A Little Yarn On The Side

Well--that was a fast month.  The new job is going well, though it was a rough start.  The company has so little turnover that there just isn't a training program, so the first weeks were overwhelming at times, but I'm getting the hang of things now.  My coworkers are so nice and help me all they can, so I'm enjoying it. There hasn't been much crafting time, though I did step off the fabric wagon for this: It's a laser-cut quilt kit, and is a perfect project for spare moments here and there after work. I'm going to hang it on the wall when it's done--which will hopefully be soon.  I've also done a little machine embroidery, but mostly crafting has screeched to a halt.  We've gotten more unpacking done, lots of fall yard cleanup, and have had a few friends over--something we haven't been able to do since March when we started the whole house journey.  We still have so much unpacking to do, but the new neighborhood is so lovely that it...

Okay--so it's time to admit that I'm NOT going to have all the boxes unpacked before going back to work, but that's okay.  I've made progress, though, and some of the time we can even find stuff.  It's worth it, though.  About 2 weeks ago there was a wreck at the intersection leading into our old subdivision because of the crazy school traffic, and the only surprise is that it didn't happen sooner.  And that's before the new subdivision of overcrowded homes has gone in.  Even if the F35s are sent elsewhere, it's great to be out of there.  I took yesterday off to sew AND get some pictures of my sewing progress.  I'm very proud of this: I have no idea what I intended to do with this fabric--especially since there wasn't enough of it to do most patterns--so since there was no emotional stake here, I convinced myself to embroider the bottom edges of the sleeves.  With embroidering, there's always a chance it won't work, and I didn...

And a LOT of unpacking.  We've made progress, and I've already emptied one more box this morning, but there are so MANY!!!   The sewing room is especially hard because I left behind all my wonderful shelving, so there is literally nowhere to put things as I unpack them.  I did run across my rope stash, so the first project in the new house was a large storage basket, and I could use a bunch more.  I'd saved a bunch of Andy's old jeans to make hanging storage for his old closet, and since I found that box, I've been cutting the denim into strips and I'm trying a new idea: twisting the denim strips into rope AS I sew.  The beginning was a bit rough and the bottom is puckering a bit, but as it's just for storage I don't really care.  I could be wrapping the denim around rope, but I was worried about how heavy that might be, and if this works, it's a great way to use up denim.  Besides, the rope stash has been commandeered: I also found my East...

Thanks for your kind thoughts everyone.  Callisto wasn't always the nicest cat, but I had her for 13 years and when she wanted to be, she was funny and charming and used to hide in my closet and the only way I would know she was in there was when the closet started purring when I walked in.  Theo has taken to sitting on my feet, so I think we're both missing her. We knew she wasn't going to last much longer, and after watching Theo searching the house for her, we decided to find him some friends.  Meet the latest additions: Venus and Milo are settling in well, and so far Theo mostly isn't interested.  We're introducing them slowly as recommended, but Theo wasn't showing the least bit of interest in them through a closed door, so we've let him get a few glimpses of them here and there. It's been a pretty eventful time for him, but luckily he likes the new sewing room, including the view, and sometimes I find him up there without me.  There hasn...

Last night we had to have Callisto put to sleep.  She had been declining but she LOVED the new backyard so we had given her as much time out there as possible, but Friday night we couldn't find her, had one glimpse of her Saturday, and then nothing.  We were worried that she had crawled off somewhere to die, but last night she came staggering onto the patio and was in such sad shape that Andy whisked her off to the emergency vet to put an end to her suffering.  I wish we could have taken her sooner, but all her life, when she wanted to hide from me I have NEVER found her, and I'm sort of proud of her for maintaining that to the end. Theo is wandering around the house looking for her, in spite of the fact that she was never really nice to him.  There may be a trip to the shelter to find a friend for him, but for right now, there are extra cuddles for all of us.

I'd like to say everything went smoothly, but the moving company managed to be a HUGE nightmare--making mistakes, scratching up a lot of our furniture, breaking things, leaving our things in a hot truck in a hot parking lot leaving us forced to rent a Uhaul truck for everything we DIDN'T want baked into oblivion, and charging us almost double the written estimate--but again, Idaho doesn't license moving companies either.  I almost admire the consistency with which the nightmare movers worked.  If you see a large stack of boxes, the bottom one is guaranteed to be marked fragile, and if we carefully marked "this side up," they had a 100% rate of putting it any OTHER way than the way we marked.  If you're reading this and you're in Idaho, if you are ever foolish enough to consider hiring Peasley's Transfer and Storage, have a reliable friend lock you up until such a foolish impulse passes. The pod has been delivered, emptied in extreme heat, and return...

As it turns out, the buyer's inspector is so awful that he doesn't come back for the walkthrough unless he is PAID to do so, so we were spared his nonsense today.  (Really, one wonders why on earth these fools think he's so great) We guess the closing went okay, but it's not recorded yet and we ran into a bit of a snag with what to do with the proceeds for 3 days that won't cost us some sort of fee.  How weird is THAT?  Then there was a problem with our new purchase because our home owner's insurance agent was slow to get his stuff to the lender and almost cost us the closing date.  AND our movers--whom I had used before because I knew the family that started I but have unfortunately gone SERIOUSLY downhill as most family businesses do when family members who shouldn't be hired or promoted ARE, so they are the reason we are moving on Wednesday instead of Thursday and NOW I can't get a response to how they will be storing our things on Thursday which is ...