles, no power tools for me! (See above, reference CRAZY.) My desk wasn’t as time-consuming to assemble, except toward the end when I needed M’s help. By this time, my fingers were sore and I was over the manual assembly. On the bright side, my bookcase and desk look fantastic! After that, we (meaning mainly M and I kind of helped) assembled my brand-spanking new YARN CABINET! eeee! It kicks major bootay. Seriously. And I know I keep saying it but I promise I will take pictures, as soon as someone (coughMEcough) finds her camera cable and battery charger. They’re packed somewhere, I might even know where!

- 4th of July evening: M and I went over to my parents’ house to eat and somehow stayed to watch their Journey DVD. Because apparently the new lead singer (who replaced Steve Perry) is Filipino so of COURSE he must be good because this is how my parents’ brains work. I just wanted to see the performance of “Faithfully” since I like that super sappy rock ballad, but we ended up watching about 45 minutes of the concert and I went home and to bed with Journey’s greatest hits swirling in my cranium. oh yes, and I almost forgot the part about how my retired parents are going to see Journey in concert next month. !!!

- July 5th: my birthday! I am now 28 years…young! or old! depending on how you look at it, I suppose oh yes, I would also like to mention that I rang in my birthday with a SORE body because as I was assembling the aforementioned bookcase and desk, I was all squatted and crouched on the floor for so long that my legs hurt the rest of that day and all weekend. 28 years old, I’d say! I dragged M to one of my LYSes and bought a skein of birthday sock yarn to add to my collection, hehe. I think it’s called Yummy but I can’t remember who the manufacturer is…pics to follow, see above re: lost/missing camera cable, ahem.

- Also on the 5th: we rented a U-Haul 14′ truck and picked up our sofa, loveseat, and dinette from Value City Furniture. I am very infatuated with our new furniture, especially since M did all the assembly and I just sat on the loveseat and enjoyed the comfy squishiness of it. oh, the cashier at U-Haul was a slight dork, but we still ended up saving money. If we had paid for delivery from VCF, they would have charged us $100, eek! So we rented the U-Haul, brought the stuff into our house ourselves, and ended up saving about $35 in the process. Every bit helps!

- Yesterday: we brought my doggies over to the new house, yay!! We are together again. They are still adjusting to their new environment, but I think they like it so far. They have a designated area of the house–downstairs only, in the kitchen/dining area and backyard, no upstairs and definitely not allowed on our couches!–and I think it’s better to have these boundaries. At my last house, I let them roam wherever they wanted to, and ended up with a very furry house, so I think this is a better arrangement. But I’m just so happy to have them here!

ok, tonight when I go home I am really going to look for my camera cable and post pics–I took some already of the office/yarn room and at least want to post my new and improved, more organized stash…I still need to go back to Target and get another bookcase because the one I bought, which is 6′ tall, is crammed with books and still, I have more. My book stash seeks to rival my yarn stash, clearly.

If I don’t post pics by tomorrow, poke me and bug me till I do it!

Posted: July 7th, 2008 under My So-Called Life.
Comments: none

So last night after I got home from work, M was working on assembling our bed and I was eating dinner. He went out to take the trash, and noticed something weird. Earlier, he had put out a couple bags of trash behind the trash can on the curb, since today is pickup day. Well when he went back out, the bags he had put out earlier were gone! Someone took our trash! ok, weird…so he checked back a little later, and the bag he just put out was gone too!! wtf? So we decided to test it–we put one more bag out on the curb, then went upstairs with the light off to watch out the window and see if someone would come over and take it. We waited about 5 minutes but nothing happened, so we figured it was just neighborhood oddness and went to bed.

This morning M went to work and the bag was still there. But after I had taken a shower and went to leave for work, the last bag we’d put out was gone too! arggg! Why the heck are people taking our trash? M said maybe it’s just the trash people going around getting stuff off the curb…like maybe we’re not supposed to put anything on the curb? But some of our neighbors had non-bagged stuff out on their curbs and no one had taken that stuff!

My first reaction was to get super paranoid, like holy crap are they trying to snoop and steal our identity or something? eek! So we’re not throwing anything personal away until we buy a shredder, just in case. It’s just the oddest thing–who goes around taking trash bags off someone else’s curb? I mean, what if it had been *actual* trash–like nasty food scraps and gross things? Is someone going through our stuff?

M said we should rig it and put the dog poop in there once we bring the dogs over, haha. I bet the culprit would leave our trash alone after that! I’ve just never heard of the trash pickup people doing pre-pickup the night before, and this was late last night around 10 - 10:30. Any ideas what could be going on?

