Bloggers' block

I’m finding blogging very hard right now. More so than ever before. It used to be enjoyable, I’d write about fun things I’d done or cool things I made. It’s slowly become more of a show-and-tell than anything else. For now, it may have to remain that way, simply because I have things to show and tell, and because the things in my life that aren’t crafting and chickens are not in a place where I can talk about them.

Last time I posted was 30th May, and that means there’s lots to update you on for June, because it has been a busy month.

First up, we have two new chickens!


They are called Inara (with the ginger ruff) and Kaylee (with the white ruff). They’re a breed we hadn’t met before called magpie. I think they’re very pretty.

To go with the new chickens, my dad and husband built a fence so that the five chickens can be introduced and have some more space.



I love living out in the countryside, and that photo is a really nice example of why. It’s so beautiful and peaceful. I’m not sure I could go back to city life, even in a small city like York.

So, the new hens are starting to settle in. We had an escape yesterday, so we need to watch them and see how they managed that. Either they flew out, or they took a sneaky route round the shed that we need to block off (we need to do that anyway). If they flew out, the best option will be to move the house.

The good news is that they were rounded up by the neighbours (we have such nice neighbours!) and they’re perfectly fine. They were not happy about not being let out this morning though!

The day before yesterday Faith decided to eat the leaves of my potato plants. I’m pretty sure that’s not good for them, so I’ve netted those now. I was worried that Inara and Kaylee would dig up the courgettes or chard in the main garden, but they did not. I suspect it was lack of opportunity rather than lack of desire. I haven’t checked the peas – last year Faith, Buffy and Willow almost killed off the peas by eating the creeper shoots.

Here’s an up-to-date picture of the “old guard” as hubby keeps calling them.


I know they look a bit scruffy and scrawny, especially Buffy (the ginger one). I think this is because they’re recovering from an infection – they had worms. Yuck. Also, there’s been a lot of feather pecking going on, so they don’t have many full feathers – most of Buffy’s are very short. I’m hopeful that when we can give them more space they’ll be less bored, and so the feather pecking will cease. All being well we’ll get them looking just as healthy as their young counterparts soon. We’re also feeding them extra at the moment, with more mealworms, more pecking blocks, and more treats. I’m hoping to give them some cottage cheese and garlic mash soon.

I’m really enjoying having the new space for them. I hope that the weather is nice this weekend so that I can spend some time outside; just watching them is so much fun!

So, what else have I been up to? Well, tournament 8 of Nerd Wars has begun, and I’m on team Browncoat once again. I’ve actually been doing quite a lot of baby knitting since my sister is expecting her first child in November. She isn’t finding out the sex until it’s born, so I’m knitting (and crocheting) gender neutral things at the moment.


There’s going to be a hat to match these as well. I’m on the lookout for a ladybird patch and buttons, to make the sweater a bit less cricket-y and to finish the booties.

The baby sweater is the Seamless Baby Sweater (Ravelry link) by Sarah Stanfield. It was easy to follow and worked up nicely. My only adjustment has been to work the arms two-at-a-time, and I knitted a few less rounds on the yoke than I should have.

The bootees are Saartje’s Booties (on the right of this linked page) which I have made before. They are cute! I changed the pattern for these by adding a YO into the end of the straps for a buttonhole rather than using the yarn tails.

I’ve also made this square. I can’t tell you why just now, but hopefully later I can.



And I’ve cast on for another Clapotis.


I have been meaning to make another Clapotis for ages, and I have been meaning to make my Mum a scarf for ages. My Mum is allergic to wool, and so it had to be made of something else. This yarn is bourette silk – that’s the kind where the worms are allowed to hatch before the cocoons are harvested. It was dyed by Violet Green, one of my favourite indie dyers in the UK. These colours are amazing!

The Clapotis is part of a Newlyweds’ Clapotis-along that I’m taking part in on another Ravelry forum. The Newlyweds board is a source of much interesting information, support and general niceness. We’re also doing a swap, I have bought some nice goodies for my partner, but no yarn yet. I’m planning on getting that at Woolfest.

That’s right, we’re going to Woolfest again this year. I really like the event, it’s always interesting and there’s always lots to see and buy. I have lots of ideas of things I might like to get. Hubby will almost certainly try the ewes’ milk ice cream again!

On the 29th I’m taking part in my village’s Open Studios event. There are a number of talented artisans in the village, and hopefully hubby and I can be counted among them. I’ll be spinning in the Village hall, I don’t know if hubby will bring anything to do, or whether he’s going to leave me to it and head off to the ceramics studio, or something else! I’m very excited about it anyway.

