The Jester's Needle

To My Faithful Followers...

2010-10-18T18:54:00.002-04:00

...and delightful lurkers one and all...

The blog is moving. Now that the shop is up and running, I'm trying to keep the split personality thing to a minimum. I won't be posting here anymore. Please click on over to...

http://spencerhillspinanddye.blogspot.com/

and stalk, er, I mean follow me there. It won't be all shop talk-there'll be more Gems From the Music Room, I promise! I'm sure I can come up with more random blather, too.

See you over there!

Gems from the music room, part seven.

2010-09-14T20:07:00.002-04:00

Before I tell you this one, you need a visual: I have dark, almost black hair, except for a prominent grey streak in the very front.

Student, who is new to me and has unpredictable social filters: You look like a movie star!
Me: Oh really? Who?
Me, to myself: Oh for pete's sake, why did you say that? Here it comes...
Student: In that movie, "Ella Enchanted!" The girl who plays the princess...you know, Anne Hathaway!
Me: no response, as I have fainted dead away from being compared to a princess and not Cruella DeVille

Check One Off the Life List

2010-09-12T20:12:00.004-04:00

After much hemming and hawing, and wondering if I was crossing all my i's and dotting all my t's, I finally give to you...

Spencer Hill Spinning and Dyeing.

It's up, and it even has a few things for sale. I have more items to post, but I need to retake a few pictures. That should be more successful when the sun is out. Of course, around here, that could mean next May, so if it doesn't happen in a day or two, I'll go ahead and use the ones I have. (They're fine, but I just would like to do it a leetle beet differently. See that? I've been in business all of 24 hours, and I'm already changing things.)

I don't regret taking as long as I have, really. But escape velocity has been achieved! I hope you'll come take a look...any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Typos, grammatical errors, suggestions for future products, anything. I've already had a request for a fiber club, which I think is a great idea...once I can reliably dye unspun fiber without turning it into a felty lump. I want to get some handspun up there too. I haven't sat at the wheel in a while. Actually, there's a question for you: when it comes to Etsy purchases, are you happy buying the usual four-ounce lots you see of handspun/hand-dyed yarn, or would you like to see larger quantities? Like, a sweater's worth? Handspinning a sweater's worth of yarn is no small feat, but I'm talking about hand-dyed millspun yarn, too (especially since I'm not going into the "handpainted" category; I suppose what I do is closer to kettle dyeing). Let me know whatcha think.

Ever-so closer

2010-08-25T22:11:00.002-04:00

I'm not quite ready to fling open the doors, but I do have a bank account and therefore a PayPal account (I had one before, but now it's been upgraded to a business account) for the business. AND I got a new ink cartridge for my printer, so now I can get to tags and labels and such.

Still working on the photos. I know things don't have to be perfect the first time I put them out there, but I don't want to look like a total n00b, either. Since we'll be back to school soon, I think I'm going to check with my art teacher friend and see if I can either a) bribe...I mean, barter with her for some shots, or b) check with the high school art teachers and see if there's a high school kid who wants some photography experience with more than the yearbook. (My art teacher friend is very, very pregnant, so I'm not sure how much whatsie for photography she has left right now.)

The box from Earth Guild came today, so I have more alum and can get some more yarn and fiber dyed before the silly season begins. It's coming together, finally. Hard to believe, but pretty damn cool at the same time.

Funny: when I went to the county clerk to register my DBA, the clerk looked at the name (Spencer Hill Spinning and Dyeing), and then hesitantly asked if I was sure about the spelling. I assured him that d-y-e-i-n-g was indeed correct, because I intended to do the d-y-i-n-g kind only once, and that wouldn't make for much of a business now, would it?

Ready...Aim...Aim...Aim...

2010-08-11T15:16:00.004-04:00

If one can fire by two-thirds, that's what I did today.

I went to the county clerk and registered my business name.

I got online and applied for my sales tax collection authority number.

That gives me about 30 days to find someone with better photography skills than me, let PayPal catch up to the fact that my name changed when I got divorced, get some packing and shipping materials, and get an Etsy site together, because...

something has to be done with all this yarn, and Spencer Hill Spinning & Dyeing is closer than ever to doing it. Stay tuned...

Purfuit of Happineff

2010-07-04T17:36:00.003-04:00

Happy Independence Day, everyone. I've been independent of school for just about a week now, which leaves me much more time for the purfuit of happineff*. Lately, that's involved small-scale gardening, cold-water fleece processing, a lot of spinning, some furniture purchases (and the re-arranging that accompanies them), and more spinning. I know I said this in my last post, but there's more details to come. Right now, I must go purfue some more.

*In case you don't twig the reference, go here, and scroll down into the "Capitol Records" section. Then go get your hands on the recording, because every good American should be familiar with this piece.

O hai!

2010-05-28T19:38:00.002-04:00

OK, so it's been a month. It seems like I should have piles and piles of goodies to photograph and share, but alas. I have more than nuthin', at least. (No photos yet, though. Hopefully tomorrow.)

It's been a roller coaster at work. Like everywhere else, money is a major problem for schools in NY. Just before spring break, it became clear that my district faced a budget shortfall of $8 million. Very often, the state rides in at the last minute with refigured aid formulas, but not this year. Massive cuts ensued; half of the music department, half of the art department, most of the social workers, anything that looked like an elective, elementary classroom teachers, office and custodial staff, administration (gasp!), closing two buildings and combining sports teams (more on that in a minute). But thanks to an extremely generous grant from the Corning Foundation, a lot of that was restored. But not all, and it's only a one-year solution. Things aren't expected to be better next year. I have seniority in my department, so I'm not worried about losing my job; what it actually will be in the next few years remains to be seen.

The two elementary buildings are still closing, which has needed to be done for quite some time. One is nearly on the PA border, and has one class (occasionally two) at each grade level. It's a delightful little school, but...if you're trying to save money, a tiny little building out in the boonies isn't the way to do it. The other one is in town, but the areas that it serves are decreasing in enrollment. There's been reassignment of kids, staff, materials, equipment, everything. Nothing has physically moved yet, but the emotional turmoil and upheaval began as soon as the school board directed the closures.

Combining sports teams: we have two high schools (which also should be combined, and I believe will be eventually), and since I've worked here, have had combined certain sports teams but not others. Swimming, wrestling, track, cross country, and probably a few others I can't think of: district teams, not separate high school teams. Lacrosse, football, basketball, baseball, softball, and again others I can't think of: high school teams. Makes perfect sense, right? Yeah, that's what I think too. So through another board action, about $280 000 was saved by combining ALL teams into district teams.

By and large, this has been supported by the community, both kids and adults. The kids are pragmatic; they're friends on and off the fields, play with each other on summer and travel teams, and look forward to being on the same teams as each other. Frankly, I think the Corning Hawks men's lacrosse team will be practically unbeatable in years to come, with the talent available between the two schools. Most adults understand the cost savings.

Then there are the adults who still have unresolved high school sports issues. These are the ones who were on the West High lacrosse teams that never beat the East high lacrosse teams and still want a chance to do it. A trio of them, who not coincidentally also ran for three seats on the school board, concocted a "foundation" that they claimed had raised $300 000 to "restore" Corning sports. Really? Which sports? The ones that have been combined for twenty years? Well, um, no. There's not enough money to restore them, too. Lacrosse? Well, DUH. Of course, that's what our sons play. Luckily, voters saw through this scheme and turned them away. Not only did it feel like they were trying to buy votes, people wanted to know what would happen next year. And if they could come up with all this lovely money, why wouldn't they use it to restore elementary classrooms instead? Is the lacrosse team more important than a kindergarten class? Feh. Go away. The board also rejected this "gift," which was essentially a line of credit with nothing backing it. (Never mind that it didn't have actual 501(c)(3) standing yet either, which takes months and months to obtain, and therefore rendered it legally useless. Oops. Damn technicalities.)

Around Herself, dirt has been delivered, so planting has begun (here's where the pictures will help soon). Not much spinning has happened, as I was afraid to put down the lace wrap lest I not pick it up again. It is finished, and there are pictures. I currently feel the same way about a baby sweater, but it's close to completion. I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool at the last minute, so I should tell you that story as well (I lost my Ikea virginity on the same trip...it was amazing). And there's Mitzie's upcoming dental work. The fun just never ends around here, let me tell you.

I *did* finally renew my passport with my correct name, so at least I can run away to foreign lands if need be...

Spring "Break"???

2010-04-24T16:58:00.005-04:00

So I've spent my spring break doing a bunch of things around the house. Never fear, there was also a fair amount of AIS* time, and a quantity of good wine drunk with a dear friend. Here's an abbreviated rundown:

1. Tidied up the stone steps/slope that lead to the back door. My attempts last fall at something like a terrace didn't survive the winter very well, so I had to turn to Plan B. This involved moving pretty much all the stones, except the ones from the original steps that aren't going anywhere without a pry-bar and someone with more leverage than me. That's where I decided the steps would stay, and bagged the terrace idea. Instead, I built a roundish "wall" to create a flower bed. Hasn't slid off the hill yet. I also uncovered a stone path leading from the base of the stone steps to the steps into the mudroom. Between the ravages of time/being abandoned/the seller's love affair with gravel, it was covered with two to three inches of soil and gravel. That definitely looks better now, and I think will be easier to walk across when it rains, as compared to the slop-hole it has been.

2. Picked up some stuff at Lowe's for future projects, including new lights for the porch. I'm going to try wiring them in myself. Also, a plastic 4-shelf thing for the basement, so I could tidy up a little down there. This also involved hauling more (what else?) gravel up, bucket by bucket. It's the leftovers from when the basement was trenched for drainage. I'll leave some there for the last spot that needs trenching (because why would you finish the job when you can leave it 3/4 finished?). Hauling gravel in buckets is Not. Fun.

3. Straightened out a closet, consolidating stuff into clear bins and tossing some of it. This leaves me FOUR empty bins, so I think I'm going to put the dyepots in them, and they can live in the basement. Believe it or not, that's a little more accessible than in the back of the closet where they are now.

4. Finished the middle section of the lace wrap, then promptly FAILED on the first edging. Reminder: unless you've knit nothing but lace for the last 50 years, and perhaps even then, a lifeline is a very good idea and not a sign of weakness. I think I'm finally at the point where I can knit without counting every last stitch, because in the process of ripping out a few rows, and then picking up the stitches (whimper), I seem to have picked up a few too many. Maybe. I figured out from the picture where the new pattern needed to line up with the old pattern, and then made adjustments with strategically-placed K2TOG's. One spot still looks wonky, but I don't think I have the guts to fix it. We'll see. It does seem to be moving quicker than the middle.

5. Ahhh, spinning. I figured I wasn't going to do any of this fantastic handspinning I have in mind if I don't clear out the six bobbins from my Ravelympic knitting. I want a 3-ply when all is said and done, and the plying is going to take a while. I had put a new drive-band on not long after I finished the singles, and left it.

So I sat down today and attempted to start, and had absolutely no take-up. After glaring at it for a bit, and finding a picture online (I don't replace the band very often), I realized that I'd left the "double" part out of "double-drive" and hadn't put the band around the bobbin AND the flyer whorl. The band was too short to make the adjustment. Cut that band off. Cut a new one...to exactly the same size. Cut that band off. Cut a new one with plenty of extra. Mumbled expletives under my breath. Started again (again).

Since I spun counterclockwise, I'll ply clockwise. Except I seemed to have forgotten which way is which and completely screwed up the first chunk. Oh well, a sacrifice to the spinning gods. Start again (again, again). The leader broke. Tied on a new leader. Started (to the power of four).

It's been longer than I thought since I changed the drive band, because I have also forgotten how stiff a new one is when it comes to treadling. It's more like pedaling a bike uphill right now. But well-begun is half-done, I've heard; or in the case of my basement, half-begun is well-done.

*AIS = Ass In Seat

Back to that other thought...

2010-04-18T18:01:00.002-04:00

Ready for a little more armchair psychology?

After this post, I impulsively picked up a couple of books about starting up a small crafts-based business. (Answers can always be found in a book, right?) Both began by asking the reader to evaluate why she wanted to sell the fruits of her labors. There was no judgement of motives. If it's to make a zillion dollars, that's OK. If it's so you can find your dining room table through the pompoms on a regular basis again, that's OK too. You just need to be honest with yourself.

Alright, I thought, I'll play along. Since sneaking up on a solution seems to be my modus operandi, I thought about teaching. When I decided to be a teacher, it was because I loved music and I thought it was important enough that kids needed to learn it too. I also saw myself as a high-school band director of a NYSSMA gold-level rated ensemble, one that was invited to play at the annual state conference. I would be a woman achieving at this level (which is still relatively unusual, especially as compared to vocal directors). Well, we all know how that vision turned out. When one graduates, one takes the job that is available. And here I am, 18 years later. I don't regret not "moving up" into the high school level; I don't feel like I've shortchanged myself at all. Along the way, I've found that what I love (along with music and kids) is the process of teaching. I understand now that I could teach at pretty much any level and be happy with it, because I love the process. (But please don't ask me to direct the marching band. Please.)

And this relates to fiber...how? In that last post, I grouched a fair bit about how I've looked around at festivals and on-line and thought, "I can do better than that." And then I whined about how the once-newhipandwow indie people had become their own little Kool Kids Klub...but how I also kinda wanted to be a little part of it. Reading that, it sounds like the only way that I can be sure I'm doing better than "that" is to achieve some kind of public recognition. Something like a rare-female-gold-level-NYSSMA-rating-earning band director.

But I don't teach for that anymore. I teach for the love of teaching. Maybe my face will be in some journal article some day, and maybe not. It doesn't matter any more. I know I'm doing right by my students, and by my self, and that beats publication any day.

So why not apply this to my fibery ideas? I began to think about what I *wouldn't* choose to produce. I hate sewing, so that was easy, as was anything involving googly eyes, little plastic baby bottles, or a blowtorch. I don't have an eye for sweater design, and I'm convinced the world doesn't need more "patterns" for scarves that are basically long lengths of something pulled from Barbara Walker. (I feel that way about socks too, BTW. A sock pattern has to pretty much slap me upside the head with its beauty for me to buy it...and then I usually still don't.) Custom knitting and/or finishing? When you finish laughing at the thought of that, you can finish reading, OK?

Handspinning? Hmmm, now we're getting warmer. I love spinning, and can spin faster than I can knit any day. Actually, that's a problem. My spinning output, if I put my mind to it, will rapidly outpace my knitting output. Also, while I enjoy spinning many of the brightly-colored fibers that are so popular lately, I don't love knitting with them. It would be easy to part with them, and I also have a nearby and agreeable source for as much as I might need. Same goes for breed-specific yarns, and that same source tends to have some pretty neat ones.

Dyeing? Again, I can dye in greater quantity than I could knit up. I could dye small amounts, I know...but I don't enjoy stranded knitting, and eternal pairs of mittens or socks, and endless hats don't charge my battery either. And I've previously spoken about how much I love the mysteries of natural dyeing.

What it comes down to, again, is a love of the process. I love spinning for being spinning. I love dyeing for being dyeing. Yet in teaching, the fruits of my process are ephemeral, shared with my kids and then gone. In dyeing and spinning, however, the fruits of my process already have their own room and if I go after them with my usual focus and energy, will take over the second floor of my house. Therefore, I want to have a business so that I may continue to dance through the process.

I don't need to have this to pay the electric bill, and at the same time, I don't have the option of quitting my day job to follow my heart, as the saying goes. (There's following one's heart, and then there's defaulting on one's mortgage.) Luckily, my day job is not a soul-sucking morass I'm desperate to escape. I have to remind myself that I don't need to build up the inventory of the average LYS to get this started, and that I don't have to spin AND dye everything. One, the other, and occasionally both will be fine.

“To find your own way is to follow your bliss. This involves analysis,
watching yourself and seeing where real, deep bliss is;
not the quick little excitement, but the real, deep, life-filling bliss.”
Joseph Campbell, 1904-1987

For me, the quick little excitement is public recognition. But it's too brief, and too unreliable. My bliss is in process, and no one can take that away from me.

SPRING BREAK!!!

2010-04-16T20:52:00.001-04:00

That is all.

Random Saturday

2010-04-10T16:15:00.000-04:00

We all know this could turn into a less-than-random post, but at the moment, my face is in danger of sliding off my skull from the weight of the snot contained in my sinuses. I believe some brain juice is leaking out, too, in order to make room for pollen, so I'm not sure where this will end up.

Random the first: and an excellent one it is. My very, very very, sick friend went home today. HOME. This is the friend the doctors were saying might be out of ICU by June or so. She is home. There's still plenty of physical and emotional healing to be done, but I consider this to be a miraculous situation. And I don't toss the word "miracle" around lightly.

Random the second: little dude of the elephant hat continues to wear it daily. He likes to raise the trunk and make elephant noises, too.

Random the third: I've become a rather monogamous knitter, which is strange. I am both soothed and bored by my current project (the Estonian Garden Wrap by Evelyn Clark), and I think I'm afraid if I put it down for something else, I'll never pick it up again. I'm just over halfway through the main center section; it's 41 repeats of a six-row eyelet pattern, and I just finished #22. I am fantasizing about making it j-u-u-u-s-t a little shorter. I haven't forgotten about your responses to my musings regarding being one of the Kool Kids of the fiber world either. I'm getting there.

Random the fourth: I have a student teacher working with me right now, and she's a good one. No experience with general music , as she was in the instrumental track in college (never mind that our certification is Music K-12, period...colleges do not seem to have grokked that YET, but that's a rant for another day), but she's got some really good teaching skills going for her. This frees us up to focus on the how-to's of constructing general music lessons, which are very similar and very different at the same time when compared to band rehearsals. She's caught on fast, especially in the, "do it the way Barb is doing it" department. This is particularly helpful in classroom management. I'm quite sure many of my student teachers have started out thinking that I'm too harsh, and that they won't have to be so mean to get the same results. This usually lasts for about a week until I sit back and don't intervene on minor-to-moderate issues. Suddenly, being "mean" isn't so "mean" after all.

Anyway, we sing a lot in general music, and while she isn't shy about it, it's still a little intimidating at first. Having some kind of instrument between you and the kids is helpful, plus it helps you stay on pitch for the whole song. Well, she doesn't play guitar (which is what I mostly use), and neither of us wanted to drag out the piano. I thought about re-tuning a guitar to an open chord, or teaching her two chords on the guitar, and those options didn't sound good either. So I threw a mountain dulcimer at her, showed her two chords (much simpler than guitar chords), and sent her home.

Oh, did I mention her college supervisor was coming the next day, and she would be singing this new two-chord song with the kindergarteners for the first time ever?

Well, she went home And. Did. It. Took an instrument she'd never played, worked out the song (which inserts the kids' names into it, no less), and was ready to go the next day. No bitching, no hesitation, no resistance to trying because she was being observed the next day and didn't want to screw up. And the cherry on top is that when she taught the lesson with the dulcimer on her lap, she sang more confidently and was obviously having FUN. Bingo.

It's not about the dulcimer (though it's super-cool and she's asked if she can borrow it for a while...well, DUH, that's another part of my plan for world domination). It's that she wasn't thrown for a minute, or if she was, she didn't show it. She simply stepped up to the plate and swung. She's going to be fine. If she gets a job in general music, she's going to need some curriculum support, but really? She's going to be fine.

Random the fifth: this has inspired my dulcimer-playing again as well, which is also super-cool. I have two mountain dulcimers, lent one to my student teacher, and started playing the other again myself. Set up the hammered beast, too, and the tunes are coming together fairly easily. That's a good sign that there's room in my brain, pollen notwithstanding. Clicking on the link above takes you to the website of the luthier who made the dulcimer I'm using right now. Mine doesn't look exactly like the one on the page, but it sure is pretty.

Random the sixth: regarding the college supervisor. I am 5' 1 1/2" on a good day when I stand up very straight and the humidity is high. Dr. Supervisor is 6' 8". (Take a moment and get the visual on that.) I may have to be a smartass for his last visit and borrow a chair from the kindergarten, instead of having my adjustable desk chair in place for him. If he's going to work with me in the future with other student teachers (this is the first time we've worked together), he might as well know what he's getting himself into.

Gems from the music room, part six.

2010-03-31T19:53:00.000-04:00

Remember my little guy who kissed my arm after saying good morning? This one's from him.

