Friday's uncreative post

Okay so it's friday, the day of yarn flashin' goodness and my camera is in Alabama with my husband.....sheesh.
He called and scored yet another job offer, this time from a family owned business that spent over 2 hours interviewing him and showing him around. This place is literally across the street from where my dad works lol.

So, recently I knit a lil phone cozy to put on my belt with a buttoned safety flap on it. I used my purple and cream dish cloth cotton. I gotta say it's pretty cute. And really, since there is no picture I'll just go out on a limb and say it's stunning. A work of art really. Debbie New would be proud. Envious even.

My delicious silk/cashmere from colourmart is looking at me and I'm totally smitten. It really is whispering "pet me, stroke me, love me" over and over. I've yet to actually knit anything from colourmart so that I could wash and experience the "bloom" I've read about. I wonder what this will turn out like? I keep hemming and hawing over what I want to make with it, which to me means I'm going to knit lace or a tank top deal. It really is quite lush......maybe if I combined it with my juicy jitterbug ralphael for a top??
The thing about tank tops is that I have bat flaps on my upper arms. I'd hate to highlight them, but not as much as I hate working to get rid of them it seems. Maybe a heavier purse is in order?
Right now I'll just enjoy it's purpley blue goodness.

And that's it folks. I think my creativity might have slipped into one of the moving boxes. Let's hope it's one marked "bay house" and not storage. Eep!

The Cure

Gulf Shores?

Well, Mr.PointyStickedOne landed yesterday, and had a solid job offer by 3 PM in Gulf Shores. Plenty of room for financial growth in this company, so maybe? They will even do schooling for/with him. He seems intrigued by the whole idea. By 4 PM today he had 2 more on the line, one with a possible second interview at a place out in Irvington. Which is close to my grandfather so that would be nice to.

All in all, we have something solid under our feet. We committed to jumping, and lo n behold, we were caught. God is so cool. I'm so excited.

Naturally this means our homeschooling friends and church family are making it hard on us for going *sigh*
I keep telling them they should all just come with us.

Moving on (yes! moving!)

I've decided to do Kiri after I was ganged up on and beat about the head with lace weight in Ravelry.
Apparently this is the starter pattern of my dreams and I will love it.
What is more: It's free.
Whoot!

Finished part of mom's gift, going to get some more cotton while I'm at it.

Life is good and the babies are napping. The quiet disturbs me.

Gulf Shores......mmmmmmm beach livin' here I come.

He's off!

Mister PointyStickedOne flew off to Pensacola today for job interviews and landed about 10 minutes ago. Sqeeeeee!
He's got the first one over in Gulf Shores and from there is steadily making his way over to Mobile. My mom is giddy. I think she is more excited than if I was coming to visit. She said she was even going to cook. Poor guy :-P

am I excited?
You betcha.

My colourmart cash/silk arrived. I'm so happy I could burst. Now I just need a ring bag pattern.........

Whoa

Next time hubbo starts eying the yarn stash, I'm going to have to show him The Mother of All Yarn Stashes.

Seriously. Compared to this woman, I have no yarn at all.

RavelryRamblin

Ravelry is flipping addictive. That is all there is to it.
It is such a source of inspiration that I didn't get squat done yesterday.
I'm now in more stash control groups
In another sock a month club
Flirting with a lace shawl group
it never stops.
What is worse, they are now bantering about stash swapping.
This could get deadly.
String flying, running amok.

Absolutely Brilliant web site concept. I hope the creators make a mint.

Now what I need:
A packing up to move back home to Alabama in an orderly fashion web site.

Le sigh

I've gotten NOTHING done in the last 3 days y'all.
I've had a couple panic attacks, at least I think thats what they are. Flashes of "What are we doing moving out of paid for housing??" and I start breathing fast and hard and sweat pops out on my head, basically I fritter about all of that when I'm gently reminded, paid for or not, there is no work or future here. A paid for house wont mean diddley when we can't buy food (or yarn). We have to move, we have to get out our rut. We have to move forward. Michigan is dying right now, and though I'm sure it will make a come back, I have zero interest in staying here and waiting for it. Michigan is not my home, is not a place I will even want to visit after we leave.
Work. There is work in the South. Careers. A future. Our family.
We could stay here, but to what end? Jobless is jobless, might as well be jobless in the south where industry is booming.

