Knit, Knit, Knit.... Again!

I have done pretty much nothing but knit for the last four days. I am finished two pairs of Glomitts and now working on the third pair. My back has been depressingly nasty for two days again.... which does not make me happy.  Of all times to have my back go out on me.  It would be while Teapot is away. The girls have been awesome helping with all things that require any effort, except that now Daughter #1 has a sore throat and temperature. Fate it seems would have us understand how important Teapot is to the smooth running of this household. I get it.... really I do!

Other than knitting there is not much going on that is worth blogging about. So this will be a short post... (I wouldn't want you all to think that I was dead.. ; )

I am beginning to watch the time of the years and the sunrise and sunset times.  Winter Solstice is almost here and I am looking forward to the increase in daylight hours. The sun barely rises above the horizon now and shines directly n my eyes as I work here at the computer.... that is when the sun is out. Today we are having another dump of snow and I am happy for that considering that this is the major form of precipitation that we will have all year. The more snow now, the better it will be in the spring by way of moisture content in the ground.

Christmas decorating and preparations continue at high speed around here. One thing every day goes up with out fail. Since I started the decorating this year later than usual, (I usually begin decorating on the first day of Advent but the contractor was here and I wasn't able to start) I am far behind schedule. If my back is feeling better tomorrow then there will be several things go up in an attempt to catch up with the Advent Christmas decorating.


But always.... always in the background is the need to keep knitting.... and so I must get back to it... hopefully there will be more interesting things to write about soon..

Knit, Knit, Knit

That is pretty much what I have been doing all day today. I'm knitted out. My hands are curled up so that I don't think I'll ever be able to uncurl them again...

Teapot and Daughter #1 have gone to a Christmas party.... the first of a few I expect.  I will have my first Christmas party this Saturday coming. But I have to drive for a whole hour and a half in order to get there and I am not looking forward to the drive to the party. I will be driving over switchbacks  which I have done many times before but I really am not looking forward to. I'm thinking that if the weather is either bit questionable at all I will not go. (Sorry guys!) But hopefully it will be sunny and lovely with no snow on the roads at all.

My leg is healing and though the scrapes are quite ugly to look at the area around never really came out in a bruise. I am surprised that my leg is doing so well considering the amount of pain that I was having after the fact. It is tender if I press on it but generally speaking I have had much worse injuries.... so I am hoping it will blow off pretty quickly.

I have been worrying about Christmas because as usual I am down to the last two weeks before Christmas and I still have tons to do.  Most of the gifts have been purchased.... some are ready to be sent in the mail. But I feel like I am nowhere near being finished.  I am feeling that I have things to do that I am not thinking about and on Christmas eve I will suddenly remember something that I need to do and then panic. I am even having nightmares about it. Christmas is just not supposed to be this way.... is it?!!

Already in just two days we are seeing a major difference in the amount of heat that is being retained in this house since the new paneling went on the interior walls of the dining/office/sun room. The room looks awesome. I'm very happy.

Dining table at the end so that food can be passed through from the kitchen.... I love the paneling. The table is waiting for a top.

Our Christmas wreath with the new paneling on the wall behind and look at that brand new light switch.

The only tuck tape to be seen is above my head where the ceiling has the strapping but not the new tiles... that will come after Christmas.

The floor has a new covering of sub-flooring which is great because now it is the same level as the sub-flooring in the living room.

These pictures just don't do it justice at all.  It looks really good and not at all cluttered. which it did before.  Most of my junk is out and I have convinced Teapot that I need a studio.... a real studio. A space where my junk can go and not be in our living space.  He says not this year but we will look into it very soon. I will be glad to get the flooring finished and I will be glad to get the tiles on the ceiling. And best of all is that Teapot just came to me and asked if I had noticed the difference in how warm it is since the paneling has gone up.... and when I said that I had... he said that he was going to finish our bathroom over the Christmas break.... I think I might fall down in shock...

It will be good to get it all done. Including the knitting.... which I need to get back to it I'm going to have the parcel finished and in the mail in time for Christmas....

Oh my aching wrist....

Glomitts

I have been getting a lot of hits for my Glomitts pattern. I never realized that there would be lots of people out there looking for patterns for shooting mittens but obviously there are...

