Deadlines!

Every year I end up pushing deadlines and scrambling to get packages sent across the country before I end up paying exorbitant postage rates in order to get them to their destinations by Christmas or Hanukkah. Then I tell myself, "Next year I'll start really early and not have to rush!" And then I forget, and end up rushing to get things bought, wrapped, and sent in time. Again. This year is no different.

Here is my biggest deadline problem:

Flames Hat for Nephew

As happens so often, inspiration didn't hit until the clock was ticking. I'm knitting madly so I can get it sent off. Why is it that I don't get inspired much earlier in the year when I have time to hunt for the perfect item, or knit a hat (or scarf, or fingerless gloves, etc.) with weeks or months to spare? Is it the stress of the looming holiday that starts the wheels turning in my head? I'm trying to write down the good ideas that I've come up with for others as well, that I didn't have time to sew or knit or shop for, so I can get a jump on next year. I'll let you know how that worked when I'm fighting deadlines again next year. 

 Of course, I have put myself in this position. Last year we started sending a check to this nephew for his college fund instead of a new toy. He's not lacking for toys and books and general "stuff" so we were feeling that this was good for us and good for him; less fuss, less "stuff" to clutter up his house, and easier to mail. This year though I was thinking about how he's getting old enough that opening a check will be really boring for him. But a big toy wasn't in the budget if we are already  sending a check, and he didn't really need another toy for all of the aforementioned reasons. That's when the idea of this hat came to me. I had enough leftover yarn that I didn't even have to buy anything. And I had already knit the pattern for my son a few years ago in blues. 

First Flames Hat for Son

I really like the flames look. OK, I probably like the flames more than my son does.(He wears the hat so I can't really complain.)

I realize I'm probably spoiling the surprise by putting this up online. I only have one nephew to whom I send Christmas presents (the other nephews get Hanukkah presents) so it's easy to figure out.  Luckily, this nephew is only 4 years old and likely doesn't read my blog. His parents probably don't read my blog either, and even if they did, I am sure they wouldn't say anything to ruin the surprise. (And I KNOW Grandma and Grandpa won't give it away!)

Better get back to my knitting. 

Shelley in CT

Knitted Knockers, Knaturally!

I just finished the most amazing knitting project. It started with a tentative request from my friend from chorus, Anne, who has had a mastectomy and wears a prosthesis. Her husband had seen an article about knitted prostheses that many women were finding much more comfortable than the silicone breast forms (knitted boobs! Who knew?) and she wanted to try one. She was being so careful to not be pushy, and give me the opportunity to say no if I didn't want to knit for her. Little did she know, those "odd" requests and out-of-the-box patterns are the really fun projects. Pretty soon we were cracking all sorts of jokes as we carpooled to rehearsal, and she passed along the article with a link to a website with the pattern and more information.

After rehearsal that night I looked up the website (www.knittedknockers.info) and printed out the pattern. I then pulled out my yarn stash to look for appropriate yarns that might work. Next day I called Anne to discuss fiber sensitivity, color preference, and size. We decided to wing it with some of my leftovers. I had some really bright, variegated "Socks That Rock" medium weight yarn (yellows, pinks, purples, blues, greens) that was the right weight yarn, and was a nice soft washable merino wool. The pattern and website recommended cotton, but since she would be putting it inside the pocket in her bra, it wouldn't actually be touching her skin. It's such a small piece of knitting that I could rip out and reknit or try again with different yarn if it didn't work out the first time.

The pattern was so easy and fast to knit. It only took me a couple of days. I stuffed it with polyester fiberfill - I had a huge bag in my sewing room that I used for all sorts of craft projects. I stuffed and molded and tried to make it look "breast-like." I was pleasantly surprised by how well it took on a fairly natural shape. I packaged it up in a nice, opaque, plastic bag, along with some extra stuffing so that she could add or subtract as necessary, and brought it to the next week's rehearsal.

the beginning, kind of looks like a hat

the finished "boob"

the backside

The back of it, in case you were wondering, is designed to be somewhat concave so it breathes better and doesn't have as much contact with the skin to avoid irritation.

