Let it snow, etc...

Well, the appraiser was willing to risk the drive from Greeley Friday. He was just 45 minutes late because he had to shovel his walk and such before leaving. Now we have a third realtor coming to do a market estimate and she's supposed to get here at 8:30 A.M. from Boulder. And did I mention it's supposed to snow again? We'll just have to see if she's as brave as the rest have been. Maybe I'll get lucky though this time.

I didn't need oxygen anyway

So, there I was, two days after a blizzard, with all the windows in the house open and it was all the fault of my new best friend. Who I seriously hope never to see again. Some may wonder what the name of this unpopular friend would be. The answer is Goof-off!

I swear by Dog and a stack of Bibles that from now on that if I paint I will immediately clean up anything that I spill and not leave it on doors and cupboards for four years to harden into colorful little rock streaks. Even with Goof-off the removal process required hours and a huge helping of elbow grease which is causing me to want to fall over from exhaustion as I write this.

My husband, who took the kids to his parents to confine all potential brain-damage to one family member, kept calling throughout the day to make sure I hadn't passed out or anything. He even offered to come back and help me but I couldn't think of anything for him to do except add some muscle and since he's the breadwinner it didn't seem practical to have him losing IQ points along with me.

Fortunately, I'm done with all that. Now I can move on to: touching up the paint in every room, cleaning every room in a way it's never seen before, and pulling all the weeds that missed the memo that it was too early to grow yet. See, nearly done.

Snow Day!

Since the short types were already on Spring Break nothing much changed for them when the weather report called for 12"-19" of snow in our area. Particularly since my dad was able to pick them up for an overnight at the grandparents as was already scheduled. I did find out tonight though that they almost got hit twice on the way to his house and the drive took half-again as long as usual. This means we're not exactly sure when the kids are coming home, as it completely depends on the state of the roads.

On the other hand, Beloved had intended to go to work in Cheyenne today but decided to stay home after hearing there was a wreck on the inter-state he takes between here and there. It ended up being a good thing because he would have just had to come home as soon as he got there or risk having the roads closed and being stuck there for a day or two.

Since he was home, and the kids were gone after about 10:30 we watched the next DVD of Babylon 5 from Netflix and caught up another six or so episodes of Bleach on youtube. I also got a lot of mending done which is good because I need to move my work basket as part of pre-sale cleaning and anything in the basket that hasn't been taken care of will probably not be seen again until we unpack it in Missouri. There was also the Appraiser visit, which was really good having Beloved home to talk to him, brownie making, and much shoveling of snow. I helped with that the first time, and hope never to again experience the sensation of snow blowing into my ears, but used the promise of nice, fresh from the oven brownies as bait to get out of helping the second time.

I'm rather curious how much snow we're going to get and if the second appraiser will make an appearance or choose not to brave the roads tomorrow.

Clean Pantry

Too tired to post, but at least the pantry is clean and has just enough stuff on the shelves to look like there's lots of food in there with lots of room left over.

And finally, the knowledge bit

The subheading of my blog title is "needlework, knowledge, and the thunder of eight not-so-little feet." I've noticed recently that I've posted mainly about family stuff, a little about fiber stuff, and not at all about books or other knowledge gained. Now is the time to fix that.

In a non-book format most of what I've been learning lately is of a political nature and I really don't want to get into that here as that's not the point of this blog. So, although that has been interesting and often enlightening, it doesn't particularly count, even though there has been much knowledge gained. A lot of the reason there hasn't been much book reading going on is that our library was closed for renovations until a week ago. Usually I would have been going to the used book store or Barnes & Nobel and the like but, with my Beloveds doctor's appointments and the oddness that is life after a cancer diagnosis in the family, it just didn't seem all that important. And then, last week, the library reopened.

I checked out four non-fiction books, one American graphic novel, and one manga from a series I'd never read. This is a fairly common amount of books for me to check out as we get two weeks of check-out and a one week grace period. I tend to treat that as meaning a three week check-out, but I probably shouldn't.

So far I have read two of the non-fiction and the manga and started both of the other non-fiction but put one aside when it seemed too depressing to read right now. My Beloved and oldest daughter have read the graphic novel, a compilation of Conan the Barbarian comics from the 70's so I haven't been able to get near it yet. Beloved has also read one of the non-fiction that I've read. It is titled Problem Solving 101 and was originally written in a push for Japanese school-children to focus more on problem solving skills than plain fact memorization. Interestingly enough, he thinks that the book and the corporate training his company started recently have a common background. I'll have to see if I can get the two oldest to read it in the remaining two weeks. Oops, one week and then I renew...yeah, that's the good library patron way.

Fraptious day!

I have arrived! Not only did I get my first comment from a complete stranger, at least I didn't recognize the name, but a comment I left on another blog was mentioned favorably in a later post by that blogger! It is a strangely heady feeling to find that people I've never met are spending at least a moment of their precious time reading what I've written.

