house – Behind the Smile

August 24, 2017August 24, 2017

WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS (OUT YOUR WATER HEATER)

Last week I had a series of bad luck events that culminated in spending around $1.6k on a new water heater and – most unfortunately – on a new floor underneath the water heater. 🙁 🙁 🙁

Here is the sequence of events:

Had to call the sheriff’s department Saturday morning to report an alarm going off at my neighbor’s house… alarm woke me up at like 7:15 a.m. and didn’t turn off for over an hour. I was very sad as this prevented me from sleeping in. However, silver lining – was up early enough in the morning to go to the oft-too-crowded grocery store (Sprouts – the parking there is atrocious) without incident
<redacted extended family matter>
Sunday evening I was in the master bathroom puttering around and heard water running. The water heater is next to the bathroom in a closet that opens on the outside of the house. I checked the bathroom faucets and was like, ohhhh…. nooooooo. And went outside and looked in the closet and sure as shit, the water heater was leaking from the top and the whole floor was flooded about an inch. There was a drain and the water was going out there but everything was wet. FROWNY FACE. I turned the water off to the house to stop the leak and there wasn’t much else I could do besides go drown my sorrows in pizza and discuss the <redacted extended family matter> with my mom.
The next day the plumbers came out and removed the water heater. Advised that the floor was ruined so they couldn’t install the new heater. Which was sitting in my carport. So we stowed the new heater in my shed for the time being while I started to call around to see if one of my maintenance guys could replace the floor. The plumbers restored water to the house, but only cold. This meant that I could do laundry, shower, flush, etc. but no hot water and no dishwasher, which runs off the hot water line. SORROW AND DISMAY
Was able to schedule the maintenance company for Friday.
Friday morning discovered a broken mirror in one of my eyeshadow pallets. Could this be the source of my misery??
Was stuck at work till almost 7 on Friday completing a project. While finishing it up, my guy called to let me know that the floor work was done. Yay!
Got home and admired the new plywood floor. The old one was MDF. Who does that???! Particle board underneath a water heater? WTF.
Unfortunately, they called too late to schedule the plumber, so on Monday morning called and they were able to get out that afternoon. I had already missed a bunch of work (it felt like… only like 3 hours) due to this so I had my mom meet them out there and they were able to install.
While my mom was at my house she cleaned my whole kitchen. Moms are amazing!

So, I’m back up and running with hot water and ran the dishwasher and had a couple of warm showers (I was starting to get used to the cold showers… TBH my hair LOVED this – so shiny looking!). Last night I partially cleaned out the fridge… the garbage can was too small to hold it all so that project is on hold till next week. I’m starting the big spring cleaning project I didn’t have energy for in the spring.

This upcoming weekend I have 2.5 days off and to myself (office closes at 1 on Friday and I have absolutely no plans, hurrah!) so I shall try to not be a complete hobo and keep up with my projects. I pulled out the binding machine the other night with the plan to bind a couple of knitting pattern ebooks I purchased.

I also think I may be mentally ready to tackle the studio.

Maybe.

November 7, 2010November 7, 2010

Self-Awareness Can Only Lead to Self-Improvement

I was looking on Modcloth last night, as my sister had sent her Christmas wish list to me and there was an item on there from that store, and I took to looking at the clothing. I don’t fit in the majority of their clothes (a lot only go up to a large [!]), which I find irritating, but since I don’t have any money anyway, it’s sort of a moot point. Anyway, so I did come across this dress that I really liked:

I think it’s really cute. I like the idea of a chevron stripe being the main visual feature around the neck, and since it’s a knit dress, well hell, I could make that!

I don’t think a worsted weight dress would be a good idea, though, so I would shorten it to hip/tunic length. Also since there’s a ridiculous amount of stockinette, which I find tedious to knit (less so in the round than flat, but still) This would be an ideal candidate for the knitting machine. In theory, I could try my standard machine(s) out for this, but I actually have a random ton of dark dark heathered gray worsted weight yarn which I think would work out pretty well and plus I could use stash for it. As far as the chevron, I don’t know about the colors yet but I’ll check the stash. I’m also not totally clear on technique either: I’d like to try set-in sleeves in the round, but I think I’m leaning towards intarsia for the front chevron, which wouldn’t work very well in the round. At any rate, there would be folded over hems as opposed to ribbings. That part I’m pretty excited about it. I’ve done folded hems on socks but never on a garment before, so I think that will be pretty cool.

As far as what I’ve been up to lately (since I haven’t updated since Mid-October):

HARDWARE: Did you notice that I mentioned standard knitting machine(S)? Yeah, that’s right, I managed to acquire a fully outfitted Toyota knitting machine complete with ribber and punch cards for the low low price of $40 (yes I still owe you Mom, just remind me…) at the Legacy Thrift Shop’s first annual rummage sale! From what I’ve been able to deduce from my interweb research, the Toyota is compatible with the standard Elna machine I already own. SUH-WEET! So if you’re paying attention, that means I now have three knitting machines and am basically turning into my mother with every passing day.
THE CAR: Got the car fixed: my uncle came over and removed some sort of mystery squishy rubber piece from the clutch area that he was baffled by its very existence, let alone what it was doing in my car. No problems since, knock on wood. No really, knock on wood, wherever you are, I need all the cosmic points I can get.
ZOMBIE INFATUATION: I made zombie cupcakes:

They were fun to make, even if my kitchen is now under a sheen of red food coloring. These are actually red velvet cupcakes. I don’t think I really like red velvet cupcakes – I mean, they are pretty and all, but they don’t really taste like anything.
LOS ANGELES: I went to see my friend Sarah two weeks ago. I took a day off work and drove down to Santa Clarita, listening to talk radio the whole time. It was really interesting to listen to, because that was the week Juan Williams got the heave-ho from NPR and he went on Hannity to talk about it. Once I got to Santa Clarita, Sarah and I went to dinner at New Moon and hung out the rest of the weekend. I even managed to squeeze in a trip to the Super Walmart! I love the Super Walmart! And Sarah. I love Sarah too. *ahem* 😉

One of the main things I’ve been working on in the past few weeks is getting my house back into order. This year has been kind of sucktacular, and I do have a tendency towards “clutter blindness” (and laziness) so I have been trying to get more organized in my day-to-day lifestyle. Last week I spent some quality time decluttering the kitchen, and I also did a small home improvement in my bedroom where I hung a row of hooks for my long necklaces:

…That’s not even all my jewelry, but I am trying to get organized and stay neater. It will be a challenge because I am kind of a slob, and like I said, I do suffer from clutter blindness to some degree, and if there is a flat surface soon enough I will put something on it. I was particularly struck yesterday when my parents stopped by after I’d cleaned up (and out) the den, they basically were all, “WOW.” so it must have been pretty bad, but really I just don’t see it, which I’m working on trying to recognize. Being self-aware is the first step to self-improvement, right?

Anyway, isn’t that rack nice? I got it at Target. It’s hanging where that picture used to. I also had a clock up there, but I moved the clock to another wall, along with a sculpture I made in my ceramics class in college, lo those years ago.

I like that corner a lot better now; it’s improved by the addition of the clock as it adds a little something to the composition of the area, and breaks up the solid blue of the wall.

I’m now working on getting some things framed and up on the walls in other parts of the house. I picked up some velcro sticky things by 3M to use to hang pictures – the wood paneling that makes up every wall in my house is often times hard to get a nail through, but the velcro stuff can hold things up to several pounds so I’m looking forward to finally getting my art collection up. What, I’ve only lived here for two years, isn’t that about the amount of time needed to get your crap together? I can’t believe I’ve already been here that long. And with the economy being the way it is, I bet that I will be here for awhile! AWESOME.

Hey at least I got another job, so I should just shut up.

And someday I really will take photos of the Wollmeise I got and post them. Someday, if the sun ever comes out while I’m at home!

June 5, 2009June 24, 2010

Sockssss

It’s Design-Your-Own month at Ravelry’s Sock Knitters Anonymous group, and for the first time in months (February) I’ve been compelled to knit along with the group. Actually, I would have in May for the Anne Hanson KAL but I have been hit in the face at work, thankyouverymuch so I’ve been super busy.

Anyway, so I cracked open my Japanese stitch dictionaries and chose a really elaborate cable motif for some socks. I needed to invert it and convert to in-the-round stylin’, so it’s pretty involved. I also didn’t take into account the fact that because it’s basically all cables (1×1 and 2×2), the sock really tightens in on itself. Therefore, I had to add a bunch of stitches to make it fit!

And I had to choose a yarn that I thought would work. I first used some awesome Araucania Ranco Multy that is having a hard time finding the right pattern. And it looked awesome in the turquoisey-brown colorway, but alas, it was an original swatch over 68 stitches that was just too small! I’d also ripped out this yarn a couple of times, so I started to go fresh, and finally chose Dream in Color Smooshy in Flamingo Pie.

Yes, please, can I have some more?

Okay!

Yeah, it’s turning out pretty nicely. I’ve got some interesting design elements up my sleeve for the heel and toe, too. I hope I can figure everything out and keep track of what I’m doing because I hope to release the pattern eventually (if anyone wants to test knit it, that would be awesome) in three sizes. That’s the goal, anyway.

Here’s what else I’m working on:

Those are another pair of Hearts Afire socks (for Malvina, who expressed some love for the pattern) out of Shibui Sock, and a plain jane pair of stockinette socks out of some Cherry Tree Hill Supersock I had lying around. That yarn (in the Life’s a Beach) colorway, I had always intended to be a plain sock, but I’m not really motivated these days to knit a plain sock, even though they are nice to wear. But after all the last few socks that I’ve made (pretty much all the ones I’ve been working on this year) I needed a break – no ribbing, no pattern, no nothing. Now of course, I cast on for that ridiculously charted and complicated orange sock, but… whatevs. Heh.

I’m also working on an Ishbel shawl, but I apparently didn’t upload those pictures to Flickr. It’s out of Malabrigo sock in the terracotta (way orange) colorway. That Malabrigo sock is super fabulous. I don’t know how it will hold up for socks but it should work all right. I do have some plans for my other skeins in the stash, and since the shawl is knitting up so nicely, I could definitely see a couple more shawls in the future.

And, just for kicks, here is a pic of my current work space, that I finally more-or-less finished (I put up the cork board). It’s where I do all my jewelry stuff and computering (drawing/writing – I use my eee PC for internets).