I've been away!

The stash down is going well. Better than the diet, actually! Once I completed those socks for hubby, there was some yarn left. As luck would have it, I needed something to knit in the car on the way to the airport (more on that shortly) so I cast on for another cute baby hat. I love this hat pattern! (I’ve actually completed but not photographed another one)

Pattern: Norwegian Sweet Baby Cap
Yarn: Leftover sock yarn.
Needle: 2.5mm and 3mm
Modifications: Instead of a crochet chain or i-cord, I have omitted the cord under the chin
Verdict: So cute! I still love it!

While we were away I mostly worked on a crochet shawl – since crochet hooks are okay on the plane. (that said, I bet I’d be able to sneak small wooden needles onto the plane too, but I haven’t had the courage to try yet!) but it’s less-than-half finished. (it’s also a Nerd Wars Dissertation for team Browncoat – yep, I couldn’t resist playing again!)

So, where were we away to? Well, I’m glad you asked. We spent a fortnight in a place called Taba Heights, up on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.
The weather was warm, the food was good, and we had a very relaxing two weeks. Mostly, we snorkelled, and when we weren’t snorkelling we were relaxing on the beach, or in the pool. We even played a round of mini golf. All round, it was great.

The view from the rear of the hotel

Overlooking the golf course at the side of the hotel

Enjoying the sunshine in the hotel gardens

The beautiful lagoon view

Relaxing with my crochet shawl on the beach
(it was so warm I even sat in the shade sometimes!)

This man rode up and down the beach on his camel
waiting for someone to ask for a ride.
We didn't ask - I didn't enjoy my last camel ride!

And since then? Well, it’s been hard getting back into work. I’ve been involved in a reasonably interesting but taxing project. I’m enjoying it but it means I’m quite tired of an evening!

We did take the time to do a spot of gardening. There’s a thin patch of dirt in front of the front wall at my house, and it’s been a source of annoyance to me since we moved in. It was full of weeds and there was nothing nice in it. So, we set to. I’ve used some interesting Pinterest pins about gardening to achieve this, and I really hope that it works properly.

Kitchen!

I mentioned a while ago that I wanted to change the cupboards in the kitchen, and I showed you the paint samples I'd been trying out. Well, the painting of the cupboards is finished!

I'm really pleased with how it's come out. The pink works really well with the oak tops, and the Belfast sink really pops now! We still need to do some more in the kitchen, the walls need painting and the mirror needs painting and putting up, but this feels like such a victory! I love making a small change which makes a big difference, don't you?

Lampshade Upcycle!

I also upcycled a lampshade!

From this basic lampshade

with the help of my glue gun

I made this

I followed a tutorial from Pinterest, there are lots!

Upcycled Pinboard

I'm in the middle of re-decorating my kitchen.
We had an old pin-board, which I wanted to use in the kitchen but which really wasn't going to work in the new room.

See, it's just a basic pinboard. Dull, and a bit manky looking in places.
So what did I do?
I re-painted, quilted and covered it, and ended up with this:

It looks even more fab than this in person!
Here's what I did:

1. Sand down the wood frame and mask it
2. Undercoat the wood frame
3. Paint the wood frame (2 coats)
4. Make a cardboard frame to fit just inside the wood frame
5. Cut out quilt batting to fit inside the wood frame, and a piece of fabric about half an inch wider all around than the cardboard frame
6. Place the fabric face down on the desk
7. Place the quilt batting on top
8. And the cardboard frame on top of that
9. Using a hot glue gun, fold the fabric around the edges of the cardboard frame - you'll end up with a padded square of fabric
10. Place the padded fabric square into the frame and attach using a staple gun

Simple, huh?

Patience...

...is not really one of my virtues.
Determination possibly is, which is why I’m able to knit for what seems like forever in order to create something, but waiting 5 minutes for a bus with nothing to do makes me crazy!

Anyway, I was impatient to decide what colour we’re going to paint the kitchen so I dragged hubby to Homebase last night before I went to knitting group.


The colours are (top to bottom, left to right)
B&Q – Rich Sari, Purple Purl, Berry Mid, Berry Dark
Homebase – Raspcoulis, Jazzberry
Habitat – Wine, Hibiscus
Homebase – Bubblegum

I’m fond of hibiscus; it’s not quite as bright as in the picture. Hopefully hubby and I can discuss it tonight and make a decision…

Bitten by the Home Decoration bug!

