Get Thee To A Nunnery!

Really, a nunnery might be the only salvation for those contemplating a move anytime soon. Talk about simplification! You don't have to worry about a lot of that pesky 'wordly stuff', it is the epitome of lean and mean living.

I'm only half joking I think. No, I know I am only half joking.

This was the kitchen on day one, much of it came over in the back of the SUV and before everything was put away it was rather horrible. The kitchen is now finished and most lovely!

The sewing room (haven of all havens) is the last thing to get unpacked. It has also become the dumping ground for spare boxes, the carpet cleaner, the vacuum, and my new best friend the rolling gray cart. When you live on the second floor and do some moving yourself the rolling cart hauls a lottalotta stuff. And while being most helpful I do wish I had not tried to be so cheap and had more done by the professionals (aka big strong men who do not mind the endless shlepping of stuff).

TOMORROW will be the day I can start getting all of that crap OUT of there and begin unpacking and making the room lovely, and mine, and creative and happy. To paint or not to paint? How to organize? I think the first project will be a shower curtain for one of the bathrooms, have you ever noticed that when you know exactly what you want that you can't find it no matter how hard you search????


While everyone gets used to the new digs, poor Prince the Dog spent an awful lot of time in front of the door wondering what happened to his former residence. After a few days I'm happy to report that everyone is adjusting well.

Now, would someone please remind me how that whole knit purl thing goes?

Up For Air

The move is finished. Hallelujah and Amen!

I am exhausted, sore, dragging----- but MOVED! YAY!

The bed has been put back together an last night I slept on it (with nice clean sheets) for the first time, heaven! Unpacking is still running at about 75%, not bad for a big move.

I have FURNITURE again!!!! Lovely, new, fantastic FURNITURE! It makes my joy about the upholstered pieces even greater. Let me tell you blitters, I was OVER sitting on the floor on my air mattress!

I'm thrilled about the downsize although still amazed that after an extremely hard 'edit' on the other end, I still have a LOT of stuff. Much of the 'purty stuff', i.e. the photos, wall quilts, artwork, etc., just aren't going to make the cut here. It's still all good!

Off to get back into the grind and spend the day with a bride.

Still moving, not grooving

It is true, in an effort to have the longest lasting move in America (and possibly the free world and the outlying areas) I am still in the process moving.

Let me recap:

• NO furniture from the couch/loveseat/chair category
• STILL trying to relax and/or lounge from the fuzzy blue blow up bed that lays on the floor and takes a whole lotta effort to haul up and out of
• the tv downstairs leaves tomorrow afternoon. I can only hope that having the U*-Verse box still plugged in will tape Jack tomorrow night and I can watch tv in my bedroom.
  
• the house is covered in boxes. Covered. A damn lot of boxes.
• there are more boxes joining the party every day
• There is no knitting happening outside of Tuesday nights when I find that properly outfitted with a real chair, knitting is entirely possible
• There is really no nothing happening outside of work and the move.
  

I remain tired and ready to throw in the towel. I would if I could spare a towel but I only have one out, the rest are packed and I couldn't tell you which box they are in. I really thought back in the day when I had a full set of towels and lived in a lovely home that the move was going to be a piece of cake, a simple little stroll over to the new loft daintily carrying objects and placing them in their new home. I am by all accounts a moron as this in no way is what the move looks like.

My dogs are freaked out and glued to my sides in fear that their Mama is going to leave them for points unknown. Poor things.

I do have a firm date to move (hallelujah!) and the movers are coming on Thursday after what will surely be a horrific day on Wednesday hauling everything possible in the SUV. By Thursday night it is my hope to close the door after the movers drop the last of it, the new furniture having been delivered (of which there is not only a couch and a loveseat but a new chair, in red, that was built to knit like the freakin' wind.) I will close the door and look around at the carnage and know that finally I am home again. There will be unpacking and new things to decorate an tons and tons to do but I look forward to it all with great excitement. I will peer out my window and see in the distance the Arch, I will look around at my lovely Victorian neighborhood and sing a happy song. Assuming I have the energy for it!

I'm 'off the contract' at today's wedding and so can maybe take a nap in between the last few things on the do-me list. After the guy comes to buy the washer and dryer from C*raig's List who I sincerely hope is not a murderer. He really can't be as the $$ from the washer and dryer will finish paying for the new flat screen. Oh yeah.

