The Best Weekend Ever

So this past weekend was amazing fun. The Inn at Port Ludlow is so small that the only people there that were non-knitters were hotel staff and people that came in to eat at the restaurant. Never have I been in a place with so many knitters, it was awesome. I have a couple of friends that knit as I haven't been able to convert the rest even with my best intentions. Okay, so I don't try that hard. Although I have been able to convert Lori and that's been really cool to see her fall as in love with knitting as I am. :) But I digress. It was cool to see all the different styles of knitting, spinning, and see what people had brought to wear that they had knit. It's probably the only time in my life that if someone was wearing knitwear you could assume they made and not be presumptive in asking them if they had. Stephanie and Tina were awesome. They are some of the nicest people in the world and both an amazing amount of fun. I found out that Tina is also left handed which I thought was really cool and there were actually quite a few left handed people there, more that I thought there would be. I ended up in group 2 which I think was the best way to work the weekend. This resulted in me being able to dye the first day with Tina (and 20 other knitters, I don't want to make it sound as though it was just Tina and I) and she let us dye 6 skeins of her yarn of all different kinds. Group 1 got gypped when it came to dyeing because it was the last day of the retreat and due to time constraints they were only able to dye 5 skeins. Also whereas we had the first three hours of class to talk about color and dyeing group 1 had to just jump right in.
My second day was with Stephanie who taught us the history of knitting and lever knitting which I really want to figure out and do well at as it's more accessible to left handers. It's going to make me faster I just need to keep practicing it. :) I was the first one to ask Stephanie about Joe's gansey to which she replied "Stop it, that's not nice" which was really funny. One other person asked later as they weren't in the room when I brought it up (in my defense Stephaine brought up gansey's first). I was able to hold and look at her Bohus sweater, wedding shawl and one other shawl I don't remember the name of. She does really incredible work and it was really nice to be able to see in person the stuff she knits on her blog.
I took my first sock along which I am (completely by coincidence) knitting with Tina's yarn and with Stephanie's pattern (really, I started before I even knew they were doing this weekend). I showed it to Tina first in the evening after the first day of class. I figured my sock was okay, I mean it's my first sock how good can it be? I was floored when I first moved Tina with how the color pattern was moving across the sock because apparently how it's moving doesn't look like it comes from the same ball of yarn (I made Tina speechless!). She called Deborah over who works at Tina's company Blue Moon Fiber Arts and she was floored too. Then I told her that it was my first sock, and she was amazed and didn't quite believe me. We had show and tell the last night which I was unable to stay for and Tina said I should show it then and that it was a really well knit sock. Stephen Houghton who was there helping Tina and Stephanie (Tina called him over too) told me he was jealous of my sock (very cool as he is a very accomplished knitter). I was bowled over (and very flattered) by their estimations of my sock. I thought it was okay and they thought it was amazing (apparently sometimes I dumb down to myself how good something is, also if I have nothing to really compare it to I have a harder time knowing the value). I was excited to show it to Stephanie the next day even before all this happened as I kind of consider her the queen of first socks. So the next day I was stupid happy to show it to her. I asked her over to where I was the next day during a break and I was so excited the whole interaction was kind of a blur. I think she said something to the effect of "oh yeah, all first socks look like that" (sarcastically :) ) but I'm not really sure as I was still nervous of what she would think and I had my adrenaline going. All I for sure remember is asking her over to where I was, some kind of conversation happening and then we were both laughing really hard. No matter what it was it was awesome. It makes me want to do more of these types of conferences in the future but I think it will be a little ways out before I'm able to do another one. Everyone was lovely and very nice. I was finally able to turn my first heel on my sock with the help of another knitter by the name of Melinda as the directions were confusing me. I wish all my weekends were like this last one and it makes me realize I should join my local S&B. Knitters are a lot of fun. :)

Obsoletism

A few updates:
My computer's hard drive was toast as I suspected but this turned into really good news. Well, if you over look the fact that I no longer have my hard drive. I smartly bought AppleCare when I bought my computer (but stupidly forgot) so I was given a new hard drive (given, can you believe it?!?!) and whereas my old one was 80GB my new one is 160GB(it's the smallest they have). They also offered to completely reface the inside of my computer (new keyboard and mouse tracker thingy, which also fixes the outside edges that have been breaking off for a while now and new bezel which is what surrounds the screen) for FREE. I was literally speechless and thinking "what's the catch", I mean I basically got a brand new computer (if only they replaced my disc drive) for NOTHING. This is shocking like polar bear swimming. I urge anyone that buys a Mac to get AppleCare. You may not ever use it but if you ever need to you're really going to wish you had. It's a good thing that I have an external drive because I can pull everything over as of 2 months ago. Some stuff I'll have to start all over but most of it is like it never happened. Awesome.
Also I am finally at my knitting retreat, pictures will be posted and blogging will happen but I have to live it first. :)

