It's Monday

And where are the pictures you ask? In my camera. I have the cord to download the pictures onto my computer, somewhere.......could be anywhere, really. I know I saw it recently. In the house. I believe in this corner of the house....I'm sure it will turn up. In the meantime, you'll have to use your imagination when I write to you about life as a nomad.

I should be in the car, driving the boys to school right now, at this very moment. But no. Today there is a two hour delay because somewhere in the state of Washington it snowed. Not here, mind you. Not one flake can be found as I look out over the great expanse that is Waxwood Farm. However, it seems that South Whidbey is not immune to the insanity that grips Washington State when anyone, on any news station, utters the word snow. So now I'm getting to spend more quality time with these beings.

Currently Ryan is reloading the nerf gun that he somehow ended up with after our Dinner Group white elephant party (I say somehow because it actually wasn't part of the gift exchange. So now Henry is the proud owner of Michelle's green furry pimp hat and Ryan has one of Henry's nerf guns. And now I'm not sure who got the worse end of this deal--me or Henry's mom). And Eric is having a productive morning yelling at his DS and would be swearing at it right now if he actually knew any of those words. Which brings me back to my main point--they belong in school, because Eric's going to start picking up those words pretty quickly if he spends much more time with me.

I actually have been knitting. Not that I can show it to you, but I have. Mike came home from work about a week ago, begging me for a hat to keep him from freezing to death on the ferry boat. And I finished Dave's birthday socks, that were only 29 days late. And I'm in the middle of making Mike some fingerless gloves, and apparently my hats are flying off the shelves at my two shops, and I still have Heidi's chicken to finish. But all of that will have to wait until these creatures go to school and I have a chance to go to the good grocery store, which is next to the good pharmacy, which I will bet does not have snow.

Baby, it's cold inside!

Ok people--it's COLD here. COLD. Now, I know Western Washington is experiencing a cold snap this week. I get it. We're all cold. When you step outside in the morning, you say "brrr" and give a little shiver before getting in your car. Here's the thing, folks--this house, this 100 year old farm house, this 100 year old farm house on this island IS NOT HEATED. I'm living in a demented version of Little House on the Prairie. We get up in the morning to no heat. So, whoever gets up first has to turn on the propane stove in the family room, and then build a fire in the living room so we all don't die. I have to say, I would make a pretty good boy scout, now that I'm a month into this.

And often we fire this all up (no pun intended), the house becomes nice and toasty, and then we can turn the propane stove off for a while. Not this week. This place is practically frigid. 24 degrees outside and about 26 inside unless you are standing directly in front of the roaring fire that I built, thank you very much. You know which rooms are not heated at all? At any time of the day? All the rest.

Today I had my job interview. So I dusted off a skirt, found a pair of nylons that would stay up past my thighs, and then sat around shivering all morning because that was just about the dumbest outfit I could have selected to wear up here on Walton's Mountain.

And how did the interview go? Meh...it's a good company and I am totally and completely qualified for the job. I think it would be a great job, actually. If they can recognize the random and bizarre questions they asked and note that I gave the best lame answers of all the lame answers they heard today from the schedule of interviews they had.

After my interview, I had about 90 minutes to kill before picking the kids up from school. So I ran all of tomorrow's errands. Which is easy to do since the little hamlet I was in had all of my errands conveniently located next door to each other. Seriously. First I went to the craft store to get my mom a glue gun (don't ask). Then I went down the street to the grocery store. Packed up the car with groceries, then walked next door to the pharmacy to get mom's prescription. Then drive across the street (literally, across the street) to my mom's antique mall to restock her booth. Hmmm...as I write this, I'm thinking my mom is secretly starting to like having me around....and then I drove up the highway to the kid's school. Which is located in the woods. Their school is in the woods.

This place is like a time warp. It's Sense and Sensibility, with mud flaps.

Notes from a Small Island

So--I've been missing for a bit. Perhaps the 4 of you who tune in regularly have noticed that. We've had a pretty significant family crisis and blogging about knitting (and actually knitting, for that matter) seemed trivial in light of recent events. But now that things are beginning to stabilize a bit, I thought I'd let you know what's going on. I mean, we're friends, right?

