Do you notice something maybe a little bit different about the Matisse? Tiny bit?
How about now?
I did it to him. On purpose. His fur was so clammy this summer that cutting out mats and brushing him down once a week wasn’t working very well… so I just went scorched earth and whipped out the electric razor.
AND HE LET ME DO IT TO HIM WITHOUT FIGHTING.
I’ll try not to make a habit of it though. daily brushings is the new rule chez rebecca.
For now? Maybe a little bit of giggling. Tiny bit.
That’s only some of the yarn I’ve gotten this week.
Send help.
One that’s not four legged and thinks he’s not fed enough.
On Saturday’s grammafest, gramma and I went to her former big town near her old home, and we did a bunch of errands. One of them involved dropping off some things at her older son’s house, and while we were there, he gave me his catchenal castle, since his cat had decreed it unworthy. I thought, you know, it was worth a try with my boys, right? Free and all.
I think they liked it a little bit 
Knitting is funny. The first sock was done in two days in March… and the second sock in two days as well… in July.
I plan these things well. Given it’s um… hot. Maybe. Little bit. Two days each, of course, because I was working and needed the distraction.
They look rather ravelry-green don’t they? The yarn is knitpicks swish in the discontinued aloe color. Let’s just say I didn’t think they’d be THAT green when I saw them on the computer screen… no complaints though! Especially for what amounts to a $6 pair of socks. The yarn was really nice and soft, and the fabric created was great – I have my fingers crossed for how well they’ll wear! I’m really happy with them – so much better than my original rendition of these socks, a year ago. Which, by the way, are my first socks to officially throw out, because they are uncomfortable! Bad cuffs, bad toes, bad heel turns, they’ll do that. Which was the only reason, you see, why I knit the whole pattern over again 
How far one grows in a year! I did 4 rows of reverse stockinette and then joined it together like a hem, which is much stretchier than a regular cast on would be – much better for me.
Speaking of ravelry – you don’t have to do this, no obligation, but if you are so inclined, please see this post and if you want to help contribute to a fellow knitter in need, it would be greatly appreciated. There’s lots of Wollmeise up for raffle, but for us friends organizing this, it’s not about that, it’s about helping. Every little bit helps. I’ve given yarn, of course, as well!
Before these past few months, I never really had a schedule. I would get up, and I’d do whatever I did when I did, and go to bed whenever.
The paucity of my posts lately should tell you one thing: that? a thing of the past. I am now setting sundays as my day to work on more-personal online things, and to work on the apartment – crazy as it seems, I am now at the place where I have to schedule time for blogging and being online, for doing laundry and picking up the apartment, or nothing happens because I’m consumed with other things.
I have to tell you, the more yarn that comes in, the more minimalist I get in the rest of my life.
You can’t just find time to do things… you have to make the time. And that blows my mind, more than anything.
Why have I been so busy? In a word: yarn. Somehow my little bellamoden business has grown to the point that I easily spend 4-6 10-12 hour “shifts” a week just working on YARN. I even had to hire in help a couple weeks ago for a marathon all day reskeining session. Next week I’m hiring help to truss up more than 150 pounds worth of yarn. Yarn that will last me through the first week of September.
My basic schedule is like this – I get up at 9, and I work online until noon. This is usually my concentrated knitting time of the day. At noon, I stop and I move on to working on the things I need to work on. Skeining, trussing, dye prepping, colorway designing, package preparing, label printing, supply ordering, inventory, equipment upkeep, keeping up with orders, more inventory, ordering more yarn, and at least twice a week, marathon dyeing sessions. My bathtub area is almost always covered with yarn hanging, like this:
Every night I stop for the day at 10, whether or not I’m done, usually, and allow myself a nice hot bath, and settle down for law and order at 1035. I knit, and do a final half hour of online time, this time for ME… and at midnight I’m horizontal.
And my days off? Usually spent with gramma This past week I actually spent the day with her three times, monday, thursday, and saturday. Her move seems to have gone well thus far, and I like coming over to her new place ON THE BUS and just helping her put away things and organizing.
Organizing: the one thing I am obsessive about
I am hoping that with enforcing that time for me to do personal emails and blog commenting and oops, READING, and stuff… I can get back more balance in my life.
I LOVE WHAT I DO. never doubt it.
Life changes so fast, sometimes. Gramma decided 2 weeks ago she wanted out of the house she’d lived in for 30 years. And then she sold the house in an eyeblink. And then she found an apartment to move in to. And then she had to pack up the place….. And yesterday, after a lot of cleaning and clearing out, I got two new pieces of furniture.
I hate the wires behind the table, but I’ll figure it out, and put something nice underneath, possibly a galvanized tub or something. We’ll see. I feel somehow so much more at home staring at this table under the TV… it’s the table gramma had for her TV… and somehow… it’s feeling right. HOME.
I need to get some contact putty though, for that DVD player… notice it’s a smaller one? The last one might have crashed to the floor and broke in possibly several by which I mean a lot of pieces.
Oddly enough, this bed means so much to me… I wish there’d been time to paint it black before the move, but that’s okay – this blue is so lovely. I slept really well in it last night! It’s so high and somehow HUGE even though it’s just a full size bed. The boys aren’t sure yet how to take it, but I am – it’s HOME. It’s my bed. My bedroom. It feels right.
The apartment isn’t my forever home, and I admit I’ve started the process of looking elsewhere… but it’s good to know I do have a place to feel good in at night. Finally.
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