I’ve been feeling a bit down lately.
It’s the house.
I love our house, it’s spacious and has big windows. It has a good sized outdoor space and a garage with room for more than just a couple of bikes.
It’s really a good house.
It’s just the stuff inside, specifically the décor, that’s getting me down.

So, I’ve decided that something needs to be done.

In an effort to kick-start the whole process (which requires funding for some things) I’ve been identifying what I want to do in each room, and then I’m approaching them in order of how much difference the changes will make in correlation with how little they will cost.
So, a free thing which will make a big impact – that’s top of my list. An expensive thing which will only make a small or medium impact – that’s at the bottom.

So, with that in mind, at the weekend we went shopping. We actually went out to look at sofas (big cost, smaller impact) but the last thing we did before we came home was to pick up some new accessories for the bathroom.
The bathroom itself is done. It’s tiled in nice tiles, has a decent suite and floor, and a really posh radiator.
But I like colours, I like bold patterns and rooms which make you feel something when you walk in.
The bathroom didn’t do it for me.



(left to right, top to bottom) Cluttered windowsills, I already took down the shower curtain (nice, but not me) general mess and no pizazz!

But, changing the shower curtain, the soap dish and cups, new bath-mat and loo-mat, and moving some clutter into the cupboards (or bin) made a massive difference to how I feel about the room. In addition, these were things we needed anyway!



(left to right, top to bottom) Shower Curtain from Dunelm Mill, Marble Effect Soap Dish from Wilkinsons, Marble Effect Tumblers from Wilkinsons, and a Bath Mat and Pedestal set from Dunelm Mill

It wasn’t a “free” change, we did have to pay for the mats and such, but they weren’t very expensive and now we have two sets (our other set are white) which we can swap out when one needs washing.
Great stuff!

The next room I want to tackle is the kitchen.
This will be a low-cost high-impact change too.
At the moment we have a lovely kitchen, but the cupboards are painted duck-egg-blue. I’m not really a fan of that colour – certainly not as a “main” colour in a kitchen. Kitchens should be dynamic rooms, and they should feel dynamic in their colour schemes.

The kitchen is an L shape, with access into the kitchen at both ends of the L.
Kind of like this:

 

The plan is to re-paint all the cupboards a nice bold pink colour (the exact colour is yet to be agreed by hubby and myself) and having seen a great example of a bold kitchen while we were in France (hubby’s second cousins have great taste!) I also want to paint at least one wall lime green.
The current plan is for that wall to be the one at the same end as the doors into the garden, the one with no doors on – just a radiator.
Once I’ve done this I plan to fix up a mirror we have. It’s currently got a black surround which is a little chipped, and I think that with a coat of primer and a coat (or two) of the same pink as the cupboards, it could look amazing on that green feature wall!
Then, there’s the other wall. I’ve been thinking about this too, and also the lack of pin-boards in the kitchen. So at the other end of the L, the wall with the pantry door in it, I think that wall could also be green (might brighten up that end of the kitchen!) and on that wall I could put the big pin-board that hubby has.
However, I don’t want to put it up as-is! I want to paint the frame (pink again, of course) and then supplement the cork bit with some nice fabric, something which will still take pins, but that will look pretty.
Perhaps something like this:



I think that would be much nicer than a regular pin-board, and would work really well with a green wall and pink frame.

The final thing I want to do is to add a little more storage. We have loads of storage in the kitchen, but I’d like to add some kind of space for the ironing board. This could be as simple as some brackets on the wall to rest it behind, or could be a funky cupboard/unit thing.

Watch this space!

Feelin’ hot hot hot!

Well, this weekend just gone was lovely, weather wise! It’s very odd that it’s October, and in the north of England we decided to have a barbecue.

Now, if you’d told me back in September (which was both chilly and rainy) that we’d be barbecuing on the 1st October, I would have laughed at you.

But there we were.



I had a lovely morning sitting outside in the sun knitting (No, I’m not preggers, that dress just isn’t very flattering)




And what was I knitting?



My first Nerd Wars project, of course! This is going to be cool! (Well, actually I expect it to be warm, it’s knit in RYC cashsoft chunky. I love this yarn so much!)

Sadly, this means that I’ve pretty much stopped work on my other projects. I think I’ll easily get it finished in the time, so I can work on other things. I plan to do so tonight at knitting group when I will knit on super-secret-gift-for-hubby.
Of course, while hubby is around, I don’t knit on that, so it’s not progressing as quickly as I would like.

