A Little Yarn On The Side

I think it counts for Me Made May that I am lounging in my penguin pajamas while drinking my coffee. I haven't used pajamas for Me-Made Mondays, but Me-Made-May is a bit more of a challenge. Today I have a phone interview, but the rest of the day will be high-gear cleaning.  Yesterday for excitement I took my valuable jewelry to the bank to store in our safe deposit box.  And it WAS exciting.   Seriously, I walked into the bank and didn't have to check their paint for spots or their carpet or anything--truly exciting.  Yesterday launched the second Race To The Bottom challenge on Ravelry.  In 18 months, the idea is to use up (or donate) 30,000 yards OR use up the rest of one's stash.  I failed abysmally at the first challenge, but this time I saved the two skeins of acrylic to donate DURING this challenge to give me a bit of a boost, as my knitting time has pretty much evaporated right now.  It would take me closer to 18 YEARS to knit up my yar...

I know I've tried this before, and this month is likely to be quite insane as the photographing is SET now for Wednesday afternoon and that means listing the house and all sorts of craziness, but for right now, I'm doing Me Made May.  It's cold today , so it was a perfect day for this: It's the first of the jackets I made from my now-favorite pattern, and I honestly wondered at times if I would ever finish it.  Sort of like the house preparations.  Speaking of which, last night we repainted much of the hallway after the "touchups" with the unopened second can of paint didn't come very close to the original paint.  Today has been a cleaning frenzy, and tonight will either be cleaning or a bit more painting as I didn't go close enough to the carpet to "blend."  Seriously, after all this, we are SO ready to sell this house. 

So far, I've been locked in the bedroom, Andy got locked in a bathroom, all but one of Calisto's favorite sleeping spots are gone, and I had to brush some white racing stripes off of Theo this week. Selling a house is not for the faint of heart. We've had to push the photography back a bit so we can get the carpet stretched and cleaned.  But today is STILL another fun-filled prep day.  I have forgotten what we used to do on weekends, but I'm sure it was much more fun than house prep.  Then again, what isn't? Thanks for your encouragement, everyone.  The thing I realized this weekend is that not ONCE in any of the interviews I have done have any of the organizations acted IN ANY WAY like this was a mutually-beneficial arrangement or that my skills were something they should want.  All of them have been about why they should hire me.  That's a fair question, of course, but especially in the nonprofit world, I am nowhere NEAR entry-level and have often had...

Eke!  We said we would have the house ready to photograph on Monday.  Part of me is completely stressed out by that idea, but if we don't have a deadline, we could "prep" forever, and I think another house in our neighborhood is about to go up for sale, so it's time. Here's a question for you:  If someone tells you at the end of an interview that "they're hoping to reach a decision by next week," and it's now Friday of that week and you've heard absolutely nothing, has that ever not been a total blow-off?  No one ever hears a week later that something just came up right, and all the phones and email were down, so they couldn't let you know of the delay in any way short of smoke signals?  That never happens, right?  So I have just gotten the professional brush-off from another charity.  Don't worry--I'm not insane (mostly)--I'm not going to consider charities as an option anymore.  They don't generally pay well, expect l...

It's clean and ready,   but I don't really get to play in it now because I don't have time and sewing makes a huge mess, or at least it does when I do it.  It's so funny that I'm this sad about not being able to sew--I originally learned to sew in 4-H and HATED it.  I think I could have enjoyed it, but for my mother, it wasn't important just to learn something or--heaven forbid--just getting to enjoy something.  Nope, it had to be about earning a blue ribbon at the fair .  Not for my sake-- for hers , because I didn't care.  But sewing 4-H was about her being AT me all the time about it constantly --no wonder I gave it up for showing cattle because it was outside and I could do it myself without her bothering me.  I actually liked the sewing part, but the whole experience was so hateful that I didn't attempt it again until I was well into my 30s.  I think the saddest part is that she still has my 4-H ribbons and won't throw them out even thou...

Thanks to my ever-present assistants, the sewing room is done and ready for showing.  Now I just need to get all the rest of them finished.

I spent yesterday doing more house prepping, but I get tired and have to take breaks, which I normally spend job-hunting, but I have decided to take a break from that abuse and instead: worked on the Begonia Swirl shawl.  It's down to just the last 10 rows, but they are LONG rows.  Still, a lot more satisfying than the job hunt.  I did sort of receive an update on the charity that stood me up for an interview, though not from the actual charity, of course, even after I had followed up with the regional manager about what had happened.  I'm using Indeed.com, and the website updated me that the position is no longer available on the charity's website.  This is how low things have gotten--the biggest courtesy I've received lately is from an automatic search engine.  It's so nice to be valued. I think we'll be ready to list the house by the end of the week, which will be such a relief--although I guess then we have to deal with total strangers wande...