Happy Halloween

It's never been one of favorite holidays, despite my love of sugar. But I do think toasted pumpkin seeds are super tasty. So, I carved these two little guys:

That's a bird and a tree, in case you needed help with my artistic renderings. :)

The once and future homes

I'm scheduling a handyman to come by and do a bunch of jobs that have been lingering for a while. At this point, even though I'm not rolling in the dough, and with any luck, I'll be finding a new (likely lower-paying) job in the near future (please, please, please!) - right now, I can spare more money than time. So, he'll be fixing the patches in my ceiling and painting it, re-doing the grout and caulk in my tub, building me some -in-wall shelves and doing my pocket door. Hooray! I can't get him until mid-November, but I feel better just knowing it is going to get done! Since he is working near the sprinkler heads, I think I will be taking time off to supervise. Now, I just have to figure out the kitchen, and I'll be in much better shape for moving on.

According to my grad school real estate guru's suggested life plan, I should be buying my next house in 2008. Hey, the guy was buying houses with cash, so he must be doing something right. Between this and my planned home repairs, I've been thinking about what I want in my next house. After all, although the current one hasn't turned out to be the delight I'd imagined, if I can't learn something from it, what was the point?

So, what I would like (in no particular order):
1. An outdoor space for growing plant life, in pots or in the ground. I need greenery to keep me sane, and Smidgen eats greenery if I keep it indoors.

2. More storage space. I've purged, but I still need to hide away so many things - vacuum cleaner, pet carrier, winter coats, umbrellas, yarn, yarn and more yarn!

3. A covered porch or stoop. I like to sit outside under cover during summer storms. Right now, I have an anti-stoop. It goes in the wrong direction.

4. South-facing exposure and lots of windows in general. I lived in an apartment once where my bedroom ran the full length of the south side of the house (okay, it was only like 15 feet). I loved waking up in the winter and being able to sprawl out like a cat in the sun. So cozy.

5. Speaking of cats - An area I can fence in for Smidgen to go outside and play. Whether it's a porch, or a back patio or whatever. The poor thing meows at the door, and really likes going outside.

6. Normally-angled walls. Right now, I have walls with wacky angles and they look cute when nothing else is in the room, but they are a struggle when you try to deal with furniture.

7. No more hobbit holes. Above-ground living from now on, please.

8. Space for a crafty nook, or dare I dream - a crafty room. Somewhere to do quilting and sewing and embroidery and knitting and dyeing. A sink would be dreamy. Sigh.

9. Built-in bookshelves. I love books, their tidy shape, their portability, and of course, their insides! I wish I could have more, but no space!

10. At least two bathrooms.

11. A pantry - a little nook to store spices and pasta and cereal and all that beige food I seem to gravitate towards

12. A foyer, or a mudroom or whatever they call those pseudo-rooms where you can put your dirty shoes and wet umbrellas.

Okay, so maybe I can't get all this in my next house, but a girl can dream, right?

The weekend went too fast

So, I've been a blogging slacker. I'm trying to reform my evil ways. This past weekend, I had plenty of fun. I knitted a plethora of baby hats and visited a pumpkin patch and some farm animals.

I made a trio of cabled baby hats. Two for Steve-o's coworkers and one for my coworker. Pink, sage green and blue.

I usually dislike the way cables end up looking when you decrease, but I thought this pattern made a nice flower petal-looking top.


Without Mika's pumpkin party, we are going to have to roast our own seeds this year. The horror! But we did get to see some farm animals, and eat caramel apples, but we skipped the hayride....you know - allergies. The second goat looks like he's taking a nap in a really funny position, but he was just going after the good hay on top.


Steve-o and I in the field:
Eeeek, Pumpkin head guy!

I've also been doing a little scientific experimentation in dye world. To make reproducible results, I decided I need to be a bit more exact in my mixology. After all - a little of this, and then some of this, and now a bit of this other one, isn't really terribly accurate. So, I dyed some samples and created a chart of the basic stock colors. Now, I just have to get started on mixtures.

And also on the topic of dyeing yarn, I'm looking for someone to do some graphic work for me. To help design a logo for my handpainted yarn business/side job thingy. I have a concept, but I need someone to put it into whimsical form. If you, or someone you know might be interested, get in touch. $, or other services (no, not that!) to be provided by me.

Good wedding. Bad tire.

The wedding was lovely. My sis made a fabulously beautiful bride. I almost cried. Just kidding. It was a happy time! I don't cry when I'm happy. I even managed to keep my older sis from getting all weepy. No pinching required...just a few stern looks. The hummer limo was a crime against nature. The wetlands were weeping. Just ask my sisters about it.

All was well until we tried to leave PA for home. Steve and I were driving down I-83 in Pennsylvania, and the car started to do a little weird wiggle thing. We pulled over and sure enough - flat tire! So, we call up our handy dandy road side assistance folks, who say it will be an hour til a tow truck comes to take us to pepboys to get a new tire.

As we're standing there on the side of the highway, waiting for our tow truck, hoping it will be early, my phone rings. It's Ryan, who asks - Why are you standing on the side of the road? I don't know where he was coming from, or how he even managed to spot us, but we tell him the tow-truck is coming and so he drives onward.

It was about 4:30 on a Sunday, and we find out that the pepboys closes at 6, so waiting for the tow truck is going to be pretty useless. He won't be able to get us there on time. We don't have enough shoulder room to safely get the donut on the car on the side of the highway, but.... We have some "fix-a-flat in the trunk, so we decide to give that a try and the tire inflates more or less, and we drive slowly down the highway three miles to our exit....except the map says to use exit 21B.....but there is no B, and we drive right past exit 21, thinking that surely 21B must be coming. Oh, google maps, how you let me down!

We take the next exit - Exit 19, so now we've been driving 5 miles on a fix-a-flat tire that is losing air. Okay, we'll just get back on the highway and go back to exit 21. Nope. It's one of those damn PA exits where there is no way to get back on. People have always bemoaned these to me, but I'd never had a problem. I feel your pain.

As we're driving in the general direction we think we have to go, Carlos our tow truck driver calls, cause he's where our car originally was stranded. And even though he came out, only to find us gone, he kindly gives us directions. Thanks Carlos! Unfortunately, we did too much missing exits and getting lost, so about 0.8 miles from the pepboys tire store, the tire gives up and goes completely flat.....in scenic York, PA.

So....we decide to try the donut tire. As I'm blocking traffic for Steve and he's kicking the tire to get it loose, a friendly PA fellow comes out of his house to check it all out. We Pennsylvanians love a good show. He starts kicking the tire too, and when that fails, he goes back inside. I figure we're stuck now, but he comes back with a friendly 250 pound guy who kicks that tire right off the car and hooray, we can put the donut on.

We give the guys some cash for their troubles, and we go to put air in the donut and get some grub. We spot a five guys two doors down from the gas station, and after tasty burgers and fries, we're off....speeding down the highway at 50mph all the way back to DC. By the way, after driving 50 on 95 and the beltway, I will stop waiting to pass slow people until I'm nearly at their car. It is nerve-wracking.

We get home about 9:30 or 10, after leaving PA at about 1:30. A four hour drive became an 8 hour adventure. Oh well. Smidgen was well taken care of, but apparently, wasn't much fun cause she was lonely. Thanks for the effort, though, catsitters! Steve is buying new tires today, so we should be back in top form shortly.