Long time, no update

So... it's been a while since I last updated. My CTS (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) has been kicking my ass & I havent' been able to hold my needles, let alone the weight of my current projects. But I'm beginning to feel a little better (Mineral Ice is my new best friend!).
So, here's the quick update. Brandon & I are buying a house!!! We close at the end of July & I cannot wait!!!! The cleaning/packing has already begun. Two bags are already filled & just waiting to go to Goodwill. And soon comes... DECORATING!!!! I have so many ideas flowing 'round my shortly shorn little head (oh yeah, did I mention, I got a truly horrible short haircut. Well, if I hadn't yet, I just did).
And as far as projects go, I am still working on the king-size basket-weave crocheted afghan, queen-size Phoenix Coyotes duplicate-stitch afghan (that one doesn't have to be done until next hockey season though, phew!), quilt for Ellie & Alexander (one Care Bear, the other Disney princesses), kimono shawl, and several other small projects.
Hopefully I'll have some project pics soon, but for now, pictures of the new house will have to suffice. P.S.-We're buying it from a cute Marine & his girlfriend. They're super nice, but have a very country style. It will look different after the decorating.


We're the house on the right. It's just these two houses on the lot (right now the other house is not occupied & won't be for some time. The owner is doing major repairs to the home, but doesn't seem to be in any hurry. They think it will become a Habitat for Humanity house once it's fixed up). The lot backs up to a dead-end street that can't be seen through the trees on our lot & on one side is an old bakery (again, not inhabited) and on the other side is an old bottling plant. The plant is also not occupied, but in theory, if Pulaski becomes a metropolis & has businesses just begging to come to town, it could be started up again. I think we're safe :)




The living room is right off the back entrance & porch. The door you see lead to the sunroom & off to the left is the dining room, which is pictured below.

This is our fun spacious kitchen & breakfast nook (foreground, but hardly visible). To the left is the hallway off the front entrance.

Upstairs is the bathroom, two bedrooms, study & this beautiful add-on excercise room (it will be partly excercise room, partly crafting room. Yay!!)

It's been...

a very long time. I know. I'm awful. But in my defense, life has been turned upside down & my darling boyfriend is trying to finish the first draft of his novel (160,000 words at the moment!!) and is monopolizing the computer.
So.... here goes a quick summation of life since my last post. Thanksgiving & Christmas celebrations for Brandon's side of the family were at our house this year. I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner all by myself. And the turkey turned out amazingly well!! (Though I did slice a large chunk off the side of my index finger off when trying to break down the leftover bird, ouch...) We also had homemade: stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, gravy, rolls, & whipped vanilla cream. I took a lot of pride in making everything from scratch. Next year, I won't have anything to prove, so I may just buy the rolls :) We put up the Christmas tree on Thankgiving night, as always. Christmas on Bran's side of the family was uneventful. The tree is still up (for shame), but I did manage to get all the decorations off on New Year's day like a good girl. Just never got around to taking down the tree.
On Christmas eve, my "niece" (my aunt's foster daughter that they are currently trying to adopt) was admitted to the hospital with severe bleeding problems, kidney & liver failure. They did not expect her to make it, but like the little 3 year old tropper that she is, she has finally regained consciousness. She is still in the pediatric intensive care unit at UVA, and has more severe brain damage than she had before (she was born to a mother addicted to drugs & has suffered from severe dibilitating seizures her entire life), but my aunt & uncle are ecstatic that she has regained as much of her old self as she has. She will never be able to talk; they don't think she'll be able to walk, but she is here :)
Then in January, my grandfather passed away very, very suddenly. He died of a heart attack in his driveway while my grandmother was in Shawville taking care of her other granddaughter (my 2 year old cousin Charlotte). She beat herself up for not being there with him for quite a while, but now seems to be doing as well as possible, all things considered.
Latest issue has been my mom. She's now doing a little better physically & mentally than she has been, but while she was in the hospital this last time, her credit card was stolen & long story short, she now owes the bank $5,000 in fraudulent charges. My family cannot afford a lawyer to fight this, so we have to eat the debt. And my bank has confiscated my paycheck to pay for my mother's debt. If my phone number hadn't been listed on my account, I never even would have been notified. They left a message on my cell phone for my mother, thinking it was her number, and then cleaned the account. Needless to say, I am up a creek. This is where my paychecks are automatically deposited, my bills are paid automatically from this act & it is the only money I have to buy food, gas, toiletries & all other necessities for getting through life. Thank goodness for Brandon. If not for him, I would be out on the street. I have had this bank account for 24 years (it was started for me by my family when my mother & father found out they were pregnant) & am going to be forced to close the account so as not to have my paychecks stolen to pay someone else's debt (since I should not need to assume her debt unless something happens to both her & my father).
But I have been doing a little something crafty to help calm my nerves. Mostly, I've been eating :) But I did make this little guy tonight. I call him Gus. He's for a woman at work who asked me to make her a turtle. I think he's a charming little fellow :)

"It's alive!"

