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Saturday, June 23, 2007

update again

We made a very conditional (and quite low) offer on a fixer-upper on Thursday. I had to wait to post about it until I could do it without screaming (which left Thursday out) or fainting (Friday). I think I may have whimpered a little just now, but that's manageable. My mantra in this process: People Don't Die Of Buying A House.

The house itself is in eh OK shape. It's sound, but there's some water damage from broken pipes, which are repaired but the spot in the ceiling is not, which means that if our offer (or counter-counter-offer, or whatever) is accepted, we'll be very glad to have handy family members, since T's expertise about cars, firearms, and telecommunications, and mine about whatever areas in which I may have expertise -- maybe putting on band-aids and reading novels -- will not help us much in the matter of serious home improvements. Also, it looks like someone started repainting the interior of the house and never finished (which I can handle, but prepare for posts with asterisks, just in case), and one of the bedrooms has a bare plywood floor, courtesy of the previous owner's dogs and their carpet-wrecking excretory habits. But all of this is the saving grace that actually puts a house in which we can live (read: 3 bedrooms) into a price range which we can, by dint of scrimping and basically not doing anything fun ever again, possibly afford. And hard work is good for us. And maybe while we're getting home-improvement stuff lumped into our mortgage, we can get enough for laminate floors in the living room/kitchen/dining room, instead of the two kinds of linoleum and pale gray carpet that're in there now. So. The house is OK; what I've really fallen in love with, even though I keep telling myself sternly not to, is the land it is on. It's far enough out to be quiet, there are four nice gentle acres which will be a riot of wildflowers in the spring, there's a tree in the backyard that's just right for a treehouse, there's an empty rose arbor just waiting for Natalie's rosebush (which is some sort of climbing thing, most unhappy in our yard), there's a vegetable garden with deer-proof (ha! ha ha! funny term) fencing, there's a two-car garage and a shed for bicycles and lawnmowers (and, let's face it, auto parts). But like I said, I'm not allowed to fall in love with it. I'm not even allowed to think about falling in love with it. Too much could happen to make it, well, not happen. The way I look at it, though, is that it's something to which God can say either Yes or No. And it feels so much better to be doing something more constructive than simply trying not to panic in front of the kids.

So. In other news. Um. (Is there any other news? I cannot believe we have only been home for four days; it seems like this has been consuming all our thoughts for at least a month. This Too Will Pass; I have to keep telling myself that.) Hmm. I have a medium-sized transcribing job to keep me busy while I'm not sleeping at night, car work is progressing apace, and there are more vacation pictures at Flickr. T has to go back to work on Monday (*snif*). Thatisall. I think.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

update

thing 1: work is progressing. T is ok. I think he might actually be glad to have something constructive to do, under the circumstances.

thing 2: I recovered most of the pictures, thanks to a sanity-saving program I discovered a couple of years ago (when the Coolpix ate a memory card) called "PC Inspector Smart Recovery". It's amazing what can still be on a memory card when it's empty. Kind of creepy, actually.

thing 3: We have three months to either be out of this house or own it. Which is pretty generous, really. Now we just have to figure out what to do and where to go. Without a substantial income from me, our options in this market are rather limited, even though prices have flattened a little bit in the past year or so. And a substantial income from me is not an option at this point. So. Still looking around and praying, and fortunately the cloud of despair seems to have been exchanged for one of simple uncertainty.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

this is where I would swear, if I swore.

thing that sucks:

Poor T has to spend his at-home days during his two weeks off working on cars. My beloved Dart is having transmission issues (in fact, we borrowed my parents' van to take on vacation so as to avoid getting stuck in the middle of nowhere -- there are several middles of nowheres on the way from here to Morro Bay -- with a broken car in the hundred-degree heat) and he's taking the tranmission out of it as I type this so that he can get it rebuilt and put it back in. Also, HIS Dart has had transmission issues for ages (falls out of second gear), and he finally got a good deal on a replacement transmission, so he has THAT to do, as well as the replacement of an exhaust manifold so that his Dart can stop sounding like a lawn mower everywhere it goes.

Thing that sucks more (sorry, I'm selfish):

I just accidentally deleted my very favorites from among roughly half of my vacation pictures (note to self: if you make a "favorites" folder and move a couple hundred photos into it, for pity's sake don't delete it. I'm trying a recovery but I KNOW some of them will be lost forever. (No, Jenn, none of yours were lost, whew). I have GOT to find where I can tell my computer to USE THE DAMN RECYCLE BIN instead of just permanently deleting stuff right away. Any help with this?

Thing that sucks most:

Within five minutes of our arrival home, our landlord (who had put about twenty square feet of primer on the house so far) informed us that this time he really does want to sell our house (there have been a couple of false alarms in the thirteen years in which we've been renting from him). He hopes we can buy it (for about sixty thousand dollars more than we can realistically and safely afford) but if we can't he'll either put it on the market or move in himself for two years so that he can avoid paying capital gains when he sells it and oh by the way can we let him know by Friday what we're going to do because there's this duplex he really wants to buy with the money from this place.

This is where I would swear again.

We are trying hard not to feel really defeated right now. I know the Lord has something great for us in all of this but it's hard to FEEL that at this point. Know what I mean? Oh how I would appreciate people's prayers for peace and wisdom on this.

Friday, June 15, 2007

hee!

Guess what happened not an hour after I posted that last post! You will never guess in a million years! It got... CLOUDY! and FOGGY! tee hee!

