A Little Yarn On The Side

If any of you were thinking that by now I would have heard something from national charity #3, you would be wrong.  It was even a charity I have given money to in the past, but THAT certainly won't be happening again.

Our pod is filled and the Pod people will be out to pick it up this afternoon.  They'll store it in climate-controlled storage until we're ready for it again, then they'll bring it to our new location and we reverse the whole process.  Whew! During all this, of course, I'm still searching for a job because getting our house ready to sell just isn't ENOUGH fun by itself.  I can't remember where we left off with the charity recruiter saga, but as I have an update, let's recap:  National charity #1:   Kept setting appointments either without confirming times with the other parties, or which the other people completely disregarded anyway National charity #2:  Assured me in no uncertain terms that the particular position we were discussing required NO fundraising of any kind--which I found out to be untrue in the in-person interview, right after I said I was tired of fundraising And last week's cake-taker, national charity #3:  Called on Thursday to ...

It's now been 1 year (and a leap year at that) and 9 months since I last bought yarn! And I have to say that my desire to buy yarn, fabric, or books has been greatly diminished by our packing adventures, although if anyone were hoping I'd be learning any great lessons about buying craft supplies, yarn and fabric in sweater bags has been REALLY helpful packing our storage pod, so I think it's sort of rewarded me more than anything else. Oops.

Alright, to be fair, it isn't a LOT of yarn and I didn't actually remember having it, but I'm donating it nonetheless, and as it's bulky yarn, it actually DOES free up some space.  AND that is another 5 yards of costume satin sitting there beside it.  I may not have much crafting time this year, but at least the stash is shrinking a little.  It turns out that filling a pod storage container is like a giant game of Tetris.  Because it's going to move, things have to be securely stacked and tied down and they can't shift around, so today my project is to pack some smaller boxes because we need some filler.  I think it might work better if we were storing more furniture, but we really don't have that much furniture.  My parents have so thoroughly overcrowded every room they have with furniture that I've always tended the other direction.  We've decided to store most of our bookshelves to stabilize our boxes in the pod, but we could have skipped that...

Two MONTHS after the interview process started with the American Red Cross, and two weeks since my "final" interview, I received the "we're not interested" form email from them today.  I thought I'd be disappointed, but dealing with them has been such an unprofessional mess that I'm not sure it isn't a relief.  ONE HOUR before one of the interviews that the recruiter had scheduled, I received an email from the person doing the interview that she'd scheduled my interview for 4 days later.  When I responded that the recruiter had actually scheduled it for THAT DAY, all the manager said was that she would let the recruiter know.  No "sorry for the confusion" or any acknowledgement at all that I might have rearranged my schedule to accommodate theirs or that this might be WILDLY unprofessional and rude--and the whole process was like that: times changing all the time, the recruiter and the manager obviously not communicating and just on and...

Between looking for a job and trying to get the house ready for to sell, my stress level is just a wee bit high right now, as I think most people would guess.  I say "most" because there are always those family members who never think you're doing enough for them no matter what is happening in your own life, but everyone has at least one of those relatives, right?  Anyway, the hobby party turned out to be both a nice break AND a really fun event. We had a "display" table of things that people had made for us that weren't going to be eligible for any voting, but were still fun.  I have a pair of pillowcases my favorite grandmother made me, tin can furniture from my other grandmother, both of which were made from old Band-Aid boxes, a doily one of my volunteers gave me, a ceramic owl Andy's cousin made, a ceramic Santa a friend painted,  a quilt from Andy's great-aunt and one from my grandmother,  and a rock table made by my great-grandmo...

So interview #1 is over and I did not get the job, but rather amazingly, they called me to tell me this.  That's a first--usually it's a form email or letter 6 weeks later when you've basically already figured that out.  I thought that was above and beyond, so very high marks to that gentleman.  The next one is on Monday, so hopefully I am not spending the rest of the week curled up in the back of my closet--but I will take knitting with me if I do. Tomorrow we are hosting a Home Hobby party.  Many of our friends are amateur musicians, and there are regular "house concerts" for people to perform, which is fun, but it occurred to me that we have lots of friends with OTHER hobbies, so everyone is invited to bring something to show, and there will be prizes for favorite, most unusual, and just general door prizes.  I've been able to see some of the things our friends do, but they're always surprising me with new talents, so I'm very excited about this a...