There were no C*raig's List takers for my White Rotary in the original coffin case, can you believe it? Off to storage she will go because with the whole downsize thing two of my antique machines won't make the cut.

My bride today has already been sad that she will not hold my knitting and me forever immortalized to my blitters- aw, how sweet! I offered that she drive by in the limo, I'd run out into the raining street and she could jump out and give it a go but apparently she was less than sincere about the whole thing. How like a non-knitter anyway.

Hope your weekend is sunny and warm and for pete's sake that you aren't moving.

Happy Easter!

Gravy, the house is trashed---- I think I'd be happy enough to eat Easter dinner OUT, but friends gather! Thankfully they help haul a box down the stairs. All upholstered pieces are gone and an air bed is on the floor for sitting (sigh), the dining room table left yesterday. We'll be eating at the kitchen counter and at the 'little' table, and nothing traditional at that.

St. Louis is known for it's Pork Steak. If you don't know it, think ribs and chops and t bones all kind of rolled into one. A nice sticky bbq sauce on the grill, some cole slaw and potato salad, some baked beans come from this kitchen. Coming to join the table are some home baked rolls and deviled eggs, and some cupcakes to help me celebrate the day after my birthday.

It is Easter in any form, and a day to remember egg hunts from years past, nights up late making all sorts of Easter finery, and to be grateful for the present.

Happy Easter!

Do These Stipes Make Me Look Fat???

Oh good grief, moving is horrible. This is just part of the mess. And really, all things considered, it is fairly organized mess. Boxes everywhere----- stages of dissaray. Which pretty much defines a move all the way around. By this time next week we should have started the hauling, except for the big pieces of furniture that will demand the services of burly men on the clock. I can't wait! C*raigs list has been great to sell a lot of stuff---- but sadly tomorrow my sofa, loveseat, and chaise leaves. The new furniture won't arrive until the move on the other end, maybe I should put up the inflatable mattress so there is a spot to land for a week?

The chicken, in it's happy flat-ness. Waiting for stuffing having divided the stitches into halves (minus the tail stitches) and ready for the kitchenering.

Do these stripes make me look fat? Or is it the stuffing? Less stuffing, more waistline? Still such a fun project, love me the chicken!

Chicken Heads, Rain & Angels

The chicken is no longer headless, yay! She needs to be stuffed and then kitchenered together and then the fiddly bits like the tail feathers and the wattle need to be knit. I have been packing (and packing) and hauling and boxing and taping and tossing and trying to keep some sort of order in a home that has pure and simple lost it. The kitch and fiddlies will have to wait until I have a little bit of oom left in my oom pa pa. Or something like it.

Is it spring? I am sick to pieces of the rain rain rain and chilly temps. Understandably it will make the flowers pop but it will also wash away the pretty blooms on the trees. The tender plants and buds were covered up for a freeze warning just the day before last, surely spring and temperatures that are warm and lovely can't be far away?


On the angel front, that is my niece's car. She was on her way to work and while going through an intersection was plowed into by a dairy truck who ran the red light. Thank heavens her angels were on duty and she got out just fine. The police who answered the call said they were shocked she made it out with no serious injury.

Yet another reminder, life is fragile------- loving respect and kindness to all should be the order of our days.

Which Came First..... the Chicken or the Bride?

Two brides back to back------ wow! That never happens, but isn't it fun when it does?

I can't decide which came first or which is cuter. Don't tell the bride I said that she was kinda' in Princess Mode.


It has been a long time since a bride rocked the sticks quite this well I have to say! Miss C did just that!!

She had a ball with the knitting-------- and actually, I think they are some of the most fun shots of the day. (I'm a knitter, what would you expect me to say?) Because she made no funny comments about holding a knitted chicken in progress or even raised her eyebrows over the project further endeared her to me. Maybe she was preoccupied? Other things on her mind?

Yup, blow on those smokin' hot chicken knittin' needles little bride girl!

She was lovely, the dress was just a frothy wedding'y confection of lace and tulle and beads that sparkled on the near perfect 70 degree day! Love the blue sash, don't you? Her maids all wore short blue dressed in that fabric.

And the chicken is ready for the lovely little chicken head. I so want to keep moving on her, work and packing call so I'm making far slower progress than I would like.