Well, that summer slump may be over soon

Hi!

Remember me? What can I say, summer happened and all desire to maintain a blog went bye-bye! I haven’t really been doing much crafting, as the weather has been so nice for the past couple months. It’s too much to sit inside with a pile of wool on my lap when the sun is shining!

We are still in our same house. We are in no hurry to move, but it’s not like any offers have come yet. :O But that’s okay. The market is terrible. All our friends are here in this area, and it’s SUMMER! When it happens, it happens. We’ll pack up our things and move north, saying our temporary farewells to our good friends. And we’ll say fond and final farewells for those people in life that I we really won’t miss. Like, I won’t miss Mr. 17 Year Old next door racing his dirt bike up and down the street. I won’t miss his friends parking in front of our house all the time. Things like that. ;)

I did start some knitting a few weeks ago, but have little progress to show. None, in fact. I frogged it out tonight! It was a window valance in feather and fan stitch. I was slow going on it, and once I got to the stitch pattern, I mucked up somehow and my cast-on number was off. Or I mucked up the lace part. I don’t know. I’ll restart… maybe tomorrow. :) I have an incentive to stay inside right now, actually, I discovered streaming television and have been catching up on the new Dr. Who series. I like it, it’s humorous. Way campy at times, but really, what do you expect? The actors are pretty decent. The character of Rose is kind of annoying, but Billie Piper plays her well. Christopher Eccleston is strange to see as a Doctor, but he grew on me after the second episode. I like his inappropriate reactions, and his giggles in the peril of danger.

I also got another hobby, this time not so much craft related, but it’s an addiction like crafting is. I don’t know why, but I got into Blythe dolls. I purchased three in the past month. I have a Primadolly Ashlette named Annuszka who I am completely customizing, a My Best Friend that I named Tatiana, and coming soon is an Ashton Drake Gallery reproduction of one of the originals, a Pretty Paisley. I don’t know what I will name her. They’re really kind of lovely and intensely creepy all in one big-headed doll. Their eyes shift directions and colors with a pull string, so you can make them look like they’re up to something. A Flickr group I am entertained by is Blythe Behaving Badly. Moo ha ha ha. The photos of excessive drinking and debauchery are hiiiighly amusing. Though that customized boy Blythe is FREAKY.

Anyway, if you are on Ravelry, look me up. I’m Lelah over there. I haven’t gotten all my projects and stash up, and I probably won’t get to the stash for a while (it’s in storage). But look me up all the same.

Work on the house…

is slowly coming along! Hubby tiled the bathroom floor last weekend, and is now hanging the new door. It looks so cute, I hate to move. But, I am warming up to the idea. I still don’t know when we are leaving, or when we will put the house on the market (a week? 2 weeks?). But just thinking about how beautiful the Hudson River Valley is, that gets me excited.

Oh, if anyone in S Plainfield/Piscataway area of NJ goes to the PetCo on Centennial Ave, NEVER use their grooming services! I entrusted them to give a bath and a haircut to my lovely dog Barnabus, and they cut him so unevenly, and even CUT his poor doggy skin! It was not good. I am still upset over this.

Topsoil

I currently have 4 cubic yards of screened, black, earthy topsoil on my driveway. I don’t really have a green thumb, but you can’t deny the loveliness of fresh and good-smelling dirt.

I wish I was crafting more, but things are so upside-down here at home, I just don’t have the motivation to make another huge mess. Like in school, I couldn’t study unless the house was clean. I can’t even sit down to watch tv and knit, I just can’t relax. My husband decided to buy a sledgehammer and crack up part of our walkway. There was just cement on the left side of our stairs, which was off-balanced and pretty yicky, but I suggested he save time and money by just buying an antique horse trough and I’d plant flowers in it. Now he’s planning to tear out the box hedge on the other side, and doing this huge landscaping thing to get our house ready to sell.

What we need to be doing is getting a storage unit and start loading all the stuff upstairs into it. I called a realtor yesterday, and she’s coming over Sunday to tell us what we really need to get done to sell the joint.

This is our first house, and while I am excited to move to LoHud, I really got settled here. Especially since this year was so difficult for me emotionally. I am super lucky, my husband got a really great job where I don’t have to worry about working. I know this. I just am not well enough to be dealing with an upheaval like this. Change like this is not good for me right now. But it absolutely has to and is happening. I know I sound completely normal when I write here, but in real life I have this tendency to panic at change, it really distresses me.

