Another Year, Another Milestone

Despite the mile-high stack of items still on my summer "to-do" list, summer has had the indecency to wander off with barely a "hey, how's it going?" or even a "here, would you like some good weather to remember me by?" She's kind of sanguine that way.

And that means that fall has sidled in the front door, silent as a cat. I noticed him sitting at my table the other day drinking his tea as though it was the most natural thing in the world to have the leaves changing, the days cool, and the "back-to-school" sales breaking out all over town.

Jude's first day of school is tomorrow. He is actually going to school this year, as opposed to staying home for it, and he is very very excited. He has been setting his alarm for 7:00 a.m. all week (which means we have all been waking up then, for the alarm is loud, screeching, and annoying to the -nth degree). The school shoes and new backpack have been bought, the lunch is packed, the bussing arrangements are arranged. Now, if only he could sleep! ;-)

Noah and Jabin are pretty excited about school, too. Their math and printing workbooks came in the mail yesterday, and they begged until I let them do a few pages from each today. We are not officially beginning our home school until Monday, as I have other things to finish up and some last-minute preparations before then, but it was pretty easy to oversee their activities today while I was going about my own.

As far as our housing situation, we are still trying to get our addition here. (I'm praying that that happens this weekend!) However, the trailer itself is feeling a little homier every day. The kitchen cabinets are now painted, and I was re-hanging them tonight. All I have left to paint now is the bathroom and some of the trim around the house. Once the addition comes, it will also need paint. And new flooring, which has been bought and is waiting patiently to be unrolled.

This whole moving thing is a pain. Whose idea was it, anyway? :-)

Well, I better go try and settle down a little earlier tonight than I have been. I am not sure who finds it harder to adjust from a Northern summer to a Northern fall--the kids, or me! However, despite the fact that it is WAY too short of a season at this latitude, it is still one of my favourite times of year.

"I love [Peace River] in the fall. If I knew where you lived, I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils." - Joe Fox, You've Got Mail (slightly altered by yours truly)

"Owl Eyes on You" Hat in my store

This pattern, over a year in the designing (that happens sometimes), is finally done. Inspired by the challenge of getting a seamless, one-piece toque in a rectangular shape to make it simple to create "owl ears", this two-tone topper will look adorable on the little man or lady in your life!

I had extra fun making these, as I got to use some vintage buttons bequeathed to me by my grandma, which she had salvaged off of old coats.

You can find this pattern in my shop at www.mysecretwish.ca.

Sock Marathon

This summer, I noticed something amazing.

For the first time in years, I was able to move a pair of socks from one boy's drawer to another, and there was still not even the hint of holes in them.

The socks were these, and they were passed from Noah to Jabin.

How many Walmart sport socks have I thrown out in the last year? I really don't want to do the math on that one.

However, that little milestone proved to me that the time spent making home-made wool socks is actually worth it. Especially if I keep to a basic ribbed pattern so that it's a no-brainer and as quick as possible to knit.

So, this summer, when I have had time to sit (and REMEMBERED my knitting) I have been working like crazy to get at least one new pair of warm woolies made for every member of my family. (Hey, this year I might even get some socks made for myself! It could happen!)

Here's what I've got so far (in order of construction):

Noah's (yes, he picked the yarn himself!):

Jude's (also his own choice of yarn):

Jabin's (caught me, only half done, therefore, no foot shot):

Besides my kids' feet, my home is starting to look a little more cozy every day, too. We're not done, yet, but every little bit helps!

Suddenly Busy Part 3

Well, in order to make this post about the last two weeks seem somewhat shorter and less dry to the casual reader (since anyone not directly involved in them may care a lot less than I do), I am going to put the highlights in bullet form.