Things I did last night

1. Eat - done! We had a lovely spaghetti bolognaise, and I also made a garlic-mussel-pasta for lunch today.
2. Build Shelf - done! Though I had to enlist my fiancé’s help – it was a 2 person job.
3. Make Invitations – done! Though FH made most of them, I just helped with the last bit of sticking.
4. Clean up – done! Well, mostly.
5. Reorganise craft items – done! I now know where everything is, and what’s what. My yarn stash is nicely organised into my three-drawer chest, my fabric is in boxes under the desk, my spinning stuff is now available including a nice tidy box downstairs, and the books are shelved!

So, I thought that as part of this process it might be fun to flash my stash! I’ve put the partial balls and items to be frogged in a separate location, they will return to the stash when they have been dealt with. What you see here is everything else. The far left is laceweight, then sock / 4ply, then DK, then Aran, then a bit of chunky on the far right.

 

My Stash in all its glory!

 

I think it’s a good idea to get all the stash out every once in a while. It has several benefits. One of them is that you can check for nasties – things that you wouldn’t want to find lurking in your yarn, but that would like to be lurking in your yarn given the chance. You can see that all the yarn shown here is in plastic freezer bags. I know these aren’t 100% moth proof (or airtight) but they do make it hard for moth larvae migration, reducing the chances of losing everything.

 

Another good reason for getting out the stash like this is to prevent you from forgetting what you have! I have quite a lot of yarn (though by some comparisons it’s a small stash!) and I have been known to buy yarn for a project which I already had yarn for, or not to buy bargain yarn because I thought I already had some yarn of that sort. Always check!

 

I’ve put the chunky and aran/worsted yarn in the bottom of the chest, the DK and Lace in the middle drawer, and the sock/4ply has a drawer all to itself.

 

I’m pretty pleased with the new shelf too. As predicted it is a different colour, and it’s also a different size! However, the new boxes fit on the shelves, and I’ve been able to fit all my craft books, all the DIY books and all the fitness books onto the shelves, as well as a whole bunch of now-tidy craft stuff!

 

Nice and Tidy

 

 

 

 

At Last!

Finally, I’ve got round to taking and uploading some photos of what I have been up to in the past month or so!

We’ve been in the new house for about 7 weeks.

The back bedroom, which still needs photographing, has been given a new look with a fresh coat of paint on all the walls. I’m sorry to say we didn’t strip the wallpaper, that will have to wait until we get round to doing it again one day. However, I’ve painted over the floral pattern (I’m sure it’s lovely to some, but to my taste? Not so much) and the places where the previous owners’ cats scratched up the wallpaper. It’s not perfect, but it’s much more “us”. We have a nice new wooden curtain pole which needs to go up, and some rather nice curtains too. The new bed comes a week on Saturday, and once that’s in I’ll share photos. we must buy a lampshade!

The shed, which also needs photographing, has been given a couple of coats of Cuprinol Ducksback and is now reddish brown rather than grey. I’m pleased with it, and it’s hopefully not going to let water in any more. Though having moved the massive log pile from the side of it and cleared all of the brambles and mud will have helped. (I didn’t do that, Fiancé did.)

Anyway, this is the house.

There are lots of rose bushes in the front garden – they’re still flowering (in November!) but once they’re done flowering I will cut them back hard to try to get them into more even shapes and sizes. They are lovely though, lots of pretty colours!

The big window there in the garage is over a second sink with cupboards and drainer. This will, when I get it tidy and clean (and spider free), be my dying area. I’ll put the steamer out there (there’s power and water!) and the washer and dryer are both there, so I can do felting out there too! I’ll probably see about getting Fiancé to build me a bench to work on too at some point, and we’re going to put more shelves and hooks and a washing line up there too.

At the moment that area is also home to my new wormery.

I love worms. They’re one of the most amazing creatures ever. These worms are specially selected for wormeries. I’ve settled them in with the starter worm bedding, some treats (yes, you can get worm treats, how amazing is that) and some anti-acid pellets (too much acid upsets them!)
Anyway, they’re not trying to escape so I hope that’s a good sign.
We also have two large compost bins. We got the sort with bases because next door tell us that there might be rats (I figure; we’re in the country – there probably are rats, so we’ll try not to attract them)

This morning I saw some sort of hawk in the back garden! It was about the size of a pigeon, but dark brown with almost black wings, head and back. It was beautiful. I didn’t get the camera in time to take a photo I’m afraid.
There’s so much wildlife around here though, it’s fantastic!