The verdict: Anne came to rehearsal a week later, wearing the new knitted knocker, and I couldn't tell which side was her own and which side was "mine." She said it was so much more comfortable and lightweight than her silicon prosthesis. Yay! She's going to pick up some cotton yarn and I'm going to knit her another one. I showed off the project at knitting group and may get a few other knitters interested in making some of these if there's a local oncologist who's interested in distributing them.

Shelley in CT

Knitting weather

The temperatures are falling, along with the humidity levels around here, and because of it, I am finally getting in the mood to knit!

I had stalled out on this sweater for my younger son, and it sat in a bag all summer long, so close to done, but I just didn't feel like sitting with a pile of wool in my lap this summer. Last night, with the cool air blowing through the house, was a perfect knitting night. I put on a good murder mystery from the DVR, poured myself a glass of wine, and pulled out the knitting projects. I'd really like to finish up this sweater for my son before it gets really cold so that he'll have a chance to wear it this year. I had him try it on to check body and sleeve length. Body length is perfect, and I actually had to pull out about an inch and a half of the sleeve to get it to the right length for him. The red part at the bottom of the sleeve is actually a hem and will be hidden inside the sleeve, but I think it's a nice detail.

While I was paying attention to my son while he tried on the sweater-in-progress, the cat took advantage of the situation and wandered over to the side table where my wine glass was perched, and proceeded to knock it over, right into the knitting bag. As my daughter told me (by text), it was my own fault for not paying complete attention to the cat. The cat has been very needy since my daughter left for college. Luckily, wine can be easily blotted from the balls of wool, but my knitting bag and my circular needle holder are a little sticky and need a good washing. It's a great excuse to organize my knitting projects and tools, especially since dear husband will be out of town all week, and won't be here to complain about the mess of knitting paraphernalia. 

Even before the cat spilled the wine into my knitting bag, providing the need for a reorganization of the knitting stash and projects, I had been planning to make a concerted effort to finish up projects that have been languishing (for years, even decades!). I've already been making great efforts to knit from stash yarn and not buy anything new, but I think I need to step it up a bit. Time to log in all the unfinished projects and either finish them up or frog them and reuse the yarn for something else. When I start pulling out all the works in progress, the number is rather sobering. 

For today I'm going to focus on finishing this sweater for the younger son, and then I'll start pulling out more WIPs (works in progress) and see what I can finish up by the end of the year. Wish me luck.

Shelley in CT

One more off to college...

Dear Daughter with van packed and ready for Freshman Move-In Day!

Well, another summer has come and gone, and we are now down to just one kid left at home. And he has his license and can drive himself just about wherever he needs to go. It will be interesting adjusting to this. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First things first, we had to prepare dear daughter for her move to college, after we had all returned home from our various trips. She was returning from 2-1/2 weeks on Japan with her host-sister and we were returning from a trip to Colorado for my nephew's Bar Mitzvah. Once we had gotten past most of the jet lag (mostly hers, as she was coming back from a 13-hour time difference), it was time to make the lists of everything she would need in the dorm, and start cleaning, gathering, and shopping. Sounds simple, but gets much more complicated when you factor in an anxious teenage girl with a very particular sense of style, an unwillingness to compromise, and a propensity to procrastinate. Somehow it seemed that nothing on the list got done, no matter how many times I reminded her, unless I took charge and drove her to the stores and pulled out the list, or told her she needed to wash the sheets and towels TODAY, or carried suitcases and boxes up from the basement and pointedly left them in her room... She still has a couple of things she needs to finish up on campus this week.

Move-In went pretty smoothly. With the many thousands of students moving in on the same day, UMass came up with a system that required us all to sign up for a specific move-in time, and we had instructions to report to the "staging area" for our part of campus, and were directed to the appropriate locations by student volunteers. We were very lucky that our daughter had chosen a dorm that was mostly upperclassmen (who all moved in on a different day) so there were only about 26 freshmen moving in to her dorm that day. Things moved like clockwork, we arrived, were directed to the dorm, the van was unloaded in minutes, and by the time I had parked the van in the designated lot and hiked back up to the dorm, everything was in the room and she was half unpacked. Within the hours she had taken everything out of boxes and suitcases and put most of it away.

