work. play.

another beautiful day, another day of freelance work. i can't complain too much, it pays the bills :) i've been pretty busy the past few weeks, and its only going to pick up this week and next. i'll be taking a short break this weekend to go visit my family in erie... my dad has been sick the past week, so i'd like to visit him before we go on vacation next weekend. we'll be making the trek down to hilton head and spending the week at a beach house with ian's family. we went 2 years ago and it was a pretty nice time, with the exception of the long drives. it always seems to take longer than expected. here's a photo from our last trip... i'm hoping to see another sunrise like this :)




this past weekend we did some more work on the house. i've been cleaning / organizing and trying to find some more storage space for the items we've acquired in erie. i cleaned out our attic crawl space [which was not fun in the 90˚ weather!] and started moving boxes in there. i can't even begin to list everything else we've brought down... its overwhelming. maybe once everything is "cleaned up" i can post some finished shots of the house.

the organizing is taking *much* longer than i was planning on... i'm very behind. the house has been taken over and i really need to get it in order, hopefully before the trip.

ian worked on the bathroom again, unfortunately having to tear up the old tile floor. we had been hoping to just tile over it, but while working, ian found some water damage, so... better safe than sorry. the bathroom is now down to the floor joists and ready for a new subfloor.




tan cat hates the noise when we remodel and always finds a little hiding place...




thats it for now. time to get back to work!

and more!

so ian said my last post was a little "boring" for the non-crafties, so here's a house update. we haven't had much time to work on the remodel, but we've accomplished a little bit.

last weekend we took advantage of the blazingly hot weather and worked outside. i cut the lawn and did some landscaping while ian built a storage shed for our lawn tools. he made it look all nice and pretty and even installed a bird feeder so i can watch the birds while i work in my office. unfortunately, he got a bad case of poison ivy in the process and is just miserable. [we believe the poison ivy is coming from the neighbors yard and growing thru the fence :( ]



we've also made a little progress on the master bath. ian had to redo some plumbing and installed the new diverter for the tub and shower. he also ran some new electric work for the new light fixtures and to hook up the whirlpool tub. right now it just sits in the guestroom waiting....



along with the new sink and tile...




hmm... what else? we really need to do some cleaning/unpacking/sorting. we've brought alot of "stuff" home from erie over the past few months. random boxes of stuff that are sitting in our dining room waiting to be put away. which is going to be a BIG task. we don't have much room as it is, so we're going to do some spring cleaning and downsize a bit. get rid of all the clutter and stuff we're saving for a rainy day. craigslist is going to be very happy :)

not much else house wise. hopefully we'll have more to show in another week or 2. in the meantime, enjoy this adorable photo of tan cat, who turned 8 this month. black cat was feeling unphotogenic.

back to regularly scheduled programming

luckily this week, i have another freelance project to distract me. right now, i'm taking a little break to surf the web for inspiration [and to catch up on some blog reading.] i've been inspired by a lot of the work that i've been seeing; i really need to get my ass in gear and start "creating" again. i haven't really sewn anything since the wedding dress, so i've been going thru my fabric stash and whipping up a few pieces.

i also started knitting "tomato" a pattern by wendy bernard this week. its coming along rather quickly, and is good mindless tv knitting. i decided to replace the herringbone pattern with an argyle stripe... i think its a little more "me". i'm using lion brand cotton ease, which is surprisingly nice.








the central park hoodie has been done for months, but i couldn't decide on closures for it. i've been debating frogging the front bands and reworking them with buttonholes. fall will be here before know it, and i'll need a hoodie!

speaking of hoodies, i fell in love with this version of the l'il red riding hoodie from domiknitrix, and now i must make one. trying to find a non-wool bulky weight yarn has been tricky. i wanted something semi-affordable, and possibly machine-washable. i've been trying to steer clear of acrylics, but when i went to pick up the cotton-ease for tomato, i came across some that i decided to try out.



the green is vanna's choice [sad, i know] from lion brand. its 100% acrylic and machine washable... but acrylic. the grey is bernat's cashmere blend, [plus nylon + acrylic]. this is *really* nice for an acrylic blend yarn. i think i may go with this... i even threw it in the wash [it says its hand wash only], and it seemed to hold up, and still remained soft.

i'm a year or so behind on the bandwagon, but i think i might finally make a rusted root 3/4 length sleeve version for fall. i received my invitation for ravelry, and have been making lists and playing around on there. i'm going to need to take and upload a bunch of photos for that. maybe next week i'll get a chance to shoot all of the finished projects so it looks like i've actually accomplished something :) for those of you on ravelry, find me under motionary :)

the end of an anchor

so hand me the rocks, to help weigh me down
and tether my legs with a cord tightly bound
to the end of an anchor, thrown into the sound
and test me to see if I will rise against the worst that it can get

–––––––

last weekend my father was hospitalized when his oxygen levels went dangerously low. scary low. should i pack my bag and drive up in the middle of the night low. he pulled thru and spent a few days in the hospital recovering.

i made the drive up on thursday with the intention of helping penny clean out the rest of my parents house and visiting with my parents. things don't always go as planned tho, do they? my dad was released on wednesday, but not for long. his doctor advised him to consider transferring permanently back into the VA hospital for hospice care. for those of you, like me, who don't know what that is, try googling it. "end-of-life care". the doctor has given him 6 to 8 months to live.

we moved him into the hospice program at the VA on friday. i wasn't really prepared for it. i didn't realize it would be a hospital room... the one he'll be in until he dies. we slowly brought some of his belongings over and hung photos and made it a little more homey. then the task remained of cleaning out the apartment we had just moved them into a month ago. where is my mom living? well, 2 weeks ago, she was transferred into the dementia unit of the same nursing home since she can't live on her own. its been a very emotionally and physically draining few months.

we got alot done at the apartment, but not everything. we sold a few things, donated alot, and gave some stuff away. i took a few of my dads quilts to finish for him. we're storing a bunch of stuff at my sisters house in the meantime. other than the garbage we put out at my parents house on thursday, i never made it back. that will be saved for the next trip. i still need to grab a few things, then help clean so the house can sell. anyone need a 6 bedroom house in erie on 3 lots?

after more cleaning on sunday, we were finally able to spend some time with my mom and my dad. we took her up to visit him and i think that helped both of them. he was in good spirits so i snapped a pic of them for each of their rooms. he insisted on taking off his oxygen tube, so its the first pic in a long time without it.



we stopped in one last time with penny on sunday before making the trip back to pittsburgh. my dad asked what we were doing after he went to dinner and i told him we had to drive back. he looked a little choked up and then said "i don't know what i'd do without you guys." lets just say most of my drive home was spent wiping tears from my eyes.


i think i need to start a new knitting project this week to take my mind off things. that or hitting the gym. just.... something.