I like my new home a lot, and I know I’m going to be happy here

Almost Settled

So, we're settling in to the new house still.

I love it!

Sunrise over Bugthorpe

The photo is not our garden, I'll show you that some time!

Well, we're in the middle of decorating our main bedroom, the one which has this view. I've put a coat of paint on all the walls now, so they need another coat this week. Then we should be getting the new bed soon too. We've ordered a massive bed - super king size! It's as wide as it is long! The mattress arrived already, and is stored in the garage. (We have a garage!) We've also picked up some bed linens. Curtains are next up - though the windows are big.

Otherwise things are steady here. We're getting used to the house, and the quiet. 

P.S I'll try to remember to take some photos of the needle felting I've been doing, it's great fun!

I can haz teh internetz?

(Sorry for the I can haz cheezburger title; it had to be done)

Yes indeed we're back online, in the new house! Woot!
I really like the new house, which is a surprise to me really because I wasn't sure about it when we initially put the offer in.
Now that we're in, I like almost everything about it. We have a greenhouse (with tomatoes and aubergines left in it, thanks to the previous owner!) and a shed (with power!) along with a lovely garden which with a little TLC, a shovel and some planning should be capable of holding chickens, veggies and maybe a "bee garden" (I like bees)

I'll be back with some photos once we get into some semblance of order, we're still living with rather more boxes than I would like. 

Actually moving

It’s been a while, I know. There’s been no news that hasn’t been too depressing to blog about. However, the move is now happening, we’re actually being packed as I type (how much does that rock?)

We have a bit of recycling to do on the way home, and a little more to put out in the morning, but otherwise we’re all good. The packers have their instructions on what to pack and what not to pack, hopefully they’re not going to accidentally pack things they shouldn’t. I don’t mind so much if they leave unpacked things I’d rather they did pack, that’s easier to solve!

So yeah, we’re moving out to the countryside; I am very excited!

Also, I’ve a hectic schedule for the next month now. So we’re moving house tomorrow, then I’m off to a hen party on Saturday. The following Friday is the wedding (to go with the hen party) followed by a weekend off, then my folks are visiting, then both my bridesmaids and their partners are visiting, and then? Then I think we can relax!

Somewhere in there I need to fit in painting the bedroom, moving all the furniture into the right places, unpacking all the stuff, setting up my new craft room, starting to sort out the garden and planting some stuff (hopefully) and maybe looking into chicken runs, rabbit runs, and the like.

So it’s all good. Or it will be, tomorrow, when we get the keys!

All Go (hopefully)

So, we’re due to exchange and complete on our new house on Friday next week.

Exchanging and completing on the same day is making me nervous, I’ll admit. I’m one of those people who like to know what’s happening for certain, and plans stuff. I find I’m not very spontaneous these days (I like to think I used to be, but it could just have been circumstance)

Well, anyway, we’re making plans based on the exchange and completion happening together on the Friday. Everyone involved is keen for this to happen, so it should be fine.

That means we’ve been booking the movers. This has turned out to be more taxing than I expected. The movers we were going to use are fully booked. So my fiancé has had to ring round to find someone. We decided to go with the people who answered the phone, who could fit us in, and who don’t cost an arm and a leg (though I suspect that the cost element might be the one we have the least control over!)

Now we just have to explain that we have a bunch of stuff stored at some friends’ house and we’d like that to be picked up too. We’ll see what he says when he comes to look at our stuff on Tuesday.

I guess we’d better tidy the house some more!

In knitting news, the socks I have been designing have been frogged. I liked the way they were looking, until I got onto the 4th repeat when the colours started to do weird things. So I’ve decided that they’re just going to be plain old vanilla socks. Yarn Harlot’s recent pair where two of the ribs continued down the leg were nice, perhaps I’ll do that (I’m such a fangirl)

Another workout today:
dead lift – front squat – push press, 20kg, (20, 10, 5; 20, 10, 4; 20, 10, 3) (that’s an improvement!)
bench press – sit ups, 20kg/bodyweight (12, 20; 8, 20; 7, 15)
kettlebell swings – kettlebell rows – kettlebell curls, 12kg/12kg/8kg (10, 8/8, 8/8; 10, 10/10, 10/10)
I didn’t do the jammer press, I think I’m going to ask for an alternative when I see my PT on Wednesday. I have been shown how to do a hamstring stretch on the “power plate” which is cool. (if you’ve never seen one, a power plate looks like those really old fashioned scales, but the floor plate is wobbly and vibrates. It’s odd)
I did do the X-Trainer again, 3 mins between each superset.