At UMass, family eats free in the dining halls (Yay!) so once most everything was unpacked we went off to the nearest dining hall for lunch. Quick and easy, and the food is actually quite good!

During the unpacking, we had determined that she needed a few more things - a couple of extension cords (how did we not think of those ahead of time?), another power strip, a shoe rack, and some over-the-door hooks. So off we drove to Bed, Bath and Beyond, just down the road, along with half of the other families moving their freshman in, to buy the necessary items.

Back to the dorm to put together the shoe rack, put up the hooks, and plug in the power strips and extension cords so that she could plug in her mini fridge and lights. I must say, we were quite efficient. When it was all done, though, we had a hard time saying goodbye. I'm not sure dear daughter was quite ready for us to go either, but I think we had the more difficult time walking away. Still hard to think of her away from home (though I'm completely used to oldest son being gone, but then again, this is his 4th year and we're trained). At least she's much closer than her brother, who's in Texas, and we will be visiting in October. We've already gotten a few texts from her assuring us that she's fine and keeping busy with New Student Orientation.

Daughter and Roommate

So now there are only 3 of us at home, and, of course, the cat. Younger Son has a busy schedule this fall with cross country practices and meets and rehearsals for the fall play, along with several AP classes. He is also our social butterfly and likes to go out with friends. Already testing his limits with the car and where and when he can drive. As I said, it will be an interesting year.

Knitting: I have done very little knitting this summer. I pulled out an old sock project to take with me on the trip to Colorado, since socks are so nice and portable. I haven't really worked on anything else though. After the hot days, I just didn't have the energy to take out a knitting project in the evenings. Oh well, I'll catch up this fall.

I've finally gotten around to sending out dates for knitting group. Soon the emails from would-be hosts should be rolling in and I'll put together the schedule. I'm even considering putting our schedule and group information on a website. How Twenty-First Century! Actually, it would probably be a blog for the group, but I could post schedule, location information, and updates. Something to discuss at our first knitting day.

Sewing: I have already posted most of my summer sewing. I made a microwaveable heating pad for dear daughter to take with her to college - the night before she moved in (now where does she get those procrastination genes???). Forgot to take a picture of it. Hope it works for her. I made it the same shape as the one we have at home and filled it with buckwheat that I had mail-ordered years ago in order to make many heating pads as gifts (and never did).

Ready to start in on all my fall projects: cleaning, organizing, painting, sewing, knitting, building, etc. etc. I have quite a list. I won't accomplish everything on the list. I'll be lucky to get to even a quarter of the things on the list, but then I'll just work on the rest of the list next year. No rush. If I didn't have a list I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

Shelley in CT

Summer Projects

You know, I started this blog as a way to record my knitting, sewing, quilting, and crafts projects, with a little bit of life thrown in. Somehow, that's not how it's working out. Especially during the summer. I just don't knit during the summer. It's just too hot. I thought that maybe after we put in the air conditioning, I'd be able to knit through the summer months, but I think it's the mindset. Even if it's comfortable and not humid inside, I just don't feel like knitting because I know it's summer. At least I've done a few sewing projects so I feel a little bit crafty this season.

paint samples

I finally got around to painting the master bathroom. It took me all week to prep. Here are the paint colors I auditioned. We decided to go with the rosier one. I had to patch some holes in the wall before I even got to this point. The morning I was going to start painting, I discovered that I had forgotten to buy the paint! I had the little sample pots, but that wasn't going to get me very far. Then, after I went out to buy the paint, I kept getting messages and phone calls that I had to deal with, and then I had a physical therapy appointment, and painting never got started.

patching the wall

This morning I finally was able to set aside the day and paint. I set up my ipod with a good playlist and only took a break for lunch. The bathroom isn't all that big and I was hoping it wouldn't take all that long to paint, but with all the little hooks and towel rods and corners to paint around, this first coat took me all day.

cutting in around the edges

 

first coat

It definitely needs a second coat, so I'll be painting again tomorrow. Luckily, I don't have anything else scheduled. Except we need to start packing. We have a family Bar Mitzvah (my husband's sister's oldest son) to go to next week in Colorado. Lots of relatives on my husband's side will be converging on Denver from all over the country. We'll have 4 days to visit with everyone, which I'm really looking forward to.

