Moving on up…..

I have to move out of my apartment  

Tuesday I got the renewal notice from my leasing company and they are increasing my rent by almost $100!!!  Since I’m having trouble making ends meet with what I’m paying now, I definitely can’t afford that.  So I’m going to have to find another (read: cheaper) place to live.  I have mixed emotions about it.  When I initially read the letter, I was overwhelmed, sad, angry, and just generally unhappy about it.  I’ve lived in this apartment for four years and have gone through a lot here.  I’ve made a home here, and to leave it is hard.  I’ve always become attached to the places that I’ve lived, maybe everyone does, I don’t know, but I feel a strong affection for places that I’ve called home even for a little while and am really saddened every time I have to leave one of them behind.

Also, I hate moving!  I just hate everything about it – the stress of finding a new place, all the change of address stuff, packing and the actual moving day.  About the only thing I enjoy about moving is unpacking and getting everything set up and organized in the new place.

But I have decided to try and be positive about this move.  It will allow me to go through all of my stuff and purge the things that I don’t need and the junk that I’ve somehow accumulated over the past few years.  Where does some of this stuff come from?  Last night I was starting the purging process by cleaning out my desk and I couldn’t believe some of the random items that I found.  The other good things about this move are that it will allow me to be closer to both work and school, so not only will I be paying cheaper rent, but I can save on gas.

So far, I’ve done a lot of internet research on what’s available in the area and have just driven around to get an idea of what is out there.  I have scheduled some appointments for Saturday and next Monday.  Hopefully I can find something quickly so then I can get past the looking for a place and begin making preparations for the actual move itself.

Where have I been?

Ok, so it’s been quite a while since I last updated this blog, but I have a list of good excuses…. Promise. The main one being that my life has been crazy busy ever since I returned from vacation. So here’s a quick snapshot of what I’ve been up to for the past few weeks:

Vacation

My family and I had a good trip down to Hilton Head. There was a small moment of disappointment upon first arriving when we saw that our house wasn’t oceanfront like we had been told, but rather a street away from the beach. But it was a nice place, so that made up for it a little bit. Highlights of the trip include watching the dolphins play in the surf during our morning walks on the beach, watching the alligators sun themselves, and the day trip we took down to Savannah. I got some beautiful pictures of Savannah, but here is my favorite:

Theatre

The reason I’ve been too busy to post the past few weeks is the theatre show that I’m in with a local community theatre company. We are presenting “On the Twentieth Century.” It’s a wonderful, fun musical about a group of passengers, including a famous director and actress on a train in the 1930′s. I’m a member of the chorus and play a number of bit parts throughout the show. We opened Friday, and it went really well. We continue performances the next two weekends, but rehearsals are finished, so I get some of my time back.

Crochet and Knitting

There isn’t much crochet news to report. I wasn’t able to get as much done on vacation as I had hoped, I ended up reading more than anything. In knitting news, I had a great idea last Friday for a mitered square blanket. I’ve been really inspired by Kara’s “Miter Madness” over at her blog. So I wanted to try one of my own. Some of my friends went to UNC and are the alumni club leaders for our area, so I had the idea to create a mitered square blanket with the colors of all the teams in the ACC and then donate it to the alumni club to raffle or sell to raise money for their scholarship fund.

The plan is to make 25 squares, 2 for each ACC team, with UNC getting 3 squares, in their respective school colors. I’m using Tahki Cotton Classic since it has the widest range of colors to choose from. Saturday morning I went to The Knitting Basket to check out the colors and look at their color card for the yarn since you can never trust the colors on the computer screen. I was able to find a good match for each color I needed. I’ve only purchased the Carolina Blue and White so far to get started, but will be getting the rest soon. I’m just trying to find it for the best deal since this is going to take quite a few skeins with all the different colors. I’m really excited about it and hope that it turns out well. So far, I’m just about finished with the first miter, and can understand how knitting these can become addictive. This is also my first time using the Cotton Classic, and I am loving it! I understand all the rave reviews it gets online now.