What I really want to talk about is Obsoletism. I was listening to public radio today and they talked to Anna Jane Grossman who wrote an encyclopedia on it. They then talked to different people about what they missed that was obsolete. One of the most thought provoking was when a guy said that he made the motion to his son to roll down the window (like you used to have to do manually) and thought "he probably has no idea what I mean". I think it's an interesting new way to look at the world. Instead of bigger, better, faster, more it's smaller, simpler, and slower. I think often times we forget to look at what we leave behind in our rush to reach what's in our future of newness. I often think about what did Pioneer's think about when they had free time, as I'm sure it was a completely different mode of thinking. But I do know that we have a much simpler life where we have freed up enormous amounts of time to do things like blog.

Let's just take computers for example (they are kind of on my mind). I mean I remember when 1GB was unfathomable. Where people either didn't think about it or though "1GB, what would one possibly need that for?" Whereas they now make computers that have 1TB or even 2TB of storage space on them. When I bought my computer I thought 80GB would be plenty and now that's obsolete. I'm sure that even if I looked for one it would be hard, and people would think I was nuts. I also miss having opportunities to use/hone my imagination. It seems as though now so many times things are just cookie cuttered out. I remember always being told to entertain myself and not with a television. I remember helping pass that on to my little brother and sister when we would play hours of dress up, put on plays with playbills, and create imaginary places. I remember the first Atari, Nintendo, and Sega. I am interested to see how this generation of children that have grown up with them will be connected to the world of imagination and thinking outside the box.

I like knitting because it harkens back to a simpler time and while knitting is not obsolete it is definitely creative. It leaves you time to think and create and the general process hasn't changed a lot even though a lot of the fundamentals (what knitting needles and yarns are made out of) have. Okay off to knit and enjoy my weekend.

This may be the end of it...

I just want to start off by saying I love my Mac. I have never been happier with any computer purchase in my life than when I got my Macbook in 2006. For the most part it's never died, glitched, stayed frozen or given me the gray screen of death.That is until last night. My Mac totally froze on me and wouldn't unfreeze so I had to do a hard reboot. This has happened to me only once or twice in the entire three years I've had it but I'm not even sure of that. Last night when I powered it back up it made that trademark sound but I could tell something was wrong. Because a gray screen came up instead of the regular blue one and the picture initially looked like this:

It stayed like that for at least 10 minutes so, right or wrong I did a second hard reboot. This time it also made the trademark sound but then you could hear the hard drive click three times and then go practically silent. Still same gray screen and instead of the apple there is now a blinking folder with a question mark on the front of it. (I was unable to find a picture of this) That's all I get and then after it does this for a little bit it powers itself down. Oh, I am so screwed. So while I was freaking out last night I called my local Apple store to see what they had to say over the phone. The guy I talked to did not make it sound promising and he in fact even sounded a little sad that he had to tell me it was bad news. This only makes me conclude that my Mac is toast. I don't think anyone ever sounds sad unless it's really bad news. Irregardless I am taking it in today to get it diagnosed and keeping my fingers crossed. This is the last thing I need right now and at the worst I hope they can pull some files off of it for me. I do have to say that I back up my computer so all is not lost, although it's been two months since I backed it up last.
This is what it looks like now:

Wish me luck.

Doing

I've been listening to a lot of NPR lately. I've been in the car a lot lately in the evenings and I even have Isaac hooked on NPR now. Normally I just like to listen (if I remember) on Sunday mornings (in the car, it's the only place I listen to the radio) to Garrison Keillor, Car Talk, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and This American Life. I am still trying to figure out how BBC news is live at 7-8pm. I mean really? That's like 3-4am. Really? I think this is crazy. Those poor people, just to do the news.

All this listening is a result of helping Isaac with his business which (since I have a day job) is in the evenings. Does anyone else have a favorite NPR show?

Yes, Maybe, No, Maybe, Yes?

Who wants a saga? I don't, I just want a place to live. So two Thursday's ago I found the cutest place to live as evinced below. This was two days after we were asked politely (very politely and with much sorrow) to move. The one draw back is that it's in Everett. I forwarded it to Isaac and started obsessing right away while intermittently bringing myself back to reality. I know all houses that are advertised are made to look much better than they are, that's the nature of advertising. Isaac and I went to look at some places that night and then I drove up to just drive by it and see if it was as good as it was advertised. When I was on my way up one of the owners called back and I asked her if there was any way that she would be able to show it to me that night as I was driving up. She said she was able to show it to me and it was just as good as the ad. I was really excited to show Isaac and I was hoping that there wasn't someone else interested before us. We set it up for Isaac to see it on Saturday and he fell as in love with it as I did. We talked to the owners about renting it and the lease to own option. They assured us it wasn't a big deal either way. We took an application and I sent it to them on Monday. We were the first people to do so and we have great credit so it's a no-brainer right? We even slept on it and still thought it was a good idea.