My 4th/5th grade chorus just staged our annual musical theatre production, a staggering work of the American theatrical cannon called, "It's A Jungle Out There!" I won't trouble you with the plot. Just imagine several types of incongruous animals, only a couple of which actually (perhaps we should make that "possibly") live in a jungle. One of these groups is the elephants, and the main part of their costume is a grey velour beanie-type headpiece that has a trunk and ears attached to it.

We perform the show for the school as our dress rehearsal, and little guy was there with his class. According to his classroom teacher, he was enthralled with the elephants. Pretty impressed with the monkeys, too, but the elephants really charged his battery. He sat (!) fascinated for the entire twenty-minute performance. Little guy usually has something in his hands, too, something to fidget with. Yesterday it was a piece of tinfoil, probably from lunch.

After the show, our little guy took his tinfoil, flattened it out and put it on top of his head...like the elephants. He wouldn't take it off.

This morning, I stopped in to say hello, and the teacher related the story to me. I offered to share one of the hats, and she thought it was a great idea too. A little later, one of the teaching assistants brought him to my room, and I presented him with the hat, reminding him that he needed to be a good listener and a hard worker to be able to keep it. He immediately put it on (and wore it all day).

Before they left, the TA reminded him, "What do you say?" to encourage a thank-you. Instead, he said "wuv oo."

If you really need a translation, let me know.

Do me a favor?

2010-03-30T20:41:00.000-04:00

But first: I've received some very thoughtful comments that have set me to thinking too (big surprise!), and once I can get the opening number of my 4th/5th grade chorus' musical out of my head, I plan to muse on them here some more.

And the favor: if you ever read a post here that makes a piss-poor attempt at clever, ironical humor by taking jabs at other groups of people and then sashaying away in the smug aura of my own brilliant sense of humor, I ask you to do the following (and I'm not kidding, people):

1. Bombard me with comments reminding me to get my head out of my ass.
2. Many of you are on Facebook with me. Smack me down over there, too.
3. If you live nearby, drive over and dope-slap me a couple of times.

I've come across a couple of blogs recently (and I'm sure there's more, but I don't get out much) that I *think* are trying for self-deprecating humor, but are actually insulting the group to which they compare themselves. Case in point: someone wasn't happy with something, then mentioned that it was the sort of thing you didn't need a high school diploma to produce. Wha-a-a-at? Are you trying to say it was a simple task and you can't believe how bad you screwed it up? THEN SAY SO. Or at least have the sense to turn it around and insult YOURSELF: make it the sort of thing that you didn't need an advanced degree in nuclear physics to produce.

Then there's the others that feel it's OK to point and laugh at someone via the blog-o-sphere, because the object of the pointing probably won't be reading it anyway. And besides, if it gets you hits, so much the better!!! I think that's worse than what I described above. It's malicious, sneaky, and cowardly. It's the internet version of whispering and giggling behind your hand, and I had enough of that in junior high, thank you very much. Time to grow up.

Which, I think, is at the heart of both of these matters: growing up. Maturity. A sense of self that's strong enough to look at the situation for what it is, and not need to drag comparison into it. Not needing anyone else's shoulders to stand upon in order to feel tall. Understanding that the cheap laugh is exactly that. Know that compassion is always the better choice over cleverness.

I know I've been in the place that indulges in such behavior before, and I probably will again. I'm just asking that if I'm so bold (or thoughtless or downright stupid) as to do it in front of you, call me on it. I don't want it to spread.

Unreasonable

2010-03-27T10:45:00.000-04:00

So I'm starting to think about my little side businesses again...wouldn't it be fun, and certainly different, to just try and get a little Etsy shop going this summer? To get a permit for our little Thursday farmers' market and set up a little booth of handspun...my naturally dyed stuff, and from the stuff a friend dyes? I want to dip my toes into something that isn't teaching. I want to do some writing (other than my splendid blog and highly unreadable journals). I want something published. And I admit it...I want to be a small part of that ineffable "club" within the fiber world. The one where normal, regular, everyday people have come to have a name within our community by the power of their own hands.

I don't begrudge the folks who have "made it" for a moment. These things don't happen by accident. A good musician knows that while a certain amount of inherent talent sure helps, the willingness to sit one's ass in the chair with instrument in hand, and PLAY IT (and not just the flashy solos) is what makes or breaks a performer, in the end. I believe that's applicable to any situation. I'm ready to work, if I can just figure out where to start. And I will.

Here's the unreasonable part begins, and as I write this post, I think I know what it's all about. (More on that in a minute.) Before the whole Knitting Revolution took place, let's see...way back in the mid- to late '90s, I'd say...there were Names in knitting. And they showed up in all of the very few publications available, which isn't surprising, seeing as there were very few outlets. I'm talking the pre-internet Dark Ages. Then, kerplooey! Knitting got BIG. Self-pubishing! Downloadable PDFs! Shopping cart software! Blogs! Those few publications became many more, and while the original Names haven't faded away, soon there were many more ways to get your face and your product out there than to be published in IK or Knitters or Vogue. I think this is a wonderful thing.

So the list of Names grew. The newer Names have been heralded as shaking up the industry and rightly so. Fresh faces, fresh ideas, working outside the traditional system. Good stuff. But...and I really hesitate to say this, because it sounds so whiny...and it is...but...stay with me...

I feel like we're back where we started, only with different Names. Maybe I just need to get out more often, but I feel like where I used to see an original bunch of Names everywhere, now I see what used to be the newhipandwow indie Names...well, everywhere. What used to be the vanguard has become the old guard, and here we go again. The more things change, the more things stay the same. "They" (who? I don't know) have found a new group of cool kids to chase, and as we all learned in junior high, the cool kids get everything.

Now: I think what's really happening is that in my pointy little head, the voice of fear is saying, "Don't bother. There's no room for you. It's all been done before and no one really cares what you have to say. You lost your chance; actually, you never had one. Stick with what you know. It's good enough." Listening to that voice makes it easy not to take the risk. It certainly is the safer path.

But it's in direct conflict with what I stated I want. I can't be published if I don't ever send Spin-Off or knitty an article. I won't sell any handspun on Etsy if I never put it UP on Etsy. The fiber world can't knock on my door if they don't have my address. It would appear I want the end results, and even though I'm not afraid to do the work it would take...I want it to be done already. I guess. My rational side knows that nothing the new Names did happened by magic. It's a result of sitting one's ass in the metaphorical chair and doing what needs to be done. My unreasonable side sits in the corner and pouts and wonders why some people have all the luck.

My final question (for this post, at least) is, why do I insist on istening so keenly to the unreasonable voice?

And those pictures I mentioned-

2010-03-20T20:59:00.000-04:00

These aren't in order compared to the last post because I'm too lazy to bother with cutting and pasting all that code, but I've thoughtfully added captions 'cause I'm nice like that.

The new dining room walls...

Six bobbins of merino wool singles, plus birthday tulips...

Snowshoes on my own personal feet (before you ask: yes, my feet are that small)...

It's really a snowdrift, but it was still a righteous amount of snow to move by hand...

What two pounds of fleece looks like, pre-spinning...

The bronze medal-winning lace...

Finished socks (the Broadripple pattern from Knitty; see above, "small feet")...

Just a minute-

2010-03-15T20:12:00.000-04:00

The rundown:

1. I turned 40.

2. There was a snowstorm shortly thereafter.

3. I got to use my showshoes for the first time, after buying them for myself for last year's birthday.

4. The snow has melted, meaning I used my snowshoes once this year. That's still a 100% increase over last year.

5. As I was turning 40, there were some games going on in Vancouver, BC.

6. I and several thousand other fibery people over at Ravelry participated in the Ravelympics. I earned one gold and one bronze in WIPS Dancing, and a gold in Flying Camel Spinning.

7. That spinning? A two-pound ball of Ashland Bay merino top that was the first spinning fiber I bought three years ago. I spun it into six bobbins of fine singles, to be 3-plied when I can stand to look at it again. For reference, a two-pound ball of top is bigger than your head.

8. The WIPS (which means Works In Progress, and specifically, ones that were languishing) were a pair of socks and a lace wrap. The socks earned the gold, the wrap took the bronze.

9. I painted my dining room.

10. Daylight Savings Time will take some getting used to.

Save this post somewhere...the next post will be pictures to go with.

P.S. It's public TV pledge-drive time. That usually means some existential crisis in my life will occur. I have been spared this time. Not so for a dear friend, who is in the midst of a frightening septic abdominal infection. Medically-induced-coma frightening. *shakes tiny fist at pledge drive* She appears to be on the mend but isn't out of the woods. Please keep her and her family...including her newborn son...in your thoughts, if you would be so kind.

Watch This Space

2010-02-28T21:10:00.001-05:00

There's a new post coming soon. Pictures and everything. I had Olympic spinning to finish, I'm sure you understand.

Getting there

2010-02-18T15:48:00.000-05:00

It's been just about a year since the saga of my home purchase began. I put the purchase offer in, and it was accepted with just a little back-and-forth, on February 22, 2009. At first, things went incredibly smoothly. Then, as regular readers know, everything went to hell and continued that downward descent for several months. It was a great relief to finally move into Herself on July 16...until I immediately began having issues with the upstairs bathroom. And so hell continued for two more months.

It's been five months since the bathroom was finished, and many people have asked if I'm settling in. Frankly, the honest answer has been no. My stuff is on the walls, my furniture is in place, the kitchen cabinets are organized to my taste. I'm paying the mortgage, the taxes, the outrageous gas bills, and have shoveled my own sidewalk a couple of times. But it hasn't really felt like home.

This is a little disconcerting.

Having just saddled myself with a good thirty years (hopefully less) of large-scale debt, not feeling comfortable in between the walls and therefore finding a new place is not exactly an option. Not like finding a new apartment, at least. So it seems rather important to get to the bottom of this general discomfort. Part of it has been feeling like I'm tiptoeing around, waiting for the next Big Repair to jump out of a corner and bite me in the ass. This is unlikely to happen, given that there are many new things in the house (i.e., roof, windows, furnace), and heaven knows the plumbing is in GREAT shape now. Part of it has been the financial aspect, but it's really OK when I take a deep breath and look at it. So why still, doesn't this feel like home?

Notice the color, please. Or lack thereof. That's my bedroom window over the summer, right after I finished those curtains. The WHOLE HOUSE is the "color" of those walls. Well, except the kitchen, because I painted in there as fast as I could, before the stove and stuff came. But the entire house is contractor vanilla, both trim and walls, and the carpet is beige. (And cheap, I might add. Cheap crap. Big surprise.)

My last apartment was white. White walls, white trim, white curtains, whitewhitewhite. But it was an apartment, meant to be a way-station, so I didn't mind. I had my stuff up all over the place, and it was fine.

Well, this isn't a way-station. This is HOME. But it just looks like a larger apartment. "My stuff" isn't enough to overpower the apartment-like blandness of the walls. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The picture with my bed in it is the truest to the color, "Polaris Blue." I wish I could get a good shot of the curtains against the wall. I'll try later. Those are prayer flags on the top dresser drawer, with Lung-ta, the Windhorse, on them. (When it feels like the ground is disappearing beneath you, ask for the strength of the Windhorse to support you and keep you steady.) The quilt is Amish/Mennonite.

"My place" is MY PLACE when it is colorful. I think I'm getting there.

Gems from the music room, part five.

2010-02-11T17:24:00.000-05:00

Second grader: You look like a kiss!!!
Me: ?????????
Second grader: Your hair. (brings hands up to my face, and gestures at how my hair falls) Your hair makes you look like a Hershey kiss.

This is a good thing, right? I'd much rather be a kiss than say, a rutabaga. Although, if he hadn't gestured at the shape of my haircut, I would have wondered if he was referring to the brown-wrapped-in-silver effect of the color.

Updated Update

2010-02-10T06:16:00.000-05:00

1. Knitting on the Road is still available, too.

2. SNOWDAYSNOWDAYSNOWDAYSNOWDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I fully realize that some of you are less than enthusiastic about additional snow. We haven't had nearly enough, so please pardon my excitement. I would like to know, however, why it is that I rarely can get back to sleep on snow-day mornings? It's 6:19 and I'm as awake as I ever am. Moreso, even. At least I don't have to fling myself into the shower anytime soon.

Hmmmm, there's four ounces of Black Bunny Fibers Shetland waiting to be spun, and a Peaks Island Hood waiting for more inches, and I keep mentioning the haul from the customer appreciation sale...I think it's going to be a good day.

Yard Sale Update and A Request

2010-02-09T20:52:00.000-05:00

The yarn is still available, and the only books that remain are Meg Swansen's Knitting and Debbie Bliss' Quick Baby Knits. I've covered about 2/3 of the customer appreciation sale purchases, which I think is pretty cool. Two items are being swapped for spinning fiber instead, which is great because I haven't had a bite on the Epstein book in three attempts to sell it. And like I said before, these are books that have seen almost no use since I acquired them. That's just silly.

Now, the request: wear your pajamas inside out, sleep with a spoon under your pillow, flush ice cubes down the loo. Please do whatever it takes to get me a snow day tomorrow. The weather forecast has toyed with us all day. It's a storm watch! No, it's a warning! No, it's a winter weather advisory! It'll be messy in the morning! The worst is coming in the afternoon! All I know is that the kids have been absolute noodges for the last two days and it's only going to get worse as Valentine's Day approaches. A day to gird our loins before the red and white onslaught would be a blessing. Besides, then I can take pictures and post about the sale.

Parents, you are excused from this exercise if your kids have already been home on snow days any time in the last two weeks.

Indoor Yard Sale!

2010-02-07T13:43:00.000-05:00

Unloading these will help make up for yesterday's 40% off customer appreciation sale at Finger Lakes Fibers. I rarely get up early for a retail experience, but there's something about rolling out of bed at 5:30 to drive to Watkins Glen in order to be at the shop at 6:00, because the 40% off is only good until 7:00. I arrived at 6:05 and was by far NOT the first one there. For a lovely hour, I was among my people. Kind of like mini-Rhinebeck without the lamb pot pie. More about the actual purchases in another post. Until then...I've posted the books to Ravelry too, but not the yarn (yet...I might still, but I really hate taking pictures). I'll keep things updated if/as they sell.

Knitting Beyond the Edge by Nicky Epstein. $15.00

Meg Swansen's Knitting by Meg Swansen. $65.00*

Norah Gaughan Vol. 3 by Norah Gaughan. $10.00

Quick Baby Knits by Debbie Bliss. $10.00

Designing Knitwear by Deborah Newton. $15.00

Knitting on the Road by Nancy Bush. $12.00

Sublime Stitching Craft Pad by Jenny Hart. (embroidery transers...wha???) $6.00

They're all in very good shape except the baby book. That one has some pencil marks and the cover looks like it's been opened and closed. It's really the only one that's had much use. I used Knitting on the Road once, and I like the patterns...to look at. Nothing wrong with them. I don't want to cable when I'm already using five DPNs. I made what I wanted from Norah's book. I'm not getting into fashion sweater designing. I don't do stranded colorwork. Books are meant to be used, not left on a shelf to be admired.

I also have a copy of the winter 2010 Burda Verena Knitting magazine ("Europe's top knit magazine"). I picked it up on a whim, and it's interesting. More comparable to Vogue than IK, with designs that I think are more wearable than Vogue's. This issue has some stuff for kids too. I'll toss it in the mail for freefreefree to the first commenter who wants it.

*It's out of print. I also have Gossamer Webs, Ethnic Socks and Stockings, and Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting if you're into OOP. I've heard that Dover is reprinting Aran Knitting sometime this year. If that's true...well, so much for my retirement plan.

Yarnz:
Two intact 50-gram skeins, plus two separate balls that equal 60 grams (according to my digital kitchen scale) of Berroco Inca Gold. Color 6423, lot 135, which is a deep plummy purple. WEBS calls it "Granite.". The two separate balls are because I like to work both sleeves at the same time, which means busting into two separate skeins. WEBS wants $8.00 apiece; I'll let it go for $20 for the lot.

Four intact 100-gram skeins, plus two separate balls that equal 106 grams of Cascade Pastaza. Color 075, lot 6793. It is indeed a closeout, and this particular color looks like it's sold out. I'd call it a dark shade of dusky rose, but heathery with a very subtle bit of dark green running through it. I got it for $4.79 each; how about $15 for this lot?

PayPal is easiest. but if you don't do it, drop me a line and we'll work out an alternative. I'll pay to ship the books media mail and the yarn whatever's cheapest. (Sorry. Although, it's so light, first-class is probably as cheap as anything else.)

The answer is...

2010-02-05T19:20:00.000-05:00

...St. Blaise is the patron saint of both wool-combers and throats because of his specialty in miracles, and how he was martyred:

The miracles St. Blaise is credited with performing all have to do with the healing of afflictions of the throat (choking on fish bones in particular). Why he chose the healing of afflictions of the throat as his category of healing, I don't know. I suppose in the days before the Heimlich maneuver it was a very useful thing indeed, as well pre-antibiotic strep throat issues. Everyone's got their talent, and St. Blaise's was throats.

As for wool-combers...St. Blaise was martyred by being hacked to death with iron combs in 316, a favorite instrument of torture of the time. He was also beheaded for good measure. Apparently those combs resemble traditional wool combs, and thus St. Blaise was adopted by professional wool combers as their patron saint, and eventually he became a symbol of the wool trade in general. Although I was raised thinking St. Blaise's Day was February 2, some sources say it's February 3.

If you've ever used "modern" wool combs, I think you would agree that things haven't changed much. As a tool of self-defense, as long as I could keep my grip on my double-row combs, I could inflict serious damage on someone with minimal effort if need be. Raking your arm with carders is no fun; puncturing yourself with wool combs is a tetanus shot at the very least and considerable blood loss if you hit your thigh (which is a possibility, given the swinging motion used during combing). And there are combs with several more rows of teeth. Armed with those and a blending hackle, who would mess with you? (Assuming anyone would get close enough to the weirdo swinging pointy metal objects with a gleam in her eye....)

St. Brigid's Day

2010-02-02T19:08:00.000-05:00

At the risk of being a copycat of myself, I shall post the poem I posted last year. Why not? It's my favorite.

the lesson of the moth
by Don Marquis, in "archy and mehitabel," 1927

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires

why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense

plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves

and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity

but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself

archy

P.S. It's also St. Blaise's Day. He's the patron saint of wool-combers and throats (and probably more...those Catholic saints were such over-achievers!). The question is: do you know why he is the patron saint of two apparently unrelated things? Answer tomorrow...

Maybe I Should Unwillingly Fast More Often

2010-01-28T17:44:00.000-05:00

Maybe a steady diet of saltines and store-brand sports drink for three days was the tipping point.

Maybe it was two days of sitting and lying down, not needing to do anything else, or thinking there was anything else to do (which was good, because I couldn't do it anyway).

Maybe it's a combination of good medications.

Maybe the moon is in its seventh hour.

Faithful readers will remember that I've had my ups and downs with chronic anxiety and its cousin, depression. I've probably been dealing with them for the better part of my life, but only recently with a full onslaught of better living through chemistry. And while things have improved, the nagging sensation remained that this is as good as it's going to get. The best I could hope for was an absence of outright pain, with a few enjoyable (albeit temporary) moments thrown in randomly. I didn't seem to see evidence of it getting better than that. What has been happening was all that was going to happen. Not because I didn't deserve it, or was unworthy, but...that was it. No feelings of impending doom, although the thought of another possibly 40 years of bleh didn't exactly charge my battery either.

If you've met me in real life prior to the last two years, this would probably surprise you. I've always been relentlessly optimistic. Perhaps foolishly so, and in several situations, naively so, but somehow I always knew that things were going to be OK...and probably a damn sight better than OK as well. And if they weren't, I just knew it was a temporary situation. Everything would come out in the wash. Even when I got divorced: it was painful, it was confusing, it was round one of major depression, it was self-isolating while I tried to figure which way was the hell up. But through it all, I knew this wasn't "me" forever. My friends circled around me, never leaving, but giving me room. They were there when I came up for air, and still there when the sun rose again. I knew things would get better.

This time, I couldn't see it. The situation so thoroughly shook my foundation that I wondered if I even had one anymore-or ever did to begin with. My friends were still here, but I couldn't come up for air like I did before. I managed to drag myself out of the deepest pits, and knew I was done being there. But that's where I felt I stopped. I wasn't in free-fall, but I wasn't moving forward. I began to feel like this was "me" forever. The wash had already come out, and someone ran black jeans in with the white towels. Both are still perfectly functional, but neither will ever be quite the right color again.

