I'm Back

I still haven't found the camera cord. I fear it is buried in the depths of the twisted mess that is being called "the box with electronic stuff". I don't even want to walk near it yet.

Moving blows. It would be fine if we could just stop now. We have all of our furniture and clothes here and unpacked, most of the kitchen and all of the electronics. Essentially everything I need to live. Oh, wait, some of the yarn but most of it is still over there, so let me amend that. MOST of what I need to survive.

But there are still assloads of stuff in the old house. Assloads, really. And this is after the great purge of 2008, when we moved up here! Let me tell you, I am ruthless. If it's a sock without a mate? It's going in the trash. Stray makeup? Trash. Old blow dryer? Trash. Sheets that don't fit beds? Trash. Now you may say this isn't ruthless, it's just normal. Well, not when you are married to a pack rat.

He comes from a long, distinguished line of pack rats. For instance, his grandmother saved everything. Everything. So much stuff they had to rent a dumpster to clean out her house when she passed away.

His mother? She buys things and sticks them in closets for Christmas's future. (She also regifts out of that closet, but that's another story) Her basement is full of stuff. When she decides to get rid of stuff, she can't throw it away, she must give it away and be sure of its use in it's new home.

Joe went through the girls bathroom and packed shampoo bottles with less than half and inch of shampoo in them (I will admit the girls should have gotten the little bit out and threw the dang bottles away!) And sheets in sizes we don't need anymore. His rationale? They cost money and we might be able to use them someday. NO! No, I say. No more. This house is smaller, we need less stuff. And I want to be able to buy more yarn! So purge we shall.

But right now I'm going to go knit.

Off the Grid

Well, we are making the move. We had to, the cable got switched over today and you all know I can't live without my tv! But since this is "the country" apparently cable companies which provide internet,cable and phone service need three separate installment appointments, because one would be "too long". So, I shall have no phone till Saturday and no internet till next week.

On the Tour De Fleece front, Meg gifted me a beautiful leader shirt yellow and sparkly spindle! Even though I lead in nothing trust me. She also gave me some soft fluff to spin with, softer than anything my rookie hands have ever been on! Fun! I spun some in the new house.

On the plus side, while moving I'm bound to find the camera cord, so next time I post there will be pictures! Fleece, knitting, spindles and house!

See ya on the flip side!

Carpet Shopping

Don't do it at a chain store that sells tools and lights and appliances and paint and carpet. I won't name the store because that wouldn't be nice, but . . . .

All we wanted to do was price out some carpet.

First they told us about the whole 12 feet issue. Carpet apparently either comes in widths of 12 feet or some come in widths of 12 or 15 (the ugly ones!) Well we need 13 so guess what I was looking at?

Oh, and then we were limited by what was in stock, my selection became even smaller.

Then we decided to have someone come measure for us, before we made a final decision. We also wanted to take home the sample card.

It then took the clerk about half an hour to get enough information from us for us to be able to leave the store with a freaking sample card of carpet and an appointment for the 10th (the only date available for months-and by the way they have to measure before they will even sell you the shit)and then we were supposed to go somewhere else to pay for said appointment.

I told Joe we would go to the local furniture store and price carpet there because it couldn't be worse service wise than the place we were at. And I'd pay a few more dollars to know that someone who could work a keyboard was placing my order for me.

Tour De Fleece

I'm spinning! No, that is not a picture of what I'm spinning right now. Still can't find the camera cord, so just looked in the archives for an old picture. I am using that spindle, but I'm spinning the blue stuff.

I had plied a skein of the blue, a small skein, but I think I'm going to leave the rest unplied, skein it up and call it lace! It's pretty much even, kind of in between lace and fingering so it should work for a shawl. I don't have the right tools for plying. Of course I can always use the pop bottle method, which I've perfected in the past, but it makes me nervous. This will be better.

Oh, I hope I find the camera cord. I just took an uber cute picture of my spinning with Kibbles in the background. He's awesome. He started off as this crazy tasmanian devil like dog, who wouldn't even let you pet him and he's turned into a snuggler. Love him.

Back to spinning for the Tour De Fleece - Zombie Prom Date Knitters Represent! Woot!

They Worked

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know, your good thoughts worked.

We are trying to buy a house, and we were getting the runaround from the mortgage company we were working with. First our rep got fired and no one told us. We only found out because after we hadn't heard anything for 10 days, we called him. No one had even looked at his files so our file had lain on his desk doing nothing for two weeks.

Then the lady who took over his file didn't make it a priority. I don't know, but if you are a manager and you fire someone, don't you think it should be a priority to take over that persons workload? We would call her on the daily only to hear "I don't know anything yet, and I don't know when I will, and oh, could you send us this paper that you said you already sent?" I thought Joe was going to stroke out.

Then we found out that our first house which we had a VA loan on, and sold 15 YEARS ago, is still listed as having an outstanding VA loan. We thought we were toast. This was Tuesday and we were supposed to close yesterday. Joe called the lady and told her this was bullshit, the agent had had his VA certificate from day one and should have known this was a problem. He told her we are facing the possiblility of being homeless because the person we are buying the house from now wants out of the deal. The lady did nothing. Nothing.

So we went to a bank here, and within 24 hours, were approved for an FHA loan. That was the result of all your good thoughts. We won't be homeless. In about two weeks we will be moving to our new house. Thank you all so much.

Good Thoughts

If anyone is out there, you don't have to post a comment or anything. And just so you know, everyone in our family is fine, but we are facing a crisis here, and I really believe in the power of good thoughts. So if you are reading this and are inclined to, please send some good thoughts our way. Thank you.