Tag Archives: moving

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We moved, Irma came and went, we’re okay!

I need to catch you all up! I want to get the blog back up and running, and things are finally settling down enough to get back to it...



My little family moved back to Florida in May. When I say 'back', I must say that Florida is my home state. It's where I was born and my family has resided for the last 50 years. So, when husband got an offer, we packed up, left California, put an offer on a house from the 60's and moved to an island between two rivers near Florida's Atlantic coast.

Lots happened this summer between tradeshows and new-home tasks and starting a new school...

And then Irma.

I was beyond terrified by the size of the storm. I hadn't lived in hurricane country in over a decade, it's a new-to-us house and we have big trees all around the house. I evacuated us as fast and left as early as possible just in case. My art is now at a nearby co-op gallery, and after I checked on the art gallery, we shuttered the house, packed up supplies and drove north. And drove. And drove. And drove. We made it to Georgia in pretty good time, and the next morning I drove some more and we made it to a friend's house where we watched from afar the storms progress.

Every day, we were glued to the noaa.gov site watching the very slow progress of the storm as it headed toward Miami (where much of my family resides). The predictions of the storm's path kept shifting from east coast to west coast of Florida, but it didn't matter. Hurricane Irma was so huge, if you were in Florida, you were gonna feel it. In fact, even in north Georgia we felt Irma's winds. Even that far away from the center of the storm, we were out of electricity for a few hours. Once we knew the storm had passed, we made our way back.

As we drove back to Florida, we saw a lot of fallen trees and blocked state roads. When we got back home, it was dark, but we could tell some of the traffic lights were out. Electricity had just come back online, and we were a boil-water notice for a while BUT, there was water coming out of the tap. I'm counting our lucky stars there was no significant damage to our house (just a small leak in the front entryway)!

I've included photos so you can see the nearby boardwalk after the storm. As of this writing, a few weeks after, boats that lost their moorings are still tipped over the former boardwalk edge. Piles and piles of foliage and debris are still on people's curbs, but they are receding each week.

Cocoa Village Park, 9/2017

Boats that lost their moorings, 9/2017



The DIY Mojo is Back!


Watch out! I'm getting that itch to make clothes again! Bought a sewing pattern after receiving some lovely new fabric from a friend. Bought yarn for the first time in over a year, and am now putting together some new DIY projects. 

Knitting:
Sadly our local LYS, the Loop & Leaf is closing, and Celeste the lovely owner of the shop had to sell all her yarn stock to prepare for the sale of the building. This meant steep cuts in price to the yarn and so I bought two small lots of yarn: 5 skeins of Juniper Moon Farm's Zooey and 7 skeins of Berroco Maya. We didn't have any stockists in Germany who carried Juniper Moon Farm or Berroco yarn so I was happy to finally get to try some of the more American brand yarns in warm-weather varieties. The Zooey is a cotton/linen blend and the Maya is a cotton/alpaca blend (chain structure).  I don't have too many warm weather yarns so it was perfect.

My first swatch in over a year! (Juniper Moon Farms Zooey)

Berroco's Maya yarn

Sewing:
We took a short trip to Germany, and I was able to catch up with friends. One of my friends is going super-minimal-no-waste in her household so she foisted some beautiful fabric on me (see the first pic). It didn't take much to convince me to take it! I want to make a blouse and a skirt for work.

Quilting:
Finally, I finished both sides of the fun "blue-green" patchwork quilt I started last year. So now all that's left is the actual quilting!


And that's what's happening in my craft-room (which is also the living room and art studio and general multi-purpose room)!

Super Simple Patchwork Quilt WIP

How do I deal with the stress of moving internationally?  I multitask like crazy, make lists, post stuff for sale... and do a simple patchwork quilt to deal with the need to do machine-like sewing and stash-busting.

Saturday...

4.5" scrap squares that have been hanging around for a while

later that day...

sewn into strips

and today!
nearly done with the quilted top

I still have five more rows to add, then sashing, then quilting!
Lots of progress!  Hurrah for the feeling of pseudo-accomplishment!

Moving Sale And Other Business

If you follow me on facebook or twitter, you might have seen it a few days ago when I announced we were moving. I wish I could say that we had found a great little house where we could all have a bit more space and plant a garden in the ground. But we’re not their yet. With Brock still being unemployed (he’s waiting to hear back from one job and has an interview for something really great on Tuesday–mojo requested), and being in the middle of planning a wedding on top of everything else involved in a normal life, I feel like I am being pulled in a million different directions at once. I am worn out by worrying about money–and stress settled on me in the form of a UTI that really took the wind out of my sails.

The good news is that Brock’s mom stepped in and has offered to let us stay with her until we are able to stabilize a little bit. It’s not that we can’t pay for what we have with just my job. It’s that it takes my entire paycheck to cover it. There is no room for emergencies–and when someone gets a UTI the week before they are supposed to get health insurance and then gets their debit card stolen and then the car battery dies–there just isn’t any effing wiggle room. It’s a recipe for a meltdown. She has been offering for months, and Friday, we took her up on it. She has three extra bedrooms upstairs that we are going to move into. There will be a bedroom for us, a bedroom for Athrun and a private living/studio space. Minerva will be absolutely spoiled by the cat flap and closed-off, cat-friendly backyard. We will be able to pull this wedding together and throw a little money at debt the next couple of months, and be out back on our own when Brock is stably employed.

What we won’t have is a lot of storage. We’re planning a big garage sale for the weekend we move in, and what doesn’t sell is being donated. More importantly for you though, I am not going to have room to store all of my yarn or to dye yarn while we are there. A little sad, yes, but a great opportunity for you!

Over the weekend, I marked down all of my yarn and fiber by at least 30% and it will remain that way until it’s gone, gone, gone. And my mission is to sell most of it by the time we move in three weeks. Now is the time to stock up on sock yarn!

(RAWR! sock yarn club will proceed as normal, sock clubbers)

In the meantime, I am sorting through my personal stash and slowly starting to pack up the apartment. I plan to keep blogging, and hope to devote some more time to other projects while I am not dyeing.

Be on the lookout for some destash deals over the next few days.

For now, it’s day 5 of Tour de Fleece, and I need to get spinning!

July projects
grey alpaca singles and my yarn for the pendulum KAL

Also, Brock hasn’t been idle in his unemployment. Aside from keeping up with the dishes, he’s been working on something fun: Dig, Robot, Dig!.