Closing! Finally!

It's a big day around here. In about 6 hours, I'll be signing legal documents to sell my house once and for all. The Awesome Fiance and I will have an appropriate combined number of mortagages -- one -- for our household. My bank account will have a respectable(ish) amount of liquidated equity deposited into it.

I'm trying to avoid focusing on the fact that I'll be losing the opportunity to be reminded of happy memories by turning a doorknob or washing a countertop -- though of course in any collection of memories, there are less than pleasant ones as well, so I'm glad to leave those behind. Most important in the silver lining category (well, other than financially) is how happy I am to hand over my house keys to the buyer, a single 20-something woman who's excited to make this, her first house, her own. I had so much fun going through that process with this house, and I hope she does too.

Goodbye, First House. *air kisses*

More of the Same, and Something Completely Different

It's been another great weekend in Craftosaurusville. My, what a boring blog this has become: "we did this fun thing, then went to this fun place, and blah, blah, blah." I suppose it's better than being boring and pessimistic, no?

Anyway, this weekend's adventure was kayaking. Wait, did I forget to tell you? Yeah, we got a kayak. A 19 foot tandem kayak with lots of storage space (all the better for storing camping gear, one of these days). We didn't camp this weekend, just paddled around a lake for a couple hours. Thankfully, there were no spills into the drink (inanimate objects or ourselves). Thanks to some... shall we say "zealous" jetski and motorboat enthusiasts creating sizeable wakes, we had a chance to practing riding out a bit of choppy water, which will come in handy when we graduate to ocean kayaking. (The vessel's designed for it, but out abilities, as yet, are not.)

I'll tell ya one thing, though, this kayak is heavy. And carrying half of it at your side (rather than up close to your torso) is tough, to say nothing of lifting it over your head and onto the top of a car. Well, it's tough for me, anyway. I looked up the specs, and apparently it weighs in at 88 pounds (sans paddles and nalgene bottles inside). My arms are not designed to lift 22 pounds each -- half the kayak, using both arms -- over my head. Yet, anyway. By the end of the summer, I'll be pretty darn strong. That, or injured.

The other news of the day is that I'm officially selling my old house (*single tear*). It's adorable, it's charming, it's updated, it's easy to heat, and it's got a great yard on a quiet street. If you happen to know anyone looking for 862 fantastic square feet of house just outside the largest city in the northernmost New England state, please have them visit southportlandbungalow.blogspot.com for more information, lots of photos, and an address by which to contact me for further details. Go interweb networking, go!

Recounting a Great Weekend, Part I: R to the O

Ohmygoodness, ohmygoodness, ohmygoodness. I just wrapped up one of the best weekends I could have hoped for. This post is likely to be full of soaring and poetic narrative detailing over-optimism, sheer joy, and blatant avoidance of all things remotely negative. If any of these things bother you, I suggest you stop reading now. Otherwise, chipperness ahoy!

Mr. Terrific and I spent Friday evening with a lovely group of his coworkers. Great people, all very welcoming, friendly, and just plain fun to be around. Awesomeness points: hundreds.

On Saturday, we made some progress on the old house front. The corners of one particularly awkward hallway (over a staircase) that I couldn't reach are now officially painted. Hooray for Mr. Terrific being taller than I am. Awesomeness points: several.

In the afternoon, it was strongly suggested that I take a nap (insert another few awesomeness points for that), in preparation for a surprise adventure in the evening. Mr. Terrific had asked me a few weeks ago to block out the day and he managed to keep me thoroughly perplexed about why, refusing to refer to the plan as anything other than just "the surprise." We got in the car in the early evening and I was assigned to navigation assistance, as the directions were of no help in deciphering the substance of the destination ("Brownfield?! What the heck's in Brownfield?").

Pulling into the parking lot (and I use the term loosely... dirt road and adjacent field, more like) wasn't helpful, either. The adorable farmhouse exterior gave no indication that we were about to walk into a gorgeous, serene, cathedral-ceilings-with-timber-frame-exposed-beams, 200-seat performing arts venue to see a primarily acoustic show by quite possibly my favorite band. [For those of you reading from a geographic distance, if you've not yet discovered the
Rustic Overtones, good lord, you need to check them out. Seriously. Now. Please? For me? It will make my so happy to know I've shared their fantabulousness with others.]