Then Wednesday happened. Yesterday. Around 4:00, literally. I realized that my body felt different. I sat for a moment, wondering if this was a new wave of nausea, but it wasn't. I sat a little more, and found that the space above my heart felt different. As in, space between my heart and my breastbone. Breathing room. As if a weight, like a ten-pound bag of flour had been lifted from there. Something came in that hadn't been there for a while, and that's why it took me a little to recognize it.

I'm not sure what exactly it is that was taken, but I feel no need to find it and pick it up again. I don't need its suffocating closeness, or its false sense of security. Whatever it is, it's gone. And what keeps going through my mind is, "That wasn't me forever."

I don't know what the future holds. I'm pretty sure that all my problems will not instantly be solved (obviously, or they'd be gone already, seeing as this happened yesterday). I'll still have to go to work, and teach lessons, and find a way to make time to do the things that make my heart sing in between. But my heart has room to sing again. A sense of possibility has returned, and while I don't know exactly where the road is going, I am able to see a road in front of me once more. if I squint a little, it looks like it's heading into a meadow of flowers.

Facelift

2010-01-26T09:51:00.001-05:00

Time for a new look over here at Herself. What do you think? I like it. The old harbor background had nothing to do with anything, other than not being a plain blank page. I'm also home today with the latest version of a stomach bug that's going around school. I think I started coming down with it Sunday; as soon as I started feeling wonky, I stopped eating (except for Saltines and Vitamin Water). I believe this has kept me from kneeling before the porcelain god, but the constant waves of queasiness are not conducive to productive teaching. Yesterday I survived because my afternoon is all small-group lessons, and I could stay sitting down. Not so today. Sitting still seems to be helpful, and when updating with Blogger, you know there's plenty of that.

The picture in the header is yarn that I dyed with indigo, cochineal, walnut hulls, and such. I plopped it in a basket and trotted it down to my LYS to see what happened. With pretty much no effort, over the course of a year, I sold almost all of it (which is fine, because I didn't need to pay the electric bill with it). I was mainly interested in recouping the cost of the yarn plus a little, since it was all experimental. I promptly spent the profits at the very same LYS.

Like many kitchen dyers, I'll admit I harbor fantasies of a little naturally-dyed yarn empire springing forth from my efforts. However, I fully realize that this is a fantasy, at least during the school year. Whether you use acid or plant dyes, dyeing rather chains you to the stove/microwave/crockpot when you do it. I just don't have that kind of time until about July.

I do love the process of natural dyeing. I love not quite knowing what's going to come out. (Have I talked about this before? I should read my own archives.) Just because the dyestuff is one color doesn't mean that's what you'll get. Red onion skins don't give you that purple-y color that they are when you peel them. You can make an educated guess, and then you can even temper your results by adding mordants. I haven't played around with those much yet. I've been too happy with what I've gotten, doing what I'm doing. I need to experience the joys of test skeins. Remember the "Perfect is the enemy of the good" post? Right there. Test skeins are not wasted materials.

I probably have more stockpots in my collection than the average bear, and I need to get a couple of smaller ones for testing. Luckily, I live just up the hill from the Corning-Revere-Corelle Factory Store, where things like that turn up all the time, for not much money. I need to bug a glass artist to set me up with some glass rods (though Pyrex would be even better...hmmm...I know they aren't at the factory store, but I know people who work in the labs at Corning Inc.) for stirring. Spoons + wet yarn = nightmare. Even spoon handles. Even plastic spoon handles. (ESPECIALLY wooden spoon handles.)

Some days, the planning is as good as the doing. Well, almost...but particularly on days where you know the doing would probably make you barf. Off for more Gatorade...

I Have Arrived.

2010-01-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

That last post? It earned me my first spam reply. I'm so proud. wipes tear from eye

Dichotomy

2010-01-23T13:42:00.000-05:00

It's a tremendously beautiful day here. Mid-30's, blue sky, no wind, and plentiful SUN. I just got back from a walk up at the nature center, where I haven't been in a while. Probably should wear my hiking boots instead of my ducks next time for a little extra grip, but no bones were broken.

I've also bought paint for my bedroom. "Polaris Blue," a darker smoky blue. I'm trying to decide if I want to start tomorrow afternoon and get one wall done (knowing I won't be able to do any more until next weekend at the earliest) because I can't wait to see how it looks; or wait until I know I can spend a whole Saturday getting one coat on the entire room. This is assuming I could then spend the Sunday immediately following getting the second coat up. A third coat will probably be necessary, too. We'll see.

The Trickey Dickey was finished last night, and it's just right. I'm just about onto the eight inches of ribbing for the hat (it folds in half for two 4" layers). No spinning yet, but there's time.

Now, onto the post title. I wanted to be sure I started with the not-philosophical stuff.

I'm kind of lonely. Not lonely for People. I spend every day except my weekends up to my neck in People. Well, some of them only come up to my waist, but you know what I mean. I even spend extra time after my regular job with more People. I like these people, and I'm grateful to have them in my life. I know many of you spend 24 hours a day with such People, and perhaps are thinking, "Well, at least you have time to yourself. I'd kill for that." Yes and no. I'll explain.

I'm lonely for a Person. And I don't know how to meet one. Or any, apparently...not ones who aren't already married, or looking for someone to raise their three children from two marriages, or in their 40's looking for a 25-to-35 year-old Greek goddess, at least.

The only advice I seem to get is, "You have to get Out There and look!" My first question is, where the hell is Out There? The bar scene? Right. Online dating? Sure. Three months on eHarmony seeing all of those "matches" either never contact me, or never respond when I contacted them...that did my self-esteem wonders, and I had the privilege of paying for it. Art openings and wine tastings and such? Well, here the problem is two-fold:

1) I have yet to go to one of those things where there's someone else looking for company. Generally speaking, you go to them WITH a date or a mate. I'm acutely aware of being The Single One in these groups. Others probably aren't, but I am.

2) And there's the other side of the People problem. By the time I get done with a week of work, I am Peopled out. I've put so much into work, both through the kids and the adults, that I don't have much left. I'm on the introverted side of the scale. Once I've hit my People limit, I start to withdraw, and it's extremely difficult (and rarely successful anyway) for me to fake being social. I know it, and it makes me even more uncomfortable, and the circle continues. I'm not likely to be putting my best foot forward when I'm that strung out, such as it is. I'm not physically tired for the most part, but I'm mentally toasted.

Quitting my day job isn't an option, of course, and financially, I need to keep teaching privately for a while still. This may be faulty logic, but that leads me to believe I won't be meeting anyone anytime soon, given my personality quirks, and I don't like that. I'm tired of going to bed and waking up alone every day for the last three years. I'm not talking just about sex. I'm talking about going to social events alone, and coming home alone, and cooking supper for one. I have friends and family over; like I said, I'm grateful for their presence in my life. But they go home, too. Even I reach my limit of No People, Please. I'm not a hermit or agoraphobic. I take my hikes, and do my shopping, and stop at the LYS and chat. It would be nice to have a lap to rest my head in now and then, too. A Person. For me.

Ahh, Friday.

2010-01-22T16:43:00.000-05:00

This is the first one in about three weeks that doesn't feel like I need an entire additional Friday to feel caught up. While not absolutely everything is done, what wasn't finished can be filed under "manageable" instead of "hide under my desk and suck my thumb." I believe starting the first week after the holiday break by receiving some truly fabulous new technology (a SMARTBoard, for those interested) put me behind the eight-ball right away. Because once the board was delivered, it was discovered that my computer didn't have enough whatsie to run the necessary software (to which I said to myself, NO KIDDING). We also discovered that day that my phone, while not ringing in my room, was making the night doorbell by the main office ring. (It would have been OK with me if they didn't fix it, but I was outvoted.)

Finding a place for the board meant removing a bulletin board and moving a whiteboard into its place. That meant patching the holes and removing another smaller bulletin board, only to discover the previous wall color was "used Band-Aid pink." Which, of course, meant painting the wall.

Hanging the board where I did meant placing the cart with the projector on it in just the right place (eventually it'll be mounted from the ceiling). That meant moving my instrumentarium so that the kids could sit and see the board. Which meant moving my desk.

The only place to put my desk then became the front corner of my room, which was great, except for the piano that usually sits there. Once I discovered that the piano actually fits quite tidily into a closet I have (I don't use it much for classes...I hate playing standing up and I can't hear the kids sing over it anyway. I use my guitar), all was solved. Regular classes and lessons happened all around this, of course, and the dust and filth that was stirred up didn't help any. I just couldn't get settled in to do what really needed to be done until this week. I feel a lot better, much less antsy.

So, this weekend I plan to finish up a Trickey Dickey from EZ's Knitting Around; I finished it once, but I cast on too many stitches and the neck was heee-YOOGE. I'm using some handspun Peruvian Highland wool and I lurve it. (No, not "love." LURRRRRRRVE it. Two-ply bulky soft deliciousness. Natural grey. Pictures when it's done.) I have that hat from the winter Vogue that's on its fourth incarnation; I should have gone down one needle size the last time, when I went down two. I went from having a snood to having a kippah, neither of which were acceptable in this application. I really want to spin more, too. Might just happen.

I prefer...

2010-01-20T16:11:00.000-05:00

Gleefully stolen from "Life in A-Town" over thar in the blog list...

Wool to anything else.

Tea to coffee.

Whisky to wine.

Double-treadle to single, worsted to woolen, combed to carded, double-drive to Scotch tension.

Bamboo to nickel-plated.

Clogs to heels.

Bare feet to clogs.

Baths to showers.

Crunchy to smooth.

Chocolate to vanilla.

(Is there really a choice on that last one?)

Why I Don't Watch Network Television Much

2010-01-17T09:21:00.000-05:00

It's Sunday, about 9:20 here at Herself. I'm watching the one network program a week that I choose to watch: "CBS Sunday Morning." Not surprisingly, so far this week's program is about the disaster in Haiti. I won't go into the details; only if you're living under a rock do you not know what's going on there.

After the first segment, a commercial break (also not surprising). The definition of "bliss" according to this garbage? Smooth, sexy LIPS.

Lips.

Without Blistex, bliss is out of my reach.

The juxtaposition of the description and images of Haitians injured, without shelter, food or water, or even a place to bury their dead, and a lineup of super-slim, ultra-hip, perfectly groomed models is beyond the pale.

I'm not the first person to question what on earth Madison Avenue is peddling. I'm not the first to be ashamed of what I worry about, when in reality, I have more than I need and just about everything I want. I'm not the first to wonder what the world might be like if we consistently put our attention towards the well-being of our fellow human beings as often as we did the condition of our lips. I know it's more complicated than that. We can't control the events that have shaped what Haiti has become now, and couldn't then.

But the one thing I know is this: nothing will change as long as we have that damn box telling us day after day, that smooth lips, and wrinkle-free faces, and toned abs, and new furniture, and expensive cars with red ribbons on them in the driveway for Christmas are the true keys to happiness. That being sassy, smart-mouthed, clever, and addicted instead of compassionate, thoughtful, patient and gentle is the model for real people, the ones who get ahead and make "things" happen.

They can have it.

Throwing Up the Knit-Signal

2010-01-13T18:59:00.000-05:00

I'm afraid I'm stealing bandwith somehow with the graphic, or stepping on toes, so if I am, someone PLEASE tell me and I'll take it down. Immediately.

If you read the Yarn Harlot, then this post won't surprise you (unless you're reading me first). I want to make sure that Bookish Girl gets credit too, since that's where the graphic comes from (hence, my fear about stealing the bandwidth...I'm not very savvy about exactly how it's done, but I'm sensitive to it being a no-no).

If you haven't visited the Harlot today, the Knit-Signal is up because of the unbelievable situation in Haiti. Akin to the Bat-Signal, when Gotham was in dire need of Batman's aid, the Knit-Signal is a call-to-arms for the knitters of the world.

I see requests all over Facebook for "prayers for Haiti." Certainly prayers are appropriate, if you are of that persuasion...but on a more practical level, so is food, shelter, and medical supplies and equipment. More than "appropriate," I would say the latter are more a matter of life and death.

If you are in a position to do so (forgive me a moment's proselytizing: we are, because pretty much anything we have is more than what most Haitians have right about now, and will have for a long time to come), please make a donation to your favorite charity. Stephanie's support of Medecins Sans Frontieres is well-known. I choose to support them as well, along with others, and I made an additional donation today.

This is a time when knitting, although it is wonderful and warm and full of love, is not what is needed most. Cash dollars are. Help if you can.

How about some pictures?

2010-01-09T12:58:00.000-05:00

My sister's completed Hemlock Ring Doily Throw

Spinning for an eventual Vine Yoke cardigan

Flowers at the Pike Place Market in Seattle, from a trip three years ago. The weather has been vile here, so I thought a little brightness wouldn't hurt. Actually, the sun is out today. I almost forgot what it looks like.

OK, I have to have a brief whinge here. I *know* I live in the Northeast, and I *know* we're better prepared to deal with snow and cold. I *know* we're more experienced in driving in more than a dusting of snow. But please bear in mind that doesn't mean the roads are scraped clean before we have to leave for work. Nor does it mean that we ENJOY driving in three inches of slushy snow that's also freezing over. Things don't close down (including school) unless it's a whole lot worse, which makes for very unpleasant travel more often than not.

Thank you. That is all.

Gems from the music room, part four.

2010-01-04T19:48:00.000-05:00

Student: "I'm getting married tomorrow in North Carolina!"
Me: "Do you have a plane ticket?"
Student: "Well, no."
Me: "Student, then you can't get married in North Carolina tomorrow. You won't get there in time."
Student considers this, then replies,
"Maybe she'll move to Pennsylvania."

Thank you, Voltaire.

2010-01-02T10:38:00.000-05:00

"The perfect is the enemy of the good."

This has been knocking around in my head for a few days, mostly because of that list of things I mentioned in the last post. Not so much the refinishing of the trim; that's going to be a learning experience no matter how I slice it. (I've enlisted a high-school friend who now lives in Seattle and knows her way around a piece of wood for help. Facebook has its uses!) Not the hat. There's a difference between fussing because a hat isn't PERFECT and fussing because a hat isn't WEARABLE. The hat is not meant to be a work of art or a statement on society's subjugation of the innocent...it's meant to keep my head warm, and so changes had to be made. I mean the things that didn't make it onto the list.

I spend a lot of time tap-dancing around things instead of DOING them, because the time isn't right, or the day isn't right, or the house isn't in order, or the moon is in the wrong phase (not really, but you get my drift). I don't ever want to start something unless I know I can finish it, and finish it well. REALLY well. And there's a lot of creative things out there that don't lend themselves to being "finished." They're about process, not product. Creativity is about doing ... muddling ... fiddling ... messing...leaving...returning. But there is a product at the end, and if the final product is less than satisfying, it engenders the next exploration.

I find that I can sit down and MAKE something quite easily. Give me the yarn and needles and directions and I'm off. I can modify as needed and finish and be pleased with the product. But I have the urge to CREATE as well, and that makes me nervous at the same. I know it'll be messy. I know I'm likely to make mistakes and possibly gasp waste materials. Because, you know, the world may run out of wool and onion skins and walnut hulls if I'm not careful. It may not be right the first time I try, and then what will I do with the pile of crap that results? Throwing it away would be wasteful and keeping it is a reminder of my screw-up. It'll take time, and time is precious, and using that time on screwing up is a poor use of time. You need to have something to show for your effort, and why bother showing crap?

And so I have to have The Perfect Environment in which to work. The house needs to be tidy first, which it never is. I realized the other day that I spend more time organizing my stash than I do using it. (OK, it was for the GOOD of the stash, it needs PROTECTION from MOTHS, alright?!?) Since when is washing the dishes Sooper Important? When it's used to postpone something that makes me uncomfortable, of course; even if that is something I desperately want to rediscover in myself. I have to be perfectly rested in order to begin. Yeah. Well. (You can all stop laughing now. I know.) I've thought that the need to have the house tidy was a way to control some of my anxiety, and I'm sure that's part of it. But it's also a defense mechanism, a stalling technique against myself.

So back to Voltaire, whose quote graced the beginning of the post. What my heart wants is to create freely, to welcome back the girl who wrote plays and puppet shows and figured out how to sew a 12:1 scale-sized mattress for a dollhouse bed (with the side panels and everything) without a pattern. I remember that, and I remember throwing a few of them away. It didn't matter; it was only for me, to see if I could do it (and also, if I didn't figure it out, I wouldn't have one). The Perfect, the need to have it just right for someone else's approval (who else's? I don't know), stands firmly in the way. It eats up my time and my energy. It doesn't mean that I shouldn't aim for quality in my work. But it's time to realize it's a multi-step process; that I have all the time I need to take as many steps as I need; that no one is standing behind me with a stopwatch. I am the only thing in my own way. Experience is a teacher, not a slave-driver.

Now, given this realization...in that last stash organization I mentioned, do I get credit for throwing away three skeins of obviously-felted KnitPicks laceweight from two summer's ago dyeing experiments? Huh? Do I?

First of Many

2010-01-01T18:46:00.000-05:00

There's a good 364 of them left, too. (Is it a leap year? Can't be, 2010 isn't divisible by 4. Someone straighten me out if I'm wrong; I'd hate to leave out one poor lonely day.)

GIven that last year feels like it stalled around April 6 or so, when my first mortgage went down the crapper (feel free to check the archives if you're new or want to relive the hysteria), and didn't regain much momentum until...um...perhaps Thanksgiving, I am relieved to begin a new one. I know it's just another day on the calendar in reality. Twenty-four hours doesn't make that much of a difference...unless we choose to make it so. I honestly have just recently begun to feel like this house is MY house. Despite the curtains I made, and the very little painting I've done, and the pretty new bathroom, my start here was so distressing that it really put a pall on the new-homeowner experience. It's finally, finally starting to feel different. I think putting up my first Christmas tree in three years went a long way in putting my stamp here, even though it too was a temporary marker.

I had some pretty grand plans for this past week, between Christmas and going back to work on Monday. Firstly, I had to finish my sister's blanket, which I did last night. (Pictures to come. I discovered that the blanket is essentially the same color as my carpet, so once it's dry, I'll drape it on the dark blue love seat.) I have cast on for Dad's sweater. The swatch was a success in both tension and washability, and I think he's going to like it a lot. He won't be wearing it until next winter (52"chest), but he won't be able to shrink this one. I also decided I wanted to...

*sand and possibly seal the stripped trim around the door
*paint another room
*make the curtains for my office (just one window, luckily)
*finish a hat for myself (one that nearly derailed any hope of finishing any Christmas knitting)
*really start spinning the fiber I want to use to make the Vine Yoke cardigan for this year's Ravelympics

With a whole week off, and no ankle-biters at my house, this should have been a SNAP.

Oh, the hubris.

Well, not hubris. Not really. I didn't overestimate my abilities; I am quite capable of pushing myself to some pretty crazy extremes to finish things once I get my teeth in them. What I didn't count on was the depth of my tiredness. I didn't need naps (except for the first couple of days). I needed sitting. I needed to not be in constant motion. It finally occurred to me that I essentially work almost six days a week, when you add in the time I spend teaching private lessons. I had decided a while ago not to teach this week. That's one of the smartest decisions I've made in a while.

There were other factors involved, too. The trim, being made of either oak or chestnut and also being from about 1927, is as hard as a rock, and a light sanding is not going to do the trick. I may have to resort to a gentle power sander (do they still make the Mouse?) for the flat areas to save my wrists. But now I know. I'm in color-lock for painting, so I'll whack out the last little bit of trim in the bathroom instead. I didn't have lining fabric for the curtains. Mom rescued me on that with a hunk of muslin she bought for another project, but doesn't need after all. They'll be an afternoon's work. (Two big rectangles, my kind of sewing. It's more work getting the damn machine out than doing the actual sewing.)

Finishing the hat? Probably not, as I started over. I had begun with silk, which looked wonderful, but I realized would grow and grow and grow. Take Two is with a "Rare Gems" skein of Socks That Rock. All hype aside, I love that yarn. It's a pleasure to work with, and it will make a much better hat.

And today, since I decided I wanted to do things today that I wanted to be sure I did more often this year, I began by having a decent breakfast, working on my hat, moisturizing thoroughly (that is a regular habit...I've always had dry, dry skin), and then took a walk. I made a quick trip out to the dreaded mall to reload the moisturizer supply (yes, I use one of those fancy department-store brands...I also have very sensitive skin). Came home and worked on Dad's sweater a little. (It starts with 236 stitches and increases after the ribbing.)