So here goes. We have moved in with my parents. On Whidbey Island. An island. Land that you can only get to by boat. Living with my parents on an Island. I am 41 years old and I'm living with my parents. On an island.

It's been no secret that things have been tough for us. Our finances have been a mess for quite some time and then there was that whole unemployment fun that went on for too too long. All that, combined with a recession and some dumb things we have done add up to the fact that we can't afford our house. And the bank has been very quick to point that out to us. We can't afford our house. We can't afford to make up our back payments (it's a BIG) number and, even if that BIG number dropped from the sky to catch us up, we can't afford to stay current. We have other debts, taxes--it's just a huge mess that we are literally unable to fix. Unfixable.

The house has been a sore spot for a long time. I've always had a love/hate relationship with it. For the past 2 years I have fought tooth and nail to save it. Because it's a Cape Cod with a big front porch and dormers in the bedrooms and a stone fireplace that I designed and a pumpkin colored dining room with plate rail and a garden that I planted. This was the only house my boys have ever known and they were suppose to grow up with Emily-the-neighbor-girl and we were going to live there happily ever after.

But now I'm ok with leaving. It's a relief to no longer think about my broken garage door and the peeling paint and the 25 year old gutters and the half finished bathrooms and the deer--oh the deer! Remember the deer?!? I'm not saying I'm not sad about this. I am. I've been devastated by this. This has changed my whole world forever. This guarantees some juicy material for my boys in therapy. And we've become THOSE PEOPLE. The people you hear about on the news each night. The people who have lost their home. And that's not humiliating at all....So I spent 2 weeks straight crying. And now we're trying to start over. Not sure what that means. But that's what we're doing. Starting over.

The boys are enrolled in school here, I'm learning where the 2 grocery stores are, and Mike is using a ferry boat, train, and bus to commute to work each day. I've started knitting again. I'm looking for a job on this little dot of land and have actually secured an interview for Monday. And I've decided to write about this adventure. For a couple of weeks, the thought of sharing this was horrifying. The blog was over. Dead and buried, like the rest of my life. And then little things would happen throughout the day that were just funny. Island anecdotes. Quirky things that could only happen on this strip of land (like the fact that my mom runs into people she knows at the grocery store. Good friends that she met at the gas station or the post office. And now they're hugging and making a lunch date because 8 years later they are best pals). My first instinct was to write to you about these things but then that meant explaining why in the world I was on this godforsaken floating commune and that opened up a whole can of worms that I was unable to communicate.

But now I'm ready. I'll still write about knitting. But I'll also write about the 2 storage units we're sharing with my parents and the fact there is no central heating in this 100 year old farm house and the fact that Mike and Eric both learned the hard way that you must wear shoes or slippers at all times on Grandpa's unsanded fir floor and the lengths my dad will go to in recycling and all the roads around here are named after the people who live here and my mom who refuses to use her dishwasher because she thinks it's a waste of time to load it and unload it but has no problem washing all her dishes by hand....

Ready for the adventure? Stay tuned!

Things that happened in October

My Arch Nemesis

Yep, I'm really that lame. It's November and I'm just now writing my next post. People, I'm busy! For instance, I have to take care of these beasts which continue to haunt my back yard.

Leo

And I had to get Ryan ready for his Masquerade Bash at school. Since Ryan is in the Science/Tech program, the class project for Halloween was for each kid to come up which a famous scientist, get it approved, and then write clues so the rest of the class could guess who they were. Ryan was Leonardo Da Vinci, wearing Daddy's bathrobe.

The Boys and Baby S

And of course I still have Baby S with me 3 days a week. Every Halloween Gilman Village has Trick or Treating for the kids. Which is great for families, but frankly, a nightmare for everyone who works there. Mara and I spent 3 hours, not selling yarn, standing in the freezing cold doorway handing out candy. Both of our Mikes brought the kids by for a visit.

Earflappy Hat

Of course, throw in about 74 loads of laundry and you can see I've got my hands full these days. I did manage to clean my master bathroom today. That, wow. It had been awhile.