Posted: July 1st, 2008 under My So-Called Life.
Comments: 2

So um yeah we have our HOUSE! yayyyy!! We closed on Friday afternoon and started moving in on Saturday. And we’re still moving in! M and I spent the past two nights there so far, and we like it a lot! There are some things that I don’t like, but they are minor and largely cosmetic (the paint job in the living room is the main thing but then again I am very OCD about those types of things). I need to take pics still, but might wait till we move the furniture in since it’s boxland right now and the only furniture we have are the mattress/box spring and a bed that needs to be assembled, lol. Our sofa and loveseat, as well as dinette set, are on order and we’re picking them up this Saturday (my birthday)!

We also still need to clean some of the rooms, but other than that, it’s in decent shape. I was worried that the sellers were going to trash it when they moved out, and they did ding up some of the walls/curtains, but no worries, the house is totally liveable and that’s what really matters! As long as we have electricity and water, right? Our cable TV is screwy and Internet doesn’t work at all yet (thanks a bunch, Cox Communications), but they’re sending a tech to fix it tomorrow afternoon. Also, our grass in the backyard is scary tall, and we need to cut it because it seriously feels like a jungle to walk through at the moment.

I’m sad though, because since the house isn’t in a state of readiness, I haven’t brought my doggies over, so they’re still at my mom and dad’s house. I’ve seen them every day since I moved out, but not for very long and that makes me so sad! I’m hoping to bring them over this Friday since M and I are both off for Independence Day, or possibly Saturday after we pick up the furniture. I need my dogs though, yesterday I got so depressed because I had way too much to do and didn’t get a chance to finish my homework yesterday, plus I had a ton of laundry, I was tired of packing and am STILL not finished packing, etc. etc. Anyway, I feel better today, but it was a little lonely getting ready for work this morning since M left earlier than I did and the dogs weren’t there. But, I did get a lot of reading done for my class AND had time to do a load of laundry, all before work! So that was nice. Plus, my work commute is now a mere 10 minutes, as opposed to 20 minutes from Norfolk, yay!

I’m going to stop by my parents’ house tonight after work and probably pack another box or two, plus pet the dogs good night. Can’t wait to have them back with me in our new house!

Posted: June 30th, 2008 under My So-Called Life.
Comments: 5

I’ve definitely been blogging less ever since I started working a second job, but my posting has gone down even more ever since I signed up for Plurk! Plurk is similar to Twitter, but I find Plurk much more interactive. Updates are threaded, similar to IM, so it’s easy to keep track when someone replies to you. Also, the interface is prettier, though the timeline can be confusing initially. Once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty easy to navigate (especially if you use a scroll wheel). I had abandoned Twitter initially, but discovered Ping.fm, which allows you to update both sites simultaneously. The current beta code is letmeping if you want to sign up. Anyway, I’m having lots of fun plurking, so come over if you’re so inclined and friend me! I will send you a dancing banana if you do.

I found out about the Nanner Sock pattern from Plurk. The pattern was written by Wendy and it’s currently only available to Plurk users. (Send her a message via her contact form if you want the pattern.) Lots of other plurkers are knitting these, and because I am a sheep, I cast them on. Well, that’s a longer story than it should be. The Nanner pattern is written toe-up, and I have had an aversion to toe-up socks ever since knitting my Brick House socks, my only toe-up socks. But, I figured I would be a valiant knitter and knit the pattern as it is written. I know I could have done them cuff-down, but I wanted to challenge myself.

It literally took me hours to figure out how to cast on properly! I can’t remember what cast on I used for my other socks but I decided to learn Judy’s Magic Cast On for the Nanners. I started and restarted probably a dozen times! By the time I figured out how to do the cast on correctly, I measured and realized my gauge was WAY off–I started with US 0 dpns but eventually went all the way up to US 2s in order to get the correct gauge. Finally, success! I am now very comfortable with the Magic Cast On, by the way, since I have done it so many times in the past two days. Picture soon, once I remember to take one!

How about a house update? We’re closing in ONE WEEK agghhH! hehe. It’s very exciting but I am still freaked out. M and I are trying to decide which insurance company we’re going to start a policy with, and it looks like Farmers has the best rate for our house. I was hoping USAA would give us a big discount (we both have several accounts with them already), but for some reason they’re quoting a more expensive premium than Farmers. Also, tonight we’re going furniture window shopping again, as well as handing over our bank statements to our mortgage lender.

Sidenote: dude, it feels so weird and grown-up to be using terms like “homeowners insurance” and “mortgage lender,” and it’s kind of freaking me out!!

Anyway, we are planning on moving in next weekend, Friday through Sunday (the 27th - 29th). We both took Friday off from work, so hopefully we can get everything moved in by Sunday night. I’m so excited to bring my doggies over there! I hope they like the backyard. It’s not as large as my parents’ yard, but at least they will have a bit of grass to run around on and I am really, really looking forward to having them roam around the house again. (Remember, my parents always keep them separated from their dog because of the Great Dog Fight of 2007, which will NEVER be repeated, ugh! ) Also, M and I will be able to take them for more walks and have all kinds of fun with them, yay!