And what a show it was. Such palpable excitement and energy from the two hundred of us who wanted to be there enough to make the long trek over back roads not even navigable via GPS technology. Such talent on the stage, fantastic songwriting, and amazing musicianship. I've got a special place in my heart for any band with a horn line, but these guys are over-the-top talented. And the singer? Dude has got control over his voice, yo.

I might be slightly biased, what with the fact that Rustic Overtones provided much of the sountrack of the early years of my adulthood. To be fair, though, Mr. Terrific, who's been skeptical of the extent of their talents, was mightily impressed Saturday night and may be won over as a convert in the near future. Regardless of whether my perception of their fabulosity was accurate, for me, enjoying the show was an electric, soul-nourishing experience. It's the sort of thing that might, I suspect, only be fully appreciated by those who've had the opportunity to feel the rush of being showered in appreciative applause (which I've only had an inkling of in comparison, to be fair). Listening to expertly performed music so energetically good that my face hurt from smiling and my hands hurt from clapping made my soul decidedly un-hurty. Awesomeness points: a gazillion.

on the bandwagon

Let's add one more post to the sea of year-end re-caps crowding the interwebs right now, shall we?

2008 was an interesting year. In January, I set several goals for myself, with varying degrees of success.

To review:

1. Begin and complete renovation of the Rustic Attic
Yup, the attic itself is completely renovated. The stairs leading to the attic are another story and they need to be painted, but the attic is finished. Yay.

2. Decide on and implement new look for the kitchen
Hmm. Nothing's been decided for sure (so, obviously, not implemented either), but I'm thinking of using a striking, rich blue on some of the walls. I'd also like to have one wall in black chalkboard paint, and I think there's a way to make that look really awesome with a rich blue, but also a way to make that look really horrible. The one thing I'm pretty sure of for now is taht any big overhaul-type renovation is a ways down the road, and that a spuce-up coat of paint is on the table for a sooner timeframe.

3. Purge house of unnecessary clutter (or at least reduce said clutter)
I got rid of a few bags of stuff over the Thanksgiving weekend (aren't you proud of me?!), but that's about it. There's still a lot more storage space in my house to sift through. Much of what's there can easily be removed; it's just a matter of setting aside the time to do it.

4. Get a knitting pattern published
This didn't happen. I have one garment that I designed and finished, and one that I'm currently designing as I knit it, but I haven't written up (or started to write up) a pattern for either of them. I did, however, knit a whole bunch of sweaters in 2008. Not the 12 in as many months that I'd hoped, but almost. The scarfy gift knitting derailed my progress on my final sweater, chosen for its purported speed of knitting. Oh well. Stay tuned for a post (with pictures!) on how that and the other current projects are going.

5. Be able to run a 5k again (am signed up for one in March), then improve my time (will sign up for at least one over the summer
Another item that's gone unaccomplished. I will say, however, that over the past month or so, I've gotten back in the habit of at least getting myself to the gym more often than not, which in my mind is at least half the battle. My running abilities aren't where they once were (and they were never in an impressive place, to be sure), but I'm making incremental improvements in the continuing effort to ignore the internal voice reminding me to stop running when I get bored just because I can. And the goal for 2009 remains the same, even to the extent that I've again signed up for the very same 5k in March.

4. Cook and eat real dinners, even if I'm eating by myself (heavy emphasis on soups and vegetables)
Aha! I am cooking real dinners, even though I'm not often eating by myself anymore and thus didn't have to conquer that cook-for-just-yourself issue. Regardless, the point is that I'm eating better food (where "better" = healthier, tastier, and so forth) and being more conscious of what I'm consuming. Usually.

5. Have a rockin' vegetable garden
The garden went pretty well this year. I was able to harvest some food, and I'm looking forward to using some of the mistakes I learned from to ensure that next year's garden will be even better. Particularly important are to plan better, add more space, use tomato cages, and be extra patient when waiting for the danger of frost to pass.