This is where it starts to get funky. Last Thursday the other owner called to check up and let me know that there was someone else interested in the least to own option. He seemed to act as though at that point that we only wanted to rent so I reminded him that we were interested in the lease to own option. He also told me that I would have an answer by Saturday. I was patient enough to wait until 3:30p.m. (I know!) until I thought "what gives" and took the bait and called. I talked to the other owner and she had no idea that I was supposed to get a decision on Saturday (WHAT!?!) but she would have her husband call me back with the specifics on lease to own. Also they had just received the paperwork from the other person on Saturday and weren't able to check it out until Monday when the offices were open. Why then was he telling me we would have a decision on Saturday?!?! At this point we are being pushed into lease to own and even though we were the first ones to fill out paperwork and be prompt about it I felt as though we were being brushed off. I was really ticked at this point on Saturday and I basically wanted to pull out.

So while I'm venting to my mother in law Isaac has to "go get something from the car" and proceeds to call the husband. (Oh yeah Isaac wanted me to solely deal with this. I didn't think it was a bright idea.) He finds out that they want an outrageous amount of money down up front and other wacky stuff. Basically at that point we're back at square one. Isaac told him no way on the money (we might as well buy the house at that point and we're not in a position to do so right now because of student loans) but we could possibly pay more on the monthly rent. The guy says that at this point he's going to call a leasing agent/Realtor to find out what he should do. I run to the store to buy groceries for the week and Isaac gets a call back after the guy talked to a leasing agent/Realtor and he now has a much saner proposition. We rent it for two years at the originally advertised monthly rent and then when two years are up we get first rights. At this point we are willing to do this option. I believe that they are good people but have no idea what they are doing and so they are screwing it up horribly. We set up a meeting with them for Thursday to look over the papers they are drawing up and most likely signing them. Wish us luck.

Oh, yeah should I be worried that I saw that they are still advertising it?

Counting Blessings

So last night Isaac and I were asked in a very nice way to find a new home and we have 30 days to do so. We didn't out stay our welcome or do anything to cause this. Our cousins' who's property we live on have other relatives in more desperate need than us. So while I am stressed to the max, trying not to cry and freak out I am counting my blessings to stay sane. We will make this work and find a way to support ourselves, that's just our personalities.One reason why this stresses me out is that our rent money currently goes to student loans we can't ask for a lower interest rate, can't consolidate or do anything else with and we have at least 4 more years to go if not more. Okay, here are my blessings.

I could have lost Isaac this year but luckily he survived his wreck with barely a scratch.
Isaac has expanded his side business and that will help us pay for a place once we find one.
Isaac and I have really good jobs.
We have our health and each other.
We can do this. I have to tell myself this a lot now and I will probably cry at least 12 times today but we will survive and find a new place to live and a way to pay for it.

Swamped

My house is a pit. I don't think it's going to get better by the way. I haven't had a lot of time to clean it lately and when I'm at work that's all I want to do lately. I know lame right? I just want to go home and clean my house. The sad part is that a lot of it is Isaac's stuff. Some days I just want to haul it all off to the garbage or give it away but I am good and I don't. I know that it's probably much better than I am making you all imagine it is. Sometimes (all the time) I wish I lived with a(nother) neat freak. I am working at accepting what I cannot change, it's a everyday process.

Anyways, I am addicted to knitting my first sock. I think this is because I want to finish it and see if/how badly I screwed it up. I'm also really enthralled with the colorway. It's called Treehugger and there is this muddy brown section that slowly wends itself back and forth over the sock and I'm interested to see where it goes next. It obviously reminds me a tree root and it's rather ingenious as to how it's moving back and forth. I've tried it on so far and it fits (so far) which I hear is half the battle. I also went shopping last night for an outfit to wear this week to an event that my work is holding. I didn't find anything suitable (the one dress I wanted they didn't have in my size and they couldn't get to it to me in time) but Anthropologie is having an amazing sale on dresses. With the prices the way they were I seriously thought that I was in Target for a moment but the decor set me right. I was able to get two lovely lovely dresses but sadly neither of them will work for my event this week. After a couple more hours of shopping I still didn't turn anything up and I'm tired of shopping now (mainly because my original dress idea was perfect) so I have put together an outfit in my current wardrobe that I think will work.