Photo update

I'm pretty sure that the recipient of this sweater/sock set doesn't read my blog. But even if she does, she doesn't know I'm making her a present. So this is pretty safe. Aren't they adorable?!

The sweater pattern is Double Scoop and the socks are from here.

















And here is an overdue photo of the items sent to Dulaan 2006. The variegated maroon hat and blue irish hiking scarf were contributed by blogless Erin. Also, the brightly colored fair isle on the left was made with leftover yarn that Erin gave me at a GTG. I used up every bit that she brought!

Please don't ask for patterns for the fair isle hats. I made them up as I went. :-) I can send you a more detailed photo if that helps...



And last, a photo showing how much our party tired out Stewart. This is the day after. He's sleeping on my old painted theater canvases. They aren't soft, but somehow he manages to be very comfortable on them.

He also likes to sleep on the piano, so clearly he is a cat that likes a firm bed!

Hello again

Up until 3pm on Friday I was preparing for our party - an open house to celebrate our house's 100th birthday and our third anniversary of living there. My parents arrived just after 2pm to help with the last minute fruit and vegetable chopping and food layout and R's parents arrived right at 3 to add their edible contributions to the layout.

Guests started trickling in around 3:30, and we had a lovely crowd all afternoon. It was nice enough to use the backyard, so there were a mixture of people inside and out and a number of people had tours of the house. It was a very nice day and I had no trouble falling asleep that night.

Father's Day was unfortunately hot and humid, but we still managed to have a nice day. We began with brunch at our local coffee shop and while Dad spent the afternoon watching the U.S. Open, we all kept ourselves busy. R unfortunately had work to do, I had a wedding present to finish (cross-stitch) and Mom worked on her knitting. We ended the day with dinner out and then spent the remainder of the evening in the backyard.

It has been a relatively quiet week. It looks like the House Tour will be postponed until next September and I've been having major problem trying to work a short row heel on my current pair of Trekking XXL socks. For the moment, I've put them on hold and started a Dulaan 2007 hat to keep me busy on the bus because my other ongoing projects are too big for travel. Two of those big projects are presents that I would like to finish before I start another sweater or tank for me.

I should also add that I went to a great all-day seminar on green building last week. I plan to take the exam in the next few months to be a LEED accredited professional. The competitive spirit in me wants to take it before the other four people in my office (all older men, 3 of which took the same seminar 4 months ago). I'm not in the mood to write a long piece on green building at the moment - you can learn more about the LEED rating system at www.usgbc.org. :-)

Lots to do

At some point, there will be a photo-heavy post to show the things I've done around the house the past few weeks. But there will be people showing up at our house 3 days and 4 1/2 hours from now, and there is still a lot left to do. Tonight there will be carpet stain removal and vacuuming. Tomorrow night I need to make a shopping list and clean up the kitchen. Friday night will be the beginning of food prep and one of us will need to clean the bathrooms. And sometime, the dollhouse needs to get transported upstairs. There are a few other odds and ends that I would like to take care of...but if I don't, I'm the only one who will know...so I'm not even going to mention them. :-)

On the knitting front, the belated shower gift is moving along. I got about 6 rows of the border done on Sunday between the knitting gtg and the Tonys (great show, BTW, even if I didn't agree with some of the winners. And no, I haven't seen any of the shows...this is based solely on what I've read and my general feeling about juke-box musicals). Also on Sunday I completed a gift for a friend who's expecting and continued on a pair of baby socks in Baby Ull (recipient TBD).

I finally mailed the purple cardigan and hat to the baby that was born in April (it is supposed to fit her in the fall) and I mailed my box of items for the Dulaan Project - 14 in all. Those two mailers have been on the mental to-do list for much too long.

Can someone...

...please explain to my coworkers the difference between "Reply" and "Reply to All"?

Because really when an email is sent to everyone in the office about a goodbye lunch on Friday, I don't need to see everyone's response OR read what so-and-so is doing on Friday that will prevent them from coming.

Also, the fact that I'm wearing a WOOL sweater and I have a chill is just wrong.

Things you probably don't care about.

1 - I've finished the painting in the bathroom. Just need to put the hardware back on the doors and window and it's officially done.

2 - Straightening and Cleaning progresses, including getting all of the painting supplies and tools down in the basement where they belong.

3 - The Reds are back in first place and they've won 8 in a row!

