Well, tomorrow's the big day! We're finally moving into the new house! Yay! Yesterday, I camped out there to help out a little. We needed the water turned on to the house so that the carpet cleaners could come before we moved furniture over, so I napped on our twin air mattress on the kitchen floor (really the only floor that wasn't going to be cleaned) and waited for people to arrive. It happened that my social worker had scheduled a meeting with me for that day, so she got to see the new place, although it was a little weird conducting our interview in the kitchen with the air mattress on the floor. (To be honest, she was a little worried that I had spent the night like that, so I had to reassure her that Laurie would not neglect me like that :).) We tried several times get the water turned on, something about the water still flowing in the house, it was a little cryptic. Anyways, the water's on and the carpets are clean, I even made it to knitting/crochet night at East West Exchange to hang out for awhile. Then, I collapsed into bed.
In other news, Laurie's had a bit of a job change and her schedule is changing, too. Right now she works 10am to 9pm Monday to Thursday and it's now switching to 7:30am to 4:30 pm, 5 days a week. She is now officially "science teacher" and "assistant principal". It's going to be a rough fall, with work and her masters stuff but Laurie really likes the new woman at work that she'll be teaming up with. So all is happy, and very busy here :). Off to bed with me, I think Laurie's going to be last minute packing all night. The movers come at noon tomorrow.
Oh - We have an oblate friend who really needs prayers right now. She's just had surgery for ovarian cancer and is not doing well at all. The doctors give her a 20% chance of surviving 1-2 years, even with chemo and another surgery. She also had a stroke about a year ago. So, if you could keep her in your prayers, it would be appreciated.
Why I should have posted last night and didn't
Or this could be "Heather and Laurie are crazy enough to have gone antique shopping yesterday in over 110 degree heat..." or "Yay! We're finally home owners!!!!!!!!!". Anyways, we are finally home owners and yesterday, instead of waiting by the phone anxiously to find out if the loan funded and we could actually go into our new place without breaking in (to be fair we did have the keys...), we went antique shopping for new stuff for our new place! It would have been really fun if it was like, November here. But even with the excruciating heat, we managed to find some really neat stuff! I don't have any pictures of it yet, but we bought a table that will be my computer table, 2 arm chairs and Laurie's out right now buying a sofa and chair off of someone from craigslist. Very exciting! I'm looking forward to seeing it all put together!
In spinning news, I finished spinning the singles for my "canyon" yarn but I've only plied a little bit of it. I didn't get a nap yesterday (part of why we ended up in bed exhausted at 9 at night) and so I didn't have the patience needed to ply all of it, instead I made a little mini-skein so that I had something to show to the spinning expressions group last night. All my hard Tour de Fleece work and I'm still not finished yet. But I do have to say that spinning 4 oz just on a drop spindle is ambitious. This month, I'm only going to do at the most 2 oz, so I have time to spin other stuff, too. My canyon yarn ended up about fingering (sock) weight, which is great! It's my second skein of finished yarn ever and here it is:
Like I mentioned, our spinning expressions group met last night, and even though we were beat, we participated. This month, we're spinning a member of the group's grandmother. So, I'm doing a rose garden in a little bit muted colors because I'm adding about half and half of some white merino/cashmere to it. (So it's half 80/20 Merino/cashmere put together with merino/silk.) It looks really pretty and it's sooooo soft. I wanted to work with the cashmere a little bit, too because I have some cashmere/silk that I want to spin into something gorgeous and want a bit of practice with it. So that's the next couple of pictures.
The little yarn store we love and frequent got some new fiber in yesterday and Laurie was sweet enough to let me get some lovely BFL (blue face leicester) that was beautiful, natural color. I've been goggling over BFL in little shops on the internet and was jealous of a friend who had some at the retreat so I'm really excited about it. It's 4 oz worth :).
And last are the pics of my new spinning/knitting journal. I'm excited about it, too, because I want to keep track of what I've spun with little samples and keep track of everything. It's hand-bound and will be perfect for what I want to do with it. There are even little pockets and graph paper for yarn labels and such!
Today, we're heading over to TYF again for the Tour de Fleece group picture :). It'll be fun!
Waiting...
Well, the day has finally arrived! Laurie is on a plane right now, flying home from her 2 week cohort in Washington D.C.!!!! Yay! I've missed her lots and I'm (hopefully) staying up until she gets home, which should be some time around midnight.
I went for the first time and spun for Le Tour de Fleece at Tempe Yarn and Fiber with the group. It was fun to be part of the "spinning circle". Mandy came over for dinner tonight and we when to TYF for our normal friday nights, which was fun. We made root beer floats from the root beer that we didn't drink on retreat and that was very yummy :). Hmmmm... we still have lots of vanilla ice cream and root beer, I'm sure that another will be made before long.
In the bad news category, my scooter is broken. :( Good thing Laurie's coming home tonight because I'll need her to get me around the house - the scooter is on it's last wheels. I don't know how it happened but one of the back wheels is beyond flat. I'm literally riding on the rim of that wheel. It makes an awful noise and doesn't go very fast (and we're worried about scratching the floor). The earliest they can come and look at it is Monday, so we'll see what happens.