There is a big birthday dinner planned for the evening that we arrive, at which we'll be celebrating all the summer birthdays among my husband's siblings and their kids and his great aunt. That's a total of 9, that range from the end of July to mid-September. That means I have to get all the cards and any gifts that we'll be bringing. I want to sew 2 of the gifts but haven't even started yet. I'm going to blame the painting. I'll just blithely ignore that fact that I went to jazz class and went out for drinks and dinner afterwards with my "dance ladies" and didn't get anything done last night. Maybe I'll have an incredibly efficient and productive weekend (and don't miss those flying pigs!). Oh well, I'll pull some late nights and get it all done. I can sleep on the plane. At least packing for 4 days should be pretty quick and easy. I've already made piles of the little things that I really can't forget, and lists of what else to pack.

My running injury recovery is very slow, and I went back to my physical therapist and massage therapist this week. The theory now is that the injury is caused by the long hours sitting at work. Yes, even though I only work 1 or 2 days a week, because I sit for such a long period, and tend to work to my right, it's causing all sorts of problems in my hips and with my running. It's been several months and I'm still not back to normal with my running and I'm very frustrated with it. I haven't run more than 3 miles at a go in months! Hopefully this new set of stretches and exercises will solve the problem.

Time to make my lists for tomorrow and get some sleep.

Shelley in CT

Catching Up

I always look forward to the summer as a time to relax a little bit, ease up on the busy schedule, and get a few big projects done. And then it never happens. We always have some type of travel on the schedule, as we have family on both coasts and are usually visiting one side or the other. Now that the kids are older they are taking trips themselves. It feels like we're racing to prepare for a trip, then catching up from the trip after the traveler returns, then starting to prep for the next trip. I keep waiting for the downtime. Sigh!

I have been remiss with the blog, and not written anything since before I went to Germany, in March! I'll never catch up with everything that happened between then and now, so I'll give a brief summary and then pick up current events.

Germany was beautiful but cold and snowy. I'll try to throw in a few pictures in a later blog.

I came home to a construction project that was still not completely done, so I had to pick up the final details of that, some of which took forever. But it's done now and the work is beautiful.

We had a brief visit from dear oldest son for a week and a half  in May, in between finals (and his trip to Costa Rica to visit a "friend") and his internship this summer in Boulder, Colorado.

Dear daughter had a rough time getting through the end of her classes and the very few final exams she had to take, but she made high honors and had a beautiful day for graduation. Great Aunt Karen flew out from California for the occasion and we all celebrated.

The family at Graduation

Great Aunt Karen and the graduate

On to summer vacation, and dear youngest son and his attendance at a Cosplay convention in Hartford, and my construction of his costume. I had promised to sew him the costume for his birthday, last September, and then with all the construction and general busy-ness of life (and the fact that my sewing machine was not easily accessible for many months and had to be "dug out" after all the construction), I put if off until the last minute and had to really scramble to get it done. Sheesh! After yelling at the kids to plan ahead for all these years, you'd think it would have sunk in to my old brain. I had not taken into consideration all the time it takes to construct the patterns, and I always underestimate sewing time. I did manage to finish up, with mere minutes to spare. Whew!

youngest son is in the long red wig and pink vest

The next hoop to jump through was to prepare the very same youngest son for National Flight Academy camp in Pensacola, FL. He applied for and won a scholarship to the program so all we had to do was fly him down. Frequent flier miles came in very handy. Got him all packed up, with name tags sewn in to all of his clothes, and he had a very good time at camp, and got home safely, despite flight delays.