4 - The main section of the belated shower gift is done. Now to pick-up stitches around the edge and knit the border.

5 - It looks like it is more expensive to cool the third floor than the first and second. More estimates will be collected and discussion will occur. The good news is that the cost for the first and second floor was at the upper end of the range I expected.

6 - We are almost caught up on laundry...for the moment.

7 - The plumber was not happy when he found out that kitchen sink he was going to be disconnecting was actually on the third floor. I was not happy when he caused water to leak from my office ceiling. (But he didn't do it on purpose and it wasn't much)

8 - I'm hoping that when the 1-800-Got-Junk people leave we will feel like a weight has been lifted to no longer have so much unwanted crap hanging around the house. I'm sure it will help us get a better sense of the space available on the third floor...even if it is hot up there.

9 - 1 hour, 15 minutes until the weekend begins. I'm not dying to get out of here, but I am getting a little tired of looking at window details...

Freedom

It's amazing the freedom I feel now that the network television season is over. If I have something to do that can have TV as background noise, I can find something to watch or put in a DVD. But if I have things to get done that don't involve sitting, I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

The one exception is this coming Sunday. I will be watching the Tonys. :-) And in a couple of weeks there will be a Saturday Reds game on ESPN.

Baseball

The fact that I haven't mentioned the Reds for a little while does not imply that I have stopped following their daily ups and downs. It is merely that it is less fun to proclaim "The Reds are in second!" or "The Reds are 3 games out of first!" or "The Reds have the fourth best record in the NL!" than the previously true "The Reds are in first!"

I was sorry to note that they lost several series in a row and they weren't playing as confidently as they seemed to be in April. But they have not lost their offensive prowess and the pitching has still been capable. Their sweep of the Astros makes me happy and should put them in a good frame of mind for playing their division rival Cardinals.

It's much to early to dream about the playoffs (seriously, a season over .500 would be a big improvement) but it is nice to think that if yesterday was the last day of the season, the Reds would be the Wildcard team. :-)

Monday, monday

Most of the things that I listed on Thursday were done this weekend to some extent, although our hiking trip was postponed. It was really not an attractive weekend for weather - sometimes it was sunny and sometimes there were thunderstorms. But best of all there was a break in the heat, so there was no more sweating while painting this weekend.

Thursday I am taking the day off so we can have a plumber and a heating guy (or girl) come to the house. The plumber will disconnect the sink left in the third floor "kitchen" and the heating guy is going to take with me about central air and the costs involved. It is something we will do eventually, and the cost is the major factor as to whether it will be sooner or later. When we were house hunting, I think we only saw two houses with central air. The first needed major updates and work, but it was high enough in the neighborhood to have a fabulous view of the East End. The second was very nice, but it was on the small side and it was half of a duplex, and R was very much uninterested in sharing a wall. (There may have been other negatives about it, but they have faded.)

We have forced air heat, so fingers crossed that it won't be too expensive and that there is a good solution for cooling the third floor (which isn't connected to the forced air system). I have a feeling that we'll condition the third floor first, just because it makes that space much more usable year-round *and* because we might as well do as much work as we can up there before we start living up there. Also, I'm guessing (and hoping) that it will be less expensive than the rest of the house...

Next, to schedule the junk pickup for the weekend.

Happy Anniversary to me!

7 years ago today was my first day of employment at my current job, which also is the only job I've held since I graduated from college. I don't know if that says a lot about me or just says that I was lucky enough to find a good fit the first time out. Sometimes I wonder what kind of change would have to occur to force me to go someplace else, and I'm not really sure what the answer is. Or if there even needs to be one.

One more year of service and I get upgraded from 10 vacation days to 15 - woohoo!

Upcoming plans for the next few days:
- Finish painting the bathroom trim, door and transom
- Figure out what else we need to do before we have 1-800-Got Junk come make a pick-up from the third floor and the garage
- Possible outing with R's coworkers to welcome a new admin
- Hiking outing with friends at a local park
- Continue knitting on shower gift that will be late
- Pack up donations for The Dulaan Project and get them in the mail
- Pack up overdue baby gift and mail it
- Browse the neighborhood yard sale on Sunday for things we can't live without ;-)
- Pray that we get some neighbors to agree to put their homes on the house tour so I can stop worrying about it
- Figure out who we can ask to help us schlep a dollhouse that will just barely fit in the stairway up to the second floor...