I reckon, if I keep improving on the dead/squat/press I should be able to manage the full 5 push presses with 20kg for all three sets soon, and then I get to put the weight up! Woo!

It could be 10 days...

...Until we move in to our new house.
Or it might not.

We will not have a firm date until our solicitor organises the exchange of contracts.

Despite this, we’ve gone ahead and ordered a fridge (we can always push the date back if needs be, we’re thinking positive!) and after getting a call from BT asking about our buyers taking over the line we’re now signed up for a BT line in the new house. (This is a bit of a sore point, actually. We’re going to be writing a letter to customer services at BT.)

Otherwise it’s still a bit limbo-ish.

I did finish the shawl I’ve been knitting, though I still don’t have any action shot photos of it!

Here’s the knit down:

Pattern: Citron by Hilary Smith Callis
Yarn: Abstract Cat Merino/silk laceweight in the Dragonfly colourway
Needles: 4mm circular
Modifications:Knit to pattern except for a slight amendment to the cast on (which I can’t remember) and knitting the last 4 rows in garter stitch rather than stocking stitch. That’s both prevented curl and also made the ruffle more ruffley as garter is fatter than stocking stitch!
Verdict (New!): I mostly enjoyed knitting this, and the end result is very good looking. The main problem with it is that as it’s a semi-circular shawl the number of stitches on the needles increases quite drastically per repeat. By the end there were over 500 stitches per row, which is a lot!

the shawl while blocking

Oh, I should mention my brand spanking new workout program! Since I last wrote about the program I’ve continued my “diet” which is working reasonably well for me (except today, I had a bacon sandwich. It happens. I’ll be better tomorrow)

Anyway, I spoke to my PT, explained the issues I was having, that I’d recently changed the way I was eating, and that I wanted a program I found more fun.

He’s sorted out a much more weights based program for me. There’s still a bit of (low impact) cardio for me in the form of the cross trainer, which is okay I guess. But the weights! Oh, they’re fun. Not mega-super heavy, but y’know, good.

Here’s today’s lifts:
dead lift – front squat – push-press, 20kg, (20, 10, 5; 20, 10, 3; 20, 8, 3)
bench press – sit ups, 20kg/bodyweight (8, 20; 8, 15; 4, 15)
kettlebell swings – kettlebell rows – kettlebell curls, 12kg/12kg/8kg (3;8e/s;8e/s) (Had a hamstring issue here, so stopped. Will do better next time)
jammer press – straight leg sit ups, 13kg/bodyweight (5, 15; 10, 15; 4, 16)
with 3 mins on the X Trainer between each set.

It’s so much more fun than the previous programme! Okay, it’s new, and I was enthusiastic (well, a little sceptical too) about the last one. But this one – I was looking forward to going to the gym on Monday and today. That is a result.

We’re going to start going every morning again, and swimming on the off days. Worst case, if the swimming isn’t happening (tight muscles, just too tired, whatever) I can sit in the Jacuzzi or the sauna for 20 minutes instead!

Edit: I just wanted to add that I’ve been having an issue with something called an IT Band (nothing to do with the computer, everything to do with my thigh) which has been causing me pain. My PT has got me doing foam rolling (which was in my Fit Female bible too) which is very painful to do but seems to help. I'm considering getting a foam roller for at home and also thinking about getting myself back to the Tuina guys for a pummelling!

Limbo

That’s how I feel at the moment, like I’m somehow held in limbo.

The house move is probably going ahead, there’s no reason for me to think it isn’t. Even so, we don’t have a confirmed move date (though I’ve speculatively booked a day off work when it’s meant to be!) nor do I know if we’re waiting for anything further.

I’m still looking forward to the move, and settling in to the new house. If all goes to plan we’ll be moving on the bank holiday weekend. Obviously that’s great from a moving in perspective. I hope it works out from a buying appliances perspective too! However, if all we manage to sort out is a fridge then that will be fine – we’ve got a week off not long after to tidy up all the loose ends! Hopefully we’re visiting my sister in the weekend there too, with a trip to Costco, which will mean that if we do have a chest freezer by then (here’s hoping) we can buy some stuff to fill it. Woot!