After that, I managed to accomplish one of the things on my list: I sat down at my wheel, and began spinning. I had no illusions about finishing anything here, as we're talking about two pounds of fiber (more details next post...I even have pictures). But I haven't spun in I don't remember how long, and today I went for a good hour and a half before my back complained. How do I know it was 90 minutes? I had "The Holy Grail" in the DVD player while I spun.

I plan to laugh more this year, too, and that was a great way to kick off what I hope will be the easiest resolution to keep.

So this is Christmas...

2009-12-25T16:53:00.000-05:00

and I hope it is a merry, peaceful, warm, joyful one for all. This end of the family met at my sister's house for dinner (defined as the afternoon meal), so I'm already home with a full belly and some lovely gifts, not the least of which is some natural yarn from my BIL's cousin's sheep, from their farm in Vermont, spun by Green Mountain Spinnery. Four skeins, two of that lovely natural creamy color, one grey, and one dark brown. (Mindy, if you're reading this, it's dark like the fleece I bought at Rhinebeck!)

Mitzie received a new bed for the holiday and has pretty much spent yesterday and today in it. As in, all of both days. I think she would eat and drink from it if she could reach. Some folks asked how she managed to dislocate her hip; I don't really know. My best guess is that she was jumping to or from her latest favorite spot (on top of my kitchen cabinets) and miscalculated somewhere on the trip. Now that she has a comfy new bed, she doesn't seem to mind being in the crate much at all. She had the pillow from her basket in there before, but it's meant to be in the basket, which provides the side-bumpers. Therefore, without the basket, she kept sliding off it. This is much better.

So once I hit "publish," I plan to put on fresh PJs, pick up my sister's Hemlock Ring throw (which is going SO MUCH easier this time, it makes me wonder if I was briefly functionally illiterate the last time I tried) and knit until I decide to go to bed. I left the house with a whole pie of one kind this morning, and came back with a whole pie of three kinds, so I think I'm all set there, too. Be well, everyone.

Down to the Wire

2009-12-20T19:37:00.000-05:00

There's five days until Christmas (in case you were wondering). I finished my Eastlake sweater and the Pastaza sweater; the next time I make it, I need to do something about the sleeves. The pattern calls for a rolled-up cuff, and I don't like it. But if you leave the cuff unrolled, you get a very wide edge. It's not awful, but I'm not enamored of it. I want to cast on fewer stitches, and then monkey with the rate of increase to have the correct number for the beginning of the yoke. Shouldn't be too hard. Hopefully I'll remember I want to do this when the time comes. Post-it note, need to find a Post-it note.

One thumb left on my niece's mittens. It's an easy pattern, but since it's knit at a pretty firm gauge, it's tiring on the hands. I may still finish it tonight. I'm a little tired of brown yarn today, though. Many thanks to Michael Palin and two episodes of his "Great Railway Journeys" that got me through most of the right hand.

Cast on for my sister's Hemlock Ring Doily Throw. Now, there's no way on this green earth that it'll be done for Friday, and I know it. I knew it never would be after I ripped out the first attempt. I'm up to round 16 and I like this SO much better. I can see what I'm doing and the yarn is better suited to the project. Someday it'll probably end up felted, and if it happens, I'll make another.

Haven't cast on for Dad's sweater yet, but that's OK too. We'll have our Christmas next Monday, so there's time.

In non-knitting news, last week was quite dramatic in the cat department. Mitzie somehow managed to dislocate her hip. Two nights at the hospital, two x-rays, lots of painkillers, and one night of near-panic for me (as soon as the vet mentioned "possible need for an orthopedic surgeon" I started to cry...I simply can't afford something like that) later, she's back to her old self. Mostly. She's crated when I'm not around to watch her. If I'm here, I let her sleep on the couch or the comfy chair (and she's sleeping a lot) so I can stop her if she tries to jump down. But back in the crate she goes if I need to go upstairs or to the store or something. She doesn't love it, but there's no way around it. (It's a wire dog crate, by the way, not a travel carrier.)

Oh yeah, the day after the snow day was the annual winter concert with my advanced band and 4th/5th grade chorus. My band is small but mighty, and I have a tuba-playing former student who comes back to provide the bass line. The chorus collectively got a case of the heebie-jeebies that night, but we made it and got many compliments. My exhortations to "Dig out! Dig out!" during rehearsals served us well. (It means "Figure out where the hell you are, compared to where the hell the rest of us are and GET BACK IN!") If nothing else, I train flexible musicians.

If I don't check in again before Christmas, I hope my readers have a joyful and peaceful holiday season. I've already missed Hanukkah and probably others, but a wish for peace seems to fit no matter what the occasion.

Snow Day!!!

2009-12-09T07:52:00.001-05:00

It started as a two-hour delay, and about an hour later they called the whole thing off. I would guess we have about 3-4" of snow, which isn't what closed things down; it's the layer of sleet and freezing rain on top of it. Purl Street hasn't been plowed (7:52), so I'm sure the roads out in the hinterlands are in even worse shape. Hill roads aren't reliably paved here, and many of them lack a shoulder (and the space to have one...on your right, we have a hill, and on your left, we have the drop-off to the hollow). I am a happy girl today.

So: there's two sticks of butter on the counter coming to room temperature so I can make a batch of buttermilk biscuits and a large loaf of white bread, half of which I'll take to school tomorrow. There's the neck-trim stitches to be bound off on my Eastlake sweater, some more mileage to be put on a sweater my dad will give as a gift (in Cascade Pastaza, an old Bernat pattern from 1985. It's a no-button cardigan, with a twisted-stitch yoke and raglan shaping. The original calls for the bottom part of the body to the armholes to be 21 1/2 inches. Hah. Sixteen is plenty. It's a nice pattern, though, and goes quickly.

Speaking of going quickly, there's also Bella's Mittens for my niece. One is finished, and they go fast. They're knit in chunky yarn with smaller-than-you'd-expect needles for a nice dense fabric. They're nearly elbow-length, which is perfect for my niece; I think she only wears t-shirts no matter the weather. (At Thanksgiving, she noticed that my thermostat was set at a whopping 67. I said I had turned it up for her and to put on a sweatshirt. She declined. Oh well.) I may make a pair for myself, but just a little shorter.

And of course there are two projects not yet begun, but if they're not finished for Christmas, it'll be OK. There's a sweater for Dad in Berroco Vintage, a nice superwash blend. He sheepishly admitted that he felted that last one I made for him. This one's an old Interweave Knits pattern, a knit-purl patterned gansey-looking thing. For my sister, there will be a Hemlock Ring Doily blanket. I had started this a while ago also in Vintage, but on 10 1/2s, I didn't like the fabric. It was too loose and sleazy between the large needles and the superwash yarn. So instead, I went back to the yarn suggested in the pattern,Cascade Ecological Wool. $15 a skein, two sekins needed. Can't beat that with a stick.

Hmmm, can I link to anything else? I didn't feel it was right to tell you about my fab gift-knitting and not provide sources. Who knows, you may have been looking for just the thing. Oh, the Pastaza link? I am using one of the discontinued colors, so the price is correct. There's other, non-discontinued colors for regular price. I think Berroco is doing some great things lately; props to Norah Gaughan. If you really want to know which IK Dad's sweater is, let me know and I'll go find it. Currently, I am too lazy to go upstairs. It's pre-Melanie Falick, if that's any indication. Mid-90's, I think.

And now, enough blogging...time to get knitting on this beautiful bonus day.

And One More Thing...

2009-12-02T20:15:00.001-05:00

I'm going to blame some of this ennui on PBS (I may have mentioned this before). EVERY DAMN TIME I feel a downturn in my mood, there's a freakin' pledge drive on. Coindence? I think not. I need "Antiques Roadshow" and "Secrets of the Dead" and "Craft in America," dammit! Andrei Rieu, Doo-Wop 3784, and Lawrence Welk's Greatest Hits are NOT CUTTING IT.

There. I feel better already.

A Random Act of Blogging

2009-12-01T19:49:00.001-05:00

Oy. Busy busy, but that's not any different than anyone else reading this. I'm going to attempt a catch-up.

1. Rhinebeck: everything I hoped it would be, with the possible exception of ten degrees warmer. August in October is not necessary, but neither is early December.

2. House: looking ever-more like a home instead of a construction-waste and plastic-bin dumping ground. There's just one bin of things without a spot, and once I get a desk and another bookshelf, that should be that.

3. More House: There is one futon mattress on the trundle bed, and another will be on its way in a paycheck or two. They aren't fancy (no springs), but since they won't be in regular use, I figured they'd be fine. Besides, have you priced 6" deep twin-sized spring mattresses lately??? Also, there is a bed frame in the other spare bedroom. No mattress there yet either, but it was a purchase I couldn't pass up. Picture soon, with any luck. (Also, mattress soon, with any luck.)

4. Yet More House: There's curtains on almost every window now (the valances and shades have been up); it finally occurred to me that the tiered panels I used while living in Apartmentia would probably work rather well on the bottom halves on the windows. And they do. A little more privacy, and a little more light-filtering. It's a nice effect. I've also found fabric to do the office window, but that probably won't happen until Christmas break. That's OK; at least it's here. I prefer to do a whole big whack of sewing once I get the machine out.

5. Thanksgiving: I had it here. Being able to host my family for the first time in two years was delightful and bittersweet at the same time. Amazingly, the last Thanksgiving I prepared in its (almost) entirety was just before I got divorced, and we were both still in the house at the time. Apartmentia was too small to have more than one or two other people over at any given time. So....wow. I wasn't expecting to feel sad about it, but it passed. The fact that there were three kinds of pie to squash any extraneous feelings down probably didn't hurt either.

6. Fiber-related: almost no spinning has happened in about two months. This saddens me also. Christmas knitting is in full swing, but there were a couple of false starts. Hopefully we shall charge ahead starting NOW. There's also two pots of onion-skin juice sitting on the stove waiting for jars. I'm thinking that if I make some dye extracts as I get the chance to, when I have more time (see above, "Christmas break"), it should facilitate the actual dyeing. I'd like to get an indigo vat going again, too. Indigo is magic, no matter how many times you see it happen. (Sorry folks, I use indigo crystals. I'm not THAT much into authenticity.)

7. Health-related: yeesh. I think I've been on a round of antibiotics monthly since school started. I've not been sick enough to be SICK, but enough to put a damper on a lot of things. The kids at school got hit hard; it seems to have tapered off. We're afraid of Round Two, though. On the mental health side, both meds seem to be working for the most part, but mornings are getting increasingly difficult. It doesn't help that I live in the Northeast; we aren't known for abundant sunshine at any time of year, and now it's dark by about 5:00. Also, I've never exactly been a morning person. I don't mind being a little cranky in the morning, but waking up anxious and self-doubting is not my definition of "cranky." I take one Wellbutrin XLR in the morning when I get up, and I'm wondering if it's totally worn off by the next morning. I wouldn't be surprised if there were an uptick in the dose shortly. As usual, on the one hand, I know that if it helps me feel better and function better, it's a good thing and who gives a crap that it's more medication. On the other, it's a little hard to avoid feeling like things must be getting worse, or I wouldn't NEED more medication. I want to be one of those people who can taper off and return to the non-medicated life and still be OK. But that doesn't look like part of the plan just yet.

So there's at least the quick and dirty. Off to put a dent in one item of gift-knitting...

I Am Writing This From A Workshop

2009-11-09T16:29:00.001-05:00

Please ignore as needed...this has potential...

Gems from the music room, part three.

2009-10-28T19:28:00.001-04:00

Next door to me is a special education class. The kiddos in there are severely developmentally delayed and a few of them are medically fragile as well. I love them. I love them hard. Every gain in there is cause for celebration; one little one (who isn't so little...she's eight years old) has begun babbling like your average early toddler. There's hope for her to say "mommy" and her own name some day.

A new little guy has joined the class. He's pretty far down the autistic spectrum. His receptive language (what goes in) seems to be pretty good; he can follow directions and has a good grip on his surroundings. His expressive language, not so much. There's plenty of sound coming from him, some of it meaningful and some not. But he's engaged.

I like to drop in when I can; the printer I'm networked to is in there, but I like to come in for a "visit" too. So today, as I wandered in, this little guy had some free time and was on the carpet playing with marbles. He motioned for me to join him, and I did. One of the things we're always doing is talking AT these guys; encouraging and modeling for them proper social greetings, using names, expressing yes or no, and so on. So, knowing that he has words to use (he's probably the only one with functional speech in there, though one other kiddo expresses herself with an adaptive communication device), I said to him, "Say, 'Hi, Kish.' " (That's my surname, and we don't bother with titles in there.)

How did he respond?

He leaned over, said, "Hi," and then kissed my arm.

Kish? Kiss? Doesn't matter to me.

Three Months to the Day

2009-10-24T16:14:00.001-04:00

Precisely three months after my bathroom ceased to be a functioning room in my house, on Friday, I came home to this:

And this:

Imagine, a sink, a toilet, and a bathtub, all on the same floor, in the same room, with no danger of them falling into the room below. Now, not only do I have a real bathroom, but I can also finally put to the bed the other two rooms affected by this whole mess. I can unpack the remaining boxes, hang some more pictures, choose some more paint colors. Let's face it, I'm a girl who likes some structure, and for the last seven months the state of where I would lay my head at night has been in some sort of turmoil. This gets me one step closer to a manageable amount of chaos in my home. I don't expect everything to be buttoned up neat and tidy in the next 24 hours, but I least I can wash up now as I get there.

Next: post-Rhinebeck! Only a week late!

Oh. Em. Gee.

2009-10-16T14:10:00.001-04:00

It looks more and more like a bathroom everyday. It's hard to tell in my magnificent photography, but the tub surround is white subway tile. I luff it. There is a very good chance that this project will wrap up next week.

Beyond that, this weekend is Rhinebeck and I WILL REMEMBER MY CAMERA this year. There's fun stuff ahead!

No Clever Title This Time

2009-10-10T13:14:00.001-04:00

Just a check-in and of course, some bathroom updates. I mean, haven't you noticed a certain emptiness in your lives since the last time I told you about my plumbing? We can't have that.

Fred came by today and installed the little Corian bench in the recessed spot of the surround. There's the seat, and an apron attached to the front of it to eliminate as many water entry points as possible. The tile guys are coming on Tuesday to install, and should come back the next day to grout. Fred and the guys will then put the last part of the subfloor down, and then the vinyl can go in. After that, I could almost finish the work-installing the toilet and sink. OK, not really, but that's all that's left. By the time it's all finished, it'll be almost three months to the day that this began.

At some point this weekend, I need to paint the wainscot trim that rings the room. Being a bathroom, it's not acres and acres, and it certainly will be easier to paint a wall without a toilet in the way. I just need to get a little more motivated...just a little...

On other fronts, we've determined that the SAD (that I think almost every Northeasterner has a least a touch of) has invaded enough to make a little more medication necessary. I've made friends with the Wellbutrin, and I think it's helping already (about two weeks in). I don't feel as brittle, or that I'm faking it to get through my day, and when I joke and tease with my students, it feels genuine again. This may be the first time in three years that I actually feel like I enjoy my job. I think I've been functioning with low-level depression for that long, and am just at the point where I can't keep up with it on my own. There's still dissatisfactions in my life, and questions to be answered, and irritations to be dealt with, but it's not all so overwhelming. I feel like I just might have the energy to start dealing with them, instead of using that energy to just get through the day, and then feeling bad because I couldn't seem to dig myself out of that hole.

Rhinebeck is this coming weekend! It kind of snuck up on me, believe it or not. But now that I remember, I'm really looking forward to it. I need to pick up some special wine for a certain someone who raises goats *coughmindycough* and will get to meet her in person, and I'll see two other out-of-state friends then too. Perhaps because I've been spending money like I have a printing press in the basement, I'm not feeling the need to PURCHASE (!!!) this year, but I'm thinking about yarn to make Eris (I've had the pattern forEVer) and I'm sure there'll be spinning fleece too. Maybe not a whole fleece...but we'll see. If a nice CormoX winks at me just right, I may fall for it.

Speaking of spinning fiber, I decided I wanted to finally spin purposefully, instead of "let's see what the fleece says." To be honest, I feel like that's a cop-out once you're past the really-beginner stage. Perhaps if I were more of a designer, if I could "see" the potential in what I spun, it wouldn't seem like so flaky. But instead, it feels like a lack of discipline and leads to a Rubbermaid tote full of four ounces of this and four ounces of that which never get used. And I don't spin to collect. I spin to use.

So I have a two-pound lump of Ashland Bay merino that I acquired just after I bought my wheel two years ago. I always knew I wanted to make a sweater out of it eventually, and I thought I had the pattern until the latest Twist Collective came out. Ysolda's Vine Yoke cardigan changed my mind. If I'm going to make something that resembles her design, I need to spin a yarn similar to what she used (which happens to be Lorna's Laces Green Line worsted). It's a 10-ply yarn. Hah. I do have my limits. I'm going with 3-ply instead, so that I have a nice round yarn. If I could spin my singles finer, I would consider doing 4-ply...but I'd also like to wear this garment before I retire. So 3-ply it is.

To make a long story short, it worked! I spun up three strips of the top onto separate bobbins, plied them, set the twist, and swatched...and I got gauge on the first try! I am more than happy to claim beginner's luck here, but like the first pair of socks I made from my own measurements (and Priscilla Gibson-Roberts' guidance), now I know for sure that I can make ANYTHING I want, as long as I take the time to prepare. So far, it's a very satisfying process, and I like not feeling the urge to get online and buy the yarn given in the pattern. I'm sure I still will in the future (see above, "Eris"), but I'm not tied to it.

Now, if I could only convince the zoning folks that two Shetland sheep really would not be a problem in my yard...

Forward Motion

2009-09-29T19:06:00.000-04:00

From this...

...to this...

And this...

...to this.

Oh, and there's this...

...although it isn't functional yet and will end up in the spare bathroom...er, bedroom when it's time to lay the vinyl. (At least it isn't on my front porch.)

At this point, the new drywall will probably remain unpainted for a while. (It needs more coats of joint compound anyway.) I am so eager to get the office stuff into the office that I really don't care that I'll have to move it all again to paint. I have no color scheme in mind for that room, so I can let it percolate.

Besides, my sister keeps reminding me how good she is at painting ceilings. I want her to prove it.

Pajama Day 1

2009-09-27T12:06:00.000-04:00

Pajama Day 1 because I expect there to be many more Pajama Days here from the corner of Purl and Intarsia. I was going to change the blog over to that, wasn't I? I still will. Pajama Day was an official holiday when I lived in Apartmentia. I briefly considered trying to incorporate myself as a self-sustained foreign country while I rented, so I could could get foreign aid money. It never worked out, but Pajama Day stuck. And today is perfect for it, as it's damp and rainy, and I'm getting over the back-to-back sinus infections I seem to have acquired in three weeks of school.

So, some catching up:

I went to Rochester yesterday with my dad and his ladyfriend, and we saw Cirque du Soleil's "Alegria" production. Oh my. If you ever, ever get a chance to see one of their productions live, do what you must to get there. I started watching the Bravo channel marathons (usually Thanksgiving weekends, perfect as I was always wiped out from cooking the day before), and while those are pretty fascinating, there is no comparison to live. Breathtaking. I didn't want it to end.

Bathroom progress is slow...and I can't even say steady right now. There's cement board around the tub, and drywall ready to be installed in the room below and one small corner in the bathroom. Except the drywall was supposed to be hung this week, not just delivered to my eventual office; at least, that's what I thought was going to happen. There may have been a glitch in our communications. Either way, Fred said to me, "You're going to be happy on Monday when you come home and the drywall is up," and I agreed...but added, "I will be even HAPPIER when there's a sink and toilet in the same room as my tub." And since they won't go in until the vinyl is laid, and that won't happen until the tile is installed, and that won't happen until the drywall is up...you can see where I'm going with this. Right now, the positive spin on this is if I get my keester over to the paint store (yes, we still have a free-standing small-business paint store in town, and I am devoted to helping it stay open) and get some white enamel for the wainscoting, and the pretty pale pink for the walls above it, I can make a huge mess painting without worrying about the floor.

