Monday, March 29, 2010

The house-hunting marathon

We started house-hunting over the weekend. Packed El Burrito off for a day with Grandma & Grandpa, and met the Realtor for a 10-house 8-hour marathon. And this wasn't the usual day with five houses on one street or anything. These were rural places - we probably put at least 100 miles of driving in.

We saw some nice houses with lousy location, nice locations with lousy houses, and nothing that said "Buy me NOW" (unfortunately). A few "What were they thinking??" moments out there. Who puts the second-floor stairway exiting into the garage? Who really thinks that an acre of wooded pasture is sufficient ground to keep a horse? Why spend a load of money upgrading a recently-upgraded kitchen, in a house you're selling (because you're having money problems)? And who puts a beer tap in their kitchen?

Apparently the latest fads are jetted tubs and those quotations/phrases painted or decal-ed onto the walls.

Friday, March 26, 2010

House Hunting 2010

We're going with a Realtor (Blogger's spell-check insists on the capitalized R) this week to look at houses. Haven't done this in 5+ years. We've got ten on the list of possibles for the first trip, but they're spread out quite a bit (all out of town) so I'm not sure we'll make all ten.

And now I need to start thinking about packing, decluttering, and making a list of what we'll need to buy ASAP after we move. Like some furniture (ours is minimal, old, and decrepit) and a kitchen/dining table. And a hammock. And a freezer.

Friday, March 19, 2010

I'm rare

If this survey/poll in American Baby is close to accurate, I'm one of the 10% of people who didn't know if the baby was a boy or a girl before it was born.

This proves it, I'm special. :)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Crocheting

I got quite a bit of crocheting done last month and this past week, mostly during the Olympics.

Finished:

The "Curling Scarf" (because I watched a good bit of curling while I worked on it):


Done in Naturally Caron's Country, a mohair/microdenier acrylic blend, in two shades of purple plus off-white. The pattern is the Stripes and Bars No Weaving Ends scarf from Crochet.about.com. Haven't decided yet if I want to leave the fringe as-is, add more, or weave it in. I blocked it once, but it was a half-baked job and needs to be redone to get rid of the curl at the corners. And of course, now that it's finished, temps are in the 50s and I don't need it.

Then my mom and one of her sisters came to visit, and Auntie wants a hat like El Burrito's. Her breast cancer is back, and has spread all over (jaw, shoulder, etc.) and she wanted a nice soft hat to wear. I used Red Heart Soft in Toast and Paprika (love the names!). I tried something new - I made center-pull balls out of the skeins, then put each ball in one half of a pair of super-cheap knee-high panty hose to keep the outer layers from unwinding (had that issue with the Caron). It worked pretty well, and only cost 50 cents.


I used the earflap hat pattern from the 2008 Pattern-a-Day calendar; it's turning into my go-to earflap hat pattern. Here's the finished hat, modeled by El Burrito:


and by El Burrito's newest pet (El Burrito seems to be on strike as a hat model):

The colors looked really well; the Toast isn't as olive-green as this picture looks on my screen.


Next up: possibly a Scandinavian Hat for me, done in purples; or the Gaelic Bay Afghan in Lion's Fishermen's Wool; or a hat for my mom; or lots of dishcloths to use up this pile of Lily Sugar 'n' Cream that seems to have bred in the closet.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Something for the To-Do list

To do: I need to look at my online inventory at Half.com and Amazon Marketplace, and rethink whether some of the lower-priced books are worth it.

Just sold a paperback at Amazon. Selling price was $3.50, and after Amazon's commission (higher than Half, admittedly), postage, and the mailer, I made a whopping $1.34.