The wedding is definitely going ahead (ahaha) but there are a whole bunch of things that I can’t do until we’ve moved house. I’m not setting anything in motion until then either. That means that after the move I have to visit the dressmaker, visit the registrar, confirm our new address with the photographer, the venue(s), and anyone else, and make invitations for everyone. I’m actually quite looking forward to making the invitations. It’s a nice excuse to spend a few (!) hours in my craft room making things. I’m less looking forward to sourcing addresses for people I don’t have addresses for!

Fiancé has sent off his passport to be renewed, well in advance of the honeymoon. It may or may not get back to us before we move. In either case we’ll be redirecting our post for a few months – an annoyance but a requirement. Until I have the confirmed move date there’s not much to do other than sit and wait! We’re still deciding on where we want to go for the honeymoon. I’m quite keen on a twin centre holiday with a first week of doing stuff and a second week of doing nothing. My favourites so far are Mexico and Sri Lanka / Maldives (or Thailand / Maldives I think is also available). Fiancé hasn’t expressed a preference yet. Still, that’s something else we want to get started on sorting out soon.

The shawl is coming on nicely. It’s one of a small number of things I’ll share in their entirety with the blog because it’s lovely. And it’s not really a key element; it’s just to keep me warm. I’m not sure whether I’ll knit any other semi-circular or circular shawls – the number of stitches is phenomenal. I’m in the last section now, but one row is taking almost an hour!

(Picture to the right is from knitty.com - more information about the pattern there.)

And the gym, that’s also in limbo right now. I’ve not been getting on with the program that my PT left me before he went away, and then the car broke down so we didn’t get to the gym, and I just haven’t mustered up the desire to go back. I have another session on Thursday, so we’ll see if he can come up with anything else. I haven’t enjoyed the “weights as cardio” thing in the program – I know that’s what turbulence training is all about, but it’s not for me. I enjoy lifting weights. I appreciate that I need to do some sort of cardio to get the results I want, but the all cardio nonsense I’m doing right now is just depressing – and it’s not giving me any results. Honestly, I’ve lost more weight in the two weeks I haven’t been able to get to the gym (but have been dieting) than I did in the two weeks where I did this program three times a week. Either I’m doing it wrong, or it doesn’t work. And I suspect it’s the former – even though I’m killing myself to get round fast, I must just not be going fast enough for long enough.
I have been for a run twice while I couldn’t get to the gym. Neither time was especially pleasant, but I made it round my 2 mile course in less than 30 minutes. No, that’s not fast. I think it might even be quite slow.

For a change...

I guess the last few posts there’s been a bit of a fitness/weight loss overload.

So, I’ll talk about something else today!

We’re still in the process of moving house. I’m hopeful that we should be able to complete at the end of August, though it does depend on our seller (the person we’re buying from) moving out in time. I don’t know what stage she’s at now.

I’m quite excited about the new house, it has so many things that we’re looking for!

We have some enquiries with our solicitor at the moment regarding some of the information in the deeds, specifically pertaining to the covenants. I suspect that I am better not detailing any of them here, for the time being at least.

Anyway, there’s so much scope for doing the things I’ve been wanting to do but not had the space for. Ranging from more dying and getting into spinning to growing vegetables.

Here are some of the things I’d like to be able to do in the new house:

• Grow Veggies including potatoes and carrots, squash, aubergine, tomatoes, peas and strawberries!
• More Dying not really good in an unventilated room with cream carpets which I was using in our current house…
• Spinning I’ve been spindle spinning, but I’d love the space for a wheel. After that I’d love some more hours in the day!
• Growing dyestuffs this is on top of growing veggies – my own dyers patch, what fun that would be!
• Chickens I’d love some pet chickens. I’m talking two or three, not many.
• Bunnies! I love bunny rabbits. Guinea pigs would also be an option.
• While we’re on animlas: Doggy! Ok, this is a long term thing, not something for the shorter term, but I would love to have a dog. Preferably a big dog. My favourite breeds are Great Danes and Wolfhounds. I love Setters too, but all that hair!
• Painting and I don’t mean rooms. This is something I’d like my fiancé to be able to do more of too. We have an easel, it will be nice to have space to put it up.
• Cooking and dinner parties our current kitchen is small, we don’t have much space for people. The new place will be large enough to have a reasonable number of people round! I don’t claim to be a brilliant cook, but I can follow a recipe quite well*.
• Sitting out I’m truly more excited than I should be about the prospect of getting a patio set – you know a couple or four chairs and a small table. Maybe we could upgrade the barbeque too! Alas, there isn’t likely to be much time left this year where outdoor cooking is acceptable.