Next in line was preparing dear daughter for a trip to Japan to visit Aya, the exchange student we hosted the previous year. In addition to packing, she had to bring gifts. That's what's expected in Japan, and we didn't want to offend anyone, and we wanted to express our appreciation to Aya and her parents for hosting our daughter. So in addition to buying some American candies to give to the family and any other people dear daughter met out there, we sent along a bottle of our homemade wine, and I sewed some bags.

this bag is made out of my husband's old jeans

patchwork zippered bag

machine embroidered name

cute cat fabric that Aya will like

pencil bag

the whole set

I've made the wide-mouthed zippered bags before, using an online tutorial. Here's the link again:
http://www.noodle-head.com/2012/06/open-wide-zippered-pouch-diy-tutorial.html

I found the tutorial for the pencil bag online too. http://terriesandelin.blogspot.com/2010/07/pencil-case-tutorial.html

I sewed my "an original by Shelley" tag into all of them and hopefully they will enjoy the bags. I had fun picking out fabric to use,  but again, it took longer to sew them all than I had planned on.

Dear daughter has now safely arrived in Japan. Aya met her at the airport and they took a bus back to the house. She said she slept will the first night and with any luck she'll recover from the jet lag fairly quickly. She will be there for 2-1/2 weeks.

Last but not least, we are already starting to prepare for the next trip, out to Denver, CO for my nephew's Bar Mitzvah. That's in just a week and a half, but while there we will be celebrating all the summer and early fall birthdays on that side of the family, 8 of us! So, it's back to the sewing machine to make some more gifts.

Timing is working in our favor for a change, and dear oldest son's internship ends the day before the Bar Mitzvah, so he will be able to join us for the weekend. We'll help him move out of his summer apartment, he'll stay at the hotel with us, and then he'll fly out to visit my parents in Oregon for almost a week before he has to fly back to Texas for school. Dear daughter will be flying home from Japan the same day we fly back from Colorado.

I'm excited that the upcoming travel plans actually include ME this time! I'm not really exciting about the flying, since we are flying out of New York, and it's a 2-hour drive down to that airport without traffic, and summer traffic in this area is horrendous! But once we get there, we'll get to visit with relatives (on my husband's side) from all over the country. Many of them we've only seen recently (in the past few years) at funerals, so I am going to enjoy the much happier occasion. We'll all be staying at the same hotel and I won't have to cook! Woohoo! Hopefully I'll be able to get all the gifts pulled together well ahead of time and the trip will go smoothly.

Well, I think that's more than enough for now. Happy Summer!

Shelley in CT

Springing Ahead

Spring is officially here (arrived on my oldest son's 21st birthday - that makes me really old!!) but Mother Nature didn't get the memo. We're still getting snow flurries and freezing temperatures overnight. We are slowly moving toward warmer days, and occasionally the sun peeks out, and we're trying to get out and enjoy it when it does.

Straps for lifting legs

I have done a little sewing, and snapped a photo of the latest project, which was actually a mending job. I had to take out old stitching and sew some new lines of stitching in these webbing straps to correct the size of the loops. These straps have velcro on them and are made for lifting legs. I have a good friend whose husband suffered a spinal embolism a couple of years ago and is now paralyzed from the chest down. I can only imagine what they have gone through since it happened, and they have been very strong and positive and worked hard to give him a normal life, but this is one very small thing I can do to help. It kind of puts all those little inconveniences I complain about into perspective.

Our construction is almost done. We had the final inspection yesterday, and the town building inspector gave us our certificate of occupancy. There are still a number of small pieces to finish up, and the propane is still not in, but it's in progress and the end is in sight. The sun room is looking really beautiful. I'll get some pictures up in the next blog post.

I'm going to make this a short one as I'm about to leave the country for a week and a half and need to take care of a few last minute arrangements. I'm going to Germany with the high school German Teacher and the students who are able to go, along with a few other parents and teachers. We'll be in Bavaria for 10 days, with a group of about 25 of us. My youngest son has been taking German for the past 3 years and has really been looking forward to this trip. He has just started track season, so we're going to try to run a few times while we're there so that neither of us gets too much out of shape, and so I don't get too fat eating all that German food!

Auf Wiedersehen!

Shelley in CT

More Snow!

Well, granite counters didn't happen on Friday. We got another nor'easter Thursday night and all day Friday, which dumped more heavy wet snow on us. Kids got a snow day, DH got a snow day, and the granite guy was snowed in! So we built a nice cosy fire in the fireplace and enjoyed our snow day. I even got to go to knitting group, after I had shoveled the driveway so I could get out to the road. It continued to snow all day long, but roads were pretty clear by late afternoon. Even though I was really disappointed that my kitchen counters were delayed, it was kind of nice to have a slow day and be able to enjoy knitting group (even got a little bit of knitting done there!) and not feel the need to rush around.

