Best Entertainment Around

I'm thoroughly enjoying our new washing machine, which arrived in our basement yesterday afternoon. As might be expected, it seems to clean really well, use less water and less detergent, and work very quietly. But, as an added benefit, it has a glass lid and I've pretty much watched it go through two washes because it is fascinating!

Our old machine was a workhorse and got us through 22 years of laundry for a family of four with very few complaints. We probably should have replaced it years ago, but our repairman (who has worked more on the two dryers we've owned over the years than on the washing machine) always enthused about how much easier it was to repair older machines, so we just kept chugging along with it. Plus, there were sentimental attachments. We "inherited" this washer, along with dryer, when my Great Aunt Ruth passed away. I was pregnant with twins and my aunts voted me as the most in need of a washer/dryer at the time, so it joined our family when we moved into our house 6 months after the boys were born. Lately, though, it has been leaking sparodically but with evermore frequency when we would run a load of laundry. I decided to take the proactive move of replacing it and then the agony of deciding what to purchase began.



We ended up with an LG energy efficient top-loader (with a glass lid!), purchased at our local Home Depot (they had a sale going on, free delivery/take away, and actually recycle the old machines they pick up instead of dumping them). The tub is huge! Don was home yesterday with his laundry waiting for the new machine to be delivered so spent the afternoon learning how to use it. Today is my turn. The tub wiggles and jiggles, swishes a little then swishes a lot, spins a little then spins a lot -- fun to watch.

We're slow around here to adopt new technology, but I think this one is going to make us very happy. It even plays a little tune when the cycle is done :)

On My Needles:
Still working on my mother's cardigan for Christmas. I've got half a sleeve left to do and then will do the neck and button bands and assemble the whole thing.

I've got a bunch of things that just need assembly and finishing, but I've been loathe to do it, for some reason. My Sprössling is blocked and ready to assemble. My Debbie Bliss cabled sweater is blocked and ready to assemble. I have a Baby Surprise sweater ready to assemble. And I have another sweater that my aunt bequeathed to me as a project she would never get to all knit and ready to assemble (that one is going to be my aunt's Christmas present, which should surprise her). Gosh, this is sounding like an issue I need to do something about. Maybe I'll make it the goal of my vacation (I'm looking forward to having the whole week of Thanksgiving off; even though it does involve a couple of family events, I'll have a couple of days to myself) to get some/all of these projects wrapped up. We'll see.

Even More Babies!

I wrote in June of two colleagues who were welcoming babies into their lives for whom I knit sweaters. Since then, there has been an explosion of people in my life having babies!

A third colleague in the same office as the first two is having her first child this winter. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are having their first, his third, a boy, in December. The woman who was the secretary in my office for many years is going to be a grandmother any day now (a girl). My niece in South Carolina has announced she is pregnant with her second child. And, one of my cousins had a baby a few months ago (a boy) and I'm going to be seeing her next weekend. Anyone else out there I don't know about (hopefully not!)?

Luckily, I have a baby sweater stash. I think I'll be making most of my gift selections from this group of sweaters (though a few of them still need buttons):

I've also got a red and white Baby Surprise Jacket off the needles, but not sewn together, that will be perfect for a December baby.

And, believe it or not, there are at least three other baby sweaters still in my stash :) They are like knitting candy. But, the real knitting candy obsession is about to start:
I tried to rotate this picture for you with little luck - sorry. This is this Christmas' first miniature sweater. They take a few hours each, are lots of fun to knit, and make great little gifts to friends. Last year, my basket group practically rioted over them when I laid them out and let them each choose one!

I'm going back to work today after my two days off due to a cold. This is the first morning I've felt near normal all week. As always, when at home I expect myself to "get things done," but I spent most of the past two days snoozing, interspersed with knitting, podcasts, and reading. Time to get back to normal routines!

Away (From Blogging) A Long Time

My very small readership has noticed that I've been away from blogging for quite a while. I know I get annoyed when the blogs I like to read go "dark" and so have meant to get back in the habit, but too much has gotten in the way this fall. So, what were those impediments?

I usually take some time to sort through emotionally difficult situations and it seemed that all of my attention was directed toward emotional family events at the end of the summer and into the fall. Frankly, I wasn't able to write about those events while in the midst of them, and they were so overpowering that I felt like there was little else to talk about.

1) My parents, having been on a wait list for about a year, got the opportunity to move to an independent-living apartment in a residential community in August. That put into motion a host of decisions, events, and tasks that seemed to take over my and my siblings' lives. The house my parents moved out of was not my childhood home, but it was still full of memories and STUFF that evoked memories and downsizing and moving was not FUN for anyone involved and provoked a particularly difficult reaction in my mother. I'm pleased to say that we seem to be on the other side of this and both parents are settling very nicely into their new home.

2) Every time I went to help my parents pack/move/clean out, I came home with boxes and bags of STUFF. Some of it has been subsumed into my household, but much still is in boxes stashed throughout my house. Those boxes contributed to some major clutter we already had in our house, awaiting a couple of pieces of organizing furniture. We had piles of books, for example, behind the couch in our living room for months. I had ordered new bookshelves from a local furniture store, but finding time to stain and polyurethane them during the weeks we were working most furiously on my parents' house was nearly impossible. Getting them installed and loaded with books evoked a huge sigh of satisfaction.

Besides the bookcases, my father had been working for about a year on a cupboard/entertainment center piece of furniture for our "fireplace room" (sort of a parlor, in addition to our living room). He finished it up during the move experience and we brought it home to our garage. Just like the bookcases, it needed to be stained and finished. Working on it one day each weekend for three weekends in a row (desperately trying to get it done before cold weather settled in as our work area was out in the driveway), we finally finished it two weekends ago and the installation of it in our house has also helped to reduce clutter. The idea behind the piece was to put our stereo behind doors and give me a place to keep my knitting projects and clutter out of sight. Before and after pictures tell the whole story:



3) My brother's wedding came one (or was it two?) week after my parents officially moved and I wanted everyone in the family to be able to focus on that joyful event, so was pretty driven to accomplish a lot having to do with the move before the wedding so that we would feel less like it was hanging over our heads. It was definitely a fun and joyous event, not the least because it was an opportunity for my son who stayed at his campus in Pennsylvania for the summer to come home for a few days. Add in that we had gorgeous weather! Here I am, dancing on the lawn at the reception, with my husband:


4) The academic year took off like a rocket this year. I've never been busier at work, including working 2-3 nights each week throughout September and October. Spending half or all of each weekend working on my parents' house gave me little recovery time each week, so it has been a rather exhausting semester so far. I'm particularly grateful, though, that I am not an only child. My sisters and brothers all pitched in and have been great about communicating and sharing information as it developed. The communication part of being in a big family can be particularly challenging, and Facebook has been an invaluable way to keep all five of us updated and in touch.

5) So, those are my excuses and explanations. But, I have found plenty of time for knitting -- especially on car rides back and forth on the weekends! I'll have to photograph some of what I've been working on, but here's one I can share. This is a lace stole I made for my new sister-in-law: