8 Things Friday

1. I was going to say that this (8 Things Friday) seems to be one of the constants in my life lately, but that's not quite true. There are plenty of other constants, like school, work, laundry, school, grocery shopping, and school. Maybe a better word would be "habit" or "routine." I was posting a bit more often a little while back, but then life kept happening (and kept happening) so I'm back to once a week. Well, once a week is better than nothing. I don't know that I have enough stuff to post about more than once a week!

2. Since life keeps happening, I haven't been cooking much at all. Since we can't live off McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Panchero's, but I don't have time in the evenings to make a "real" dinner, we're reduced to packaged stuff. It's not much healthier than fast food (and believe me, my face is protesting in the form of zits, yuck), but it is cheaper. Still, I spent about $20 more on a week's groceries than I usually do. Packaged is cheaper than fast food, but more expensive than actually making it myself. *Sigh* Moving blows. When I'm not at work or doing school, I've been doing stuff for the new house. We need quotes on a new swamp cooler and kitchen countertops (the sellers aren't replacing either before we move in, but giving us a monetary stipend--or whatever it's called--off the price of the house to replace them ourselves), there's a lot of paperwork to do and read over, a lot of calls to make... I gotta delegate some of this to Matt. I want input on the counters, but he can get whatever the heck a/c he wants! I'm not fussed about how he handles the torn back door screen, either.

3. I guess this should be another number now. New house! Matt's dad did the inspection, and all was well (but for the things mentioned above, which we got sorted). We just paid a butt-load of money to have it appraised (seriously, why is it so much for a dude with a clipboard to walk around the house and write stuff down??), but since we paid first and last month's rent when we moved into this place, we only have a little bit of rent this month. (It's gone up since we moved in two and a half years ago, which is why we're paying some rent.) However, we will have to buy spackle and spackle stuff to patch the holes where we wall-mounted the TV, and we'll have to get the carpets shampooed by a professional. This all costs money! The good thing is I FINALLY got my Summer alottment (i.e. student loans--apparently we're "too rich" to qualify for government grants anymore) so that will help, too.

4. Pictures, you say?


The front; we're in the middle of a line of townhomes, in a sort of U-shaped area of townhomes. There's a little "park" area off to the left of this picture, between two of the buildings.


Front door opens onto the living room, and up the stairs. New Pergo floors! (They need a little patching up, but oh well.)


Dining area. Don't think we're going to keep our huge table and chair set; might get a little two-seater bar-type set, or something, eventually.


Look at the new stainless steel appliances! The built-in microwave! The glass-top stove of awesomeness!


Loft area upstairs where Matt's computer and stuff will go. The rooms are bathroom, bedroom, bedroom.


Out of my sewing room downstairs is the little backyard. Privacy fence, yay. Also waaaaay overgrown grass in some spots, and dead grass in others. We won't replant/fix/get flowers until next summer, since it will be August by the time we're settled in, and who the heck knows what the weather could be like at that point?

5. Other than house-buying, nothing exciting has been going on. My calves are finally about done being sore from last weekend. We moved our friends DOWN two flights of stairs, and UP one flight into the new place. OW OW OW. And, let's see... yup, very little news. Counting the days til the San Diego trip! So glad I have something to look forward to at the end of this month!

6. Did I say I was knitting a pink shawl? I am. It's 84 stitches wide, alternating stripes of seed stitch and garter (and the stripes are 12 stitches wide) so it's rather slow-going. There are also a BILLION little mistakes that are bugging the crap out of me, but I'm trying to let it go. When it's finished and on, with pretty fringe hanging from the short ends, no one will notice. But gosh dang it! I've thought about putting stitch markers between the stripes so I don't start doing the next pattern too soon or too late, but I don't think I have 6 of them! Usually I just use a little loop of knotted yarn, but I'd probably just knit those into the shawl on accident, so I'd need plastic ones. Just little circles. Hmm, maybe should make a trip to Michael's or something. I'm a skein and about a 6th into it, and I'm thinking it will take about 6 skeins total. I have a ways to go. If I remember, I'll put pics of the shawl up soonish.

7. I wrote most of this last night and then forgot to post it, so I'm going to rush through these last two in order to get it up while it's still Friday. I'll have to do some editing, I'm sure.

8. Can anyone think of a good way to display about 16 aprons, 8 or so vintage hats, and about 21 pair of vintage gloves? They're all going in my new sewing room! (For the aprons, I thought putting them on a "clothesline" on the wall would be cute, but I'm not sure about the hats and gloves. Gloves could go in a basket or box, and hats could hang on the wall, but that's not terribly interesting.)


The gloves and hats. The three pair of gloves separated on the left are the ones I'm not keeping. The rest, I need a place for.