Saturday was warm and sunny and melted away a lot of the snow. Youngest son had SAT test scheduled for Saturday morning, so DH got a good hot fire blazing so I could use the fireplace wood stove insert as a cooking stove (still no propane hookup for the new gas stove) to make him an omelette to fill him up so he wouldn't get hungry halfway through the test.

With the sun and the higher temperatures, up into the low 50s Saturday, it feels like we're finally leaving winter behind. I shouldn't get too complacent, as we've had April snowstorms in the past, but I'm just ready to move on to spring. We took a walk and enjoyed the sunshine, and got to see all the trees and branches throughout the neighborhood that had come down in the February blizzard. We still have some downed limbs in our back yard too. Guess we'll have some yard cleanup to keep us busy in the next month or so.

The new date for kitchen counters is Monday. No snow on the horizon.

Shelley in CT

Discombobulated

Yup, that about sums it up.  We have been without a kitchen for almost 4 weeks and it's really starting to get to me. I started off with the best of intentions, with several frozen casseroles that only required thawing and heating in the microwave, along with no-cook options like sandwiches or crackers, cheese, and raw veggies. By the end of the first week we had only had to resort to take-out food once. We didn't do as well the second week. Whenever we used real dishes we had to cart them upstairs to hand wash them in the bathroom sink, then cart them all back downstairs. We've been using (gasp!) paper plates and napkins to make life a little easier through the construction. I keep reminding myself that it's only temporary, and that it will all be worth it in the end.

The other discombobulating part of this whole experience is that it's not just the kitchen that has been out of commission. Our laundry room is being moved, and will take a bite out of the existing office, which necessitated moving all of my office stuff to another room, where there really isn't room for it all. My desk and cabinet are still in the office, covered with plastic and gathering dust. Anytime I need to access something in the filing cabinet, I have to troop through the (very cold) garage and into the office from the other direction because there is a temporary plastic sheeting wall separating the construction space from the part of the house we're still living in to keep the dust down. Any one of these inconveniences by itself isn't all that bad, but the combination, for 3 weeks and counting, and on the heels of the snowstorm and subsequent power outage has just worn me down.

On the upside, we're finally really close to finished.

The granite counter tops will be installed tomorrow and I just can't wait. We're still waiting on propane for the gas stove, but by Saturday morning I should have a kitchen sink that I can use. Yay!

The laundry room is all but finished as well, and the wood has already been delivered for the paneling in the sun room. Whew! This has been a really long haul!

Throughout it all I have had a harder time concentrating on daily tasks, and it's a struggle to get in to work these days. I'm sure when I can move my desk back to the office and be able to access what I need, and FIND what I need, I will feel more in control. And perhaps more ready to start new projects.

Today I have a massage scheduled. It's not one of those feel-good relaxing massages, this is with my favorite massage therapist (who's also a mother of teenagers and a very nice person) and she manages to find every knot and tight muscle and wrestle them into submission. This is often painful, but the end result is always worth it.

Perhaps after the massage, and getting the kitchen finished up, and a good run on Saturday morning, I'll feel like life is getting back to normal.We have a big nor'easter blowing and snowing up the coast today, but it doesn't look like it will dump much snow, if any, on our little piece of the coastline. Now that we're into March and almost into spring, we should be past any more big snowstorms this year. Phew! We're still cleaning up from the last one (one of our big pines fell into our neighbor's yard and now that the snow has melted, we've been cutting it up and hauling it away). And then, after we settle back in after all the construction, I'm off to Germany with my youngest son and the high school German teacher and various other students and parents for 10 days in Bavaria. Guess I can say that life isn't dull around here.

Shelley in CT

Making Progress

The construction is moving along slowly but surely. Here are a few pictures of the new sun room.

Preparing for siding

New siding to match the house

I'm still working on the sweater for my youngest son. I think the body is just about long enough and I've started on one of the sleeves. I put the live stitches on a string and had him try it on, and the fit looks just right! I'll try to put up a picture of it next time.