AND IT DOESN’T HELP THAT MY BIRTHDAY IS IN 9 DAYS AND I WILL BE 29!!!!! AIIIIIIII! Where did all the time go? How am I married, a homeowner, have a college degree, own five animals, own a car… and still fee like a huge mess of a person? Some days I don’t even know if I am a person. Good Lord, I need some comfort.

All over the place!

Well, I am sorry for being a bad blogger. I had a health emergency last Thursday, and was in the hospital until last Monday. Or was it Tuesday? I’ve been trying to get my personal life back in order, and something life-changing happened: my husband got a new job! He’ll be working in NYC twice a week, then the other three days will be out in the lower 5 or 6 counties of the Hudson River valley. So guess what that means… we’re MOVING. Right now we are in central Jersey, and the commute will be impossible for him.

This is scary and wonderful all at the same time. I’ve been wanting to get out of NJ since I moved here with my parents from Ohio. So now it is finally happening. However, this means that my hubby and I have to get this house ready to sell, and scout out a town to live in up there. We don’t know the area at all. Yesterday after church we took a drive up to the Beacon/Fishkill area. Beautiful! But, a little too pricey. The taxes up there are a lot lower than what we’re used to, but the houses in those towns are like $100k more than what we want to pay. We went to a random open house, and met a realtor/broker. He has lived in the area all his life, and mentioned some new houses going up in our price range. I don’t really want to live in a development, but it will be good for our future kids. And a new house means no DIY projects that have to be done!!

I want to type more, but my dog is giving me the poop whines. :)

I Like it A Lot

Well. Tuesdays. Last week I was feeling a might peckish, then sort of maudlin, then kind of indifferent to the internet out of my malaise.

And sadly because of that, my list is short this week.

There’s something so dainty quaint about porcelain, and I found this link via Whip-Up. The link is a link to her blog, where Penny details her most lovely crafty life. I love craft blogs that incorporate some real life into them. Can I be Penny when I grow up?

Are you diapering and into sewing? Or childless, like myself, but like to sew little cute things? This SewShoppe store has all you need for making a cloth diaper- from the fabric to the hook-and-loop tape.

I am SO glad that Amigurumi is getting popular for knitters. Because then I can make more cute things. These twin cherries are too cute.

Make a cover for your Moleskine!

I *love* this sweater. The many buttons are what does it in for me. And the placement of them is sliiiighty nautical (you know, the nautical pants…). You could knit this while watching the entire Horatio Hornblower series (what? you don’t own it??? YOU NEVER HEARD OF IT??? Siiiigh.) All I need to say about Horatio Hornblower is IOAN GRYFFUDD. The man is hotness in a circa 1805 British Naval costume. The tights… the hat… the hair… Okay then.

On a more serious note, my heart goes out to the students at Virgina Tech. My very own cousin was in the next building over from the classroom that was destroyed. I can’t imagine how losing him would affect me, because he has such a great life ahead of him. He’s getting married this summer, and is working on his PhD in Mathematics. Can you imagine what all the wounded and dead had to look forward to in their lives? It’s just all so sad.

Flooding

The waters have receded, but we were really worried last night. We live in an area full of little brooks and streams, and sometimes our street floods. Last night, there was water all around the house, and we had our back-up sump pump plugged in, as our basement was taking on a lot of water. Our ship was sinking!

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I’m sitting on the couch with the laptop, and Bubba is[=-]also trying to
–type-l. Sorry for not posting recently, I’ve had a really hectic week where I ‘ve been job interviewing. Three in three days! I was hired by the first company (a freelance agency), had an interview the next day for a search engine company, and today the agency sent me on an interview. I hope they hire me, they’re looking for a full-time medical editor, but will take whoever knows AMA style. I kind of want to work freelance for a while, but job stability is cool in the right place. This place is a pharma ad company, and the office was seriously killer- really well designed. The kind of place you could work in without wanting to jump off a cliff. And we all know how I love creative environments!

I don’t think I want the search engine job, it requires someone with a linguistics background, which I have, but it’s only a short term contract position. 4 months. Hmmm. No! At least with the agency I have short spurts here and there, but they take care of everything. Yippee.

On the craft front, I have started The Garter Belt’s Sizzle sweater. Hot, eh? Although I am not one for showing my bewbs, as I have none. So I am making it a size larger than me so I can wear a shirt underneath. Why show off something you don’t have? Heh!

Well, have a great weekend everyone.