Went for a medication check-in Friday morning, and it was decided that perhaps we have a touch of the small black dog rearing its little head as the days get shorter. We aren't famous for our abundant sunshine up here anyway, and we're heading into nine more months of it. SAD, anyone? The good news is that the Lamictal is doing its job in the migraine-prevention department admirably; we may still need to up the dose, but we're going to give the Wellbutrin a chance to quiet the black dog first. I'm hopeful that I'll feel some relief before too long. I've been in worse places, but being in a better place is still attractive.

I know that I feel better when I do get out for some exercise, even when it's not sunny; unfortunately, one of things that happens when the black dog comes to call is that I hibernate (not unusual, I know). Any suggestions on how to overcome this part? It seems that if I could just sustain it for, let's say, a week, I'd probably see some results, and therefore continue. Or does it take longer? I tend to think of exercise in terms of forced labor; something you have to say you do before the doctor yells at you, or that has to have a productive outcome (it's OK to ride my bike to the store, but it's not OK to just go for a ride because it's a nice day-that's time wasted and you KNOW you have other things to do).

Hmmm. Perhaps we should investigate these Puritan overtones instead?

In Which Fiber is Mentioned!

2009-09-21T20:24:00.000-04:00

Yes friends, for real! I'm going to start with something pleasant for once, and hopefully the trend will continue (until it doesn't, of course).

This past weekend was the Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival in Hemlock. It's a lovely little festival, it really is. There's classes and demonstrations, three barns with vendors, and wonderful yummy fair food. I did resist the funnel cake somehow; I'm not sure why. I eat it once, maybe twice a year and I shouldn't have passed up the opportunity. I did manage to eat two different kinds of homemade sausage, and boy am I glad I did. Deeeeelicious.

I loves me some Rhinebeck, and I have plans to go again, but there really is a decent selection at Hemlock. Golding is there; Jonathan Bosworth is there; The Merlin Tree is there. Ellen's Half-Pint Farm, too. Even Zeilinger's comes, because there is a small fleece competition and sale, and some of the vendors bring raw fleece as well. There's several local folks to support, which is great fun.

Purchasing was restrained, but that has to do more with the current stash than not seeing anything I wanted. I ended up with a pound of dark, dark CormoX top from Foxhill Fibers, and a pound of Merino top in "River Edge" from Clover Hill. Porcelain buttons were added to the hoard, and two beeswax candles found their way into my bag. Lovelovelove beeswax candles. I almost had a falling-down at Just Our Yarns, but I have a beaded shawl kit from them that I keep losing and finding, and I really want to do that first. If they're at Rhinebeck, I may have to pick up a hank of their cashmere. Maybe.

I also test-drove a couple more folding wheels for eventual decision-making. So far, I've tried the Ashford Joy, a Majacraft Little Gem, a Spinolution Bee, a Kromski Sonata, and a Bosworth Journey wheel. I'd still like to try a Louet Julia in the name of science, and a Lendrum is probably not on the radar as I don't think there's a dealer around here. If there's one at Rhinebeck, I'll give it a whirl.

So far, I've ruled out the Joy, the Bee, and the Sonata. The Sonata is a great wheel, to be honest, but I want something smaller. I see it more as a house wheel that you can tuck out of the way when you need the guest room. The Joy just didn't turn me on. Too low to the ground, maybe, and I'm pretty darn short. Whatever it is, I wasn't terribly comfortable sitting at it. The Bee....wellllll. The dealer had a great sales pitch. It's definitely compact when folded. It spun OK, and is double-treadle, which is what my Jensen is. (I don't compare these wheels to my Tina II. That wouldn't be fair.) It's an accelerated wheel and has an unusual but easy-to-work tensioning device (don't ask me to explain it). But it felt wobbly when treadled. Granted, it wasn't exactly on a flat surface, but I had a very hard time getting it to continue spinning in one direction. So I figured I'd come back around and if it was available, I'd take it over to the concrete pad in the barn and try it.

The Little Gem was next, and I was pleasantly surprised! I usually spin in double-drive, and the Little Gem is Scotch tension, but I don't think that's a huge problem. It treadled easily and was stable, even on the same sawdust surface. The delta orifice is interesting, and user-friendly. (The Bee has no orifice. You could spin kittens into your yarn if you wanted.) The carrying bag looks like tinfoil, but I bet it would be easy to make something more compact and attractive. It was easy to settle in to this wheel. For a small wheel, it feels very solid.

After a little more browsing, mom and I came back through the barn with the Bee in it. Another spinner was doing what I had intended; she took it over to the pad to try it out (and she had a lovely long-draw going on, too). I watched for a bit, and then heard what I wanted to hear: "This feels wobbly in the lower ratios." It looked wobbly side-to-side, too. Check that one off the list.

My favorite remains the Journey wheel. Le sigh. It is, by far, the most expensive of all. Totally worth it, I think too...but close to 300 some-odd dollars more than the Little Gem. I can't exactly afford another wheel right now anyway, so the point is moot. And when you buy a Journey wheel, you actually order one and put a deposit down. The current orders are scheduled to be finished in the spring of 2011. I could save up before then, right? I may have to do it. And if I miss this batch, I'm pretty sure there's another round of ordering in the spring.

I love spinning. At least as much, if not more, than knitting. But don't ask for dibs on my yarn stash just yet, OK?

Slight Redaction.

2009-09-16T18:46:00.000-04:00

So after crabbing about pledge drives, last night's offering from the local PBS? Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration from Madison Square Garden last May. It made up for...um...some, just some of the other baloney that goes on during pledge drives. I distinctly remember being FASCINATED by "Riverdance" the first time I saw it. Possibly even the second and third. After the 7536th time? Not so much. Talk about beating a dead horse. (And we won't discuss "Lord of the Dance," OK?)

Linnea made a very good comment a couple posts back. She mentioned that perhaps the reason that my usual coping mechanisms don't work is because they also bring you to a place that invites introspection, which is in direct conflict with the anxiety screaming for full steam ahead. And she also described what I do in those situations as well: power-surf. In my case, it may not even be surfing, because I pretty much hit the same five or six sites over and over and over again.

I spend a lot of time in my head. A very dear friend used to say (wryly) about both me and herself, "If only other people were as self-aware as we are." I generally agree with whathisname who said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I work pretty hard at staying present. Unfortunately, when anxiety figures into this, it becomes a ferociously spinning hamster wheel of thought instead of rational introspection. If I allow myself into that introspective place when I'm in anxiety's grip, I won't find any solutions; rather, I'll just torture myself with all the what-ifs and how-could-I's and not-agains.

I didn't remember always being like this. I tied a lot of it to that awful man-boy experience I described earlier. That experience didn't cause my anxiety, but it was so extreme that it totally tipped the boat in that direction. Even then, I never grokked that this is a chronic condition in me, until the day (quite some time after that awfulness, enough time for an un-anxious person to be over it) I was on my feet in my counselor's office, screaming at her. I felt as if my head was going to blow off if I couldn't just get someone to LISTEN TO ME, for mercy's sake. This was so completely out of character for me that I knew there was more to it. I agreed to see a psychiatrist for more help than she could give me. THAT first visit was more than enough to convince me that yes, I am a pretty intense person, but intense in the extreme, and that the extreme was damaging me.

So now that I have something like a grip on the situation, I can look farther back in my life and say, "There...and there...ohYEAH, there..." and find many, many situations where my actions were anxiety-driven. I always thought it was "just me" (not that it isn't) and that was all there was to it. There wasn't anything to do about it, I just had to fight like hell against it. As a musician, and having to do solo recitals to graduate, can you imagine how hard I had to battle stage fright? Now that it's clear that there is help for this, I can't help but wonder (briefly...this is something I manage not to dwell on) how things would have been different if I had been able to put the effort of fighting the anxiety into my performance instead.

Thus...returning to Linnea's point, part of dealing with this is understanding that sometimes I just need to let my brain shut off, because under anxiety's influence, I am not making progress. I do need to keep an eye on how long the shut-down period becomes; you can tell by my abnormally regular posting that the recent shut-down period has ended. It is an effort to get going again, but once I do, then I have productive thinking that I can trust again. I always believed that just because I was thinking it, it must be so. (Where I thought I learned to be omniscient, I don't know.) I didn't understand that something else really could be influencing my thought process, and that I would need to become even more self-aware to be able to know the difference. Honestly, I think this weekend is one of the first times I've been at anxiety's mercy AND been able to pull back from it just enough to see what was happening, and have just the smallest bit of control over it.

I'm still uneasy over the situation with my friend. Communication has been spotty, and it is still taking a fair amount of effort to not immediately believe everything I think. It is possible that I'm mistaken about the whole thing; it's possible that I'm right. Tt is possible that something else entirely is taking place; it's possible that I'm not mistaken but the outcome will be different than I fear. It's possible that he's as anxious about it as I am. (At my calmest moments, that is the one that makes the most sense.) I do wonder, and would love to hear more of your thoughts about this:

I know now that when I'm anxious, I'm not thinking clearly and instead invent all kinds of drama that leads to the End. When I come down from that, the situation has many more possible endings, and I feel a lot calmer, even though I don't know what the ending will be. Is that telling myself a story to soothe myself (aka denial, I think)? Or is it more trustworthy than that?

I'm hoping to return to musing on bathroom construction again soon. And maybe, just MAYBE, talking about knitting, spinning, and fiber frivolity in general. Thanks for sticking with me.

Finally, A Place to Lay Blame.

2009-09-15T18:57:00.000-04:00

If you check out my comments from yesterday, you will see two fine pieces of wisdom. I'm chewing them over some more; perhaps savoring is a better term. Good stuff.

But on a lighter note, I think I know what brings these little episodes on:

PBS pledge drives. The television ones, not the radio drives.

I'm not kidding. I can look at the biggest examples of life-crap in the last few years, and gosh darn it, there is ALWAYS a pledge drive on when they happen. I am even a MEMBER of my local public broadcasting station. What do they have against me???!!! Why must you break my heart, Antiques Roadshow, why???

Classic.

2009-09-14T17:04:00.000-04:00

Did you read that post yesterday? Didja? Amazing, wasn't it? Can you imagine sitting in a chair across from me listening to that instead of reading it?

Don't. It's kind of scary. It's chronic anxiety. It's overwhelming, I think; it certainly is to me. Today is better. I need to talk to my PNP, because as the seasons change and the days get shorter (thanks a lot, Northeastern US), we often need to adjust the medication I take to help control it. I need to take some other steps too, but oddly, one of the consequences of anxiety for me is my mind saying, Go!Go!GO!GO!!! and my body freezing up. This has probably saved me a lot of grief, because it keeps me from doing some really dumb stuff. But it also keeps me from engaging other coping mechanisms. Crazy shit, yanno...walking, knitting, spinning (at a WHEEL, not my own two feet). Anything that would discharge some of the anxious energy, really, or at least safely distract me long enough to let the energy dissipate. It's very frustrating.

And what's worse is the feeling I get if I have acted while in anxiety's grip. I said something to a friend over the weekend; it could change the nature of the friendship. Some would say that this person isn't much of a friend if they can't understand what's going on, and listen to me again when I've had a chance to relax. This is true. This friend knows this is part of me. And really, what I said is not of outright meanness or such like that. But I can't shake the feeling of impending doom, that this is THE END of something. What I brought up, in my own obsequious way, needs to be discussed; how I brought it up is cringe-worthy, in my mind. My belief is that friends can work things out. I have many, many friends who have stood by me when things have been exponentially worse. My intuition says that this person is a friend of that caliber. Anxiety tells me hell no, you're kidding yourself, you've screwed up again and you deserve what you get for what you said. Funny thing is, that sort of thing has happened only once in my life, and the man-boy who used it against me knew exactly what he was doing. (That's a textbook definition of something, isn't it? Certainly cruelty.) Experience should be my teacher: out of hundreds of thousands interactions I've had with people, only one has been a total schmuck. That experience was almost indescribably painful. Yet I am fortunate. (And perhaps sheltered, but we won't discuss that today.) I honestly can say that I can recall no one else ever treating me like that...yet it's the first place my brain goes during a conflict. Even though my experience has been otherwise, I expect to be unloaded for minor transgressions. Hmmm.

So I will continue to fight against it, to listen to the true teacher instead of the relentless pedant. The work goes on. Thank you for "listening."

What Fred Said

2009-09-13T08:30:00.000-04:00

So, the bathroom...this past week's work should have been to frame in around the tub so that the tile guys can come in and do the surround. White subway tile, by the way; a little more spendy than the usual 4x4 square, but worth it given the age of the house. Perhaps I shouldn't be so worried about aesthetics. But perhaps I'm almost 40 years old and it's OK to want what I want.

Anyway.

The tub is shorter than the actual opening allowed for it, if you look at grout marks on the wall from long ago. To keep from moving all the plumbing so that the tub would be centered and THEN framing around it, there's about a foot between the back edge of it and the wall. Now, the last tub was in the same spot, and the solution was to bring the wall up to the edge of the tub. No big deal, but of course I can't keep my fingers out of it. I thought, wouldn't it be a nice thing to have a little shelf/seat at the back of tub...a place to sit whilst shaving one's legs? A spot to place my liter-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner? I mentioned this to Fred earlier in the week, and he let me know that it sounded like a good idea, but that he'd need to come look at it with me. (Just because I can visualize something doesn't mean that it'll really work.) That made sense to me, but he didn't come Thursday and he didn't come Friday, and he didn't call to let me know that he couldn't come those two days.

Now, this ties into my general anxieties and insecurities. I mightily resisted the urge after school on Friday to call and make something of a fuss. I usually believe that people are doing the best they can, and if something doesn't happen, there's probably an understandable reason why, even if I don't know the details. That being said, I also tend to feel like I'm at the bottom of way too many lists, including my own. As I've worked to raise myself up a few notches on mine, I feel more sensitive to perceiving that I'm so far down on other's. I walk a tightrope on this...not wanting to be a demanding harpy, but also needing to know where I stand. I decided to wait until Monday morning to call again.

Well, Fred called on Saturday afternoon, wondering if I was available to check out my bathroom idea. I was, as I didn't go very far from the couch. He came right over, we figured out a way to make it work (it involves a small piece of solid-surface material on the seat-a horizontal surface-to eliminate the problems of water pooling on a tiled and grouted surface). It also means some logistics for the framing, which Fred couldn't know until he saw it. I'll get what I want, just not on my schedule. And Fred assures me that this is my week for work...generally, that means I'm at the top of the list for the week. (Hopefully the tile guys will agree. After the tile goes in, the rest should be pretty quick: vinyl sheet floor goes down, toilet and sink installed. Done. I think.)

I have had many situations where my anxiety causes me to rush into something that I regret later. Not huge regrets, mind you, but ones that could be avoided if only I'd held myself steadier for just a little longer. At least to the point where I won't cry and instead can state my needs in a clear and calm way. For instance, not calling Fred in yelling haste on Friday, and I still got the result I wanted on Saturday without the drama. Too often I feel like I must do something NOWNOWNOW and it soothes the anxiety temporarily. But then I'm left feeling rather ashamed that I behaved the way I did.

How do you know when something is worth getting worked up over? I spend a large portion of my day being more patient than most, as an elementary schoolteacher. Am I just wrung out of patience by the time it comes to my personal stuff? Is my perception of what's important so screwed up that I don't know when it's OK to strike hard and hot, and when it's better to stay steady? When does staying steady turn into being a doormat? Is it possible to stay steady and still take care of myself? Why don't I have the confidence to make a decision and not second-guess myself for the following week? (I'm almost not exaggerating there, depending on the situation.)

These feelings aren't all about a bathroom, of course. I know that compared to a large percentage of the world's population, the fact that I have running water in my home means I am very fortunate indeed, even if it doesn't include a very convenient shower. But lately, I seem to assign the same importance to matters like this as I would to matters of grave concern. I don't seem to know the difference. Am I just inventing drama for my own weird entertainment? Is my life so empty?

All I Want is to Sleep Past the Time I Get Up During the Week

2009-09-12T09:03:00.000-04:00

But nooooooo.

On Saturday, after a week that kind of spiraled down into a perfect storm of crap (would you like details? TMI: got my period, then as I figured it was over, I got whatever was left ALL AT ONCE; sinus infection in time for the first day of school...yes, the antibiotics are helping; roughly four hours of sleep every night this week, delivered in two-hour blocks; absolutely no bathroom progress this week, despite scheduled promises; possible, yet unconfirmed disappointment in a friend, leading to confusion and self-doubt; that kind of fun stuff)...after THAT kind of week, I bounce wide-awake at 6:30 this morning, just like I should during the week, but can't.

I loathe waking up to an alarm clock, even though I have a rather pleasant one. It actually starts turning my lamp on about 20 minutes before the chime, so the room is light when I open my eyes. I also have it set on back-up for about 10 minutes after the chime goes off, and that turns on the radio. I need to move it over to my dresser rather than my nightstand, to make it harder to hit the snooze button. (This is effective, because once I'm vertical, I must pee, and currently the only functioning toilet is downstairs. Try going back to sleep after that.) THIS, my friends, should tell you how difficult it can be to get me out of bed in the morning.

Unless, apparently, it's Saturday and I have turned all the settings off. I've even tried setting the clock for the latest time it could possibly wake me up and still get me to work on time, so that I could wake up when I naturally do. But I don't wake up naturally when I do THAT, even. The damn clock still goes off. I don't get it. (And then I have to rush some too, and that leads to additional crankiness.) I'm not a particularly late sleeper either; left to my own devices, I'm up around 7:00, maybe 7:20 (or, if it's the week after school lets out in June, 8:30, but that's an anomaly and a well-deserved one at that).

So in the end, I guess I don't mind waking up at 6:30 if that's when I wake up without my clock. I just don't understand why I can't do it during the week.

I also don't understand why there is pizza delivery, but not doughnut delivery. Now THAT's an idea I could get behind, especially if I could place my order at 6:30 on a Saturday.

First Week of School...

2009-09-10T21:40:00.001-04:00

...sapping will to live....

more this weekend after I sleep until noon...

Could It Be?

2009-09-04T15:52:00.000-04:00

Yes, it could and it IS. Pardon me, I'm verklempt.

By Popular Demand

2009-08-30T09:19:00.001-04:00

Really, I haven't been making it up. I do live in a house, and here's some shots. I'm going to steal a friend's idea (possibly today, because it seems like it's going to be lovely day*) and take some photos of the neighborhood, too. Top to bottom: windows in my yarn room (where the birdie curtains from yesterday's post now hang), the dining room, corner of my front porch (which is HEEEyoooge, a great bonus to my 48'x54' lot), and Herself. It really is the perfect house for me.

*I know that doesn't sound very optimistic, but I live in the southern tier of New York. Just because it's nice now doesn't mean it'll last.

Better.

2009-08-29T17:38:00.000-04:00

Thank you to everyone who sent me kind and supportive thoughts. That's really what helps me get through days like I described last post. There are mornings where I wake up and I'm like a dog with a bone...I CAN NOT stop chewing over the same issues, over and over, until I've worked myself into a proper lather. Only then does the anxiety let go and my sense of perspective returns.

(OK, that, and a phone call to Fred asking if I should plan to shower at Mom's when school starts, or will I at least be able to use the tub, if not the shower? He assured me that the tub would be functioning...which means I start in on the tile guys next. :-)

The wisdom tooth continues to be sort of random; some days I need very little chemical support, and other days I have to beat it into submission. Tylenol-3 is wonderful stuff, but codeine makes me very giddy, so I try to avoid it until evening. Not today. Whoo hoo!!!!

After sitting and pouting about things not feeling very homey, I did get off my duff and hang some pictures. What a difference. Of course, I promptly ran out of picture hangers, but that's easy enough to fix. I had this little fantasy that I would get walls painted before I hung pictures. Well, that's obviously not happening (and I really think that bathroom mess notwithstanding, not much painting would have happened this summer because of the outrageous humidity), so there's no point in waiting, especially when it makes such a difference in my feelings towards my new home. I have a mirror to hang in my bedroom next.

Speaking of making things homey: the curtains, so far.

From top to bottom, it's my yarn room, the living room, the laundry room, and my bedroom. Hopefully as I progress around the house, my photography skills will improve.

And as a teaser, just WAIT until I show you pictures of the woodwork in progress.

One of those mornings.

2009-08-27T08:32:00.000-04:00

Warning: there's a fair amount of whine in this post. You may want to move along.