Next Wednesday, Hubbo is going down for some job interviews and application passing around. He can get a job. Might not be the job he wants as a career, but it will do while he keeps looking. I've been looking at real estate. I don't know how that will work out, but I'm looking.
We can stay at the Bay House for a little while, but it's not exactly a winter proof home. It would be nice to just move right into a place, but thats probably pushing reason out the window. 4 weeks to find, inspect and get approved for a loan? WHILE I'm living in Michigan? Not too likely. There is this one house that I've been looking at for months that Hubbo and my mom are going to go look at. I'm trying to not get my hopes up, they've been dashed too often this last year. It looks perfect on paper. Lets see what they say when they get inside.
There is also that house in Chunchula...........

Stash Speaks Up

When was the first time you realised that your stash was cognizant? That somewhere along the way, you have developed an inner voice that represents your well loved fibers. You've given it a personality, and that was cute an all, but then, possibly when things got quiet and dark......something shifted. You started holding conversations with some of it while practically ignoring other skiens. Some of the stash was genteel, while others grew feral.

Yesterday we started packing for the Big Move.
Princess's room was the logical first choice in my mind, as the classroom books are kept in there as well. We went first to her dresser, sorted, sifted, packed and bagged for Goodwill. Moved to toys, released several hundred thousand back into in wilds of the toy bin lottery at the Salvation Army, and kept a modest 6 billion for personal enjoyment. Moved next into the bookshelf region where the literary giants of our classroom reside. DAGGUM that's a lot of books! Out of all boxes packed so far, about 20, more than half are nothing but books. I even relinquished a few to greener pastures....of course "a few" being a relative term considering the quantity we are working with here.
If you have 10 apples and give away 3, that would be 'giving a few away'. If you have 40 llamas and give 6 to your neighbor, that's 'a few'. If you have 3 tonnes of a bibliophiles daydream sitting on your shelf, and you give half a ton away, well that counts as 'a few' right? Moving on.

We ate pizza and pop for a late lunch and moved into our bedroom. Now, our bedroom has somehow become the office and the catch all for any and every little thing that goes no where else. Ever since we cleaned out the attic space, I've been too protective about letting anyone but me put stuff in there. So I say to just 'put it in my room'. Well you know how that goes, and this is the chaos we started on.
First the easy room then the most difficult room. That leaves the rest as mediocre, and we can all say that at least it's not the bedroom again. Heh.
This is where the stash comes in.

El Hubbo sacrifices himself and goes straight for the jugular of the clutter problem: the clothes. But first, he needs a basket. Well what is in the giant wicker basket? Video tapes of course! Sheesh.
After a good 45 minutes all of the video tapes are properly boxed and labeled for archaeology. *This is where I go to the store for caffeine, milk and more boxes so am unclear as to what really went down* I return from the box hunt to a good deal of the clothes in the hamper, and my beloved husband sorting through clothes and actually tossing ones he hasn't worn in a million years! What is even more astounding is that he is putting HIS clothes in a separate box from mine, and LABELING them according to season and whether they will go to storage or the bay house. Unsure about this behaviour, I tread lightly and move to the other side of the room so I don't break his concentration.
The stash calls me at this point.

Now, if you are a knitter, I really do not need to explain anything about string and it's ways of getting attention. If you are a non-knitter, you have likely just written me off as a lunatic.
The stash called Cotton saw that I was near her home in the basket under the bed. I was separating my bedside reading into 3 groups: makes me happy book, knitting goodness book and time to move on book. Cotton started asking when I was going to come and properly air her out and make sure she was stored in a manner which was befitting of her stature. Cotton has a very southern belle kind of high maintenance attitude. Think Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O'Hara, tough as nails but wants everyone to think she is delicate, kind of personality (disorder). I started giggling and replied if she did not watch her tone, she'd become accustomed to a dishrag stature.
Oops.
I talked out loud to the stash when another human being was in the room. What is worse, it was a non-knitting human being. Even worse than that, a non-knitting human who just discovered that the silver vinyl suit bag in his hands was not in fact holding clothes, but instead was filled with yarn.
He looked at me. Looked hard. Like he wanted to laugh, run or call someone to get help for his wife. It was the kind of look that tests the resiliency of your spouse and whether or not he thinks this is cute, funny, a joke or whether he should inquire if sheep will be allowed to visit his wife on the funny farm.
With a dry tone he simply stated: You know hon, your yarn just lunged at me from the closet. I think it meant to hurt me, but it could have been after a hug. What do I do?

I love that man.

Naturally I told him to just put it right back in the closet and I'd have a stern talk with it when I got over there. Seeing just a hint of fear remaining in his eyes, I assured him that I was going to be gifting a good deal of that particular group to Marquita for the log cabin blanket she was making. He relaxed considerably. By bed time he found my quirks quite charming again and was laughing at the way The Stash has grown under my sneaky ways and how he never knew.