The first picture is of the yarn that I'm using for my hedgehog project for our charity knitting at TYF. I'm excited about it, it will be my first felting project! My hedgehog's name is Woolflower. The second pic is of some luscious Barbara's buns that I picked up at the yarn store. They are Polworth and merino/silk, about 2 oz. I also got some Codswold locks but they haven't been photographed yet.
Retreat weekend
This past weekend, I spent a the retreat our little yarn store puts on in the summer. It was nice to spend the weekend that I would have spent home alone while Laurie's away with a bunch of wonderful knitting/spinning/crocheting people in a very nice air conditioned hotel. I shared a room with my friend Mandy, and we had a great time! I mostly spun between naps and food breaks, for the TdF I really want to get my "canyon" yarn done. I'm just over half way through it before I ply the two bobbins together. It was cool to hang out with all the spinning people, especially because I haven't made it to the store yet to spin with the Tour group officially.
Well, when I got home this afternoon, I had a package waiting for me! My mom bought me some beautiful alpaca/silk top in the colorway Whispers from a shop on etsy.com. It's beautiful and soooo soft and wonderful to touch... Also pictured is my brand new Bosworth spindle that I got shortly before the retreat. It's .56oz (16g) and the whorl is Sapele Mahogany and the shaft Cochin rosewood. It's a lovely thing to behold. I spun up the little pouf of fiber that came with it and I'm excited to try it out with the purple batts I got for my bday.
This last picture is of a skein that I got from the retreat during a game. It's Cascade Valencia, merino and silk. :)
It's all thundery outside now :) Poor Laurie is missing her favorite AZ season... But alas, I'm really exhausted from the weekend out so I think I'm going to call it an early night and maybe crawl in bed and watch a movie. :)
HP and a very warm evening
I'm so excited that I was able to go to the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie on Tuesday night (well, ok, wednesday morning...) It was an overall good movie - they did leave out some parts and added some in that weren't really true to the book, but when are movies ever really true to the novels? I was too hot to wear my Hogwarts robes but I did bring them to the movie theater with me :)
I've had some crazy goings on starting last night. Our air conditioner stopped working last night. I noticed that it was super warm around one am and went out to check the thermostat and it was reading 86 degrees - ick! So I called my mom and she came and rescued me from the heat. Went back today to collect things so I could stay with my mom for tonight, too, and it was still very hot in there. It was a very uncomfortable hour for me while I packed up all my things. I'm not planning on being home until Sunday night because I'm going to a knitting retreat! Poor Eileen had to haul me and all my stuff into my mom's house and I feel bad because she'll have to do it again tomorrow when I leave here for the retreat! They are coming out today to look at the AC unit - I hope they can fix it fast!
I was able to check the mail when I stopped to pick up my stuff - my birthday Bosworth spindle finally came in the mail! I don't have a camera with me besides my iphone so I'll have to wait to post a pic! Now for a nap in the nice cool guest bedroom in my mom's house...
When the cat's away...
Well, the time for Laurie's trip to Washington DC has arrived, she left on Saturday night to fly off to do her 2nd cohort for graduate school. Our neighbor, Eileen, is helping me out while Laurie is away. The bad news is that I miss Laurie, but the good is that I have lots to keep me busy. Tonight is the only night this week that I'm not really doing anything. My mom came over and had pizza with me last night and I have Harry Potter, knitting, yoga, and knitting retreat respectively for the rest of the week. And I have Le Tour de Fleece to keep me busy as well. The one thing that I did that I regret was that I watched a slightly scary movie the night that Laurie left and had a hard time falling asleep that night. I don't think I'll be doing that again! So, I'm off to entertain myself, I'm trying to finish the sixth HP book before the movie tomorrow night. Hopefully, I'll be posting pictures of my new Bosworth spindle soon, I had my hopes up that it would come today, but not so. :(
Busy, busy!
Well, I've managed to do a little spinning every day for Le tour de fleece, but I've been pretty busy so far this week! The party for Matt and Monica was very nice, mostly it was people I didn't know, but the ones I did know were good to see :). We've spent the last few nights at Laurie's sister and brother in law's house about 45 minutes from her parent's house. William and JP are so big, (we haven't seen William since Thanksgiving, I believe; JP came to Chile with Christy). They are both really cute. JP has to be the cuddliest baby I've ever known - he's always ready for a snuggle. And William is so smart for a two year old, he's into everything, but so polite! The boys have been doing some really cute things while we're here. JP dances for us if we sing him the "dancing" song - basically he bobs his body up and down to the beat - it is adorable and it cheers him up (or distracts him). Really though, he's a smiley baby but he's cutting a tooth or something now so he's not his normal self. William loves to read and can sit by himself for a really long time reading to himself.
We brought out Laurie's spinning wheel for Christy to see and for the boys to play with a little. Both love it. William likes to steer it like a ship or to jog on the treadles. JP is happy to sit on the treadles as they go up and down. Pretty cute! Both like the spindle. William comes up to me and says "spinning in circles?" and watches for awhile, JP watches but more often makes a grab at it :).
Anyways, we're headed up to the cabin tomorrow, so we'll be doing some baby free spinning. I hope to get a lot done. I've kind of been spinning in the in-between times of playing with the baby, hanging out with Christy and Laurie and all of the family visits, meals and nap time. I've carded more to spin a couple of times now, but my spindle could still take some more!
