Settling

All is quiet on the blogging front, but not really in reality.  We are busily going through our hastily packed boxes and trying to find spaces for everything.  The clothes are in the closet, but not all of them because it's, you know, cold again.  The dishes have been put away but the crockpots are still looking for a place to call home.  The crafting supplies have no idea what they are doing since the death of my sewing desk, but the stash is safely hiding in its cupboard.  The one part that is without a doubt, one hundred percent done?  My books.

There is already talk of a fourth bookcase coming into our lives on account of just how many books I have.  This may be the third time Chris has moved them in our year and a half of marriage, but I never fully unpacked them before now.  I guess I always worried that he might judge me on the sheer number of books that I have collected over the years.  But happily there has been no judgement.  He even helped me unpack, sorting out the final half of the alphabet and reading random lines of Tolstoy and Mead.

My favorite part of the new place is probably the kitchen.  It is exactly the type of kitchen I've always wanted -- small but not too small, with a wall of shelves and real cabinets with real handles (You laugh but there were no handles on any of the cabinets in our old place).

I love that the place is painted with all white trim/fixtures/whatever you call cabinets and such.  I'm sure it is impractical but it makes everything so much brighter.

As we've unpacked we've also enjoyed Chris' new work schedule that has allowed us to eat dinner together every night this week.  That combined with a new kitchen can only mean one thing.  Cooking!

I highly recommend the Southwest Mac n' Cheese from Budget Bytes.  It's the second meal I've made from her website in the past week and they've both been a hit.  A bit spicy for Chris' taste, but that's my fault.  I love some spice in my cooking.

All things considered, the move has been one of the best things that could have happened to us.  And not just because we now have a screened in porch for after dinner tea.

See?  There's still knitting and reading happening here.  But more on that later.

Living with Bees

Well that was a long and unexpected hiatus.  You would not believe the ten days that I have had.  First of all, we moved!  We have wanted to get out of our old place and to a more affordable and locationally appropriate for quite some time and it finally came through.  On Monday we rented a truck, crammed everything we could into the back, and begged our families to help us move just this one last time.  Once again they have all vowed never to help us again and we have promised to hire movers for when we eventually leave this place.  Hopefully we can make it last for more than a year this time.

But before even that happened, things had gotten rather complicated.  Last Friday night I was packing up some stuff and went out on the back porch to clean off some baskets.  I found a bag out there with some of the boxes we use for moving and went back inside to ask Chris if he wanted to keep it.  He came out, looked inside it, and found some interesting items that made us want to investigate more.  I mean, how did that webcam end up out there anyway?  And what else could be in that bag.

So we investigated further.  He pulled out more stuff when something flew out and startled him, causing him to knock off his glasses.  I bent down to pick them up, laughing a little at the image of him jumping, dropping the bag, and swatting at his ear as it replayed in my head.  Then, like a scene out of a horror movie, I turned ever so slowly as I stood up and saw it -- dozens of yellow jackets rising out of the bag and heading towards me like a strike force.

I screamed.  Chris yelled.  We both dove through the door, slamming it shut as fast as possible.  We weren't fast enough. Chris had a sting on his leg and I had a gotten stung in the foot.  But then as we tore through the door some more got inside.  We ran to the bathroom, hurriedly closing both exit doors.  Standing still I realized that there were bees in my jeans, which I ripped off as fast as possible, getting stung on the leg for my trouble.

So there we sat.  Trapped in our own bathroom.  Him with one sting in the leg, me with one to match plus four or five in my foot.  Now, I'm not allergic to bees, but the one sting on my hand that I got at the beginning of the week was still having a topical reaction after five days.  It seemed that as we watched my foot swelled up in front of us, all shiny and painful.  And here we sat, afraid to leave our bathroom and face the bees beyond the door.

The rest is a blur of pain and tears.  We managed to get out of the bathroom, grab phones and my purse and left for the emergency room with a quick call to my sister to assure that it was the right course of action.  (Don't worry, I did not go pantsless, though that might have made me more popular with the drunks we met that night).  When we got to the car we realized we only had the keys to Chris' which was full of things we were packing.  Amidst more panic on my part and haste on his we finally realized we  had not idea where my keys were and had to unpack the car so that he could run the boxes back into the apartment and through them to the mercy of the bees.

We arrived safely at the hospital despite our many close calls and traffic violations.  We almost missed the turn into the hospital but I saw the sign at the last minute and Chris managed to cross three lanes of traffic at an intersection and then back into the turning lane so that we were not hit by oncoming traffic.  It was a stroke of genius, I tell you, the kind only given to those driving pregnant women to the hospital as they start labor.  Only later did he tell me that he had to wear his old glasses with the bad prescription because in the commotion we broke the good ones.

The lovely doctor at the ER examined my foot and determined that it would go back to normal (I didn't believe him) and gave me medicine for the pain which I took without question.  I would have taken rat poison if he told me it was the only way to stop the pain.  I was able to go to work the next day, on crutches, but I was not allowed to drive, which made packing and moving much more difficult.  On Monday when we moved I was next to useless.  I limped around putting things in boxes and tried to stay out of everyone's way.  (I did become everyone's hero when we arrived to find that our power and water had not been turned on as we'd asked.  I am quite good with a phone and a switchboard when I need to be. I think I was a telephone operator in a previous life)

So here we sit.  Mostly unpacked and enjoying our new home.  The swelling in my foot has finally gone down and so far there have been no more attacks by bees.  Though Chris tells me he found a wasp nest outside our door, so one really never knows.