6. Figure out what the heck to do with the decorative garden beds around the house
I started this! I gave away a few hostas that were taking up space in front of the house, and in their places planted a bunch of tulip bulbs. Will have to wait until spring to see if they fill up enough visual space, or if I need to add something else.

7. Bust out the sewing machine and use up some of my languishing fabric
Technically, yes, I did this. I did indeed use the sewing machine, and I did indeed use up some fabric, but the end result was by no means usable. I don't think there will be any sewing in my near future, and certainly not until I de-clutter enough to have a place in my house allocated to it.

8. Decide on and pursue a volunteering opportunity
Well, yes. I did a little bit of political volunteering, and a brief (read: six hour) stint with the local Habitat branch. It was fun, I'm glad I did it, but the personalities I dealt with didn't leave me super excited to sign up for another day. I'm debating how much I want to incorporate it into 2009.

9. Start up an IRA again; look into other investment approaches
No IRA, although I have until April of 2009 to make a contribution for 2008. I also became eligible for my employer's 401(k) plan, so I've been contributing a lot to that. Need to assess for 2009 whether it would be better to keep throwing large overpayments toward my student loans, mortgage, etc, or whether I should focus on building up my account balances.

10. Update blog consistently and hopefully more interestingly
More consistently, for sure (ignoring, if you will, the last few weeks). More interestingly, I hope so!

Lest you take my dismal rate of success above as an indication that nothing much happened this year, I present to you...

Other Big Changes and Occurrences in 2009 (said is booming, movie-announcer voice, of course):

- Suffered near-daily headaches. Had eyes examined; got prescription for glasses. Got super-cute glasses that I love. Warily noticed that headaches returned several months later.

- Bought a lawn mower! An electric corded model. Managed to prevent rioting among my neighbors in reaction to vastly overgrown eyesore of a yard. (Also bought a charcoal chimney - these things are the best! - so as to more easily cook food on the grill in my not-unkempt yard.)

- Went on a *real* vacation. Three time zones away. Via air travel. Saw touristy things, ate nice food, went dancing.

- Met the most wonderful man, who, luckily, thinks I'm the most wonderful woman (not to be confused with Wonder Woman).

It was a good, good year.


... Will jump on the Goals for 2009 bandwagon in the coming days!

Here I Am

Oh, what a neglectful blogger I've been. T'sk, t'sk at myself.

I finished knitting that sleeveless top, Blush, in bamboo yarn. It's soft and cute... and clings to every imperfection of my torso. If I get my tookus in gear and actually go to the gym regularly ever again, it'll probably be one of my favorite shirts. Partially because I might lose a couple pounds. Partially because I might get less squishy in the torso region. Partially because when I'm active I'm less likely to give a flying fig whether my torso looks the way (other people think) it "should."

Anyway, here it is on a hanger:



I'm also working dutifully on Buttony, the pink variegated cotton cardigan I posted about previously. I tried to find something else to cast on so I could procrastinate, I really did, but I couldn't find anything in the stash that lent itself to a new project appropriate for summer. (I've got a bunch of fine gauge wool lined up for Thermal from Knitty, as well as some dk weight wool that's destined for this cardigan I found on Ravelry that intrigues me, but they're both longsleeved and, ya know, wool.) The Giant Tupperware Bin of Stash Yarn was only offering up a bulky mohair that was given to me and a bunch of skeins of bulky white cotton ribbon yarn (whyyyy did I buy that stuff?), and since I've been on this kick lately where I don't like any patterns at a gauge larger than 5 stitches per inch, I'm stuck with Buttony for a while longer.

Oh, also: Attic Renovation 2008 is thoroughly, officially, 100% complete. Pictures in a photoset here, but here's one representative shot:

In which our heroine is reminded that she has the best dad that ever was.

Ho-LEEEE goodness, what an adventure yesterday was. Attic Renovation 2008 is *thisclose* to being done, and the Crafto-Dad agreed to help me move my mattress and box spring upstairs. Very nice of him, especially considering he has an odd work schedule (works at night a lot, so sleeps during the day sometimes) and was rather tired.

