Dyed in the Wool Handmade

A lot of people are talking about resolutions but I’m not going to do that, or have any of those. This doesn’t mean I’m not going to have resolve, though. I have a lot of that. I’m not putting any limits or pressures on myself this year in the traditional manner. Instead, I’m going to try to give everything in my life the correct amount of attention. And part of that is figuring out what that is.

In the meantime, we’ve decided to give our house some much-needed attention. We reorganized our laundry room a couple of months ago and that was a great improvement. Now we want to take care of the eat-in/foyer (yes, you read that right) part of the kitchen. Remove some old panelling and replace it with wainscotting and a chair rail, some fresh paint. We’ve got a bench and shelf with coat hooks from Ikea (or we will when Jeremy gets home from work), but before we install them we have to do quite a bit of prep first.

Another thing we’ve been thinking about is what we’re going to do when it’s time for Alex to go to university. It’s only two years away and coming fast. Hopefully Alex will be able to go to one of our excellent local universities and take public transportation, providing he can live with my mom in the city (she cannot wait; since neither Natalie or I live there anymore, she gets lonely. My dad isn’t much of a conversationalist). Another alternative is for all three of us to move back into my mom’s house and rent our current home to a tennant. Extra income is always welcome. The truth is that we don’t know anything about how to rent property, but we’ve got about two years to educate ourselves if that’s something we want to do.

Someone is trying to steal my Malabrigo!

I’m back to work, taking photos of my yarn and beginning to upload them to the shop. I’ll be doing a few batches every day, so keep checking back to see what’s new. The first yarn going up is my MCN blend, Luxe Fingering. I’m using “Sprung” to knit a pair of stockinette socks with short-row heels. SO soft!

Time for catch up, I guess! A lot has happened lately. We got a new kitten named Cocoa. She’s a diluted orange tabby and we’ve had her for a few months now. She fell in love with everyone immediately, but the other three took their time warming up to her. Now they’re all friends, and she sleeps with the other ladies at night. When she’s not sitting on my face and farting, that is.

What else? My son and his friends decided to participate in No Shave November, which was nothing more than a bunch of guys refusing to shave until Dec. 1 just because they’ve discovered they can grow hair; apparently you’re allowed to be lazy if you give it a Name and a time limit. I thought it was hilarious, and I have a couple of photos of my son, Bearded Alex, but I haven’t uploaded them yet! Soon! It’s not as easy to get photos of him as it used to be.

The holidays were really nice, especially because I forgot my camera and didn’t have to worry about taking photos. We brought Cocoa with us to my mom’s place. My mom likes her the best at the moment because she’s kind of beige and matches my mom’s furniture, heh. I got some new dishes from my sister and they’re terribly cute. I’ve been rapidly running out of dishes because loading the dishwasher is the Bearded Son’s job, and he has a bit of a heavy hand. I refuse to excuse him from the chore simply because he’s clumsy, so Natalie got us some dishes that are much harder to break. Genius.

And now, I have to go because if I don’t feed my cat Jonah I’m going to be hella sorry!

Due to some health and family issues, I’ve decided not to return to dyeing yarn and fibre for the rest of the year. The plan is to be back in January. This means I’ll also be unable to take on any wholesale orders or dye for any sock/fibre clubs for the duration.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me in my fibre business! Nothing has meant more to me than my customers and your incredible feedback. Thank you so much! See you in January.

It’s going to sound like nothing makes me happy, but I have a bone to pick with this summer. The first half of summer did nothing but rain. The second half of the summer so far has been ridiculously hot and humid. Today we’ve got a bit of a breeze and I can sit outside without sweating, which is nice. Shortly I’m going to go inside and dye yarn, which will immediately turn my house into a sauna.

Jeremy has been working a lot lately, to the degree that we have only an hour or two each evening to spend relaxing. He’s been putting in full days at his storyboarding gig and weekends at the retail job. I cannot wait until that’s over.

Nothing much has been going on around here except for work. I really wanted to spend at least one day at the beach but we haven’t had a chance to do that yet. We did make it to the drive-in to see District 9 (highly recommend) and today my sister is taking Alex to see Harry Potter. Otherwise, the summer’s been kind of a wash. We’re looking forward to taking a little holiday to New Jersey this fall, once the work is done. Watch out, because my hair will be COMING DOWN.