Yarnivorous

No g'day today! It is NOT a good day. Nathan's boss told him today that all travel has been suspended due to the US recession. This means that Nathan will still be going to the conference in Brazil (where he will present a paper = very important) but he won't be going to Oz or NZ to develop business relationships. This means I won't be going home either. I can't leave Nathan by himself for weeks. I am soooooooooo disappointed. I've been looking forward to the trip for months. Now I feel like I've been jilted and in a big way. Maybe gutted is a better way to describe it, though it isn't my gut that hurts. Sigh. At the same time as all I want to do is curl up and whimper in a corner, I have to get the old apartment clean. I am not enjoying the new apartment. It is darker than I expected (three weeping birches and a pine tree contribute to that) and not as airy and light as I hoped. It is also telling me I have Too Much Stuff. The kitchen is roomie...

U-haul won't rent me a truck. I don't have a US driver's licence. Pluck a duck! What do we do now? How on earth do we move our crap now? The bike trailer is far too small for the armchairs, the bed and the pedal organ (harmonium). I can't carry the boxes of books at all easily.... We only have to go to the apartment block next door. ARGH! Penske will rent us a truck. A 50 minute cross town ride and we have a GINORMOUS truck, much too big for us... So the grand move to nextdoor continues!

G'day all! I am so proud of myself! I finished TWO items on one day! (That was yesterday.) But in my usual dumbo way, I forgot to take pics. One is the shop model of a Nashua Handknits top - verra pretty, if yellow, and the other is a little top down (almost) all continental knitted bolero in Wick by K1C2. So pics will have to wait, for tomorrow we move! If any locals just love lugging stuff to a U-Haul truck, I know someone who would love the help, LOL. Our new apartment is a one bedroom, so any visitors will have to put up with either sleeping on a (very comfy according to my MiL) airbed in the loungeroom or going to the local motels (2 within 5 minutes walk). I think we will need some extra shelving cos the wardrobes only have one shelf and the clothes hanger pole, plus we have one less cupboard = where do I put the linen and towels? (Isn't it funny how we say linen when none of us have slept on linen sheet ever? Its all cotton, poly cotton (ICK!), even bamboo and s...

G'day all! Well not such a good day. I regularly move money home to pay the mortgage. Look what happened with the most recent transfer: Transaction Amount Receiving: 996.93 Australian Dollars Sending: 1000.00 US Dollars Service Fee: 4.99 US Dollars Holy cow!! This is SO not good news for us! We moved here when one Oz dollar bought USD0.85 (85 US cents). Now? They are on par! Dangit. I'll have to pull my finger out and find a real job. (Must send resume to recruiter at DH's work...) Thanks for the commiserations! Yep with any luck I'll be winging my way home for a visit. Of course now that I've announced it, it won't happen. We'll see! Still knitting this shop sample. It is taking FOREVER! I only have 15cm of the fronts to go (plus the neck band and the front bands) but I seem to be in that no man's land of knitting frantically and not making much progress (even though I can see I have made progress cos I cast off the armpits this morning). ...

G'day all! Yes, it is true, Mr Brain has left the building. I've managed to burn dinner black two nights in a row whilst being distracted with knitting and web browsing. I've been feeling a little discombobulated since the in-laws left on Friday arvo. I think I could even say I feel sad! It was very odd (and crowded) to have people sharing our space but it was nice too, cos I had someone to talk to, and someone other than Nathan talking at me (though quite often Nathan doesn't talk much to me because he talked himself out of verbal words at work and has nothing left in the tank). I think it means that I am lonely. Funny, isn't it, being surrounded by people - there's about 20 people within 20m of where I am sitting at the moment - yet being lonely because those people aren't known to you. In another month and a bit, Nathan is flying off to Oz on business, then NZ and then to Sao Paolo in Brazil, and returning to SJ (hopefully with a stop off at a very ...

G'day all! Another quickie (lucky you!) before we choof off to SF tomorrow. Locals will be able to guess where we went from the pics, but any other takers? We saw many pretties: We pedalled a surrey with a fringe on the top! It is hard work - the pedals are too close and we had a heavy load on board. We drove along the coast and saw more pretties (Sitting like a shag on a rock - oh gosh, they are! Someone will now tell me that they are cormorants but close enough!) and a very lonely tree - I don't know what it did to deserve sitting on its own rock... I got lots of knitting done whilst people ate or whilst waiting for meals. I was very pleased :-) I got to drive lots too, less pleased cos it was in traffic and I had to keep finding car parks with a car whose size was undefinably large. That is the problem with driving different cars - you never really get to know just one. This was a Dodge Charger. It was very drony - apparently that sounds good but I thought it sounded w...

G'day all! Lookie what my MiL brought me all the way from Oz! Isn't it smart? And it fits my Little Gem (II) spinning wheel in it so it is now mobile! Hooray! :-) I started a New Project on the weekend. I likee it a lot :-) It is just going to be a tank top. anon!

G'day all! It's been hot here this week. Today is not quite as hot but is humid instead. OK, 41% humidity is not humid to lots of people but when you are tooling around on a bike, believe me it is plenty enough to make you drip sweat. Not that I sweat of course, being a lady and all and not a horse, but gosh I glow an AWFUL lot! I thought with my MiL away, I would catch up a bit. Umm nope! It's been Too Hot to do much housework. It's been Too Hot to get out and about much. I thought I would take advantage of my LYS' air con but I couldn't be bothered getting there even on the bike! I have done most of the back of the shop cardi now but I fear I will run out of yarn 2/3 way up the fronts. It all measures to the right size (it's slightly small but when blocked will be right!) so why am I using more yarn than they reckon? It is pretty but not my colours. The colourway is called wattle though so that sorta makes up for it ("This 'ere's the...

G'day all! What a busy busy busy week it has been! I had not realised how much work it is having visitors! It's been INSANE! MiL and AiL want to pack it all in (and I don't mean the Australian sense of giving up and going home, no I mean get as much seen and done as possible in the shortest possible time). They are running me off my feet! But they have gone off to Yosemite until Friday and I have a chance to catch up, get some housework done (!!!) (I have been fascinated by the different pubes that have appeared in the bathroom and lordy may I never have a pure white bathroom again!), do a lot more knitting, some shopping without having people gawping at the enormousness that is Wholefoods, general mucking around and not having to go someplace and entertain people. Not that they are high maintenance but I am just not used to not having much of a break in between Doing Stuff. (I'll be putting more pics up on Victorian, On the Move eventually.) So what have we done...

G'day all! Mmmmm, spinning Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sheep to Shoe, though not yet socked/shoed. It is darker but to show the colours off I had to photograph it in the sun. This is one of the Raven series but I threw the label out without thinking... A story about William Shatner in my old local newspaper. The link will die sooner or later... An esoteric story (for most of you) about the top 50 Australian albums of the last 50 years. I'm an Aussie and there are bands I've never heard of in there.... An interview with jms (don't read if you don't know who he is). A freaky life mask of Andreas Katsulas/G'Kar . Freaky cos as always with life masks, you expect the eyes to open and the mouth to start talking... even though it is a copy of a person who is now dead. A pretty sunset from about two weeks ago, before the smoke set in. NorCal has been having terrible bushfires . Lots of places have been burning and it isn't really fire season yet. (We come from a...