Stash 2: The Revenge

I was a little embarrassed when, during Knit and Crochet Blog Week, I had to explain where I keep my stash.  I wasn't embarrassed due to how I was keeping my stash wrangled but because I knew it was going to change soon with the upcoming move.

Btw, to everyone who stopped by during 2KCWB, thanks for visiting!  I was blown away by the numbers and very humbled by everyone's comments on Day 5.  You guys are so sweet!


My goal right now in preparation for the move is to pack one box a day.  I have these amazing copy paper boxes that teacher friends have been grabbing for me from their school offices, often to the chagrin of everyone else who knows someone who is moving.  So far I have three boxes of books (they got so heavy I decided to stop packing books until I find an alternative solution), assorted other boxes, and two boxes of yarn.  Oh yeah, that's right.  I have enough yarn to fill two boxes and still need a large shopping bag.

I didn't realize how much stash I have.  It was a little overwhelming as all the skeins starting crawling out from their respective hideouts like blood-thirsty zombies.  The approach I decided on was to put each set into ziplock bags and then place them in the boxes (So sweater quantities would be bagged together, but like skeins of the same color were bagged individually).  Then, I actually entered each one into Ravelry so that I know what I have and how much.

I know, recording your stash on Ravelry should be a no brainer.  When I first started using Ravelry I entered everything, but over time, I just got lazy.  Actually, that's a lie.  I got embarrassed.  I was embarrassed by some of my yarn because I still have a lot of my early stash.  I have a lot more good stash now, but I still have those random skeins of acrylic or big box store yarns (though in my defense the Lion Brand Homespun was a gift from a yarn-ignorant individual).  But while I was bagging and tagging each yarn I decided to no longer be ashamed.  My stash, which I didn't even think I had, is very indicative of my journey as a knitter.  It's full of bargain-priced odds and ends from when I was trying to get my footing in the crafting world, and orbiting around this are the newer acquisitions.  I've learned a lot about what yarn is good for what projects, and I think that is very apparent in my stash.  Just some of the colors are a little odd. But I've become secure in my yarn choices.  I may still envy the beautiful stashes of self-proclaimed "yarn snobs", but as I am in a lot of life, I'm an equal opportunity knitter.  If you're an acrylic yarn, but you're soft as cashmere and sturdy as wool, I'm all for it.  If you're a wool that's rather scratchy but looks and feels sheepy, bring it on.  I'm done being ashamed of anything in my stash and hiding it away.  From now on my stash and I are going to be quite happy together.

Road Trip 2010

It's been quite an interesting few days in the life of Faith (and any of the poor people who have to put up with me. Sorry Mom!) Not all bad, but all somehow steeped in emotion.

First, Mom and I took an extra day on our way to Pittsburgh (my home for the summer) to visit a very special area of the world.

Ok, yes, it's Ohio. Maybe not that exciting to you. But in my life it is very important. I was born in Ohio. Zanesville to be exact. And I've never been back. It's only two and a half or so hours away from Pittsburgh, so it was the perfect opportunity. I was so little when we moved that I have no memory of the area other than vague impressions of a quilt and being carried down stairs that could be faint infant impressions or fabricated memories from stories.

(Mom calls this my European shot. Squinting courtesy of early morning sunlight)

In any case, we found the town to be both the same and changed from how Mom remembered it. The hospital had changed names.

But the house I was brought home to was still the same (2 miles off of any paved roads and in the middle of state game lands).

We even found the site of my first acting role. My parents were in a production of Carousel (Dad, of course, was Billy Bigilow and Mom was in the chorus) in Coshocton. I guess my natural acting ability was recognized early on.

Our last stop in our mini tour was Dresden, the official town of my first year of life.

It is also the home of Longaberger baskets. The town is a little basket obsessed. I ended up buying a little pin at a shop on the way out of town. It's a basket, of course, and made by a company in town.

(yes, that's a real house next to that basket)

(Who says your trash can't be stylish too)

We took many more pictures, but I'm sure your browser would rather I took some sort of pity on it. Mom helped me move into my summer sublet yesterday and today we did last minute errands before she left. So of course, we found the local yarn shop.

This is just one small part of the shop. The place was huge. I touched so much yarn, it was amazing. And Rochelle, the woman who was running the store, was so nice to us. I think she sensed the panic Mom and I both had just beneath the surface (nothing blog worthy, just over all scary) and immediately took me under her wing. She gave me coffee and showed me around, understanding that I literally have no yarn money but reassuring me that I can come any time they are open to sit on the couch and knit. As my aunt told my mom, somehow you can always find nice people in yarn shops. I'm fairly certain that I'll be sacrificing some food money and hanging out here as much as I can.

And now I really must get back to this sock. Though I have another shawl that needs my attention.

Remember: Knitting needles are for knitting. And skewering dried fruit when you spill the bag making giant trail mix to pass the time in construction.