Restless Knitter

A lot going on around here and I couldn’t even begin to explain everything in a proper way, so I’ll give you the short version. We may be moving to Los Angeles but we won’t know until the 6th of August. There’s a company that wants my husband to come work for them. They’ve been pursuing him for months, and he’s turned them down twice. This last time, they asked him to at least let them fly him to California so he can see their vision and the area before he tells them no again. He went last week. They are flying us both out there next weekend, at which point they’ll discuss salary with him. There have been a lot of questions on our minds, a lot of stress, and a lot of thinking, ranting, and raving going on around here. It got to the point that I couldn’t knit! I had to take a step back and realize that, for all the preaching I do about stressing doing no one any good, I was stressing way too much. And I was stressing The Man even more with my stressing ranting and raving. It was like someone flipped a switch. I’m not stressing anymore, but I’m still doing a lot of what-ifs and wonder-whats.

There’s a lot to consider. How far away we’ll be from my daughters, the cost of living there versus here, the friends we’ll be leaving behind, and more. I was starting to make friends here. There’s nothing that says I can’t make friends there, but damn. I like the people I am meeting here. It’s like, I finally start sticking my head out of my shell and some bird comes along and takes a shit on it. I know I can make new friends there, it’s just going to take effort on my part and that’s a hard thing for this shy turtle. And hell, we don’t even know for sure that we’ll be moving so all of this may be in vain. At this point, we’re making plans as if we are moving. If we don’t move, no harm done. If we do, then at least we’ve done a little planning.

Our grand plans for the future were to live in this house for many years to come. I know I complain about some little things, but I really do love my house. I love that there’s a big back yard for the dog to play in. I like how roomy it is. I like the neighborhood. This house has felt like home from the day we moved in. I can’t say that about any other house I’ve lived in. The others have never been what I really wanted, but this one is. We’ve been talking about renting this one out until we return, and The Man has even suggested letting it sit empty, but neither of those will probably happen. There’s no guarantee the future will bring us back to this place.

That’s enough for today. I don’t have any knitting to show or to even talk about. The only thing I’m currently working on is the stole, and I had to put that down for a few days because I couldn’t concentrate on the simple chart. Mistakes were being made and a lot of tinking was being done. I finally picked it back up today without any problems. I do need to start thinking about what I’m going to take for that 4 hour flight to L.A. though.

I know everyone thinks. Whether we realize it or not, there is usually something going on in our thoughts at all times of the day. Right now I feel like I’ve thought so much that my brain has turned to mush and I can no longer produce a coherent thought. My little world is upside down at the moment and I can say I don’t particularly care for this state of mind.

My grandfather passed away last night a little after midnight. (Passed away is an odd term, but how else do you say it? Died sounds heartless. Gone to the big cloud in the sky sounds flippant. What about is at peace now? *shrug*) There won’t be a funeral, which really shocks the shit right out of me, though there will be graveside services. I’m not sure why my grandmother made this decision. I will admit to being somewhat relieved. The Man knows (and has known for years, this isn’t a recent decision) that when I go, under no circumstance is there to be a funeral for me. If everyone that liked me (all 5 of them!) wants to get together, eat lots of food, have a few drinks, and talk about the good times, that’s fine. But no funeral. Stick me in a wooden box and toss some dirt on me. Or cremate me. But under no circumstance is he to buy an expensive coffin and put me on display. I know that goes against the grain of what so many other people feel and I’m sorry if it offends anyone, but that’s me and I’m not going to pretend it’s not. Again, there’s a lot of past that shapes me, as with everyone else. Anyhoo, I’m almost afraid to go to the services for fear of what will come out of my mouth. Hopefully, out of respect for my grandfather, I can restrain myself long enough to make it through.

The thing that is really mushing my brain is something that I really shouldn’t discuss out loud yet. (Don’t you hate when people say stuff like that!) This one is trying to kill me, and has been for over a week but more so in the last couple of days. There’s one piece of final information that we need before we can make any final decisions, and we won’t receive it until sometime this week. If we don’t find out this week, I’m very likely going to have a meltdown. There are just so many what-if’s that my brain is going nuts. We think we know how it’s going to turn out so we’re thinking things to death. Who knows, it may all be for nothing but better to be prepared in case it’s not. At any rate, my brain is mush and I wish I could just stop thinking about everything for a couple of hours. Mush, doggies, mush.

Rather, anything fun close to a city that starts with a C, ends with an S, and has an A every other letter of it’s name? And that’s all I can say about that for the moment. Maybe after The Man gets home I will spill my guts.