The sun still pokes out now and then. And the coolness is actually nice. And as long as none of that wet stuff actually starts dripping from the sky -- you know, that stuff whose name I daren't mention because our tent is super dilapidated and a new one is definitely on our list for next year because the one we have would let that wet drippy stuff RIGHT INSIDE I am thinking -- as long as that doesn't happen, the vacation is still totally A-OK. Not that we'll be here much longer, O creepy Internet stalkers. (Our landlord is at our house painting all this week anyway, and he would slay any CIS with his terribly green -- and I mean terribly, terribly green, oh my gosh I am so glad we don't own our house -- paintbrush anyway. You know Miss Cornelia Bryant's house in Anne's House of Dreams? At least it's just the trim. I hope.)

You may wonder why, on our blissful beach vacation, we continually haunt the library and access the Internet. It is because T chose the week before we left to order some stuff on eBay and he needs to make sure it has been shipped and arrived at his place of employment and all that fun stuff. So meanwhile I sit here and look at my pictures full-size instead of just in the back of the camera, and blog (sorry) and who knows what all.

Also, until yesterday I was rather avidly checking the UPS tracking page myself, but my NEW LENS ARRIVED YESTERDAY AT CAMP WOO HOO (actually a replacement for my sad broken 70-300mm macro) so I don't have to do that anymore.

Now I must go. The natives are restless. Or else C is getting bored. One of the two.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

another vacation post

ha! creepy internet stalkers foiled again! I'm still here! BUT YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN I WON'T BE.

Weather is still fabulously amazing. I keep expecting any day to wake up to fog and clouds which is more the usual state of things on this section of the California coast, but no, one gorgeous day after another. I am so sunburned. Cheap sunscreen = total waste. On me, anyway. Also, I used some of my parents' sunscreen in a desperate attempt to keep the malignant melanoma at bay for one more day and had some kind of itchy bumpy allergic reaction to it. So you can imagine how fabulous I look. But nobody will notice, right? right?

Also, my flickr photostream (which should be linked on the right over there, unless something dire has occurred with my CSS while I wasn't looking) has a few vacation photos in it. Just a few. I have taken three hundred something so far. I am so going to have to upgrade to a full account.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

5-minute post

I am in gorgeous sunny Morro Bay with only four minutes left of my library computer time in which to write a post. So!

Weather is gorgeous, better than I ever remember it being here in the summer. Had a FANTABULOUS but brief visit with Jenn on Saturday and Sunday and took many silly pictures. Am trying not to overeat too heavily but I'm compensating for the inevitable failure by going for lots of fast-but-still-romantic walks with T. The kids are having a fantastic time as well. Even Roman (Mom and Dad's dog), who was bitten by a rattlesnake a few weeks ago (I know, I know, I should blog more), is doing so well that you'd never know he'd been sick a minute.

Pictures when I return. WHICH COULD BE ANYTIME, creepy internet stalkers. Even today.

Friday, June 01, 2007

I knitted again! cables! hat! woo!

So it's June now, and it's ninety degrees out; perfect time to make a wool-blend hat, no?

I REALLY LIKED how this came out, and it was really fun and easy to knit. Y'all, do not be afraid of cables. Cables are so, so much easier than they look. Just google "how to knit cables" and you'll find a million sites (give or take nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred or so), with very helpful instructions.

cast-on: May 7th. Finished off: May 29th.

I found this cabled hat pattern somewhere online. I thought it was here, but I swear I didn't have to download a PDF for the pattern. hmm. I made a few minor modifications, but very minor.

(observe the greenness of my hat as I gaze soulfully at... my neighbors' RV.)

materials:

• 1 skein worsted-weight yarn (I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Dark Forest Green).
  
• US size 6 (sorry, don't know the mm size offhand) 16" circular needle, or whatever floats your boat.
  
• Same size set of 6" double-pointed needles.
  
• yarn needle.
  

On circular needle, co 96; join without twisting.

work 3" of k2p2 rib. Place stitch marker (you know what I want? Is one of those row-counting stitch markers).

k2 p2 k6 p2 around twice.

work 6"-7" (or to fit) of:
(k2 p2 CB6 p2) around
(k2 p2 k6 p2) around x5

Then start reducing. Somewhere in here you'll want to switch to DPNs.
(k2 p2 k6 p2) around
(k2 p2 [k1 k2tog]x2 p2) around
(k2 p2 CB4 p2) around
(k2 p2 k4 p2) around x3
(k2tog p2 k4 p2) around
(k1 p2 CB4 p2) around
(k1 p2 k4 p2) around
(k1 p2tog k4 p2tog) around
(k1 p1 k4 p1) around
(k1 p1 CB4 p1) around
(k1 p1 k4 p1) around x3
(k1 p1 [k2tog x2] p1) around
(k1 p1 CB2 p1) around
(k1 p1 k2 p1) around
(k1 p1 k2tog p1) around
(k1 p1 k1 p1) around
(k2tog p2tog) around
k2p2 around
k2tog around

Cut yarn, leaving a longish tail. Thread tail (on yarn needle) through eight remaining stitches; remove needles. Pull tight, finish off. Weave in ends (come on, do it now, don't put it off and then end up just tucking the cast-on tail under the brim like someone I know *cough*me*cough* usually does).

Do you see the glaring error where I knit two stitches instead of purling them? I did not notice that until I looked at this picture. Drat. There go my blue-ribbon hopes. :-D