Well, that’s a quick update for now. Since my schedule will be more normal now that rehearsals are over, I’ll be able to update on a more regular basis. And I’ll make sure to post progress on the ACC blanket as I’m working on it.

Let’s go fly a kite

Finished Kite Runner last night.  It was a beautiful, haunting story.  The book has been around for a while now and on numerous bestseller and must-read lists, but I must admit I never had any interest in reading it.  But my book club picked this as our May book, and after reading it, I am very happy that we chose this one.  I’m not quite sure what I thought it would be like and why I thought I wouldn’t enjoy it, but it only took a couple of pages for me to know that the story was not what I was expecting at all.  

It is a brilliant character study of Amir, a young Afghan boy when the story begins, whose world is turned upside down when the Taliban appear on the scene.  The book follows him to America and into his adult life when he returns to Afghanistan for a very important trip.  The backtrop of the Taliban rule, September 11, and the war in Afghanistan are important elements to the story, but not the focus.  It is ultimately a story of friendship and a beautiful journey of redemption for Amir.

I would highly recommend this to anyone.  Now I’m looking forward to our discussion to see what everyone else in my book club thought.

Tomorrow I’m leaving for a week’s vacation at Hilton Head with my family.  There will be lots of reading, lots of knitting, lots of crocheting, and lots of relaxing.  Reports when I return.

Sad, pictureless post

So, I wrote this post yesterday and was holding it off until I was able to upload the pictures. But today was crazy busy too and I didn’t get a chance to get the camera out and transfer the pictures to my computer – so here’s the pictureless post:

I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekend It was very a very busy two days, but at least everything was lots of fun.

Saturday morning started with breakfast at Cracker Barrel with some good friends. A new Cracker Barrel just opened up less than a mile from my house and I was very excited to finally get to partake of their breakfast yumminess. Before this one opened, the closest one to me was about a 30-45 minute drive away. We had delicious food and some good girl talk time. After that, the two of us headed over to the local library where they were having a book sale. I acquired the following books:

• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  
• The Screwape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• From Sea to Shining Sea by James Alexander Thom
• The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

It seems like everytime I go to one of these book sales, I pick up copies of classics that I know I should own but don’t already have a copy of. This time The Brothers Karamazov and The Screwtape Letters fell into this category. The other two just looked interesting. James Alexander Thom’s Follow the River has been a favorite since I read it in college, so I’m interested to read another of his books. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed in the size of the book sale. Usually library book sales promise rows and rows of great books at ridiculously cheap prices and I walk out with a bag full, but this sale was very small – probably only 100-150 books to peruse.

Saturday afternoon was spent at the theatre rehearsing. I work with a local community theatre group and was just cast in our upcoming production of On the Twentieth Century. Saturday was the first blocking/choreography rehearsal for the chorus. Over the course of the four hours, we learned most of two songs, and I was exhausted by the end of it.

After a quick trip home to pick up the goodies I had made, I headed over to a friend’s house to help with the Kid’s Choice Awards party she was having for her little ones and some neighborhood children. It was a great bash complete with a red carpet, papparazzi (the adults with cameras), and green slime punch. Lots of fun, but I was ready for bed by the time I finally got home.

Sunday was a little more relaxing. We had another rehearsal. This one just three hours and it was a music rehearsal so no movement, just lots of singing.

There wasn’t much time for knitterly pursuits between the rehearsing and kids’ party, but I’m leaving for a week’s vacation at Hilton Head Friday, so I’ll more than make up for it while I’m gone.

Frustrated

Very frustrated right now. Before leaving work this afternoon, I e-mailed some documents to my home e-mail so that I could work on them tonight and finish this project that I’ve been working on all week. There were two documents that I needed. Well, I just sat down at my computer to start working, open my e-mail and discover that somehow I managed to attach the same document twice! So now I’m missing one of the documents, and I can’t complete the project without it. The good news is that it’s only about an hour’s worth of work and I can go into work a little earlier tomorrow to get it done. The bad news is that I have to get up earlier and go into work, and I can’t have the satisfaction of completing it tonight. Don’t you just hate when that happens – you have everything planned out and then it all falls apart? I still can’t seem to understand how I attached the same document twice, because I know that I clicked on the two different documents. The real kicker to this story is that I just realized I had my USB drive in my purse and could have easily saved both documents to this and brought it home. Lot of good that does me now.