• After returning from our weekend in Sylvan Lake on Tuesday, Aug. 2, we knew we had our work cut out for us. The first stop for me was the paint store. For Jason, it was the hardware store--his trips there became almost daily. I'm sure he now knows all the employees by first name. Fortunately, he was just beginning his scheduled holidays, so had plenty of time with helping to get our new house ready! His main accomplishments that week were getting the trailer levelled with the help of our friend Brian, getting the pressure pump moved over from the other trailer and getting that and the septic hooked up, and getting the electrician here by Friday so we could bathe again. Yay!
• By Saturday morning, we were cheering because Jude came back into the holiday trailer from his bathroom break to report that there was hot water. The celebration was short-lived, however. After only three quick showers, Jabin's bath-water came out cold. I waited four hours before trying to have my shower, and within five minutes the water was cold. Hmmph. Guess we'll need to change out the water heater.
• We are now referring to our three homes as the "new trailer", the "holiday trailer" or "camper", and the "old trailer", or, more affectionately, the "parts trailer".
• The first part to come in from the "parts trailer" was our other water heater. Jason changed it out by himself on Sunday, which was quite the job. I continued painting.
• Upon removing the first baseboard from the dining room to start painting, I discovered (horrors!) mould behind it. And the same behind the second board, which came from the peninsula adjoining it. Further inspection (by removing the peninsula and lifting up the wall panel) revealed the bottom part of the wall frame to be damp, but there to be no rot or damage in the wall or behind the poly. We concluded it was from a leak from either the dishwasher or the sink, but since we had no running water at the time, had to wait a week to confirm it. In the meantime, we let the wall dry out and discovered we liked the kitchen better without the peninsula in it. Bonus!
• Turns out it was a leak from the faucet, which is a really old unilever-style. When you lift it to the hot side, water pours out around the base. Changing out the kitchen faucet from the "parts trailer" is pretty high on Jason's "to-do" list right now (but really low on his "things-I-enjoy-doing" list! We had just put the other one in last winter, and it is much nicer, anyway--although, a real pain-in-the-you-know-what to deal with, apparently.)
• Painting jobs completed: Living room; kitchen; Jude's room; alcove in our bedroom. Still to do: hallway; bathroom; dining room; kitchen cabinets.
• While revamping the peninsula design, Jason built me a "weathered-wood"-look set of display shelves at the end of my cupboards from some old pallets. He does not really enjoy carpentry work, and I am so proud of him. He did a great job, and I absolutely love them! (I can't post photos right now, due to computer issues. I will be posting the "grand photo tour" once we are done renovating, anyway.)
• We spent our first night in our new home on Wednesday, which happened to be my 34th birthday. My friend Laurie C. commented on my Facebook update about this, "Lucky girl! Not everybody gets a new house for her birthday!" She's right! :-D
• Jabin's sock (see yesterday's post) has been successfully frogged and is well on it's way to complete recovery. I finally got over my grumpiness about my mistake. I'm not sure if that could be called an "adventure in knitting", but hopefully the "inconvenience" did teach me to inspect my heels carefully before moving past them from now on!

And that's about it!... so far.

Angels Among Us

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. 
An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." 
- G. K. Chesterton

Last Sunday night, I grafted the toe on the first of a pair of socks destined to grace Jabin's footies, wove in the end, and immediately after I clipped the yarn I noticed that when I had turned the heel, I had managed to skip about 8 stitches, leaving about an inch of yarn running straight across the bottom of the heel in a most inconvenient manner. Non-knitters may wonder how I managed to do that, but the technical explanation will leave you glassy-eyed, so just trust me that it can be done. This was actually the second sock in a row I had managed to do this magic trick on, but the first time, I caught the mistake after only a few rows. This time, I was finished the sock. Deep down, I knew that the only way to really fix this problem was going to be to frog ("rippit, rippit") it back to the offending row and re-do the last few hours of work. Grumpily, I tossed it aside.

I thought of that sock a lot yesterday. I wished I had it with me to ease the tension, or (more like) the boredom, I was experiencing on my current "adventure".

You see, the day before as I left the house for a day of shopping and errands in Grande Prairie, I looked at my long, long list and the thought crossed my mind to bring my knitting. What would be the point in that? I wondered. I never have time to knit on an "errands day" anyway, especially one in G.P. So I left it at home.

By that night, as I was trying to wind down in the holiday trailer belonging to the couple we had bought our new home from at their farm near Teepee Creek (about forty-five minutes from G.P.), I was wondering what normal people did when they had nothing to do. And by "normal", of course, I mean "those who aren't obsessive-compulsive knitters". I wondered about it even more yesterday, as I twiddled my thumbs around the town of Sexsmith, waiting for my van to be repaired so we could finally go home. Had I only thought to bring my knitting, I could have finished those socks today, with no guilt for the amount of hours taken away from renovating to do it! I lamented.

As it was, the kids and I got well acquainted with the one-horse town of Sexsmith before the van was repaired and we were on our way at 4:30. Also, I texted to Jason a lot! :-D

See, I had been going to check on the addition (which is still at the previous owners' old farmyard) and to get the pantry shelves for my kitchen which I knew were leaning against the wall of the storage room there. On the way back toward the highway, I was squinting into the sun, low in the west, when I hit a huge mound of gravel on the road which had been squished up by the large trucks that often travelled there. A mile later, my van completely overheated, binging at me wildly. Sure enough, that gravel had blasted my fan belt in two, and it was now firmly wrapped around my water pump and alternator and was visible hanging from the bottom of my van from twenty feet away.

Fortunately, I knew that the folks we had bought our trailer from lived in a family farmhouse they had just inherited, and it was only a few miles away. In fact, I had seen their pickup truck in the hay field next to the addition when I had stopped there, so I knew they were around. God allowed my phone call to get through, despite the spotty cell phone service where I was parked, and Karen was soon on her way with Barry to rescue me.