I’m sure there are millions of other things I could add to this list!
But I’ll stop now.

In my current garden I have bought two more herbs. We visited a small nursery when we were back home, and they had some quite nice plants there at very reasonable prices. I picked up an apple mint (why yes, I do like mint. How did you guess?) and a small lavender called Melissa Lilac.

*when I say quite well, I mean with only one or two substitutions or changes. It’s a bit like knitting patterns, a recipe is just a guide!

(Untitled, again)

Well, we decided to accept the offer on our house, and offer on the place we wanted to buy.

They accepted!

So, we’re (hopefully) moving house very soon.

The new house is on the outskirts of a village; the village has a post office and a church, but no pub as far as we can tell! Though it’s only a short cycle from some other villages nearby where we know people. I’m quite excited about it now, looking forward to having a bit of space, both inside and out. Because it is three bedrooms, I can take over a bedroom for my crafty stuff without losing out on the guest room, which is useful! There’s so much scope for coolness.
I am trying not to get too excited at the moment though, until we have the keys in our hands!

-oOo-

In other news… There isn’t actually much other news. The wedding shawl is going well; I’m about half-way through from a number-of-rows perspective, but maybe only a third from a number-of-stitches perspective! It’s a pretty relaxing knit though, which is good!

I’ve done two more of the crazy workouts that my personal trainer has given me to do while he’s away in America. It’s going okay, I think. I find that if I push the cardio too much I can’t manage the weights, and vice versa. My aim is to get to a point where I can get through three circuits, or make it through two in 45 minutes; it’s taking me an hour for two at the minute which isn’t as fast as he’d like me to be going. It seems to be working though; I lost two pounds last week! I hope that I lose some this week too. We’ve been eating pretty healthily; I’ve been having fruit for a snack rather than chocolate, and three workouts a week.

We will not be getting three workouts this week, though. Well, unless we go on Saturday some time. The car has gone in to be MOTd and I don’t have a parking space at work any more. That means we’re getting the bus into work, and there’s no bus that gets us to the gym. In theory we could cycle there (it’s about 4 miles from our current house) but I’m not sure I’d want to work out when I arrived!

-oOo-

I must take a photo of my finished crocheted bag too, it’s in use as a bring-my-knitting-to-work bag right now, and is doing pretty well despite not being lined! I might not bother lining it, though I do have to keep anything that might fall through the holes in an additional bag!

Shoes, Shawl and Such

I have been eyeing up some shoes for a while.
They're designer (Kurt Geiger) and they looked (on screen) perfect.
I found a KG shop in Cambridge.
They didn't have the turquoise shoes in stock.
They let me try them in coral.
I loved them (I'm tempted to buy them in coral too!)
I decided to buy the turquoise ones online.
They didn't have them in my size online.
So I called the KG concession in Fenwicks in York.
They were very helpful and ordered them.
They came and were perfect.
And on sale.
So I ordered the matching bag.

No, I'm not showing you. You'll have to wait til next April for the photos! :P


I have also cast on for a shawl in the "dragonfly" yarn I got a while back.


And we're in negotiation about the house, which is scary and weird. We've had an offer, but not as high as we'd like, so we're not able to offer as much as we'd like for the house we want... ho hum. We will see.

Stuff

Well, the house is on the market. We were scheduled to have two viewings this weekend, but both were cancelled at the last minute. Boo. One of them will be rescheduled; the other was cancelled outright as they had bought a different house.

Oh well.

We’re going back to see one of the houses we’ve seen. I’ve also made a (short) list of other houses we could see. I haven’t done anything about it though! It’s hard to be positive about looking at houses when we haven’t even had a viewing yet. I know, it’s early days, but it’s so slow!

I’ve ordered some lovely yarn from Stash of Chester over the weekend. I have ordered some Noro Silk Garden Sock at silly prices, and some (more) Noro Kureyon. I wouldn’t have to do this if I had access to my stash. Honest. And it was 15% off sale prices – the SGS was half price effectively! What can you do?

I’m due to have my first personal training session on Friday morning. It was rescheduled from last Friday, which is a re-plan from the class I was going to do that there wasn’t enough interest for. I hope it’s motivational! In the mean time, I guess I need to sort out my diet. It should be a simple as cooking dinner most evenings rather than eating pizza, Chinese, curry etc!

Here’s a sneak peak of the mittens I’ve designed. The pattern is due to be available at the end of the month.