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.

Crazy Pie

I want to make this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And... this:

Like the title says I think I'm eating crazy pie because these all will take me forever and I don't know how to do half of it. Did I mention I want to make socks?

Christmas moved and no one told me.

So yesterday I was reading Yarn Harlot (aka Stephanie Pearl-McPhee). I am currently reading her archives because I always need something to do in the evenings and I alternate between games and reading people's blogs. I however, am also reading her current blog entries when she posts. Well yesterday I was  covering the front desk's lunch break like I always do (it's a small private company and it's totally okay that I do this) and I checked her blog to see if she'd posted. She had and this is what she had posted. I have been wanting to take classes and I had especially been wanting to take a class by Stephanie. So when she posted that she and Tina Newton (of Blue Moon Fiber Arts!!) were going to hold a weekend of teaching classes I was extremely excited. I was even more excited that it was being held a stone's throw from where I currently live. They were only offering 40 spots and I knew that if I wanted to take these classes that I would have to act quickly. I was lucky that I read Stephanie's post soon after she posted it but I knew that they would be inundated with requests to attend. I thought I would take a shot at it and see what would happen. The front desk computer is a dinosaur and yesterday it was EXTREMELY slow. I was practically crawling out of my skin (the thing took about 3 minutes for me to open my e-mail) when I was finally able to shoot off an e-mail. I was so nervous and excited at the chance that I completely forgot to give them my name, address and phone number, like they had asked. I remembered an hour later and sent another one with all the info in the e-mail. I waited on pins and needles all day yesterday checking my e-mail and phone but nothing. I didn't get anything and by this morning I didn't think that I was in because they had posted around noon yesterday and I was sure that they had e-mailed everyone yesterday. So this morning when I got an e-mail from TIna Newton(!) saying oh so nonchalantly that if I still wanted a spot it was mine. I was silently pleased (I started jumping up and down and squealing in my office, hey it was early and I was the only one there) and went on with my day. Tina obviously hadn't seen my second e-mail as she asked me to e-mail her back with the information I had (stupidly) forgotten the day before or I could call her. I could call Tina Newton!?!  So I called her on my break and gave her my info. By this point the stupidity of my first e-mail was funny. Tina thought so too and we laughed about it (total out of body experience).  I am still beside myself with happiness, when I got the reply e-mail first thing this morning (you  remember I acted calmly and rationally right?) I literally felt like it was Christmas morning and I was a little child again. It was fantastic.

Now on to the rational part. I know that it's expensive but I'm taking it as my Birthday/Christmas present. I realized that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's the first one they are doing and it hasn't been established that they will do more (I strongly suspect they will). I know all the types of stitching required I just need to brush up on my abbreviations and how to do them all (I do know some). I also get to learn how to dye yarn and I get to dye my own and take it home. Seriously. Christmas.

Evening Driving

So lately (well the past five weeks) I've had a lot of solo time. Now I'm all for having time to oneself, I really enjoy it actually but the past few weeks it's been a little much. Isaac has been working until 6pm at his teaching job and then having to go work on his honey business that he runs independently. He has an seperate space to do this in that isn't at our house. I am very proud of him and that he has been able to be so successful at it and that he has the dedication and perseverance to build it to where it is today. It however, also means that he isn't getting home until midnight. This is compounded by the fact that he sells honey at farmers markets on the weekends (both days). So while working out, knitting, watching tv and cooking/baking is a lot of fun, I'm going stir crazy. This means I travel on the weekends, whether it's day trips or visiting family and friends. But I've also taken to driving in the evening. We don't live very far from the countryside and it's really pretty during dusk. There's a loop (well triangle) that I drive a lot from Redmond to Carnation to Fall City and back to Redmond. I haven't driven out there much this year but it's a place I love to go and it takes up about an hour of my evening and makes me feel like I'm doing something. I do have a couple friends that I can hang out in the evenings with and I do but I still have plenty of evenings left over, so this has been my solution. Luckily Isaac only has one more week of working until 6 and then he's back to getting off at 1pm which means he's home when I get home from the gym. Below are some pictures of places I drive by in the evenings. Enjoy.

I knit.

I remember the first time that my grandma introduced me to knitting. I'm pretty sure I was around 8 or so and I even remember the house they were living in. I don't remember if I asked her or she asked me if I wanted to learn or if I was just being obnoxious and she wanted some way to occupy me (probably the last one). She sat me down in her chair and gave me a piece that she was working on (I think it was a scarf) and showed me the knit stitch. I remember how amazing it was that I was able to take that ball of pastel pink yarn and transform it into something. The funniest part is that apparently I taught myself the purl stitch (there are only two stitches in knitting and purl is the other one) because when my grandma came back I still remember her exclamation of "Oh, I see you learned how to purl." At the time all these words didn't mean anything because I still didn't really know what I was doing, I just remember how amazing it made me feel. I however, did not pick it up right away again. I mean when you're eight years old it's kinda hard to have enough money for needles and yarn when no one else in your immediate family knits and your grandma lives about 1,500 miles away.
I picked up knitting again after college. I was living in Eugene and I worked next door to a yarn shop. I remember passing by and always being enchanted. I remembered the knit and purl stitches well enough but I didn't know how to cast on. So I went in one day, bought some yarn and needles and had one of them teach me. I remember meeting resistence because I was left handed. They were nice enough about helping me but it was like I was a foreign animal and being left handed was all it took to stump them. So then I made scarfs because I was basically shown I was unteachable due to being left handed. During this time I moved up to Seattle and I had many more yarn shops to choose from but I didn't really try to learn how to knit from anyone else. I was still gun shy from being treated like I was unable to be taught to knit. So I kept buying yarn and books and making scarfs. Okay, you can only take making so many scarfs until you just want to shoot yourself out of boredom. I still loved knitting so I tried to teach myself from the books I had bought. This was super frustrating because it didn't work. I didn't have enough know how and was nervous to ask, so I stopped. I stopped buying yarn and knitting needles. I stopped entirely.
Then through the magic that Facebook is Jilian found me. We became friends in high school and as life goes we lost touch. Jilian is a rather accomplished knitter (thank you partially to her mom Karen) who had been around knitting most of her life if not all of her life. Jilian made me feel like I could knit. That somehow being left handed didn't make me some sort of enigma and completely unteachable. She did it with such a grace and sweetness that I was immediately comfortable. She taught me other cast-ons, what a gauge swatch is and why it's SO important (even though it's a pain in the you know what), and she piled me with resources and patterns. It also helps that there are now so many tutorials online (one example) that show you what to do if you get stuck. But best of all she got me started again. Thank you Jili, your friendship and (knitting) guidance means so much to me. I'm very grateful that we became friends again.
I have recently learned how to knit in the round, use double pointed needles, ribbing and I am going to try cabling soon. I don't feel like there is anything I will not able to learn with knitting. I'm just going to do it my own left handed way. :) I also have to say that Isaac has been very sweet about it. He's always been so supportive and willing to do what he can (if anything) to help me (aka. go yarn shopping). He asks me about projects I'm working on and gets excited about the progress I'm making. Now if I could just get him into yarn shops, well actual knitting would help too.
Perhaps the funniest thing that Jilian has intruduced me to (well, knitting related) is the Yarn Harlot. She's so frickin' hilarious and an amazingly fast knitter. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to go add to my stash.