Perhaps he believes I started talking to it just to make a joke. We were working hard and it's good to be silly at times. Perhaps he even thinks he misheard and caught just half of the joke?...And you know what? Perhaps it is best we let him continue thinking whatever it is that he wants to think as long as it lets him remain happy with his brides string habit.

blahs

I got the knitting blahs I think. That or there is a gear that got stuck on dishrags. I pick up needles and all I wanna make are dishrags and washcloths. Even the socks I started are stuck into SSS (second sock syndrome) and I just can't go near them.
I am dreaming about my fabrics, but can not settle on one thing to make, so am making nothing. When I get Lydia's measurements, maybe that will click me outta the blues. Gonna make that girl a comfortable girly dress so she can be a real southern belle. Apparently marketing for the 8 year old females in this country have decided that they all want to be dressed like mini hookers. Grrrrr. I suppose its a good thing I'm re-embracing the sewing machine. Looks like I'll be making my little girls clothes as well.

le sigh

Perhaps I am just thinking so much about moving that I've gotten the: STOP WAIT deer in the headlights feeling. It's kind of like treading water....again. I need a dumpster delivered so I can get rid of everything that's junk, and set aside everything that needs to go in a yard sale (what does not get sold will go to Salvation Army).......and chocolate will not help this mood of mine.

While I was at the Bay House, there is this very cool dresser that was my grandmothers that has a giant mirror...I noticed bits and pieces of my naked self sagging in brand news ways, much of it chocolate induced I suspect. Time to put aside the ole faithful mood lifter of chocolate, and pick back up the ole fitness for life eh?

You know what cracks me up? Health nuts. They must be so surprised when their finely tuned machines stop working. I'm all for keeping fit, it has everything to do how well you will feel and enjoy your old age, but there are limits y'all. When my fitness routine takes more precedence than my sewing...well okay. When my fitness routine intrudes on my knitting.....well that will be the sign that I've gone overboard and need intervention. When my knitting has hit a "blah" block, then it's time I start exercising. The pain and sweat will make the charms of knitting/sitting still all the more enticing once again. Yes?

Jojo

Jojo is my X mother in law. I hate that I lost her in the divorce. She says I didn't lose her, but you know how it is. Anyway, we are really good friends. Enough so that when we are in town, she invites us all to dinner and pool time, including my new husband. Himself gets totally weirded out by how un-wierd he feels at their house. We all get along like maple syrup and pancakes and I only get checked on where I am when I see a pic of my X on the wall. Hehehehee
Jojo and Doc are pretty great though. They never flinched or missed a beat in including my stepson as their grandchild too, and its no different with my two new babies. They tell people about their 5 grandchildren, and that is pretty fantastic aint it? Jojo knows how it is, as technically she is the step-parent to my X. (His real mum is...........different about the whole deal*ahem*)

On this trip down we went over for dinner our 3rd night there. She heard I was learning to quilt and sew....and she smiled....almost wickedly. The woman then went over to a closet I had rarely even glimpsed in all the years I've known her, reached up, and pulled the light chain.
WHOA.
It's like she raided every fabric store on the planet and hid bits and pieces in her closet for Armageddon or something. Piles and stacks and heaps of fabric. Much of it I recognized from blankets she had made for the boys when they were little, and some of it was fabric that was just set aside, but still followed the themes I was going with for the children. Others were bright patterns on a black back ground that really really popped. Color coordinated just itching to be made into something. Trucks, dinosaurs, frogs, the alphabet, bulldozers, trains, Noah's Ark on and on and on. There were even a few yards of sold colors that matched all the prints! Quilt Heaven!
Without so much as a "would you be interested" she started putting fabrics in a bag....then another bag...she just kept going like there was no tomorrow until her entire closet was bagged. She looked at me and said "It's yours"
I was really rather speechless, I mean, there was archaeological history in those bags. I asked if she was sure, and she said it was an excuse to go buy more. That combined with Doc cleaning out the house makes me a little nervous-but that's another post.

