Since my last post, I've moved into a new house. Landlords are truly awful people, and they'll sell your home from right under you when you're not on a lease because it means making twice as much money selling two semis separately rather than selling them as a unit to another landlord and keeping the responsible tenants. Ugh, whatever, I've moved passed this - to this! Welcome to my new house readers:
The front entrance, complete with an Oscar guarding the front door. My front door opens right into my kitchen, so we made a small welcoming coat-hanging and key-setting-down area with a mirror to check your face before you leave the house.
The kitchen! It's tiny and awkward, and it isn't a clear winner over the last house's kitchen. Cons - the fridge is teeny weeny. It's apartment-sized to the max. Our Brita filter doesn't fit in it, and a simple week's worth of groceries make it look like it's going to burst at the seams. Also, the fridge door used to open the other way, as in you grabbed hold of the handle from the window side and opened toward the room. I fixed that with a little help from YouTube, the door now swings from the other hinge. Further more, my cupboards are outrageously high. You can't really see it until you try to reach something, but I'm a solid (and most completely normal) 5'5", and I had to bring in a stool to reach the second shelf of all of my cupboards. The stove and oven are now separate, which I hate. People: stop manufacturing, installing, and asking for ovens built into the wall. They suck. On the plus side, I now have a gas range, which I love. I fire-roast a mean pepper ladies and gents. Pros - I have more cupboard space overall, even if it was designed for 9' tall blue Avatar cats instead of normal people.
My living room! The purple couch from the bux found its way into our home (with a little help from Fuzzyhead's burly man-friends). You will notice, dear readers, that our home is covered in hardwood/laminate flooring now instead of the deeply trendy shag carpet that covered the old house from top to bottom. The lack of a dog hair sponge known as a carpet has meant daily sweeping for my poor little stay-at-home Fuzzy. His whining led to me buy a Roomba for Christmas. Cornelius does the sweeping for us now.
Another view of the living room. This little room we are now in is like a mudroom, but is a little too big, and feels like lost potential. Last night Fuzzy and I moved around some furniture to have it make more sense. Our big bookcase used to be in the mudroom simply because it was too big to get up the stairs in one piece. We bit the bullet and took it apart to move it to its rightful place in the office, which means that my knitting is now where it belongs on the main level.
Back of the house shot. This was taken in September when it was nice outside and the Muskoka chairs were in full swing on the back porch. We have a modest backyard with a fence to keep the dog contained, and a shed for storing outdoor tools.
My knitting station! This was very recently relocated to the mudroom area off the living room, and I have re-oriented the cubbies to sit vertically rather than horizontally to save floor space.In other knitting news, I will sum up my knitting adventures of the last 4 months:
The Knitters Fair in September was an absolute hit. I scored myself some sale sock yarns, and a swift. I chose the tabletop swift rather than the umbrella style that I was eyeing on KnitPicks. I feel like the tabletop takes up less space and transports better. The whole thing comes apart into 4 pieces plus some dowels. I wind yarn like a champ now.
Two stories are told here readers. The first is that the yarn for these two pairs of socks came from the Fair, and were deeply discounted (score!). The second story is that these socks are my first knitting project for hire. I made yoga socks in the summer, and after wearing them to classes, making a sample pair for my instructor, and having him actively promote how awesome they are, someone actually asked me to make them some! These two pairs were for a lady in my Friday morning level 3 class and her friend. She originally approached me in early November with a request to have them for Christmas. No problem. I was working on Fuzzy's Christmas socks at the time, so I figured I'd churn these puppies out in a month. Totally wrong. I was right down to the wire with these, I finished the last sock on Sunday December 19 and gave them to her the next day. I made a cool $50 out of it though. My Monday night knitters tell me that isn't enough for two hand-knit pairs of yoga socks. Thoughts?
Hello Kassa. Guess who has a dog sweater? This people-eyed dog model is Slim Jim's dog baby. I originally made this sweater in 2 days in the summer. It was way too hot for her to actually where it until months later, so I didn't find out until October that the neck was too short. I picked up stitches around the neck and extended the turtleneck, problem solved.
I will leave you with this happy Christmas image of my little family. Fuzzyhead has heartlessly torn down Christmas from our house now, and this is a memory of happy times.