Did they ever  (rescue me, I mean)--for a couple we barely know, who owe us no favours, they went beyond the extra mile. Karen took my kids back to their house while Barry and I did a "farmer-tow" of the van back to the yard where the addition is. Then we headed over to their house so I could update Jason and decide what to do. By then, B&K had offered to let us sleep in the holiday trailer, and were already brainstorming about the closest tow truck and mechanic.

In the morning, to save us the nearly $300 it would have cost to get a tow truck out of G.P. to haul us to Sexsmith, they borrowed a car-hauler trailer from their neighbour, and Karen took us to town herself, to the mechanic that Barry had arranged for first thing. This was after a full, farm breakfast, and on a day with plenty of haying still to be done (the rain has pushed the whole season quite late, this year).

Honestly, I wasn't really stressed out about the whole thing at any point. As I told Karen on the way into town, "This isn't the most exciting adventure I've ever had..." Maybe it is because of the fact that I have been in far worse pickles, and things have always ended up okay, that this seemed more like a little unplanned adventure than anything else.

So what did I learn from this particular adventure? I mean, besides the fact that there are still really kind and generous people in the world?

Never leave home without my knitting again, of course!

(The next "Suddenly Busy" update will be coming "soon"--I promise! *heh, heh*)

Suddenly Busy Part 2

The next morning, we got up early and continued preparing for the move that we hoped and prayed would be happening within hours. (I guess it was a good thing that it hadn't happened the previous day--we wouldn't have been ready!)

The first step of the move was to transfer our old trailer from its previous location to blocks in another part of our yard. Because it wasn't going far, and we didn't really have another place to store everything, most of our stuff and all of our furniture were staying in the house.

We thought that was a good plan. The movers didn't. They muttered something about insurance not covering it if the frame folded in half, but we really had no other option, so we said to go ahead and do it anyway.

There were some pretty interesting moments in the process of moving that heavy trailer on the soft ground, but by mid-afternoon it was done, and the frame hadn't even creaked. We were hopeful that the next day would see our new home sitting on the location that had just been vacated. We had to wait to see if the movers would have time the next day, as they seem to be contracted to a local mobile home company, who get first priority.

It was about 9 p.m. last Thursday night that we got the call that yes, we could move our new house the next morning. The drive to get there takes about two hours, so they wanted to get an early start. We were to meet them in P.R. at 7 a.m. so we could guide them to our destination! Also, the new house would need a different hitch than our old one had, so we would have to stop along the way and hope that there was the right kind available. (Why can't they standardize these things?!)

So, bright and early, we got started. To make a long story a little briefer, we did get our new trailer that day, but not the addition, which will be moved a little later. There were some interesting moments with that one, too, so it didn't pull into our driveway until about 4:30 in the afternoon. We beat some heavy rain to get it blocked up, which Jason did while I grabbed a couple of tarps from home, a ladder, hammer, and nails and headed BACK down to where we had just got it from to cover up the exposed insulation on the side of the addition. (About 8-9 hours of driving for me that day. Whee!)

After a very, very long day, we sank into bed, completely exhausted, but excited to know that we were finally making progress in our move--and ready for another long day in the van when we woke up, as we were heading to Sylvan Lake for the weekend. Jason's grandpa had passed away in February, and the memorial service was being held in Red Deer on the Sunday, so we knew that all the work we were wanting to do to set up our new place would have to wait until we got home.

On Saturday, we were on the road again, heading for sunnier Central Alberta.

To be continued again! :-D

Suddenly Busy Part 1

We have spent most of the summer waiting for it to quit raining long enough to move our "new" mobile home here. As wonderful as all that rain has been for my garden, it made things not very conducive to moving heavy objects.

Last week, the rain started to slow down. On the first two days, Amanda and I butchered the 42 surviving broiler chickens from the fifty we had started with. Amanda and I, being co-owners of the birds, were there both Monday and Tuesday, with some extra help on both days (thank goodness!). I did something I didn't think I would be capable of--41 of those head chops were done by me. Amanda held them during the death throes. We made a pretty good team, I think.

Wednesday morning, with about three days of mostly-dry weather (except for the sudden downpour while we were finishing our last five birds Tuesday evening) behind us, I called the mover.

"Do you think you could move our trailer this week?"

Typical humming and hawing ensued on the other end of the line, with a sudden "Maybe we could do it this afternoon," thrown in there at the end.

We weren't ready for that, but there was no way I was going to turn him down! I called Jason at work, said, "You need to come home NOW!" and then started what would be three days of a frantic pace. The rest of Wednesday was spent moving my kitchen into the holiday trailer (in which we had only been sleeping up to that point) and packing the rest of the house (most things just got moved to the floor), while Jason worked on disconnecting all the utilities. There was an hour and a half of torture in the afternoon while we watched two inches of rain fall, with some hail thrown in for good measure, and we wondered if all of our energy had been expended for naught. However, the mover said he would have his guys come out and take a look the next morning, and maybe it could still be done Thursday.

We held our breath. And prayed.

To be continued...