So thanks to Jojo I have about 80 pounds of quilting goodness just waiting to be designed and cut to sew into grand creations. I've washed folded and put up all the fabrics. It's much like a yarn stash, just lovely to look at you know? Now if only I would take pictures....heh

Thanks Jojo, you have rocked my world and put a major distraction into my knitting time..somehow I think you knew that would happen and it's making you giggle maniacally.
Love you.

the job thingy and whatnot

So I know I know I owe a report on the jobbie thingie I was so incredibly excited about before we went to Alabama.
*sigh*
Total wash out. Not entirely sure what happened, one day they were wanting to talk to himself, and the next day they said that they really did not have anything long term.....so maybe consulting would be the answer? I dunno.
It was dissapointing to be sure, but then there is always a reason for everything and I'm still very peaceful about the whole idea of moving.
Only now, we are looking at moving directly into the Bay House and doing the job search in the direct Mobile metro area....which is where I wanted to be to begin with. My family, nutty as they may be, is incredibly loving and supportive in ways that would be considered rare, practically extinct. Maybe it's from working together in a business for years and years so that they HAD to see each other and the assorted cousins on a daily basis that makes us all really feel like one single family unit instead of branches. So. There you have it.

My hubbo and I have been doing much talking, and tonight we talk with my stepsons other family about the details. We are moving, Lord willing. The time frame is what is up in the air. We had been saying November 1st....but for the life of us can't figure out why. After talking with him last night, he sees no real reason we should wait, especially after getting the property tax bill on this place. (Over 4 THOUSAND just for the summer taxes. It works out to about 500 a month in property tax....thats really ticks me off). Property tax is due Aug 31st and we have to pay it, but wouldn't it be lovely if the house was already up for sale and sold before we had to do that? 5 bedrooms are rare enough, and a 5 bedroom in this area of large Muslim families, heck, HUGE Muslim families!.......well seems it might be easy enough to sell, right? Time will tell, and meanwhile we are stuck trying to get all the work done with so many of our own little helpers in house. FIL keeps saying the work will get finished when we move out, so following that line of thought, the sooner we move out, the better.

Savvy?

We came down to September. At that time we would be down and around for my cousins wedding, and princess's birthday. Daddio wants to still be here for his fathers retirement party/pig roast which is the second weekend in August. If the kids and I were to go right after the party, that would give the two weeks to finish the remodel before taxes are due. Not that I really think for a second it will sell that fast, but keep in mind we are really just kind of daydreaming and tossing out ideas here.

And that is that and the whatnot an that whodunnit and every leetl theeng.

Runaways and Box Jellyfish on vacation

We have two beach houses in our family, they are side by side. My grandparents stay in one and the rest of our chaotic clan make good use of the other. The kids run back and forth between the two all day. Well. One fine Tuesday morning I was in the bedroom ironing my husbands clothes because he was going to a job interview. He had been eating breakfast with the kids and the little imps had already made one trip over to the grand-house. When he went outside he thought princess was in with me, and I thought all of the kids were with him.
Apparently, she thought it was time for a morning stroll down Alligator Lane and slipped out undetected by the 7 people around her. She got about 5 houses down by sticking to the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.
*shudder*
I mean, that's the stuff nightmares are made of. Even now I find myself getting up in the middle of the night to go make sure she is still in her bed.
Thank God she was picked up by the AT&T guy and a local who stopped as well who thought she belonged to another house where 2 little girls lived. Everyone was reasonably worried and called the sheriff about 5 minutes before they saw me running down the road looking for her. After the cop saw that we had 5 kids and the layout of the houses he stopped acting like we were horrible neglecting the two year old and more like we had a herd of kids and she just got away from us. I get ill just typing it out and thinking about it. But praise the Lord she is okay and safe. Now I'm just going to keep bricks tied to her somehow to slow her down.

Then there was the battle her 9 year old brother faced(who used to escape the house back in his 2 year old days too *sheesh).

Last Friday we were out on the Bay in my uncles boat getting pulled around on the inner-tube. L(12 year old) had jumped off to give G(9 year old) his turn and now he has a war story to tell everyone about an epic battle he got into with a huge box jellyfish. He is fine, but there may be a scar on his arm. Normally we don't get jellyfish until late August, but there has been a drought going on and the normally fresh water flow that keeps them out is just not there at all.. The water is super salty and we knew the jellies had made it in, but regular jellies are a totally different story than what he got into, I mean we have never seen the blistering like he has going on before. He must have jumped directly on top of this creature. He is such an amazing kid though. While he thought this brainless jelly was attacking him, all he was doing was yelling for L to get out of the water. What a trooper. He made it back up to the bay house to get vinegar poured on his wound (it neutralizes jelly venom) and got loads of sympathy. Then the fellah went back out on the boat and got back IN the water to get his turn on the tube. Yus, I am proud
That was just the highlights.
heh.