Came here for knitting, did ya? Okie dokie then. I learned last night that I can’t work on the stole and talk at the same time. I think I got 2 rows done. (More people need to come to our little group so I can shut up. Poor Janice now knows how long it’s been since I bought new undies, and other embarrassing stories.) About that big mistake in the stole, it’s not a mistake. I thought the eyelets in that middle section diamond would line up. Before doing any ripping, I surfed through blogs of other people that are working on both ends of the stole and theirs don’t line up either. No picture for proof, but I did get another 40 rows done yesterday while waiting for my car to be fixed. I’m almost through the 1st clue on the 2nd half of the stole.

Oh, and for those who wanted to see the shoes

Casual but dressy. I wore the black ones (in the front, in the back are dark brown) yesterday. Despite walking around in this very pair of shoes for a half hour and being fine, they treated me to blisters yesterday. Bastards! But, I love them and I will find a way to stretch them out at the problem spots. They will not defeat me!

I’m feeling much better today. Know why? I got new shoes! Shoes were my obsession before yarn came into my life. I love shoes. Like yarn, even if I don’t get to use them, as long as they are in my possession, I’m happy. Though it does kind of suck that they have to sit in the closet because, even though they felt fine in the store, I have some that prefer to make these lovely things called blisters instead of being the comfy shoes they pretended to be. I keep hoping for the miracle of shrinking feet. Has yet to happen unfortunately.

The Man is out of town for a couple of days on a very important mission. If he completes this mission, there will be both new yarn and shoes! Think happy positive thoughts for me him. When he’s gone, I feel like I have lots and lots of extra time. I don’t know why because he doesn’t really take up much of my time. Maybe because I don’t spend hours trying to figure out what to fix for dinner. When he’s gone, it’s junk food all the time baby! I stay up until all hours of the night. I knit. Oh wait, I do that when he’s here. It really makes no sense why I feel like I have extra time. So, because The Man is on the mission and I have all this spare time, I’m going to post a lot of pictures. Because, you know, if I have all this extra time to post them, it only makes sense that you have the same extra time to wait for them to show up on your screen. They’ll all be clickable so you can choose which ones you really want to wait for.

Bella
This is the view we often have of Bella in the backyard. There’s a bug or something under the ivy making a noise, which she thinks she needs to put a stop to. Or at least do her best investigating.

Big balls
You’ll probably have to squint to see what I saw but considering traffic was running 80 mph, this is as good as I could get. The man has a set of, well, balls hanging under the hitch. Just exactly what is the statement he’s trying to make? That his set is really that big? Or is he saying he has the balls to do something the rest of us don’t normally do? (Boy am I gonna feel stupid if someone tells me those things hanging there have a purpose other than just looking like a set of balls.)

Who needs a secret pal!
Screw the secret pal stuff, I’ve got Donna. What better thing to arrive home to (after getting new SHOES!) than a package waiting at your door. She spoils me something fierce. Yarn, pattern books, magazines, candy, and Tim Tams! The Lifesaver flavors are Musk, Orange Fizz, Raspberry Fizz, and Strawberry Sundae. Yummy! I’m refraining from opening the Tim Tams because once that seal is broken, those babies are devoured.

And I have to show you something. I’ve been playing with the DB Cotton Cashmere. Here’s a swatch I came up with a few days ago.

Now look at this outfit

Knitting!
Here’s the Mystery Stole in it’s current state. Most of the knitting was done on the Small Town trip since The Man was a real sweetheart and did ALL of the driving. But wait, there’s more after the pic

Remember when I confessed to not thoroughly reading directions? I told you then that I wouldn’t learn. There’s this line that says to work a set up row. My eyes glazed right over that one single line. Either that or my brain chose to ignore it. I realized it when I went back to the provisional cast on to work in the other direction. What I tried to do was fix it by working that set up row from the 2nd side. It would have worked, but I wasn’t completely happy with the fabric I was getting with the US 4 anyway, so I ripped the whole thing out and started over from scratch. And this time, I included the set up row. Yay me! All’s well now, right? Wrong. Notice anything funny with that middle diamond? Do ya? Huh huh, do ya? I do! I didn’t notice it until I went to resize the picture to upload it. I’m sure if this stole could talk, it would say “I’m with Stupid” and there would be a big arrow that points at me. So even though I’m going to be spending my evening fixing this instead of knitting on it, I’m still in a good mood. Because I got NEW SHOES!

And finally (anyone able to hang in there this long? :)) news on the Grandpa situation. They think he may have had a heart attack and have him hooked up to more monitors, but he’s still stable and still talking. My daughters got the security code that you have to have so the nurses can give you info when you talk to them on the phone. Voila! Bypass the hags (just because I’m in a better mood doesn’t mean they aren’t still hags) and get the real info. Hooray for talking to upbeat people!