Rescue Me

 

Before we head off on a long road trip with Pup we stop at the outskirts of our local marina to let her wander a bit and wear her out. Yesterday morning before our latest road trip to Lowes I found a baby crab in the marina parking lot wandering around on the asphalt. I scooped it up in a bucket we carry and we took it down to the water where it looked very happy swimming away. How a cute little baby crab got so far from the water I'll never know but I was there at the right time. That hot asphalt would have cooked that baby in no time at all. 

Speaking of needing rescuing, I think I've hit my limit on this whole kitchen thing. After driving an hour both ways to pull out a drawer I want to just cover the whole mess up in plastic again and call it a day. I am so over trying to figure things out.  We did order the stove. It may be here sometime in October but I'm not holding my breath.  

The refrigerator I wanted would not even be in stock until January so we couldn't order it. It's hard to find one without an ice maker or one of those door thingys. We can't have any of that fancy stuff because of our well situation. Our water would ruin those things in no time at all and that is with a $4000 water softening system. 

Things back at home on the knitting front aren't going well either. I spent all that money on one ball of Chroma in Sandpiper with that additional $5.99 shipping only to find out it had purple in it. No where in the description did it mention purple. It was supposed to be all olive browns, whites, grays and blues but I see purple. Do you? It's going in the orphan Chroma box with all the others. I can't use it in the project I needed it for. I'll have to keep looking.

I will say that Knit Picks beat Amazon getting yarn here. I ordered this extra skein of Patons Kroy in Woodsie the same day as the Chroma and it beat the Kroy here by two days but even these simple socks haven't been playing nicely. I spent the morning tinking them both back because somehow I miscount the instep stitches and the toes were crooked. 

It's just as well that my knitting is not playing nice at the moment because I have too much homework to do anyway. The Mister is waiting for my decisions on the cabinet door handle hardware and the faucet so I'm going to spend what little time I have to myself again today looking at pictures of kitchens and reading reviews. Ugh.

Tiny Needle Tuesday

 

The toy tree has three more flags on it's lower banner. It's not much to show for a week but it's better than nothing. After day of dealing with kitchen issues (and there are always kitchen issues) I don't feel like doing much of anything. We spent yesterday fighting over the new stove. The Mister is convinced that none of the ones I want will have enough room in the back for the cord so today we are going to drive all the way out to Lowe's again (!?!) just to pull the drawer out and see. 

On Sunday I drug the little stitching stand out into the living room and put the lawn and some more border on the little house bookmark. I like stitching little things. I need to find more little things to stitch. 

Yesterday I took advantage of The Mister wanting to take an afternoon nap and started putting all those blocks together. It's a fiddly job to line them all up so I am very happy there are only five rows to deal with. Two are done now. Most of the size is going to be in the borders because I am so over those little squares. 

The Red Zone

 

We have a family football pool and every year I get in it and every year I never watch a game. This year I am spending Sundays on the couch watching The Red Zone. The Mister even made me a cheat sheet since I had no idea what the teams are called anymore. 

I threw a red sheet over the filthy couch and planted myself there most of the day. I had plenty of lap work to keep me busy.

I really should have been sewing all these blocks together. I really want to get that memory quilt thing off my plate and I'm getting close.

Instead I spent the day adding to my paper pieced table runner and hand quilting the border on Dad's squares quilt. 

Speaking of red, I've got a beat up old Ikea Ektorp couch in the living room and you can't get anymore fun covers for it. The cheap beige one I put on for the duration of the remodel has about had it. I found this one on ebay for $100. It looks like red is going to be my color this year. 

Little Helpers

 

We are not the only ones living in a jumble at the moment. Daughter just moved into a brand new house and there is still so much to do and so much to put together. Emi, the roly poly kitty, was lending her a helping hand in the only way kitties know how....by getting in the way.

Then, in the midst of all that chaos, she fell asleep. I know just how she feels because helping The Mister put up the exhaust hood is doing the same to me. There's not much for me to do so it's just a big yawn. 

On the Needles

For those of you keeping score, here is yesterday's kitchen update. We're building an outlet for the new fancy range hood. I should say The Mister is building it because I had a killer headache and pretty much just stomped around moaning about it all day. 

But......in spite of all the week's many trials and tribulations I managed to get some knitting time. The Olympic hat is finished. All I had left of that ball of handspun was what you see at the top. It was a hair raising game of yarn chicken at the end. Now I have to unzip that provisional cast on and start knitting the lining but I have to wait for the yarn to get here. I ordered some nice soft acrylic for it. 

I finished one of the Align mitts and started the second. It's kind of mangy looking but that's the beauty of handspun.

I found the needle I needed for the body of Dogstar and put a few inches on it. For 8 more inches it will be nice mindless knitting. I like that. 

I've ordered some variegated Chroma worsted for the color work yoke without realizing I already had a box in the closet full of it. I really need to do something with it someday.

I turned the heel on the Woodsie man socks and ordered another ball just in case I run out since those balls are looking mighty small-unlike Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend's in Trinidad (!?!). Sorry. I couldn't resist. It's hard to believe that Patons hasn't figured out how much yarn is needed for a pair of decent sized socks. Everyone else has. 

On the Road Again

 

I turned the heel on the Walrus sock while we drove over to Lowes again yesterday morning.

We had an 11:00 appointment to order the counter top and the sink. 

The Mister and I had both woke up with nightmares the night before. His was about the flooring. Mine was about the counter top. Since nothing has been going right I was second guessing my choice. This would be a very big and costly mistake so I wanted to get it right. After tossing and turning about it and finally getting up and looking at every image I could find online........I decided I had made the right decision after all. I wanted something plain. I am not showy. My house is not showy. I like simple and my plain gray quartz counter will suit me just fine. 

Since I wanted an under counter sink I had to decide on that too. They only had this one to show me but I didn't want a double sink anymore so I'll be getting this one in a single. 

I didn't want a quartz back splash so I also had to decide on tile. I want plain white subway tile.....

....but The Mister was trying to talk me into something more adventurous. I wasn't in an adventurous mood since it was hot and humid and I had a headache coming on.  I've got time to decide on the tile so we called it a draw and will come back to it another day. 

The highlight of the trip was stopping on the way home for donuts. I ate a pumpkin and a maple one all in one sitting and was very sorry about it later but it did help fill up that worry spot that just won't seem to go away.  I've come to the conclusion that I love ripping stuff out but HATE putting it all back. Too many decisions. 

Bless This Mess

 

The work pile is getting smaller. Last week we couldn't even get through the dining area that we use for staging. Now we can see floor.

The pile is getting smaller because we have put in almost all the cabinets now. They still need tweeking. We've got gaps that need filler and doors that need adjusting but we should be able to get the counter people out here hopefully in the near future.

Here's a good look at how we are living at the moment. Still no sink. Still a mountain of clutter but we are closer to the end than where we were this time last year. 

I made myself sick all weekend worrying about what to do with the floor and I took all your suggestions to heart and did a lot of research. I finally came to the conclusion that it's just a darn old floor and if we hate it we can rip it up later and do something else. Pup agrees. She can't wait to throw up on it or even worse so we are just going to lay the boards the other way so it looks somewhat planned and just get it over with. What's a little difference in wood? It's not like I don't already live in a rustic cabin-like place with a cedar ceiling and mismatched wood furniture everywhere. This crazy floor should fit right in.