While I don't expect instant healing from this wisdom tooth extraction, waking up in a certain level of pain for the last three days is not what I had in mind, either. I almost wish I could wake myself up at about 2:00 AM and take another pain killer so that first thing in the morning isn't so bad. Twelve hours in between doses is just enough to make me rather unhappy when I get up, and then it takes an hour for the first dose of the day to kick in. After that, I'm fine. It's hard to start a day like this, though.

I should be grateful that I'm in my very own house, with a fine and sturdy roof over my head. But mostly I'm pissed that my whole summer has been interrupted by the bathroom debacle. Nothing about this experience is what I had hoped it would be. First I had to go through an absolute nightmare of a mortgage process, which threw my entire spring into chaos. (And if you think I'm exaggerating, try to imagine living out of a suitcase, a carry-on, and a laundry basket for the last two-read BUSIEST-months of school, not having any idea of when, or if, it would conclude.) Getting in here was supposed to be a relief. The very first night I lived here, the bathroom decided to make its appearance through the ceiling, and there went that plan. My house doesn't feel like mine yet. Three rooms are in total disorder. I've had someone else in here banging around almost every day that I've lived here (and you know how delighted I am with my plumbers...but still...). The money I had hoped to use for some little things around here (changing out the cheapass light fixtures and such), plus a considerable amount more, has gone to replace something that was supposed to be done already. It's been very difficult not to think I've been sold a bill of goods.

But the worst part is still not feeling settled. Five months of being on some sort of edge or holding pattern. This was the summer I was finally going to be able to expand, and let out the breath I've been holding for way too long, and move forward. Instead, I seem to be marking time some more.

I go back to work next week, essentially. I only have to be there for one day, but that's never enough time to prepare, so of course it means more than one day. My room at school will be more organized and tidy than my own home, and that just adds to the resentment. I wanted home to be as squared away as possible. It didn't have to be all painted the way I wanted, or landscaped, or anything like that. I wanted everything unpacked that needed to be unpacked, everything working. But no. It looks like I'll still be showering at Mom's in the morning before I go to work, adding a layer of inconvenience that I just don't need. I'll be working evenings and weekends getting things concluded that should have been finished this summer. I can't seem to fall into a routine that works, and routine, for better or for worse, is comforting. I could use some of that. I've had enough of seeing where the day will take me, because lately, it has only taken me further down an unknown path.

Whooooo....

2009-08-26T08:49:00.001-04:00

If today's post rambles, I apologize in advance...I had a wisdom tooth extracted on Monday, and while I am feeling better, the Tylenol-3 makes me loopy. There's not an awful lot going on anyway.

Bathroom: I think have both hot and cold water supply up there now. This is good. They aren't hooked up to anything yet, but that would seem to be in the near future. (I hope!) Actually, Joe just said the subfloor goes down next, so that must be a good thing.

Rest of the house: I spent a good part of last week sewing, which while being fibery in a way, is not my favorite activity. It's one of those things I've learned to do quickly yet carefully. Also, having good equipment is a must. I find, like in many other areas of life, that I just can't get what I want (quality and variety-wise) for the price I want, unless I make it myself. I did four valences, two sets of cafe curtains, and five panels of sheers. I'm very pleased with the results. Still have five windows to go, but I can't do two of them until the construction is done.

Domestic: thirteen pints of pickles canned. I haven't had the space to do anything like that for two years, and being able to do it again is truly a joy. Had things settled down here earlier, I probably would have canned some peaches. They're very good this year, and home-canned peaches beat anything in the store, any day. I have a freezer full of raspberries from Dad to be processed into jam, too, as well as a lot of blackberries. I'm going to try making blackberry cordial with some of them, and probably jam with the rest.

Knitting, etc: yes, I still do. I made a little list the other night as the painkilers fought for control, which I found to be surprisingly coherent in the morning. I frogged the Uhura tank top...good pattern, I just couldn't get into it, and am using the same yarn to make Katie Himmelberg's Frock Camisole from the Spring '08 IK. It's in the round and moving along nicely. It's one of those projects where, once you get through 14" of stockinette, you're practically done. I also cast on for a hooded baby cardigan, one of my go-to baby gifts. It's a Schaefer Yarns pattern (a hooded top-down raglan jacket) in Nancy, a bulky thick and thin yarn. If I really park my butt, I can finish it in one day if needed, and it's always a hit.

The other things on the list vary from a pair of Broadripple socks, to a sock money from BMFA, to a cardigan, to the Hemlock Ring blanket. Many of the unfinished pieces were packed up for a while, so I don't feel too guilty. But I still want them to be finished. I've wanted to do Lucy Neatby's "Cables After Whisky" sweater for some time now, but just can't cast on for it with all these other things hanging around. I need to bargain with myself a little bit, so when I finish the tank and the baby jacket, I can swatch for it (and see if my modification will work like I think it will). Then, when I've finished the sock monkey, I can do a schematic for it...and so on. I don't mind having multiple projects going, but this is getting a little out-of-hand.

OK, time to stop fighting the codeine and rest my eyes for a little bit.

Safety restored.

2009-08-18T15:18:00.000-04:00

First, to answer a question from Marcy, I've been washing up in the kitchen sink. I've never been so happy to have a sprayer before. Every couple of days (when I needs to shave me legs) I grab my basket and head over the river to Mom's for a real shower. The novelty has worn off, believe me. At least I have a half-bath in the downstairs that only had a small leak in the sink supply lines (which have been fixed), so I didn't need to call Ed's Heads for a rental.

Now, onto today's update. The floor joists have been beautifully shored up by Joe, Jeff, and Rich. They should be back before long to put down the subfloor. They had to stop when they found that Bozo the Seller had made an electrical connection for the wall fixture above the medicine chest and buried it in THE FLOOR. Without a junction box around it. And he did it by cutting into the cloth-covered original wiring (you know, knob-and-tube) and connecting it with wire nuts. So not only is that really rather dangerous, it's illegal to bury a connection like that. (I have pictures.) He also managed, after installing this wiring, to nail through it not once, not twice, but THREE times with the same damn spikes he used to nail through the drain. (I have pictures of that, too.) Miraculously, he hit the ground wire each time. If he hadn't, and if we hadn't decided to really turn this into a renovation, between the poor connection and the nailed-through wiring, there was quite possibly a fire in my near future. And given that my ol' house has lath and plaster walls with lovely old cellulose insulation blown in, it really could have been interesting.

Why yes, since you ask, I do believe that a major balancing event is due in this guy's life. He's already being sued by the realtors because he won't pay the commission, and we seem to be building a case against him as well. Right now, if the only satisfaction I can get out of it is that Code Enforcement hammers his ass with fines, that'll do. Anything beyond that would be acceptable also.

Anyway. Fred the Amazing Electrician came by after lunch and set to work improving Bozo's handiwork. I now have three different Freds working on my house at various times: Fred the Amazing Plumber, Fred the Amazing Gas Installer, and Fred the Amazing Electrician. I mean those "amazings" in complete honesty, too. They're doing the work that needs to be done, doing it well, and doing it for a very reasonable price. The guys that I mentioned above are also wonderful. I'm lucky to have them here.

OK, I wish I didn't have to have them here, it's true...but since I do, these are the guys I want.

cringe

2009-08-14T16:17:00.000-04:00

Things you don't want to hear during a home improvement project:

(nail gun firing) "Oops!"
(broken glass tinkling) "Shit!"

or in the case of my bathroom today,
"This floor isn't safe."

Honestly, I think we're at the point where nothing else can go wrong in this bathroom, because there's nothing LEFT in this bathroom. I'm serious. Half of the subfloor was made up of about 15 scraps of plywood cobbled together, over another layer of sheet vinyl, over what remained of the original hardwood floor, which has been cut into a seemingly random assortment of leftovers. (I'd like to slap the person who did that in the first place, even if it isn't Bozo the Seller.)

Now, that in and of itself isn't necessarily unsafe, just shoddy. (And annoying to people like me who prefer things to be done neatly and correctly.) It's the floor joists. Over the past 100 years or so, they've been cut into to accommodate way too many permutations of plumbing. The guys will need to sister in 2x8s to secure their integrity before we can proceed with much more. Most humorous is the joist where Bozo hacked into it to install the drain...

..the one he nailed into, and caused this mess in the first place. Someone cue "Circle of Life," please.

Wonders never cease around here.

2009-08-13T18:13:00.000-04:00

Fred the Amazing Plumber has let me know that I should expect the crew between 8:00 and 8:30 tomorrow morning, no later than 9:00. I hope this means there's gonna be a whole lotta plumbin' going on. They discovered the other day that Bozo the Seller's (or the guy he hired; I prefer the former) incompetence knows no end, although now it's getting downright silly. They're figuring out how to put the drain pipe back in, in a way that actually makes sense and is, how do you say...? FUNCTIONAL? Yeah, I think that's it. So the plan was to peel up the vinyl sheet, hold onto it, do what needed to be done, and stick it back down when everything was finished.

It was never stuck down in the first place. No adhesive. Gravity and inertia alone were keeping it in place. If it had legs, it could have gotten up and run away. And who could blame it? So it really makes their job easier-one less thing to wrestle with. The sheet was also cut out to fit around the World's Ugliest Vanity, which I'm replacing with a pedestal sink. Case closed.

And really, it works out well in another way too. One of these days, when I have nothing else to do (or my sister/brother-in-law/kids are here), I'll move stuff out of the mudroom, tear up the CARPET he installed in there (yeah, I said carpet), and cut the vinyl to fit in there instead. Though I wouldn't be at all surprised to find totally different (and perfectly acceptable) vinyl under said carpet at this stage of the game.

Progress!

2009-08-11T21:24:00.000-04:00

I have a stove!!! I have a dryer!!! Words can not describe how wonderful this is.

No great shakes

2009-08-05T17:03:00.001-04:00

There isn't much to report right now, but I don't want to get out of the semi-habit I've established here. I use the term "established" very lightly! Nothing else has broken or started dripping unexpectedly. The really old pipes and Bozo the Seller's attempts at plumbing have been removed in preparation for the new stuff. When all is said and done, pretty much any plumbing he did will be gone, replaced with plumbing that actually works. He's proven to be about as good a plumber as I would be, which leads me to say...

Know your limits, people. That's all I ask.

OK, maybe too much slowing...

2009-07-31T22:39:00.000-04:00

But only because I don't have a bathroom yet. It's coming.

Short post, because for once I'm tired and not because of nervous exhaustion or anxiety-induced freezing. It was caused by actual sustained physical activity. Now there's a concept! A lot of what I want to do around here has been put sort of on hold while the bathroom got sorted out, and because of the stunning amount of rain we've had. I'd be willing to bet we haven't had three days in a row without some sort of precipitation since the beginning of the month. I don't think painting is a great idea in a steady downpour (even though I'm painting inside, of course). I have visions of the fresh paint simply peeling off the old paint, just like pudding skin. (Which I love, by the way.) Perhaps if it were a little warmer whilst being rainy, I might be willing to take the chance. But upper 70's at the beginning of August doesn't count. If I were a farmer, I'd be having a heart attack pretty much every day.

So back to the sustained activity...it poured steadily all day, until about 4:00. Then the sun made an appearance, and combined with the humidity...YUCK. It wasn't all that hot, but SO muggy. As the sun went down, it wasn't so bad, and I think everyone who had some yard work (other than mowing, that would be an exercise in foolishness) leapt into action. It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow, but rain again Sunday, so we must make hay while the sun shines. I took the opportunity to pull the weeds I had dosed with Spectracide the other day, and boy did it kill stuff deader than a beaver hat. Said stuff was growing up through the gravel that is my back walkway into the mudroom, and where I park. Before long I had the rake out, and realized that whoever dumped this gravel...well, that's what they did. Dump it, and barely spread it around. Wherever it fell, that was good enough. (I can only hazard a guess whose work this was. *ahem*) So I raked the gravel off of what turned out to be a concrete slab under the steps into the mudroom, and away from the base of the WOODEN steps. Then I had to start working on the parking spot, again, just planning to rake out the dead stuff.

That's when I realized that the basement window wells should perhaps not be full of gravel. And that the gravel also should perhaps not be right up against the house to the point that it's under the siding. And that the gravel would really do well to be under my car before I chew up that muddy, muddy spot. So I hauled out the work gloves and BY HAND scooped the gravel out of the wells. Between the two of those, and raking away from the foundation a fair bit, I had enough to cover about half of the parking area. (It's roughly two cars long, and one car wide. I live on an alley, remember?) There was garbage and broken glass in them as well, always a treat. Now, if it turns out there should be more than the shallow layer of gravel I left in there, I will happily march over to the Home Despot and buy me some bags o' marble chips or something. But it would take a lot of arguing to convince me to fill them to the brim again. I've left a couple inches of the galvanized metal whatever-it-is-around exposed, to encourage the rainwater to go around instead of over (and presumably, IN). The windows have plywood in them now. I wonder if plexiglass would be a good replacement? (That would probably lead to replacing the window casings down there too...maybe I'll leave that alone for a little while...)

So I raked for two hours, met two more neighbors, and realized that it's VERY gratifying to have people tell you how welcome you are to the neighborhood, and how nice it is to have a nice person living in the house again. It had been abandoned for a couple of years prior, and while I categorize my house as medium-large but modest, the neighborhood is quite...well, not-modest, for the most part. (Especially the street above me.) Let's just say that "abandoned" is not generally the architectural style preferred around here. It's much more welcoming than any neighborhood I've lived in before, and I think I'm going to like it.

Hmmm...so much for a short post, eh?

A Slowing of The Entropy

2009-07-23T19:31:00.000-04:00

(I hope)

Nothing is leaking today. Of course, that would be because I have nothing in my bathroom...no sink, no toilet, no tub. The leaky lines have been capped off. I've ordered a new cast-iron tub (to replace the Styrofoam one) and a pedestal sink (to replace the dreadful vanity and mismatched sink); the toilet is going back in. I'm not sure if the tile guy came over today, as I had lessons in the afternoon, but I'll hear from Fred My Awesome Plumber tomorrow. Unless it turns out to be stoopid expensive, I want subway tile to surround the tub (as opposed to the plastic? fiberglas? POS? that was there). Picked out the faucets (vintage-y look). Found a medicine cabinet (nice plain oval). Plan to paint the wainscot white and the walls a very pale pink. Odds are good that I'll slap down another piece of vinyl, too. If I've got to be inconvenienced by this situation, at least I'm going to end up with a bathroom that I'll never have to worry about again...and will look like it belongs to house built in the 1920's instead of a bad double-wide reno.

I finished the amigurumi pear, though I don't know if it's really amigurumi until it has a face. I think I'll finish the apple tonight, and then I think I need to make a monkey. Actually, I should finish the sock monkey first. I've been working on the Uhura tank top by Connie Chang Chinchio (summer Twist Collective), and it's going fine...except it's not been tank top weather around here. It's a very dreary July, and much cooler than usual. Plenty of rain and temperatures barely breaking 80 on a good day. Very strange. But a good tank looks just as good with a t-shirt under it for extended seasonal wear, so continue I will.

Entropy, part C

2009-07-22T09:59:00.000-04:00

No pictures this time, because I think you know what open walls of lath and plaster look like. Half of another wall came down yesterday to give us access to the leaking hot water intake. When Mr. Seller installed the plumbing (because no self-respecting licensed plumber would have left work like this), he did a very poor job connecting the new fittings to the existing ones. Therefore, that hot water pipe has been steadily dripping right through the wall into the basement (which is wet enough as it is). Luckily, it hasn't been dripping for too, too long, and there's no damage to the wall.

Since the walls are open, and easily accessible, it seems like this is the time to do a renovation. The tub is also as cheap as they come...the old plastic kind with the foamy stuff on the underside. Well, the foam is breaking down, and as it does that, the tub loses support, which means on some future unknowable day, it will fall apart from the weight of the water and whoever's washing up at the time. So out is goes. The sink, as I mentioned before, is departing as well. In doing all of this, I probably should just put down a new sheet of vinyl flooring too, as it may very well be cut to fit around the ugly vanity. I won't know until the vanity comes out. I really did intend to do all of this, just not in the first week of living here.

The other stuff is getting unpacked, slowly but surely. Having stacks of stuff piled all over raises my anxiety level to "uncomfortable" and while I could really use a little extra rest, I'm driven to put stuff in some semblance of order. Sleep is over-rated, right?

In fibery news, last week I began teaching a beginning crochet class down at our local shop. I learned how to crochet when I was seven or eight, but teaching it really is another matter. It seems to be going well, and there's only three women. Two came last night, and I really enjoyed the company. I don't often enter into social knitting groups (see above, "anxiety"), but this may encourage me to try again. I'm usually fine once I get there, but it's hard to get me out of the house. I bet if I asked my friend Wanda to come pick me up, she would do it, even though she lives on the northside and would have to pass right by the store to get me. It's kind of silly, but I'm much more likely to go in a case like that, because I feel an obligation to the person who's going out of their way for me. And like I said, I know I'd enjoy it, and I know Wanda is a lovely compassionate person who would understand.

OK. My 10:30 lesson cancelled (and paid ahead, so I don't lose any money on this one), so I'm going to finish the pear I'm crocheting. I have found my camera cable (the pictures in the last post were from my cell phone), so there should be more to look at soon.

Entropy, part deux

2009-07-20T19:44:00.000-04:00

For those of you who wanted pictures. :-)

The picture at the top is the drain pipe from the upstairs bath, which is split nearly in half by a nail used to put down the subfloor. This puppy has been leaking since the bathroom was finished MONTHS ago. Basically, the blown-in insulation had been soaking it up until it reached maximum capacity yesterday. My niece's shower took it over the edge. We had heard in the mortgage process that the seller was having issues with a very large water bill. Apparently, it never occurred to him to check for leaks; it made more sense to him to just get pissy with the city.

I'm not thrilled that this has happened, of course, and there is still a drip going on in the basement. But that's tomorrow's problem, and I know Fred My Plumber will get the drip fixed too. He and his guys are amazing.

Silver lining: the sink in that bathroom is about as ugly and crappy and cheap as it could be (I'm pretty sure the seller ran out of money right about there, or picked up some POS off the curb and slapped it in there). Since the ceiling is already opened up and the pipes accessible, this is a good time to replace it. I'll catch the ugly tub later...after I recover from this!

Entropy

2009-07-19T19:41:00.001-04:00

Nature tends from order to disorder in isolated systems.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm isolated, but the level of disorder is certainly on the rise here. I have moved; the only things not here yet are my bike and its gear, and my instruments. They're safer where they are for a little while more, partly because of the chaos and daily rearranging, and partly because it's very damp here. The horn would be OK; the dulcimers and the guitar would not be so happy.

In the grand scheme of things, it's been a great move. I have amazing, generous, very hard-working friends who have leapt to my assistance several times during this saga, and this past weekend was no exception. My niece was here yesterday and got her workout in for the day, schlepping boxes up and down the stairs as we did the Fed Ex thing. You may remember that I had to bug out of my last apartment on rather short notice, so my usual organized packing and marking of boxes kind of went to hell. There was a fair amount of "put it in the office" yesterday, so she and I pretty much got things at least into the rooms where they belonged.

The first wave of the kitchen has been unpacked. I have A LOT of kitchen stuff. My new kitchen has some decent workspace, but not an awful lot of cabinet space. I have a mudroom, though, and as in my last house-based kitchen, that's where most of the not-oft-used things will go. That'll involve the purchase another set of those Swedish pine shelves that I love (from Williams-Sonoma), because the current set usually holds the yarn stash. (THAT room is a mighty disaster. Never fear, I still have several projects easily available.) I have all of my appliances, though currently only the fridge and washing machine are functional. Another wonderful friend will be pulling the gas lines from the basement to my stove and dryer next week. (I've been without a stove for two months...seven more days will be a breeze.) The dishwasher gets hooked up tomorrow by the wonderful carpenter I have set to speed-dial. He also replaced the nasty awful cheap storm door last night. I've painted the front and back doors red. (I had to do something Friday while waiting for the various installation people to arrive.)

My bedroom is in pretty fine disarray as well. I may try to tame it a little this evening...I may not. The bed is set up with my lovely soft sheets, so really...I can live out the suitcases for another night. We'll see.

There is a need for another bookcase or two; my last apartment had a wall partially dedicated to built-in shelving that made my library look deceptively small. (And I've culled the collection quite a bit since leaving my house two years ago.) There's plenty of painting to do, as I choose colors. I hung all but three roller blinds on the windows today too. I managed to score them at JCPenney for 50% off way back in...umm...March, I think it was. Somehow I'm short three sets of hardware, but that made for a good stopping point.