Now, anyone who's been to my house knows that the stairs to the attic are, shall we say, quaint. Which is to say "old." Which is to say "narrow, steep, and treacherous." There's a door at the base of the stairs, then they move upward at a drastic angle pretty much immediately. This, as you might suspect, is not what you would call "convenient" for moving furniture.

So. We get the mattress upstairs, but just barely, and only because it was flexible enough to bend the corners down a little. It was iffy whether or not the box spring would fit, because, hey, that's not bendy at all, but there really wasn't any choice but to give it a shot.



Yeah. Not so much. Crafto-Dad figured he might be able to get a little more maneuvering room if he took out one or two of the stairs with a crowbar. Then we'd be able to angle the box spring forward before tilting it up the stairs. Or so the plan went.



What resulted was a whole bunch of insulation all over the place, and a box spring still stuck in the doorway. Crafto-Dad suggested it might work if he took out one more stair. Nothing. Repeat times six. This was the result:



Hey, where'd my stairs go? Oh, there they are:



At this point I learned how to tap out and remove old nails from a board. And how to assemble stairs. I went to Home Despot to buy new nails and a hammer [side anecdote: HD employee-guy saw me looking at a wall of nails and asked what I needed nails for, so he could help me find the right kind to buy (not that I'd asked him for help... but anyway, at least he was polite). Based on his facial expression when I said "a staircase," I'm pretty sure he'd expected an answer along the lines of "I need to hang a picture of kittens and flowers." That's right, buddy, stairs. I need the nails for stairs. Ahem.]

Anyway, Crafto-Dad had thus far been working on this "15 minute" project for about five hours, and had to go home and sleep. He'd gotten about half of the staircase put back together, so the rest was up to me. After about three hours of nailing, I was thinking that a fitting blog post title would be "Day of a Thousand Profanities." But I did it! And here's what the stairs look like now (again):



It's just barely out of view behind the corner, so you can't see it, but the box spring MADE IT UP TO THE NEW ROOM! Thanks, Crafto-Dad! :)

Progress, progress, everywhere, but not a thing complete.

Yes, Attic Renovation 2008 continues. No, it isn't quite done yet. At this point I don't want to post too many pictures, lest I ruin the effect when everything's actually done. I'll give you just a snippet, though. Here's a shot of one of the dresser drawer handles I'm getting rid of:

And the new version:

But wait, there's more! My Not-so-orange Wave Cardigan is nearly done:

And in fact it probably would be done by now, if not for the progress I made on Buttony, which I opted to take on a car trip over the weekend.

Oh! And I completely forgot to take pictures of the vegetable seedlings in my living room. The cantaloupe, in particular, is really taking off. Eh, next time.

Floor it!

The construction and carpentry are done for Attic Renovation '08, which means the flooring is installed, and it's lovely. Too bad I'll need to put furniture on it, because otherwise it would make a nice dance floor. :)



I spent all of this morning prepping the walls (that is, cleaning the sheetrock dust off of them) and caulking all of the trim. *Then* I was able to start priming. I'm about two thirds done with the first coat of primer. I'm planning to do two coats each of both the primer and the paint, so this is going to take a long time.

I realized tonight while I was priming that the electric baseboard heaters are really, REALLY effective. Hoo boy, the whole attic was toasty after about two minutes.

Oh yeah, and as I alluded to earlier, I wear glasses now. Weirdness.

Must focus on the positive. Positive, positive, positive.

I've been grumpy lately, which in a big picture sort of way isn't like me, but in a past-several-months sort of way has become par for the course. I'm not going to get into the self-analysis of why I've been wearin' the crankypants, but I really want to get back to a more upbeat frame of mind... so instead of complaining about how long it's taking to have my attic renovated, I'm going to post pictures and focus on how much has been done in the last few weeks.

This post is worth three thousand words.

Turning point...