Anyways… in knitting news:

I’ve finished the middle section of my Circle of Fun Rug from Mason-Dixon Knitting. The red is actually a little deeper than it looks in the picture. I’m planning to use this in my front entranceway when it’s finished. As you can see I still need to weave in the ends and sew the two end “pie pieces” together to make a continuous circle. Speaking of the ends, I now wish I had listened to the pattern advice and carried the colors up the sides rather than cutting and starting over with a new strand of yarn for each wedge. Oh, well, next time. I have enjoyed this project so far. It’s mindless garter and even though there are short rows involved, they’re really simple. The large needles (size 10) and double worsted weight yarn make it go fast too. Perfect knitting for television watching since you can feel your way along and don’t have any difficult pattern repeats to pay attention to.

Well, now that my plan for working tonight has been thwarted… I guess I’ll just go knit something!

Moment of Silence

To begin, let’s all take a small moment of silence in honor of the Tar Heels who just weren’t able to play their top game during OT against the Hoyas last night. While I’m not a Carolina alum, a lot of my friends are and apparently the love of college basketball is contagious because I caught it this season. We had lots of fun cheering on the Heels throughout the regular season, to an ACC title, and to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA. This just wasn’t their year to take it all the way. So, we’ll take a moment to mourn, but only a moment, no need to get all depressed about it. I mean, after all, it is just a basketball game. And most importantly, there’s always next year!

Other than the basketball viewing, I had a pretty busy weekend. My little sister’s middle school chorus put on a production of Guys and Dolls. And I have to say, that her school continues to amaze me. I remember the first time I went to see one of her chorus concerts when she was in 6th grade – I was all ready to endure through an hour of bad singing and painful sounds, but surprisingly, they are actually good. And the show Friday night was no exception. Her choral director went all out with sets and even had them in period costumes, complete with hair and stage makeup. Everyone did a fabulous job and I found myself forgetting that I was sitting in a middle school auditorium watching 13 year olds, and considered it an enjoyable night at the theatre.

I was able to find a little bit of time for some creative pursuits. Last week I started on this Double Wedding Ring Quilt. The pattern is from an out-of-print Annie’s Attic leaflet called Ultimate Quilt Afghans. Quilt-inspired afghans have become a small obsession of mine recently, and the double wedding ring pattern is one that I’ve always loved in quilting, so I was excited to find a crocheted version. But this has proven to be one of the most challenging patterns I’ve undertaken since getting back into crochet about a year ago.

I think that I’ve finally figured it out though. I was able to get one complete ring finished (see picture below). Adding the white sections was the hardest part, I’m not sure if it’s the way the pattern is written, or if it was just me being dense, but I tried about eleventy-million ways on the first small white insert before understanding how it was really supposed to work. Now that I understand that, it’s just difficult and fiddly with all the different pieces to get them to line up. Definitely not relaxing or mindless crochet, but the final result is worth it.

Getting the hang of things…

So, I think I’m finally learning my way around WordPress and beginning to understand how it all works.  I was able to get a lot of my links added to the sidebar yesterday.  I have to say that I’m finding it pretty easy to maneuver around and like the format of this blog.

It’s kind of hard knowing what to write in your first few blog posts as you’re getting started.  I mean, the first “welcome, hi, this is me” post is easy, but after that where do you go.  How do you start “the conversation” with your readers?  I guess I’ll just not overthink it and let things flow naturally.  And this is it for now… I was up late last night watching UNC beat USC (GO HEELS!!!) and then had to get up early to help with a kid’s event at Michael’s this morning, so I’m going to call it a night and spend the rest of the evening on the couch crocheting and catching up on some Tivoed television.  ‘Night.