In amongst all of this wonderfulness is a problem, though if this is the extent of my woes, I'm a damn lucky gal. I may have mentioned that the seller of my house...well, he either is a cheapskate, or he got fleeced by the folks who worked for him. I am grateful beyond words to have new siding, new windows, a new water heater, and a new furnace. The kitchen cabinets are new; not great quality, but certainly fine. New carpet and laminate. There's PLENTY that is good around here. However...the things that need to be fixed are pretty important and I'm surprised at how shoddily they were done in the first place.

I live on a hill, which may lead you to believe makes me pretty safe from water problems. But water runs downhill, and we also have a lot of small natural springs running not far underground. Therefore, in many neighborhoods, wet basements are a given and mine is no exception. I probably will never store anything there; the furnace and hot water tank are up on blocks and my laundry is on the first floor. Like everyone else, I have a sump hole in the front corner. I think someone's Uncle Bubba installed it. It works, mostly, but it is The Weirdest set-up ever. As a matter of fact, that it works at all is pretty impressive. The basement floor is trenched to allow the water to run to the pump, yet there's a lip of the floor just before the hole...effectively creating a little dam so the water has to get kind of deep (relatively speaking...you can't go fishing in there) before it can run off. Luckily, a fairly easy fix. I also need a dehumidifier that actually works instead of merely sounding like it does.

Here's the part where I nearly had a heart attack last night, though. The house passed inspection easily, but has been empty for a long time. The seller never lived here, which is why I think no one caught what I'm about to describe.

After a day of folks trooping in and out and you know, USING the bathroom upstairs, my niece got ready for bed and took her turn. I happened to walk into the "office," which is below that bath, and noticed a distinct dripping sound...coming from the ceiling. I knew there was a little leak somewhere, as Fred My Plumber and I noticed it in the basement. This new development, however, was more than "little." So we shut off the valve, used the powder room loo instead, and the dripping stopped. This morning, in the name of science, she took a shower. Same damn thing. Someone did a very poor job with the drain lines up there, and I'm pretty sure the way to fix it is to go through the ceiling. (Which is stained now anyway, so no loss.) I'll be showering at Mom's for a couple days.

I'm glad we caught it early; since there's been so little use, I'm hoping the damage is contained. Also, now I know that this won't be a problem any more. I know that it'll be fixed properly. I'd rather spend the money on light fixtures that aren't the cheapest ones at Home Despot, of course, but even I know how important this is, and I want it done well.

There's a couple of other not-cosmetic things to do; being an old house, there's not enough electrical outlets where you'd actually want them. The gutters need cleaning. (Easy.) The yard, such as it is, is mostly weeds. Maybe that's cosmetic...we'll see what my other friend the landscaper says. I can live with that for a summer.

This may be my longest post ever, but I think it has the least amount of whining in a loooooooong time. Stay tuned...it's only going to get better from here.

The ordeal is over...

2009-07-16T14:19:00.000-04:00

I closed this morning!

The relief I feel is tangible, as it seems to be manifesting in a headache. (Figures, but I can take it. I'll have a little lie-down after I post this.) The seller is still being something of a...um...ninny, but all will be well. The house is mine. I've already bought the red paint for the front door. The appliances come tomorrow, as does the cable hook-up and such. My goal is to be sleeping there Saturday night.

I think the reality will hit me when I paint that door. I still sort of think that my lawyer's office will call and say, "Oops, we forgot to sign one more paper..." But I'll get over that too.

Small change coming

2009-07-11T22:04:00.000-04:00

So far, the closing date is holding fast. I have permission to have my appliances delivered on Wednesday, but am under strict orders NOT to hook them up or have any utilities put into my name until after the closing. I teach for a good chunk of Wednesday (with a couple of hour-long breaks), and scheduling any kind of delivery is challenging in any situation. I may reconsider and have them delivered on Friday when I can be there all day. I'm going to call the troops tomorrow and see who's available to help me move (again); I think I might call the U-Haul people too, so we can do this in as few trips as possible. I'm moving the equivalent of a one-bedroom apartment, with relatively little furniture (quantity-wise, not size-wise). I also have stuff in a couple of other places, but it'll all get there.

While that may seem like enough of a change, I'm planning on a change name for Le Bog as well. My new address will be on Pearl Street. I, of course, feel it should be spelled Purl Street. But here on the hill, we also have alleys between the numbered streets (First, Second, Third, etc.) that run east and west up the hill. The north/south streets are named after trees, and then apparently whatever the city planners felt like naming then. The alleys have forever been "the alley between First and Second," until 911 came to town. Now all of the alleys are named, and 99% of them are named after glass techniques or styles. There's Etruscan Lane and Diatreta Lane and so on.

My house is on the alley, which means my front door is on Purl Street, and the side of my house runs parallel to the alley. What's my alley called?

Intarsia Lane.

No kidding. I will live on the corner of Purl and Intarsia. It's a glass technique as well as a knitting technique, utilizing larger blocks of colors in the design.

So once the dust settles and I have the cable situation straightened out, the blog will quietly migrate to a new name: "From the Corner of Purl and Intarsia", and will hopefully contain a whole lot more fibery goodness than it has of late. I'll give you fair warning before it happens, dear readers, and I can't wait.

Well, there's good news and there's...

2009-07-07T19:01:00.001-04:00

Oh, wait! It's all good news!!!

I have a closing date. A real closing date, with the lawyers and the settlement people and the seller and EVERYthing. July 16th, 10:00, checkbook in hand. Hopefully the seller will agree to let me in before that, so I can get my appliances delivered and hooked up, but even if he doesn't, I can live with that...

I have a CLOSING DATE!

Addendum to the addendum

2009-07-03T08:53:00.000-04:00

Though I still won't believe it until I'm sitting at the lawyer's table with the house keys in my hand, the most current stumbling block to closing has been waived. (Imagine that.) If this is indeed the case, I should get the OK to close early next week and close before the end of the week.

I can't wait to think (and talk) (and blog) about something else.

Addendum

2009-07-01T21:52:00.000-04:00

Now with 100% more attempts at humor! Really, just when I think this situation is as ludicrous as it could possibly be, they totally raise the bar and throw me off guard. I should appreciate a company that strives to be the best at being the worst. Everyone should have goals.

So here's an open letter, and my evening's attempt at cleverness. Apologies in advance...

To the people handling my mortgage:
You suck. You suck with the force of a thousand black holes. You suck more than all the vacuums in the world. You suck more than every soda straw in the past, present and future of every fast-food establishment in the universe. You suck deeper than the mud of the rainiest rainforest in the Amazon. You suck with the intensity of all the quicksand in every bad jungle movie on film.

I don't think there's a thing I can do to counteract the suckiness other than to invite every friend I have in the world over to my house (when you finally allow me to move into it) and SUCK UP ALL THE BOOZE IN THE WORLD until we forget this ever happened.

Piss off.

Words fail me.

2009-07-01T14:21:00.000-04:00

Not really. You know me better than that, right? But I don't have many, because I am beyond tired of this rollercoaster.

I did not close a week ago.

I am not closing this week.

I probably won't close next week.

Every time I get to the day before closing, something else strangely pops up, which then takes a week to schedule the fix and another week to file the paperwork.

The mortgage industry caused this mess, and the rules that they suddenly are insistent upon following are making it worse. Or should I say, the rules are fine. Great. Put those "fixes" in place, shut that gate now that the horse is out. But don't tell me for ONE LOUSY MINUTE that you didn't know these things were coming and couldn't do one last little thing to be prepared for them until the day before I'm supposed to close.

I thought I was at the end of my rope a few weeks ago. I think I'm down to the last few strands. And I can't wait to think about something other than this house...which was supposed to be an exciting event, especially as I'm doing this with MY money, on MY terms (I thought), to start this new chapter in MY life. I've been on hold for so long now; I hope I haven't lost momentum permanently.

A Pop Quiz.

2009-06-26T15:47:00.000-04:00

What emotional response would be elicited upon reading the following statement:

"We're aiming to wrap this up by July 2nd."

a) relief followed by excitement
b) frustration followed by resignation
c) murderous rage

Loyal readers will be able to predict my choice.

Yeah, whatever.

2009-06-25T16:33:00.001-04:00

if I ran my classroom like these baboons run their mortgage company, I would have been fired five years ago.

I don't mind that the mortgage was approved with conditions; things like that happen. It's just that each condition has been presented individually, strung out over the last three weeks, as close to the last minute as possible. At the same time, I get calls at work alerting me that Something Must Be Faxed! It Is Needed Now! The Sooner, The Better! Never mind that pesky full-time job with small children running around that prevents me from jumping through the hoop of the day immediately, just get it done.

The hot water issue has been clarified. Now it's the previous (bad) appraisal; don't ask me what bearing at all this has on the current mortgage, since I had to start everything all over again from scratch. Also don't ask me why this little detail, which shows up on the underwriter's decision paperwork as of May 20th, hasn't ever been approached before today, a full month plus five days past.

All I know for sure is that my divorce was smoother and more pleasant than this experience could ever hope to have been.

Even Becky Sounds Optimistic

2009-06-24T19:48:00.000-04:00

The "clear to close" should come through Thursday (tomorrow) morning. If that's the case, I will close on Friday.

(keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breathing...)

Cautious Optimism is Afoot.

2009-06-22T18:31:00.000-04:00

There is a possibility that maybe I will close on Friday.

facepalm

2009-06-13T08:26:00.000-04:00

Here's the latest (and apparently, ONLY) thing holding up closing:

The seller turned the hot water heater off after my inspection in February. No big surprise; why pay to heat hot water in an empty house, right? So why do I bother mentioning it? I wouldn't...

except he didn't turn it back ON for the appraisal. The house is also unoccupied, and therefore, the appraiser dinged it as a problem, and the underwriters won't approve the mortgage until it is glaringly apparent that I do indeed, have a functioning water heater as part of the deal.

Alright, so all the seller needs to do is turn it back on, right? Right...

except the original appraiser has to come down from Rochester (two hours away) to give the official okey-dokey. And once that's done, all I can do is hope that the underwriters get on it quickly, though that word doesn't seem to be in their collective vocabulary.

Oh, and this question of the water heater came up about three and a half weeks ago. A silly mistake that will take all of five minutes to rectify will cause me to live out my suitcases and board my cat for an extra two weeks because they couldn't be bothered to mention it to us when they knew. Everything else that can approved ahead of time has been approved as of June 9th, if I read the underwriters' report correctly. So if this had been straightened out when it came up, I could have closed this week...not two weeks from now. Some folks will read this and say, what's the big deal about two weeks? Closings rarely happen on time. Please remember that I was originally supposed to close on April 3rd, so we're coming up on three extra MONTHS, not weeks.

I do have some hope, as Becky My Favorite Real Estate Assistant (and I'm not kidding at all, she has been amazing throughout this process) is even saying we should be able to close as soon as this is done. And Becky is pretty cynical about these guys right now too..she wouldn't say it if she didn't mean it.

I'd better go back and read my previous posts before my head explodes.

Bottom line.

2009-06-11T21:38:00.000-04:00

Probably not, but it makes for a good subject line, I think.

Marcy asked a question in the last post's comments. She asked what else I needed other than a mortgage right about now. Do you mean other than a mortgage plus fortnight on a Greek island with breezy, sunny days and cool, clear nights, surrounded by Adonis stand-ins, Marcy? Really, I think that's a given.

But seriously, while this whole process has been unbelievably frustrating to the point of demoralizing, the bottom line is that I don't need much more than what I already have. I had serious worries about where I would live, but it's worked out. My cat is happy and safe and apparently holding court where she is. My mom makes supper for me when I get home from work. My mail is arriving regularly (that's another story...), as are my paychecks (although there's only one left until September). I can even hit someone's wireless network here so I can blog and Facebook and IM as I desire. I have knitting with me, and my wheel.

I guess the biggest thing I would ask for now is conclusion. I've been a described as (and I take this as a compliment, even though the person who did the describing is not high on my list) an artist who has her shit together. I love process and at the same time, I dislike dangling ends. I finish what I begin. And by the way, I prefer to be in charge of the process. What I've been through with this mortgage fiasco is completely the opposite of the way I prefer to function, and I have no way to influence the process. I've offered to bake cookies, give a vial of blood; I've cried, I've yelled, I've made almost-daily phone calls (which I stand by...I truly think it's the only way we've kept Mr. Mortgage moving along). Except for that last one, nothing I've done has made an impact. And I don't like to be ignored.

A hallmark of my personality is the ability to make pretty much anything...well, personal. I don't go into many things halfway, and when you put that much of yourself into things, it's nearly impossible to detach from them. Doing it in my job is a good thing. Trying to do it with a sizable bureaucracy (as well as with several smaller ones) is folly, and someday I will learn the difference. (I think that may be part of growing up. Damn.) I've started; I realize that there's very little I can do to control what comes in. I feel like a radio receiver that doesn't turn off. However, I can control which stations I decide to fully tune in. It's not the same as rejection; it's thoughtful selection, and that isn't a character flaw. Not if I'm going to survive the ups and downs of life in more or less one piece, it isn't.

So, in the immortal words of the affirmation taped to my laptop, "My life continues to get better and better. I now move into my greater good." And if I'm really lucky, my greater good will include a Greek island...

An Object Lesson in Impermanence

2009-06-08T21:12:00.000-04:00

In other words, my life in the past month. I've been living out of a few suitcases since mid-May, first at my friend's place, and now at my mom's. My friend had rented her rooms out for the GAS Conference previously, so all of us halfway-house residents have bugged out for the week. I'm bunking at Mom's, in her one-bedroom apartment. We'll be OK for a week. Also, things on the mortgage front are looking positive for the first time since approximately spring break, which is about seven weeks ago now. If I'm still not in the house by the end of the week, I can go back to my friend's and have my own space again, as well as springing my cat from the cooler.

It's not easy, bouncing from place to place. I woke up this morning wondering what bag my shoes were in. I haven't lived with a parent since I graduated from college. I'm having a health insurance issue (translated: the doctor's office needs to get their finger out), and I can't get to my filing cabinet where my insurance information is. But what it comes down to is, either way, whatever the end of the week brings, I'm OK. I'm safe. I have a roof over my head, a mom who cooks supper for me, and friends in all corners who are pulling for me. The mortgage guy may be an ass, and the mortgage industry may be a dismal quagmire, but I have far more people rooting for me and supporting me than one silly man and one silly business can overwhelm. Pretty neat, eh?

(I'd still really enjoy getting the OK to close this week, though...)

What's today, anyway?

2009-05-24T13:08:00.000-04:00

Wow, May 24. It's taken me two weeks just to tone down enough to realize things are OK. Not going exactly according to plan, but perfectly OK.

I'm still upstairs at my friend's house. The mortgage is moving at a glacial pace, and honestly, at this very moment, I can't bear to go into more detail than that. At least one person per day asks how it's going, and I have taken to describing the special hell that this is, and concluding with, "Please don't ask anymore. I'll let you know when something actually happens. Explaining it three separate times to mom, dad, and sister is enough. (Mom and Dad always get separate phone calls, Sister gets peeved if she gets information second-hand, even if it causes more stress for me.)

Now, being at my friend's house has brought blessings. First off, of course, is a safe and lovely place to live. I miss my cat, but I visit often, and her URI has cleared up nicely. I miss cooking but don't seem to be starving. It is a little odd having someone else wash my few dishes and do my laundry...that's part of the deal of living here. It was very hard for me to accept that help. I don't want to be a bother, and I'm used to taking care of everything.

But what being here has done is given me the gift of time. Since I'm not dealing with many of the practical details of life, I'm not getting so slammed with the mortgage crap. I'm better rested. I have time to just rest, quietly, and a beautiful side effect of that is having some creative ideas coming back. The will to be creative is returning. I'm not quite ready to have a book or fiber design burst forth, but I feel like I have enough energy to get started again.

Amendment to Plan D.

2009-05-10T07:00:00.001-04:00

I really love it when you ask for a miracle and you get one.

I don't have to worry about couch-surfing at Mom's after this week. Don't get me wrong, Mom and I get along quite well. But she lives in a one-bedroom apartment. There would be an inflatable mattress in the future, which is OK for a night or two, but not for three weeks (worst-case scenario). Growling and hurt feelings would be inevitable.

My hairdresser, who is also a good friend, called yesterday to alert me to a different situation, and after that was resolved, we got to talking about my housing woes. She lives in the downstairs of her house, and has her shop there as well. The three upstairs bedrooms are rented out on a short-term basis, often to glass artists who are in town to study at CMoG. I was positive that she had rented them out for the LPGA tournament coming to town this coming weekend (and the catalyst for this crisis), but I planned to ask when I get my haircut on Monday if she had any other good ideas. (She's a town native and knows pretty much everyone.) Turns out she doesn't often rent them for this particular event. I have a place to stay until June 7. It is an almost indescribable relief.

So I will have a bedroom with a microwave, little fridge, cable/wireless, and hot water. The only thing I need to figure out is what to do with my cat Mitzie, but that's minor compared to being almost homeless.

At least the alphabet goes to "Z."

2009-05-08T18:57:00.001-04:00

Plan A: close on house and move in. Paint kitchen yellow, install appliances, throw potluck, drink copious amounts of wine, play music on the porch. Acoustic, of course.

Sigh.

Plan B: move on to second mortgage company, aim to close in early May, repeat Plan A.

Sigh.

Plan C: move into landlord's extra apartment (read: I lived in better places in college) until a pre-possession agreement is completed, thus allowing me to move into the house before closing.

Sigh. No hot water heater in extra apartment. I'm actually relieved by this. It's a DUMP.

Plan D: Remain in current apartment, but take out every last non-essential item and put in storage next door. Think about it as stripping down for battle. Vacate apartment next Thursday. Go to sister's Friday night, seeing as we're going to Philadelphia Saturday morning anyway. Stay Saturday night at sister's as well. Probably couch-surf at Mom's after that. Cross fingers that this extra week will a) get me that much closer to a closing date, which will lead to b) getting the pre-possession agreement. Return to Plan A.

And just in case:

Plan Z: Reserve space in the Behavioral Health Unit at Cayuga Medical Center.

So unoriginal...

2009-05-05T18:41:00.000-04:00

But I'm not sure I have the brain cells to BE original. So I give you:

RANDOM TUESDAY!

1. My head is less full of snot and my voice is back. (I completely lost it for two days.) However, the allergies seem to be moving house into my eyes. Either that, or I'm on the verge of a yeast infection brought on by the antibiotics. Yes, in my eyes. It's happened before and is quite unpleasant.

2. I too will be moving house this weekend. Hopefully into the house I'm buying, in a prepossession agreement. Apartmentia is being absorbed into the larger borders of the Pine Street Apartments. If not into my house, then into a currently empty apartment of my landlord's. In a different house. I prefer the former. Can you guess why?

3. This doesn't mean I'll be closing on my house. It means that Apartmentia has been rented to the New Guy currently in the furnished, all-inclusive (read: expensive) apartment next door. It also means that New Guy's apartment has been promised to people coming in for the LPGA tournament next week (read: WICKED expensive).

4. I probably won't close for another three weeks, and that's being very optimistic.

5. The current mortgage industry is a slow-moving barge, and I am caught in its wake. It would appear that lenders are looking for ways NOT to lend, and are going through applications and such with a fine-toothed comb. Which is just dandy: for how long did they lend insane amounts to people who couldn't verify their employment? And now that people like me and a couple of my friends (you know, the ones with steady jobs, downpayments, and reasonable expectations of what we can afford) are getting screwed. It won't be any bailout money or liquidation of "toxic assets" that drags the housing market up: it will be the lenders deciding to do what they're supposed to do. And that is LEND RESPONSIBLY. (Starting with me, of course.) As usual, it will be the middle class, the backbone of our nation, that shoulders the burden.

6. Sorry if that last sentence is offensive. After a month and a half of getting jerked around, it's the only conclusion I can draw about the situation.

7. I wish it would rain...

My Head Is Full of Snot and I'm Losing My Voice.

2009-04-29T18:07:00.000-04:00

And there you have it. Let's hope the allergy drugs kick in really fast.

In other unrelated news...

1. The ignorant fools of the world continue to prove themselves perfectly capable of being ignorant fools. There's a story behind that, but not now.

2. I missed four tiny lines I was supposed to initial on the Universal Mortgage Application. I turned in all the documents on Friday. My error wasn't caught until Tuesday. Does anyone else think the lines should be bigger?