I've decided I need to pull out my UFOs (un-finished objects) and try to finish up some of those this year. I've got a cardigan sweater with a color work yoke that only needs an edging that I'm going to try to finish up first. The plan is to slowly work my way through all my UFOs this year before I start too many new knitting projects. I'm also trying to knit up the yarn I have in my stash before I buy more yarn. Wish me luck.

OK, much time has passed since I wrote the first section of this blog. In the meantime, we have experience a massive snowstorm and lost power for a couple of days (again!).

The cars in the driveway were buried!

The tree in the front yard survived without any damage and looked beautiful

Back yard winter wonderland

Digging out the driveway with the snow blower

Thank goodness we only lost power for 2 days because it was COLD! We didn't have to go to a shelter because we kept a fire going in the fireplace and that kept us warm enough. By the second morning I even got smart and cooked breakfast on top of our wood stove!

Boiling water for tea and frying up turkey bacon in the pan!

Let us not forget, however, that we are still in the middle of a construction project. Up until the snowstorm, the crew had been working outside and around the sun room and the hallway that was added to the back of the house. Well, less than a day after we got power back, the crew arrived Monday morning, ready to start on the kitchen, in other words, kitchen demo! I spent the whole morning frantically emptying the cabinets (thankfully, we had planned ahead and emptied out all the stuff we don't use daily, so the cabinets were only half full) and there was much banging and dust. School had been cancelled because of the snowstorm so the kids were home for it too. After 2 days of demo I think they were relieved to go back to school!

upper cabinets removed, lower cabinets about to be

removing cabinets

cooked dinner one last night in the old kitchen

 Look at the interesting colors the kitchen used to be. They even had wallpaper once upon a time. And mildew (yuck!) and old mouse nests (double yuck!).

kitchen down to studs and sub-floor

This past week has been loud but productive.We now have a new ceiling, walls and new sub-floor.

new walls, ceiling, and floor

new walls, ceiling, and floor

This week is supposed to be taping and mudding, then paint and tile. The following week we might just have a brand spanking new, working kitchen! Now I need to get back to work cleaning up the dust from this past week.

Shelley in CT

Begin as we mean to go on

I'm not a big one for New Year's resolutions, but I do like a fresh start, and I believe in beginning as I mean to go on. So I started early, spending the end of 2012 filing our (huge!) pile of paid bills and papers and documents. I moved old files to boxes in the basement so that the filing cabinet wouldn't be too full to access, and I cleaned up the file folders too. Boy that felt good! It'll make tax time a little easier too, because we'll be able to find the documents we need. It always amazes me how a good clearing out can lift my spirits!

The new year also started with signing up for an exercise class. I have been to this class a lot over the years, but I had lapsed, and hadn't gone in close to a year. I guess I got busy, but mostly I got lazy. The class gives me really good core-strengthening exercises, and good stretches that I never really get around to doing on my own at home.

On the house front, here's how far we've come on the construction of the three-season room. (I say "we" but really our contractor and his crew are doing all the work!)

The side of the house: the double doors are part of an extension of the garage

From the back corner of the yard

Inside three-season room (boxes are kitchen cabinets)

The other project I've started on is moving my sewing room. As the big construction project is moving along, the crew will be moving into the house soon to tear down walls, build a new laundry room and expand and remodel the kitchen. The room with my office and sewing table will be changed, and I don't want my sewing machine anywhere near all that construction dust. So, as my oldest son gets older and spends less and less time here at the house, we are ready to convert his bedroom to a guest room/sewing room. He's not really broken hearted, as he is already making plans for post-graduation (spring 2014) and those plans don't include moving back home. He IS enjoying telling all his friends at school how his parents started converting his bedroom a mere 2 days after he went back to school though. Ha!

Since I've been cleaning up the sewing area and starting to move things, I've also been inspired to take care of some of the mending that's been patiently waiting for me, along with some small projects.

 Here are 2 open-wide pouches that I made using the last few remnants of a favorite fabric. I found a tutorial for them online here on a blog called Noodlehead - quick and easy and great results. I used only fabrics and linings and zippers that I had on hand. A good way to work down the stash and get something useful out of it.

