Cramming a Lot of Life into a Few Weeks

The bathroom project is still not complete. But, it's the least of my worries these days. In a few days I leave for my company's big event in San Diego, and I'm working on all the things I need to complete before I leave. I have scripts to write and assignments to assign. At least I closed the latest issue of the magazine last week.

I haven't rented a scooter for this event like the one I had for the last one. I'm a little nervous, because these things require a lot of walking, but I figure I can walk until I'm tired, sit a bit, then get up and walk some more. I hope I'm not kidding myself.

Besides, I need to be prepared for the tremendous amount of walking I will be doing in Scotland in a few weeks. There will be castles to see, yarn to admire. I have to be ready for that!

Speaking of Scotland, I will be blogging from my trip. Loads of pictures and commentary. I'm looking forward to traveling with my fancy new ultralight computer. I hope I will have internet access. Hmm. Gotta check into that.

My good friend, Ashley, finally got engaged (I say finally, because she has wanted this for several years now), and my other good friend, Staci, made an offer on a house that was accepted. Len thinks he can finish his pilot's license while I'm away in Scotland. Gosh, there is so much happening in the world around me, I guess it makes me feel less overwhelmed. Everyone has a lot going on, and we all seem to manage.

The endless bathroom project

About six weeks or so ago, Len and I hired a company to gut and remodel our little bathroom. Back when the house was a two bedroom, one bath house, this was the one bath. It's the original bathroom for the home and still had the original 1940s tiles and fixtures. Too bad for us, though, because the floor joists beneath the bath had rotted and our tiles were cracking. If we had been able to save the original tiles, we would have.


As for the sink and commode, some very fashionable homeowner in the 1980s did a quick remodel, and installed a very unfortunate green formica counter and weird wood vanity, and a matching wood seat for the toilet. Top the whole thing off with a cheap medicine cabinet, crappy light fixture and southwestern-style striped forest green wallpaper and you get the idea. Nice.


So we had the floor joists replaced, all the tiles re-done, a new pedestal sink and commode (low-flow 1.2 gallons, thank you very much) installed, and had the fabulous old bathtub resurfaced, keeping the old streamlined/late art deco look of the tub. The tiles are white subway tiles with a black decorative stripe near the edges.


Last week, I thought all that I needed to do was prep the walls and paint to finish off the room. That is, until I went to wash my hands to find the new medicine cabinet had been installed way off center. It seems our contracter didn't bother to mention that he needed to move the sink from its original spot and that the cabinet above would be off-center -- he just installed it that way. And it wasn't an inadvertant mistake, he knew he was doing this. WTF?

So, Len's friend George came to the rescue. He and Len are re-installing the cabinet and adding the lighting, etc. I should be painting in a few days. Hurrah!

I'll publish pics of the final product in a week or so.

A big yarn day in Atlanta

Knitch was THE place to be yesterday (Sunday, April 6). Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, a.k.a. The Yarn Harlot, made her second appearance in the ATL, thanks to Kim Nickels, proprietor extraordinaire of Knitch. Hundreds of knitters piled into the Hilan Theatre a few doors down from the shop to listen to the aforementioned Harlot yammer on about knitting. The Knitch team and a few volunteers kept order and the event went off without a hitch. Pearl-McPhee was funny, interesting, and endearing. Buy her latest book, available at fine bookstores everywhere, as well as at Knitch. Have I said Knitch enough? Knitch, Knitch, Knitch, Knitch. Love that place!

I am spinning again, after a brief (what was it, one week?) hiatus. I made a hank of some lovely yarn as a gift for a certain someone. You'll know who you are soon enough. I also spun up the Hip Hip Hurray batt that Kerry made for me. Pretty in Pink! I also picked up a package of fiber bits from Knitch this weekend (I can't remember the name of the company who made the package of bits, but I'll add that later) and hand-carded the bits with some lovely green, red, yellow, and blue merino.
I call the finished yarn Charming, because I think it's charming!