There's been enough progress with Attic Renovation 2008 at this point to get a better sense of what the room is going to look like when it's done. This is making it so much easier to deal with the chaos in the rest of my house. I mean, it's still really bothering me, but now I can focus more on the end result. Well, *right* now, at least. We'll see about tomorrow.

So here's what everything looks like today:

Rockin' ... Sheetrockin'

Attic Renovation 2008 continues! The sheetrocking has begun, so things are starting to take shape. The back of the sheetrock with the studs in front of it is what will be the side wall of the closet, and the ceiling is, well, the ceiling. With recessed lighting: yay.





I'm still not pleased about my house being discombobulated, but it'll be worth it soon. And I'd have pictures for you of those vintage closet doors, but I ran out of chemical paint stripper, so it'll have to wait.

All in all not the most exciting blog post ever, but that's ok. It's been sort of a mediocre day, so this fits in nicely.

Three square feet

That's about the extent of unoccupied floor space in my house right now. With Attic Renovation 2008 in full swing, I have dresser drawers stacked in my kitchen, all the clothes I store on hangers are camped out on various pieces of furniture, and I have blankets laid out to protect parts of the floor from added traffic, falling lumber, etc. But I do have three square feet of space with which to take a picture of the new, finished (!) sleeveless turtleneck.


The pattern called for knitting in the round, but I didn't have circular needles in the right size to get gauge, so I knit the front and back separately on size 2 straight needles. I also added some darts in the front, in the stockinette panel. I need to block it and try to add a little length through the armholes, but otherwise I'm pleased with it.

On the agenda for today: refinishing the vintage doors I'll be using for my new closet in the attic. And coming up next week is a trip to the garden store to buy seeds and get a jump on the abbreviated Maine growing season. This year I *will* get it together and have seedlings ready to go when we're past frost danger.

Lots of pink and a big saw

Attic Renovation 2008 is really in gear now. In the morning, there were 6 or 7 giant bales of insulation ready to go. That's a heck of a lot of pink, there. And a solid reminder that hiring out this part of the project was a very, very, very smart thing to do.


By the time I got home from work, it was dark outside (and the electrical work needs to be inspected, so no lights yet), so the project pictures I took aren't the best. Even so, here's a shot of the workspace and the big saw. Sharp.

Soon-Soon-Soon!

One of the items from my "goals for 2008" post was renovating the Rustic Attic in the TeenyTiny house. And it's going to happen realllllly soon. (It's not that I'm so impressively on the ball as to have figured out the project in two weeks, by the way. The planning process started in 2007.)

The major elements (read: the stuff I'm hiring out) should be done before the end of January. While that's going on, I'm going to try my best to pick up the pace of my decision making process when it comes to paint colors, so I can get the walls painted (and thus get the whole thing finished) as soon as possible. And this hideousness will be gone, gone, gone:

A more spatial project...

So this is a little late, but I realized I haven't posted about a rather big crafty project: revamping my living room. I painted the walls, made curtains, and swapped out some furniture (thank you, Andrea, for the donated stuff!)

Living room before:


And living room after:


Oooh!



Ah!



Aww yeah.

Paint the town red...

... or at least a very small bathroom.

It needed to be done. Badly. The TeenyTinyBathroom was hideous. See?


Ew. That's a whole lot of wallpaper backing goin' on. When I moved in, there was actual wallpaper, so it didn't look *quite* this bad. Sadly, though, "in construction" status lasted for a looooong time.

But I've had a couple weeks off, and that combined with the knowledge that I'll have guests soon motivated me to paint the darn TeenyTinyBathroom once and for all. And by "motivated," I mean "instilled in me the fear of major embarassment."

I used a gallon of red paint I picked up a while ago at the ol' Housing and Building Materials Exchange for all of five bucks. And bonus, I didn't have to choose a color out of all the paint chip options at a regular store. (It would have taken hours. Seriously.) Besides, I figured if I hated it, big deal, it was only five bucks and few hours of time invested.

But I don't hate it! I lurrrve it! It came out wonderfully, and the bathroom is now ALL ONE COLOR! With no exposed plaster! Huzzah!




I *heart* my clawfoot tub. Even if it is only inches away from... oh, everything else in the room.