I'm using my extra-awesome photography skills here to show you the baby earflap hat I'm making for a friend. They also want matching mittens, which I think will be cute. But I honestly don't know if I've ever actually made baby mittens before....can't be that hard, can it? The great thing about baby mittens--no thumbs!

Snowbird Mitten

Last, but not least, here is my crowning glory. The left hand part of the Snowbird Mittens.

SnowBird Mitten Palm

I have to say, I'm pretty stunned that I was able to do it. Once I block it, I think it will look great, and it actually fits!

I'm still working on my 3 different pairs of socks, all for 3 different people, who should know me well enough to know that I have WAY over-committed myself here, what with the chickens and baby hats and scarves and everything else I'm knitting. I've been blatantly honest about the shear number of projects I have going, so if these 3 sock people are reading my blog (and I believe they do...), then they've hopefully done the math and realized that I'm a bit behind. I just continue to work on projects as the spirit moves me and somehow they all eventually get done....although I'm thinking I need to have a no new projects policy until I'm able to check a few of these outstanding items off my list.

If I intend to write this post and publish it in one sitting (and I believe I do), then the time for me to go is now. I have to fix dinner and present it to 2 boys who have no intention of eating it. They can't start whining until they see what I'm making, so I'd better get the show on the road!

It's October!

Happy Birthday from Jane!

...and do you know what that means? It means I haven't blogged since September! How did THAT happen? Let's see--what have I been doing with my time? I truly have very little to report, but here's the lowdown: laundry, watching Baby S, abusing my children by forcing them to do their homework, humiliating my eldest by talking to his teacher on the phone about his homework, laundry, running my "vacuum" over the carpet and pretending that it is sucking up dirt even though I can visibly see that the dirt remains on the floor, drinking Diet Coke, laundry...you get the picture.

Honestly, it has taken me 3 days just to compose this post, and after reading to the end you will undoubtedly say THIS took her 3 days?

October also means BIRTHDAYS around here--Mike and I are now officially 41. In our 40's. Old. Sunday my dear friend Jane gave me more sock yarn, under the guise that it's my birthday month. So how can I say no to that logic? More Pagewood Farms...yum.....

Finished Shedir hat!

I've been in a bit of a knitting slump lately. I finished my cousin's hat (which looks very cool in person and someone with greater camera skills than I would have actually been able to capture that), and now, what to knit....

I mean, I have things to knit. I always have hats. And I currently have 3 pairs of socks going. And I still have Heidi's chicken to start. And Mike's sweater, and my scarf... But nothing is reaching out and grabbing me these days. I need inspiration.

Snowbird

I have been making slight progress on my Snowbird mittens, but they require a lot of attention to detail. And my post-its keep falling off the chart. For my birthday Mike ordered a magnetic chart keeper for me from Knit Picks that is currently en route--I keep telling myself that my enthusiasm for this project will pick up after I've employed my new chart keeper. Because a gadget will improve my knitting, don't you think?

Honestly, I'm not one for gadgets and have very few knitting "tools". I mean, I have the basics--I have what I need. But I don't go for all the point protectors and row counters and special tension thimbles and all that. We sell lots and lots of gadget-y items at the shop that I do not own. However, I do think this chart keeper is a must have. I am so tired of trying to follow a chart and keep track of which line I am on with post-its that lose their stickiness factor after being moved 3 times. My only regret is that I didn't order about 4 of them....

Ryan w/ his stack of books to be signed.

In non-knitting news, Mike took the boys to the UW Bookstore on Sunday to meet author Jeff Kinney. Ryan is a huge Wimpy Kid fan (being kind of a Wimpy Kid himself....) and brought the entire collection to be signed.

Author Jeff Kinney

Eric got his own copy of the first book, which he is now reading, and they both got their books signed. Ryan is so excited to have these autographs that he is re-reading the series (which is so amazing to me--he has no time to do his homework, no time to do his 40 minutes of assigned reading each night, no time for his book reports, but has managed to carve out a significant amount of time to re-read the entire Wimpy Kid series. I plan to use this against him during our next "discussion" about homework. In about 10 minutes).

Well, unless I want this post to linger into a 4th day, I believe I will wrap things up. Let's see if I can return before November!