I felt that perhaps I should try to perfect the Glomitts pattern and post it in a more permanent place so I have posted it on one of my pages to the right... I have also included the changes to the pattern and I think that it makes for a better mitten.

You can check it out if you are interested. Just click on the picture to the right with the heading Free patterns.

Down The Hole

Stupid, stupid, stupid.... that's me.

The contractor is done till after Christmas and while the sun room is not totally finished it is much more livable than it was.

Problem: I should be on my way to church... my plan was to go to church this morning and all the Sundays of Advent (that's the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas for the non-believers). I fell in a hole and I am prevented from enjoying the Advent season of light.... my leg looks like this.....

I expect that it will look very black and blue in a few hours. Yup, the contractor is gone but living in a construction zone still sucks. I fell through a hole in the floor where a furnace vent used to be. It is in a high traffic area and it had been patched so that we could put our flooring right over it and it would not be an issue. It is an issue. Mostly because after a year and a half we are still no closer to having the flooring down than we were when we first started. But if I get out of this with nothing more than a bruised leg then I will be a very lucky lady indeed.... (I could end up in a straight jacket yet!) This is the hole down through which I fell.....

Nasty bleepin' #@%#^%^&*&*)&!!!
That was yesterday...

This is now Monday morning....

 The sun room/dining room/office is looking awesome. I can't show you any pictures though because the battery just died in Teapot's camera and now that we are down to one camera I don't have a back up
to take the pictures. The ceiling has strapping and is ready for the tiles as I get them done. The floor has an extra layer of sub-flooring  and the walls are done. The contractor even managed to get some of the trim boards up. Yeah! As a result of all this... I am now able to start thinking about Christmas decorating.  I brought down the pinecone wreath this morning and though the living room still looks like a tornado blew through,.... (there's still piles of stuff around everywhere)....  give me a few days and I'll have the place spit spot for Christmas.

Well we have finally bitten down on the bullet and decided on the purchase of an artificial tree for Christmas. I just hate the thought that because of us there is another Pine tree going to be killed because we want pretty lights in our home. (I am a tree hugger you know!) I just couldn't bare the thought of it any longer. I am embracing the fakeness of Christmas and going totally plastic. PVC all the way!!  But every day I look out my window and see the planet struggling to breath with dead Pine trees from the infestation of Pine beetles and dryness all summer long to the point that it is really hard to get hay to feed our animals and I think about another Christmas tree being cut and standing in my living room and I think... I just can't do it.... I feel too guilty sitting on Christmas morning opening gifts with a dead tree at my side. Horrible thought indeed! Instead of red, white, green, silver and gold I feel like the house should be draped in black and grey.... maybe that's why Christmas has made me not to happy in the last few years.... maybe I'm just anguishing over trees dieing left, right, and centre. Anyway, it will definitely be red, white, green, silver and gold around here this year.

Ah, I see that it has turned 7:30 a.m. and I had better go call the house for it is a school day and they need to be arrising.... Teapot was up till 3:00 a.m. trying to finish online report cards and having great difficulty with the stupid online report cards system that makes life miserable for the 13,000 + teachers in B.C. as they all try to access the same website at one time.... we have the stupidest educations system in the world.... really. Ass a result he is getting a few extra minutes of sleep this morning... well earned I believe.

Today is Daughter 31's birthday... but more about that tomorrow.

I'm off to cook eggs and toast....

1 Hour And Counting

The Contractor will be here in 1 hour. We have cleared the sun room. There's nothing in it except the computer and the desk and the chair in which I sit. We felt we would need something to sit on in the morning and since everyone is still in bed and all is quiet I thought I would get up for a back break since my back was giving me agonies in bed. I'm hoping that I'm not going to end up with another episode of nursing my back. Moving furniture around can't be good for it. But in the last three weeks I have been able to wean myself off the anti inflammatories to the point that I'm only taking them when my back is hurting in the morning.... usually about every 4 days or so.... I'm thinking that that's a really good thing considering that I thought I would need more surgery in September. Still, right now my back is hurting but at least the furniture has been removed from the sun room and when the contractor gets here he can get the work done with no interference. I will have a sun room this afternoon where the only tuck tape you see is on the ceiling. (I haven't got enough tiles to put them up yet I have to burn 28 more.

Here are a couple of pictures of what our living room and sun room looks like.

A bit dark down at the end of the sun room but see all that insulation, vapour barrier, and tuck tape.... that's what we won't be seeing anymore.