So I have been eaten by holiday work-time. The day job is requiring a lot of extra time this year. What is not mandatory from management is mandatory by my immediate supervisor. Yes, I do get paid real honest-to-goodness overtime pay, but I cannot even being to describe my horror & stress at being in that building any longer than I have to. Too bad there's no other place around here that pays as well.
I must apologize for being so negligent in my blogging. But all in all, not too much to tell until this weekend. And then.... all hell broke loose at my house.
The bf & I did some ET on Sunday night, and then after that nearly 12-hour day, we come home to find our water heater has blown up & is drenching our kitchen. Yeah. Great. And all this on a work night. While both of us are on warnings for attendance at work, we had to take a personal day to get the thing repaired. And then, Repair-guy installed a new water heater, said wait an hour & try it. Flash forward one hour: no hot water... AND no water pressure in the kitchen. Worse off now than when the water heater was leaking. So, we try and call the repairman. No answer. Goodie. We were slated to leave the next morning to go to Charlotte, NC for a Charlotte Checkers game. And we were determined to go. So Brandon's mother graciously offered to come over to the house while the repairman was there if we had to leave before he was done. So flash forward again to 9am Tuesday: Repair-guy calls. Says he's coming right over. Well, I take off to pay the utilities & internet & get the oil changed in the car while repair-guy is on his way. At 10:30, Brandon texts me. Says still no repair-guy. Beauty. The day is starting out so well...
But before we leave, he is able to correct the hot water issue, and Bran's mom comes over so we can go. Repair-guy got other issue fixed after a couple more hours. And surprise! He even fixed the leaky faucet! Yay!!
And... cut to our drive to Charlotte. A little rainy. Brandon drove & I played navigator. Uneventful drive. It was easier to get there than I had anticipated. And then we get to the hotel. We had decided to try an adventurous little inn right in uptown Charlotte. Its claim to fame was themed suites. We got the "Romance Suite". Ha ha ha! A Queen size bed that has a heart-shaped jacuzzi directly beside it. Yep, in the same room. On a slightly raised platform, but if you played your cards right, you could step out of bed & into the jacuzzi. And it had very poorly applied "tropical" wallpaper. And cable tv. OMG, how crappy is cable? Seriously, I never knew until this. I've always had satellite & I suppose I am slightly spoiled. But jeez, we couldn't even watch the tv to relax.
After we checked in to the hotel, we had a couple of hours to kill. We decided to walk around town, see if there was anything "tourist-y" so pressing that we had to see it before the game. Nope. We did spot some cute little taverns/pubs & coffee shops. And we ate at this great restaraunt: Rock Bottom Brewery. They had great microbrewed beer. I had a beautiful Gorgonzola, pear, and grilled chicken salad & spicy tomato bisque. Brandon got a hickory smoked burger & fries. Suprise!! I got a "Growler" of beer to go. When the waitress mentioned it, I was expecting a Schooner with a lid. What I got was a gallon of beer in a brown glass bottle. I looked like a lush trying to carry that down S Tryon Street. I decided to stick it in my purse :)
The Charlotte Checkers v Augusta Lynx game was pretty cool. It was my first hockey game. Not quite NHL, but they are feeder/affiliate teams with the NHL. Brandon & I were right behind the home penalty box. Everytime a Charlotte player got a penalty, we were up on the Jumbotron screen. And after the game, one of the officials gave us an official game puck! That was pretty durned cool, if I do say so myself.
Cut to the drive home: Me behind the wheel, Bran asleep in the passenger street. It rained from about 10 minutes outside of Charlotte all the way into Radford. Rain, fog, roadwork. Still a relatively uneventful drive, just not a relaxing one. And after we got home, I cleaned up the kitchen, got rid of the moldy smell from the water leak, washed clothes/dishes & started a baby blanket for the sister-in-law who's due the week of Valentine's day. Anyone have a good pattern for a little boy that's not a blanket or a sweater??
Well, that's it. Next post will be shorter, I promise. Less to catch up on. And some pics of stuff recently started or finished! Blessed be, all!!

I am addicted to online quizzes

You are The Magician

Skill, wisdom, adaptation. Craft, cunning, depending on dignity.

Eleoquent and charismatic both verbally and in writing,
you are clever, witty, inventive and persuasive.

The Magician is the male power of creation, creation by willpower and desire. In that ancient sense, it is the ability to make things so just by speaking them aloud. Reflecting this is the fact that the Magician is represented by Mercury. He represents the gift of tongues, a smooth talker, a salesman. Also clever with the slight of hand and a medicine man - either a real doctor or someone trying to sell you snake oil.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

And now we know what Tarot card I would be according to whatever site it was I was on... Oh and I just have to share!!! Lookie what Brandon bought me for my birthday!! This... oh, and this! Just thought I would share the lovelies!! Have a great day all. I am off to work out. I swear I will weigh less by Winter Solstice.

Here be photos

Come one, come all!! To the greatest show in town. No, really it's just some photos of recent objects. As I mentioned in the previous post, I have finished the knitting for my Ravenclaw house bag. And here it is, in all its Fair Isle goodness:

And a close-up. And no, I still haven't attempted the blocking. Right now it's being flattened out by my double-points. Still looks ok even without the finishing touches added. I have a beautiful leather purse handle I've been wanting to use, but it's just a little too short for the size of this bag. Oh well, I'll figure out some sort of strappy-thing to add on.

Lastly, this weekend is my birthday!!!! Yay, for 24. I feel like my life is just whizzing by, and I'm stuck on the side of the road w/ a busted tire (all the while knitting another scarf/purse). But for my birthday, I'll be going up to Winchester, VA to rescue my piano from the storage unit it;s been trapped in for two years. I cannot wait!! My piano used to be my life; and I have not touched one in a very long time. I'm actually quite afraid to see how far my talent has degraded. But eventually I will build my finger strength & coordination back up. The next time you hear from me, I will be one piano richer & a much happier person :)

Love & light-- Heather