Fires Update

Just wanted to let everyone know that my Mom and her house are safe. She was able to get in yesterday but not able to stay since there is no power.

It was a very close escape though. The fire burnt to within four feet of her house on one side and up to the pool on the other. The house had no damage except for minimal ash on the inside. I think my Mom was saved by prompt attention from firefighters as well as the wildfire prevention that was built in to all of the houses in her neighborhood. That allowed mainly the brush to burn without seriously affecting the houses.

PHEW!

My mom said to thank everyone for the psychic anti-fire dance they've been doing for her - she thinks it worked! :) She feels VERY lucky to have her house undamaged.

Thanks to everyone who expressed their concern. I really appreciate knowing that other people out there care!

And now I'm going to bed because I came down with an awful cold in the middle of all of this - stress much?? ;)

Please, please, please!!

Send good thoughts/vibes or say a little prayer for my family today.

My mom was evacuated from her house in So. Cal today due to the wildfires. The fire is virtually at her back door. There's a real possibility that she will lose her house.

There's nothing anyone can do about it at this point and I'm trying to keep perspective and remember that at least my Mom is safe - but the thought of the house going up in flames is still very very distressing.

Please keep us in your thoughts!!

Nothing to see here...move along....

Sorry not much blogging - unfortunately not much blog worthy going on. :(

Kitchen still in suspended animation. We took two steps forward and one step back this week. The usual. We've got the hutch & the glass (minus one panel we needed, of course) installed. So that's good. But the second set of pantry doors they sent were still wrong so now we are back to square one and the groceries are still piled in the front room.

Sigh.

I admit that there's one thing that makes me feel better and that the arrival of our kitchen table. We had one handmade out of mahogany. It's gorgeous & does make the kitchen feel substantially more finished.

So - we are at four months and counting for a supposedly two month job. I'm hanging in there but at this point Hubbs and I have lost the will to redo the bathrooms.

Other than that...how about those Red Sox? I'm hoping for them to win the World Series.

Oh - and Libby has had gas for two weeks. And an episode of diarrhea that you don't want to hear about!

Still knitting. Many things finished but no time to take photos. Hopefully next time!

Hope all is well with all of my bloggy pals out there!

Nephew's Sweater

I finally have some photos to post -

This is my cutiepie nephew in the Vestee (Knitty) sweater I knit for him.



I think it looks really good on him - if I do say so myself!

I used Zitron yarn and loved working with it. Nice and squooshy.



Hopefully I'll get some more photos taken tomorrow. I have tons of FO's to show you!

Welcome to Fall!

Yeeow! Long time no blog, eh?

Well I've been busy y'all. Maybe some of you gals with kids feel the same as I do about the beginning of the school year. It's a mixed bag - yeah you "get rid of" the kids for a good portion of the day, but somehow you find yourself even busier than ever. I think it becomes a mad dash to catch up on all of the tasks that get left hanging over the lazy days of summer.

So...kitchen STILL not done. In fact there has been no significant progress since I last blogged - that's three weeks ago. Many more stupid screw ups. Glass inserts for the cabinet doors are a good example. We are sent an order which turns out to only be half the pieces that we actually need. Of the half we get, half of those are cut to the wrong dimensions. Of the half that are the right dimensions, half of those have a defect in the pattern and are unusable. We get two glass panels out of the whole lot. Repeat that whole process twice and that brings you up to date. We're still four glass panels short.

Our groceries (aside from refrigerated items) are still being "stored" on the living room floor. Because we still don't have doors to the pantry. Until the doors are installed we can't put up shelves because we won't have the exact dimensions of the interior pantry space. Oh, there were doors delivered. But, you guessed it - instead of two large doors for each of the two closets, we were sent four doors, each of which were exactly half the size they were supposed to be.

Seriously - it is enough to make me blow a gasket. Instead, I am doing my best to ignore it. What else can I do? :(

Well - I can knit. I've got the two baby blankets sewn together, ends woven in, and borders knitted. I've only got a teeny teeny bit of sewing up left to do on the borders - and then POOF! Two baby blankets done. It's been a lot of work but I've really enjoyed it. And I think I'll be pretty proud of the results.

Oh - and I did a MAJOR clean out of my closet. I ended up with 12 (!) large green trash bags of clothes and shoes to give away. If it was fugly, didn't fit or hadn't been worn in the past year, I tossed it. It was brutal - but oh so satisfying. I had shoes still left over from high school! I guess I never could see the sense in throwing away perfectly good shoes - even though I never would wear them. But man, - a major overhaul like that feels good. Literally a weight off! And my walk in closet is truly walk-inable now. I don't even think it was this clean and organized when I moved in here!

Had the contractors over here a few days ago to measure the master bath and another upstairs bathroom. Both need to be totally re-done. But you can bet your life I won't be turning anymore $$ of mine over until the first job is actually finished. So, at this rate I guess, look for finished bathrooms sometime in 2010.