Spring break at the in-laws

Spring break has sprung for the short types. Given that getting the house ready to sell is the main focus of the adults in our household, I am so glad to be spending the first couple of days with my in-laws. While here I will be getting a break as well. The times that we spend here are generally as close to a vacation as I come. No chores, no meal planning, little to no responsibility of any kind. Heaven, in other words. I do feel sorry for my MIL though as she is essentially getting six children, even if only for a short time.

This is something that I will miss terribly when we move away. In fact, it is one of the few things I come close to actually being afraid about. I have never raised four children without the support of four grandparents only half-an-hour away if an emergency comes up, and such a situation has arisen a couple of times in the last four and a-half years. The meals my MIL has sent for my Beloveds lunches because "there's just so many left-overs" or my dad picking up the kids from school because the youngest got sick in the middle of the day and I was stuck at the doctor's office. All these are things that I tried not to rely on, although the meal thing I did get sort of addicted to, but were a comforting presence in the back of my mind. I've always said that I can do anything I really need to, and I will manage to do this to. I just don't know how yet.

getting ready to get ready to move

It was only the first step in getting everything ready to list the house and try to get moved out by the end of June and my Beloved and I are both exhausted. It's a huge blessing that both sets of parents came and helped or what happened today may well have taken a week or more, as well as requiring some money to pay to get stuff hauled away and such. I think I have a plan of action for the next couple weeks. Now I just have to actually do the work.

When we got home from church I was noticing how different the house already looked, and not liking the changes at all. Thoughts of "empty" and"soulless" were going through my mind. Two minutes later the kids came in and there were exclamations of "space", "clean", and such. All I can do is hope that potential buyers agree with them and not me.

Darn that blogging challenge

I have nothing to say to day, but if I don't write something this may be the end of my streak. So, here I am, saying that I have nothing to say.

My blog keeps me from blogging

There is probably one single factor that interferes most with getting a post in. That factor is...my blogger's dashboard. My dashboard is wonderful. It has the approximately half dozen blogs that I follow all in a tidy accessible area as well as a listing of recent posts from all of them. Thus, whenever I open my blog I am immediately welcomed into a fascinating world of other people's blog posts. Their commenters are generally great as well and that naturally doubles the time of reading. In fact, for the several months in which I never posted I was still accessing my blog every day. To read other peoples posts. Endlessly. And check for comments. Many times a day. Somehow I never quite found the time to actually write anything myself. It was only with the group challenge that I decided to write about whatever I thought and not worry about how bored a potential reader might be. Upside, I have written for four days straight. Downside, at this quality of writing I'll be lucky if I can even get my family to read. Oh well, I guess what's never writ is never read and this way there's at least something for some brave soul to try to wade through.

Old friends and security blankets

The bamboo fiber I've been spinning has taken me a month or more to finish the four ounces. Even though I love the colors and think I'll really enjoy knitting the project I have planned for it I haven't particularly liked the spinning process. My plan was to put the wheel up once I finished but as I was winding the yarn off I realized that I just can't put it away for what would most likely be several months. Part of it is that I need a low-manual-dexterity activity to offset all the moving stuff I need to do to get the house ready. The other part is that with so much either undecided or completely out of our control I need something familiar and soothing to offset. I hadn't really thought about it before but it's possible that my wheel is my oldest possession. I know that I have several small gifts from childhood but I'm pretty sure that the wheel is the oldest item that I chose and purchased myself.

two blogs and weird games

Just discovered the problem with having a second, unrelated blog. Had a lovely post going about my new toy, the MMORPG Chore Wars and my plans to get the kids signed up tomorrow, when I realized I was on the wrong blog! I suppose I should be glad I hadn't hit "publish" yet. Anyway, I'm still hoping to talk My Beloved into joining as well since he does a fair number of the chores around here.

Writting Challenge

A member of one of the Ravelry groups I belong to challenged everyone in the group with a blog to write every day in March. As I rarely check that group, this is the first day I read the challenge. Oddly enough, the reason I haven't been writing isn't that I have had nothing to say. In fact, I have written several posts in my head. I just never got around to putting them on paper, or computer as the case may be.

One of the ideas for starting a post was titled "Blog the Mundane" with the suggestion to blog about something simple like a picture of oneself in ones favorite writing position. The example was, "do you like to blog with your feet up on your desk?" Since there was no picture, I have to admit that I can't imagine using a computer with my feet on the desk. Although, to be sure, that may simply show a lack of mental flexibility that mirrors my decided lack of physical flexibility.

As for my mundane, let's see...The weather was dry and warm, I pulled four bags of weeds in the front flower bed and didn't paint the new supports in the little girls' closet. I put that off for tomorrow and you can't get much more mundane than that.