In addition to the sewing, I used up some more fabric covering boxes to use for yarn storage. I keep some of my knitting projects in the living room and the pretty covered boxes look so much nicer than old cardboard. I first tried using good old Elmer's white glue, but soon I made a trip to the hardware store and bought some spray adhesive. That moved things along much faster, though it's much messier. Notice the newspaper covering my work table in the "outside fabric" photo below.

starter box

add lining

add outside fabric

  

add grommets and handle

on the shelves

 Well, the shelves still look kind of messy, but it's a much tidier mess than it used to be.

Wishing you all the best of luck with your own fresh start.

Shelley in CT

Happy New Year!

I can't believe my last post was way back in September. I meant to post about the half-marathon, and then Stitches, and then Hurricane Sandy, but somehow time kept marching on and I kept putting it off until I had time. So I'll catch up a bit.

The Half Marathon: The weather was glorious, not too cold and not too hot,and sunny and clear. My husband had to go out of town for business THAT MORNING before I even got up to get ready for the race.  My daughter was away for the weekend doing some volunteer work for the foreign exchange program she was involved with, which left my younger son to come cheer me on. He was a great sport and cheered loud and took lots of pictures.

first loop (of two)

close to the finish line

I ran with the woman I have been training with all summer and we stayed together until the last 2 miles when I pulled ahead. I finished in 2 hrs 3 mins, which isn't bad, though if I run it again next year I'd like to shoot for a sub-2 hour time.

Stitches: I go to Stitches every year with my knitting buddy Iris, and we stay with a friend of hers, about 20 mins away from the Hartford Convention Center, where Stitches is held. It's a good compromise: we save hotel costs and the 20-minute drive in is so much easier than the hour's drive from home. I enjoyed the classes and the banquets and fashion shows, though the market seems to be getting smaller.

Hurricane Sandy: We survived this storm with only a 3-day loss of power, though after our experience with Irene in the fall of 2011, I had less patience with all the inconveniences. But I must focus on the fact that they were only inconveniences. We had no major damage, and good friends who offered us hot showers and power to recharge our electronics and get email messages out to friends and family, and I am thankful for that.

As soon as we got our power back, dear husband and I flew off to Houston, TX to visit our older son in school at Rice University. We left the younger two at home on their own for the two nights we were gone. That was very brave of us if I do say so myself, and the kids survived quite well. We had a wonderful, if short, visit with our older son.

We've had a few other things happening at the ol' homestead these days.  We had a new roof put on and then solar panels installed. we've already generated a fair amount of electricity, though with snow on the roof as I type, the power generation has slowed down considerably.  We've also torn down our screened porch (which was rotting away) and are rebuilding, along with a kitchen renovation. Well, WE aren't doing the work, we've hired a contractor, but you know what I mean. So far it's looking really good, and our contractor and his crew are really nice guys and very easy to work with.

new sun room in progress

In the middle of all of this, the water heater started to fail. That's not really something we could put off, so we had a new water heater installed. Then the clutch on the oldest car started to give us trouble, and get worse and worse. So the car went in to the shop for a new clutch. And the other cars needed new tires, so they went too. Are we tired of spending money yet?

You may think that through all of this I haven't gotten much knitting or sewing done. And you'd be right. My knitting slowed down a lot this fall, but I have made some progress on my younger son's cardigan,

 and over the winter break I knitted myself a hat (with yarn that I had gotten as a door prize at Stitches!).

My sewing is down to occasional mending. Soon I will need to move the sewing stuff out of the office/sewing room to clear the way for the construction work.

For the past week and a half everyone has been home, which I have really enjoyed. We didn't have anyplace we had to go, and had a nice, quiet holiday at home. Even dear husband was home from work for almost two weeks. We've had time to play games, clear out closets, sleep, cook, be lazy, and  stay in our pajamas all day if we want to (that's the kids' favorite part of the Christmas holiday). Dear husband built a fire in the fireplace every day. But tomorrow it's back to school and work, and older son leaves on Friday to go back to school in Texas. It sure was lovely while it lasted.

Wishing you a wonderful 2013!