3. My car battery died on Friday, remember? I made a date for an oil change when I picked it up (which is tomorrow). In the meantime, the tire with the slow leak has sped up the process, and the brake-pad sensor went off this morning. Is that a trifecta?

4. In a nod to Kate's blog (One More Thing, over there in the blog list), where today's topic is A Year Ago, today is the anniversary of an event that I still choose not to describe in a blog. Suffice to say, I wouldn't wish it on anyone else, but I don't think I could have avoided it. The important part is that on this day, one year past, I'm still here.

5. And so that we end on a lighter note, Charles (who is my appliance guru at Lowes) called me this afternoon to let me know that the refrigerator I ordered has not arrived yet, and not to be surprised when they deliver everything else tomorrow. I quickly returned his call to say, it's actually a good thing the fridge isn't here, because I don't have a kitchen to put it in yet. I really hope to rectify this situation soon. I'm starting to use boxes as end tables.

Dog breath update.

2009-04-25T09:45:00.000-04:00

I have spoken to the rescue folks....a long, tearful talk, but with a good resolution at the end. George has already settled into his new home, with another dog to love and an owner who adores him. The lady I spoke to said that both George and Gracie had a rough time of it, and Gracie nearly had to be put down as unadoptable (she is protective, as most female Dals are, and therefore doesn't present as a warm and cuddly family dog). But she's been placed as well. George had a very hard time being separated from her. The rescue people are not particularly happy with my ex either, and another mutual friend who is also a Dalmatian person was furious that it happened. There are so many things we could have tried before events happened as they did. But (and this would be one of the reasons he and I aren't together any more), my ex was helpless in situations that most people would shrug at, and when appropriate times came to get input and/or help from another source, he would suddenly become the Lone Ranger, no matter the impact on anyone else.

But they're going to send me pictures, and while I would dearly love to have them back, they both have good homes with people who love them, and that's what I want the most. I'm also quite sure that the rescue folks will be more than happy to help me get a new dogger when I'm settled into the house. I love older dogs, and there's rarely a short supply of them needing homes.

Please, if you can, consider visiting the Willing Hearts Dalmatian Rescue website; George's leg surgery cost about $2000, and they're still trying to pay the bill. I've donated towards it, and perhaps you can too. Thanks for the good thoughts. They worked.

Please Send Good Vibes. Dog breath ones preferred.

2009-04-25T08:18:00.000-04:00

Not specifically for the house thing this time, as the post title infers, but those are of course appreciated.

This is for my dog. Or should I say, one of the dogs my former husband and I shared until we split up. He kept the dogs; I kept the cats. We adopted two dalmatian-mixes, a brother and sister who we named George and Gracie, through a rescue organization. Long story short, when he moved across the country, he surrendered them back to the organization, as is their policy. Unfortunately, he didn't tell me he was going to do it. I found out later through mutual friends. George and Gracie were very attached.

Since I'm going to have space again, I'm really looking forward to having a dog again. So I surfed around a little bit this morning, looking at rescue organizations for different breeds. That's a cause I firmly believe in, that I won't get into now except to say, keep an eye on the Portuguese Water Dog rescues in the near future. I figured it wouldn't hurt to check out the one we used.

George is on their front page. He hasn't been adopted, but Gracie was. They've been split up. I am HEARTBROKEN. When we picked them up, I rode in the backseat of the car with them, George on one side, Gracie on the other, both their heads in my lap.

It would appear that George potentially has a placement, but the website was unclear about when that might happen. I have sent both emails and voice mails begging to have him back. He had to have surgery on a rear leg, and the bill hasn't been paid. I don't care. I will pay it, and whatever else I need to do. I want him back. He's my boy. Please put a good thought towards this if you should get a minute.

I wish I knew how to contact my ex now, because I would rip him a new one. Perhaps it's better that I don't.

Tentatively Hopeful

2009-04-24T17:39:00.000-04:00

So, after a three-day weekend of The Plague, another week of it sapping my will to live, and a spring break full of naps and frustration, things seem to be on the upswing.

Notice I say "seem." While I want very much to maintain a positive attitude and attract that energy from the universe, a part of me whispers, "Your other mortgage tanked 24 hours before closing, remember?"

I'm onto mortgage #2, with only one episode of Tactical Yelling, wherein it was discovered that the paperwork the brokers kept insisting all I needed to do was sign and return to them already (I could imagine them adding, "for pete's sake, lady") and things could move ahead...had, in fact, not been sent to me. Within two hours of The Yelling, I had the good-faith estimate that I should have had a week and a half ago. Two hours after that, I had the mortgage application. Miraculous. I, of course, am much more efficient than these folks and had everything checked, signed, copied, returned, spindled, and mutilated (OK, not those last two) within 24 hours. Now, I realize that this is Friday, and hoping that I will get something like a closing date by close of business Monday is most likely folly. But since the lawyers are ready to go from mortgage #1 (the survey is done, the title search is done, whatever else it is that lawyers do is mostly done-I'm sure there's something specific to this set of paperwork to be done), I should be able to close much more quickly than before. "Quickly" being a relative term, really. If nothing else, I have learned that MY definition of "quickly" is not closely related to the mortgage industry's definition.

And in what I can only view as an interestingly quirky turn of fate, as I raced between schools and the credit union and the realtor's office and Wegmans this morning, my car battery died. I totally understood how it felt.

(Riding in the big yellow tow truck back to school was a highlight of the day!)

Batting .500

2009-04-03T16:44:00.001-04:00

Which is not the worst stat in the world, I know. But frustrating all the same, when things were really looking good.

The Good: The play went very well last night. The kids were cuter than the dickens, of course, and this crew is a particularly strong group of singers. There's always a few things I would change (more time to work on blocking, for one), but I'm more than pleased with what we staged last night, and the kids were ecstatic...so there you go.

The Not-So-Good-But-Will-Go-Away: After an entire winter with no colds whatsoever, I managed to get the latest upper respiratory infection that's going around. At least it's not pneumonia, which I've had twice and don't care to repeat the experience. And I'll have a nice quiet weekend to recover, because...

The Really Crappy and There's Nothing I Can Do About It: Not only did I not close on my house today, it is questionable that I will end up with this house at all. The mortgage company decided last Friday that it wanted a second appraisal, because the house is a flip and it's being sold in less than six months of original purchase. Now, they've KNOWN about this all along, but didn't bother to alert anyone to this necessity until a week before closing, rendering the closing impossible. I could deal with that; delays happen with regularity, I'm told. But this appraisal came in well under both the seller's appraisal (which I thought was a little high, but that's me), and my appraisal (which I thought was quite fair). Therefore, they will not finance the mortgage for which I've already been approved. And seeing as the seller has proven himself to be less than generous (he refused to replace a $250 screen door, for pete's sake), I don't see him dropping the price of the house to a point where they will finance it.

Needless to say, I am bitterly disappointed, and frustrated, and very unhappy about the rooms full of boxes that I've been living around for the past several weeks. We are trying a few other options (trying to get the underwriters to move up, trying to get the seller to move down, I have a little more that I can put down now, possibly a different lender) but I have to admit I don't have a good feeling about this. If this isn't to be the house for me, then it isn't. I just wish it was something I had a modicum of control over...or at least there was a person I could call at the mortgage company and yell at. I never have liked feeling so helpless.

Gems from the music room, part two.

2009-03-27T19:38:00.000-04:00

One of my 5th graders celebrated her birthday today, and in the afternoon she and a friend went around school to share her birthday treat: a big ole homemade chocolate chip cookie decorated with chocolate frosting. You know, like the ones you can get at the mall, except 348 726% better.

They came into my room, and the birthday girl asked if I'd like a piece (as IF!). When I of course said yes, the friend replied, "Right here (points), the piece with all the frosting. That's for you."

I have the best kids in the world.

gurgle

2009-03-24T20:21:00.001-04:00

I am still swimming...mostly afloat...but now we're in up to our shoulders. I doubt I'll go in over my head, but you never can tell. It's actually not the house stuff that's on my mind the most; that's a waiting game and is out of my hands. I just keep packing, and wondering who the hell snuck all this crap into my tiny apartment.

It's the musical at school.

This always happens. They're 4th and 5th graders, so trying to convince them of the passage of time and the speed thereof is not an easy task. UNTIL...the week before the show goes on! NOW they want to rehearse more! NOW they're worried about knowing their lines. NOW they want to know what color t-shirt they need! This is why I drive myself nuts early on. NOW I can say, "Didn't you read that when I sent it home in February?" NOW I can schedule rehearsals as many mornings as I want with nary a whimper from the masses.

NOW it occurs to them that they'll be in public next week, both for their classmates and their parents. Just goes to prove that old saw: if it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

(Except by the producer/music teacher.)

I probably won't be able to post pictures of the kids for confidentiality reasons, but know that they will be the cutest damn thing you've seen in several years. Two words can sum it all up: Monkey Hats. Use your imaginations.

Just keep swimming...

2009-03-15T17:31:00.000-04:00

I'm halfway through two weeks of self-inflicted scheduling madness. I'm taking an afterschool class that totals four, three-hour sessions between last week and this. (Sounded like a good idea when I signed up...) It's a good class, and I'll have a website for my little music program up and running by Thursday. But three hours after a whole day at school makes for a very long day. At least I'm not teaching it, and it's still light out when I get home.

Taking this class means I had to reschedule my Thursday lessons, which makes Wendesday longer, and two lessons on Friday. I NEVER teach privately on Fridays. Until now, obviously, and while I do love the two kids who come then, it mostly reminds me why I NEVER teach privately on Fridays.

I did manage to have some fun, too; one of our high schools staged the musical "Titanic" this weekend. Have to admit, it isn't my favorite show. First of all, everyone knows how it ends. It isn't a stage adaptation of the blockbuster movie. (That's not necessarily a bad thing.) But it also doesn't have A Story, it seems. There are several little stories threading through the impending disaster, but until the ship begins to sink, they are fully independent of each other. That could be the point, I imagine-pointing out the class differences we impose on each other, ones that disappear when Reality rears its ugly head. But I didn't like it; in a musical, I don't particularly care to puzzle out the intentions of the writers. It also doesn't have A Song that you would remember. Even Les Miserables, dark and difficult as that one is, has memorable tunes.

But several past students, many of them seniors, were in the cast, and it's always a joy to see just how many of them have continued on with some sort of musical/dramatic efforts. I of course had to remind two of my favorites that they got their starts at our elementary school, in the epic production of "The Granny Awards." I have to admit, getting a double hug from two guys who remember their little music teacher so fondly rather made my night. Another young lady was so surprised and pleased when I told her how proud I was of her (I'm sure she didn't think I'd remember her), and a fourth stole the show. Yet another was sort of the diva she was even when I had her, but that's OK. I can see her going on in theatre, and you need a fair amount of attitude to make it in the business.

Last night another bunch of friends and I went to see Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul. Oh. My. Goodness. Hands down, one of the best concerts I've been to. Eileen Ivers is a genius, her band mates are geniuses, and they all so obviously love what they're doing that it's infectious. And you feel like if you invited her over to your place for a beer on the porch after the show, she'd do her best to be there. I think I have to check out their tour schedule and start following them around.

I've managed to pack four whole boxes, take a bunch of stuff to the Salvo, the book sale, and the consignment store. I'm working my way through the freezer and the dry goods. Even if I wasn't moving, these would be good things to do. I like knowing that my stuff is being used as it was intended, whether I'm the one making cookies with it, or someone else gets a new spring outfit from what I donated. Maybe someone will find one of my books at the library sale and it'll be just the one he was looking for. I have very few things in my possession that are just for show, and I don't collect for the sake of collecting. Yet somehow in the last year, I managed to accumulate a bunch of Stuff, and now it's time to move it along.

So until next week, as Dory said in that delightful little movie, we just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming swimming...

Short and sweet

2009-03-07T20:32:00.001-05:00

Still here. Since my last post, it's been wild and doesn't look to be easing up anytime soon. But it's good stuff, so I'm not going to complain.

OK, of course I will, but not in this post.

All the various things for the house are continuing apace-mortgage, inspection, paint-color-fantasizing. I have yet to actually pack anything into a box, but I did take a load of clothes to the consignment store, and another bag to the Salvo, and found some books that can go to the library sale. I've even been going through the kitchen cabinets, wondering why I need a bottle and a half of rice wine vinegar. (Answer: I don't. I only have one bottle now, and zero bottles of Thai fish sauce. I don't think that stuff spoils but the bottle leaks and I'm not moving it.) I almost feel like I want to know that the mortgage is 100% in the bag before I jinx anything with real-live packing, even though my mortgage guy has reassured me that everything is fine, and more than fine. So for the meantime, I'll sort out what's to go in the boxes when then time comes.

Things are looking better for the school district too. I think there will still be cuts, but not nearly the blood-letting that was in the works. Perhaps in the fall I'll be in six schools instead of two, but then again, perhaps my fellow music, art and library teachers and I will still be colleagues. I sure hope so.

Facebook continues to entertain me more than it probably should. I was on the receiving end of some attempted drama, but I don't think you can RRRRRREEEEEEAAAAAAALLLLLYYYYYY say you're on FB until you're involved in some nonsense. As anyone who actually knows me already understands, I don't seek out Teh Drama, but also don't back down from it when it is thrust upon me. Especially if the thrust is lame. I mean, if you're trying to get some scoop or dirt or tearful confession, just come out and say it, OK? Don't foist your insecurities upon me. I shall foist them right back.

I still have a somewhat-less smelly fleece in the washing process; right now, it's been through several soaks in nothing but cold water, which takes care of an AMAZING amount of yuck without boiling water or detergent. It's not exactly clean, but once I put it in the hot bubble bath, I think it will take far fewer rotations through it than the first batch I tried. I also have too many other works-in-progress lying around here. Shameful, except for the socks. Socks don't count in the WIP roundup. Ever. (If they did, the shame would be unbearable. Gotta give myself an out somewhere!)

Thus, blogging will probably be even less frequent than I seem to be achieving these days. But I'll be back, and maybe I'll even remember to bring my camera on these adventures...yeah, you're right, not likely. But a girl can dream, and it's a tactic that seems to be working well for me lately.

Zero to Sixty

2009-02-22T11:32:00.000-05:00

Well, so much for doing a little more sitting down during break. Instead of laying back and taking it easy, I went and bought a house. Yes, friends, you can thank me for the upcoming economic recovery. Me, and my dad, who just bought a new truck.

There will be much more news shortly. Right now, I'm still in the minor-freak-out stage, given that the economic recovery is still "upcoming," and I have an apartment to pack. Which won't be all that bad, really; I did a lot of downsizing in the last two years and am one queen-sized bedroom suite + one twin daybed with trundle + one china cabinet + one folding table+ three yarn cubbies + one knock-together cabinet + a whole lotta books and magazines + various and sundry other things lighter. I'm not exactly living in a stark, bare Zen-like environment, never fear, but it's going to fit in a U-Haul this time, not a professional moving van. Besides, if you ever saw the staircase here, you would be ever-so-glad I won't be asking my friends to help move all that stuff.

So, in the meantime, I offer up a thought, for both me and for several friends who are in, shall we say, interesting situations, in a wide variety of flavors. It's from our good friend, Sigmund Freud:

When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.

I'll take "Regrets" for $400, Alex...

2009-02-18T19:41:00.000-05:00

Over at Kate's blog ("One More Thing," over on my bloglist there), she's been offering up a topic upon which to muse. This week, it's regarding regrets, or the lack thereof. I've been chewing this over for a while, too, so I thought I'd chew over it for your pleasure too.

I have one big fat regret which I won't go into here. Some things are still too personal to put online. Yet while I regret the action, at the same time, I'm not sure I had any choice but to go through it. Thankfully, the outcome was not what it could have been and I continue to grow from the experience.

Otherwise, I have some more minor regrets. I wish I'd gone to Germany with my college wind ensemble at the end of my first year of teaching. The Crane School of Music is part of SUNY Potsdam in the north country of New York, and several groups were invited to perform at the celebrations for the town of Potsdam, Germany's 500th (I think) anniversary. The director of the wind ensemble called me personally to invite me to play, all expenses paid, even though I had graduated. But it was during my last week of school, and the only way I could do it was to take the week of with no pay. That freaked me right the hell out, having a boatload of student loans, and I didn't go. Foolish. I have yet to travel anywhere outside the US (other than Canada).

I also wish I'd gone straight on to grad school after Crane, or at least taken a leave of absence after my first year of teaching. Again, I had some very neat opportunities offered to me, and I turned them down when my mother pointed out that I wouldn't have health insurance. (Which, of course, was most surely not the case...there is a such thing as student health insurance, I'm told...insert eye-roll.) And how would I pay for it? What would I live on? What was I THINKING??? My mom has always been very oriented towards financial security uber alles, and for a long time, I listened a little too hard to that "advice."

I've always been a good student, and I have a very, very good memory. In the average school setting, being able to memorize stuff for tests is an advantage. I'm also good at figuring out the rules for a particular situation and can adjust for success in most of them. Because I got high grades fairly easily and didn't seem to be challenged, I ended up getting more work: accelerated classes, a program called compacting, going to the local SUNY for part of my senior year. But the work in these programs wasn't more challenging, it was just more work. Because of this, I feel like a lot of my knowledge is a mile wide and an inch deep. I wish I'd been allowed to train my focus on fewer subjects, but with more depth. I know there's plenty of time in my adult life to dig as deeply as I want in any subject matter, but that feeling of quantity versus quality has always bugged me. I'm irritated that either no one recognized it in me, or they did recognize it but had no way to deal with me than to simply pile more on.

(And while I'm mentioning school irritations, I have yet to forgive my physics teacher during junior year for not giving me an "incomplete" for the quarter I missed three weeks of school due to having freakin' pneumonia. She averaged in zeroes for all the assignments I missed while alternating fever chills with hacking up my right lung, and there were an awful lot of them. It killed my GPA, and even though I had the highest class average since seventh grade, I lost my shot at valedictorian. That's not really a regret, I suppose, but it still pisses me off, so there.)

But there's no point in dwelling on most of these, even the big fat one. What's done is done, and I do indeed have the rest of my life to do things the way I want. It's a cliche, but every day really is a new one, and I get to choose which direction I take each time I hit the floor in the morning.

A Monday I Like

2009-02-16T13:18:00.000-05:00

Ahhh, the first day of a week off. I'm not often one to sit all day; for one, I have cheapass cable and therefore nothing to watch, unless it's Clifford the Big Red Dog or One Life to Live. No thanks. Also, as the weeks pass and we get closer to a school break, things get left behind in ever-increasing piles. Saturday and Sunday were for reclaiming various flat surfaces, including the kitchen/dining room table, and the bottom of the bedroom closet underneath the laundry basket. It was covered by two weeks' worth of laundry. Good times, good times.

Then we come to a good Monday, meaning I can do whatever the hell I please. I have a list of weird little tasks to achieve this week, including, but not limited to...

*go to Hamlin's (to pick up the sax that got dropped only a little)
*pick up drums from Mardi (who is an art professor at the local university, but yes, she has a dozen of my hand drums at her house)
*order monkey hats and green tinsel wigs (kinky little devil that I am...OK, they're for the play at school)
*make bread (so I can make some giblet stuffing...it's not just for Thanksgiving anymore)
*call mortgage people (yes, you read that correctly...the possibility exists and I will keep you posted)
*mop floors (they're getting sticky in spots)
*go to fabric store for tulle (NOT for a tutu)

I love to make lists, but it's hard not to add more and more to them. There's always something that needs doing, but I need to do some plain old sitting down too. Of course, that sitting down will rarely be ONLY sitting down...there's knitting and spinning to be done, as they got left behind a little as well. I think I've been fighting something off in the last week; even though my schedule was pretty much the same as it always is, I have been absolutely crashing at about 9:00 and sleeping right until it's time to get up at about 6:00. I may even blog some more this week...there's fleece being washed, a tale of what we didn't do in music class last week, and a very good recipe to share that includes lots of fiber as well.

So, apologies for a disjointed post, but I think that's what happens when my brain is unwinding itself from its usual "Go! Go! Go!" operations. I should make more sense by Friday.

I Missed St. Brigid's Day

2009-02-06T21:53:00.000-05:00

I hope you can stand a poem (or at least what I consider a poem), a few days late...

the lesson of the moth

i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became too civilized
to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself
on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
archy

-by Don Marquis