I will absolutely take oodles of photos once we move in–actually, I will probably take a bunch once we close, before we even put our stuff in. Because nothing’s more fun than photos of a furniture-less house, right? hehe. And I know someone will poke me if I don’t take lots of pics! I’m super excited about the second bedroom, which we’re planning on using as a spare room/workout room/yarn room/office. Basically M and I are drawing an imaginary line down the middle, and on one side he’s going to put his workout stuffs there, and on the other side I’m going to put a desk, bookcase, and (hopefully!) yarn cabinet, eeee! Right now the room is baby blue because the current owners have a baby boy and that’s his room, and honestly, I liked the wall color so much that I talked M into leaving it up. A) we won’t have to paint over it and B) I love blue and I think it’s really pretty. Once the crib is gone and we move our stuff in, I don’t think it will look baby room-ish at all, anyway!

I have a very specific plan of how I want to arrange my side of the room, down to the desk I want and everything. I’d draw a diagram but my drawing skills suck. Also, that desk is only available on target.com and I don’t know if I want to risk ordering it and having it damaged in shipping because that’s a mighty expensive desk. I really dislike the look of particle board furniture though, so I might have to look elsewhere for a glass & metal desk.

Also, my dream yarn cabinet is available from IKEA but it’s rather pricey as well and our closest IKEA is in northern VA, and I really don’t want to take a drive up there. blah. I wish I knew where to find all the cool furniture around here, but I haven’t bought furniture in years so I’m pretty clueless! Anyway, my main thing is that I want to get my yarn stash out of Rubbermaid bins and into a cabinet, but I want a cabinet/bookcase with doors, should a disastrous thing happen like a moth get into the house and into my yarn stash. I had an open bookcase in New Mexico, and never had a moth infestation, but I’m paranoid now that I’m back in VA and don’t want to take any chances!

(btw, just noticed that my dream cabinet is, in fact, made of particle board. Is it true that IKEA used to use solid wood once upon a time?)

All right, next time I update I’ll have pics of my Nanner sock in progress and possibly house pics, eee! My class is still kicking my butt–I have a paper to write this weekend, as it’s due by Monday night–so it might be a few days till I post again. Plurk me in the meantime.

Posted: June 20th, 2008 under Knitting, My So-Called Life.
Comments: 1

Wow, I haven’t posted in a week. Let’s see, what’s going on?

I had a great WWKIP Day on Saturday! I met Tasha (and now want to knit a Pi Shawl because of her) and Laura at Starbucks and we knitted and chatted for a couple hours. I hadn’t seen either of them in months, ever since I started working nights, so that was really nice! I started a sock in Trekking and knit more in those few hours than I had in weeks. Of course, I haven’t worked on it since Saturday, but maybe I can do more knitting once we close on the house.

Speaking of which, it is 11 days and counting till M and I officially own it! eek! The bank is doing its appraisal this afternoon–we don’t have to be present for that–and of course our last financial review is this Friday at 5. We are starting to window shop for furniture–yesterday we went couch hunting and sat on several comfy ones, but nothing really caught our eyes. We need to look around more.

School is kicking my butt just a little. I’m kind of bummed because I had gotten a 100/100 on the Week 1 conference and then I checked yesterday and I got a 77/100 on the Week 2 conference. I emailed my instructor to ask for details on why I didn’t get a very high score. I posted my Week 3 response last night, and now I’m worried that it wasn’t up to par. Plus, our first writing assignment is due on the 23rd and it needs to be 1,500 words in length and I haven’t even started it yet, ugh. Why did I want to go back to college again?

I hope I can find a better job after we move into our new place so that I don’t have to work two jobs anymore. I miss having free time. And knitting time. I really miss knitting time.

Posted: June 16th, 2008 under Knitting, Miss Education, My So-Called Life.
Comments: 1

20 days left until M and I close on our first house!

This morning we had the home inspection and it went really well! Most of the things the inspector pointed out were cosmetic and can be addressed easily–touch up paint in some spots, install molding over some of the flooring, etc. The main thing he wrote up, which is not necessarily a problem now but could become one later, is that the A/C system isn’t running as energy-efficiently as it should be. So hopefully that’s something the seller will address before we close.

Up till today, I’ve been really quite panicked about the whole process, but I think I’m starting to get more excited about the house. I guess I’m just worried about the money situation, but then, when am I not worried about money? I know we can do this, we–well, mostly I–just need to buckle down and rein in my spending habits. You can assume that my yarn budget is basically kaput. My focus now is on the house and turning it into our home. Good thing I have such a mondo stash, because I’ll be knitting from it for the next several months, ha!

Posted: June 7th, 2008 under My So-Called Life.
Comments: 2