All of this has to come out yet....

This is the living room under the pile of stuff from the sunroom. It's only for today.

Basically we have nowhere to sit until the contractor is finished. But there's room in the kitchen to get around anyway.

We will still have flooring in both the living room and the sun room to be done and as I said the ceiling tiles will need to be put up after Christmas, but it will be nice to have both of these rooms one step closer to being finished. I was looking in the Home Hardware catalogue last night at light fixtures.... I can't even believe that I'm doing that... it will be awesome to have real light fixtures instead of bare bulbs.... I'll even have electrical outlets in the sun room soon. (well, I had two but there should be five in there.) Suffice it to say that I am very excited.

The bathroom is almost done. I laid the floor in there the day before yesterday with a little help from Teapot around the toilet.  I have to pick up some trim for around the tub today.  I also have to pick up clear coat and a light fixture for our bedroom so that the temporary one can come down to the bathroom where it belongs. Then the bathroom will be done.... finito.... completed..... yeah!!!!

The flooring is something that Teapot and I are really working on.... he and I want the recycled rubber flooring but there is a really good sale on laminate flooring at a local hardware store... we are having a hard time deciding.... I think we've pretty much decided on the recycled rubber flooring but that means that we will have to wait till spring since it is a whole lot more expensive than the laminate.... but in the end there will be the same flooring right through the whole house. Rather than one kind here and one kind there. So I guess we will wait... but it is sooo hard to do.

Anyway... it is now 7:30 a.m. and I need to go and have a shower and get something to eat before the contractor gets here.....

There will be pictures tomorrow... or the next day... depending on when we get the computer rehooked.

New Crop Of Photos

Much better... don't you think?!

The Bane Of My Existence And The Opposite

The Bane Of My existence

1. Bras are the bane of my existence along with socks. I think that they are the worst torture devices meant to drive the well endowed woman nearly to distraction.... (I'm really quite bohemian actually and would love to sit around in flowing outfits with no bra or sox.... I should have been Greek or Roman... togas seem a great fashion option to me)!

2. Fund raisers that call you on short notice for things that you can donate to a fundraiser... in this case to the friend who a few weeks ago had a savage car accident and became a paraplegic in the blink of an eye.... I'm donating a skein of yarn, a pair of Glomitts (yes those), a scarf, and a necklace. Now I'm back to square one with Christmas gifts. (Maybe I should just go and bid on the silent auction and buy them back...)

3. Cell phones that have decided to die (not just the battery)... Teapot will take it to the Telus people on Tuesday and see if it can be fixed which leaves me connectionless for several days.... (so email me if you need me!)

4. Christmas, Christmas, Christmas.... (I can't say enough about how I wish I could just skip it.) Though I'm feeling better about it this year than I have for a long time.... I think it is the house renovations making the difference.

5. Sheep that have mites.... (I forgot their fall shots.... argh!)

6. Not enough time for all the stuff needing to be done. (MB will you please hurry up and figure out how to extend the day so that we can get all our stuff done and still be able to sleep.... just bend time with Quantum physics or something will you?)

7. Ice.... pops fell down because of ice at the grocery store by the recycling bins yesterday afternoon and really hurt himself badly...no broken bones but bad scrapes and bruises and cuts... it took several people to help him up off the ground and he was bleeding all over the place... which is not good for a diabetic on blood thinners...  I'm a little worried about him.  At least he was able to drive himself home.

The Opposite

1. Contractors who do little extras that make life easier.... I wish all men had the knack to build like beavers, and fix doors... and put shelves up.

2. Online shopping.... online paying bills... online email so that when your phone dies you can stay connected a little.

3. Daughters who pick up your spirits by making you laugh with their not-wanting-to-get-pictures-taken antics.

4. Sunny days!

5. Easy flooring.... I put the flooring down in the bathroom yesterday... it looks great.

6. Contractors who take it upon them to put your old spinning wheel back together.

7. Contractors.... period! (sometimes I think about Murphy Brown and think that maybe I should just ask the Contractor to move in with us..... hmmmm! I'm not sure his wife would like that since I'm sure she keeps him working for her too.)

8. Knitting needles... well they sure make knitting easy ; )

It's always good that there are more of the "opposite" than there are of "the bane of my existence"... but still.... I do hate bras!