I did it. Since I blogged so faithfully in January and most of February I have decided to take a plunge. Coupled with the fact that I am moving in the physical world, I figured I may as well get all of my change and turmoil at once! Besides I hear that Saturn is in return and theoretically I shall be hitting my quarterlife crisis momentarily.

The new place is http://blog.halfacregoods.com. The site name would give you the impression that I plan to sell something. Perhaps I shall, in another 5+ years when I have time to breathe. I kid, I have no trouble breathing, there is simply a lot coming up in my life with the move, family stuff and work. Someday I will finish my Master’s project and then I will feel qualified to try and do something amazing!

All of the entries from this page have been whooshed over to the new blog. I promise to try very hard not to break everything right away.

PS – I took out the trash!

House buying can be frustrating. So frustrating that you throw the phone across the apartment for it’s last and fatal flight. My mobile phone is hovering between life and death. I can get enough juice out of it to back it up to my computer with this fancy cord I bought to hack it when I got the phone. However, I can’t see any menus or screens and when I received a phone call there was a very distinct smell of electrical fire. I am currently throwing caution to the wind as I leave it on hoping the screen will come back. Alas, I fear that it won’t and I will be forced to succumb and buy a newer and even crappier phone. (Did I mention that I hate the downward spiral of phones? It’s like they know that I am due for a “New Every Two Upgrade” and they knew that I had decided to tell the cell phone man to shove it because his phones are craptastic. So it killed itself. Forcing me to spend more money on something els that will die soon. Gah!)

Yes I am bitter, who do you ask?

Wish me luck as I traverse to Verizon tonight for a new phone…

As I enter another baby boom, summer of weddings and my own upcoming moves I am desperately in search of mojo.

More specifically:

• knitting mojo
• gift mojo
• notecard mojo
• thank you letter mojo
• packing mojo
• and the mojo that makes one actually get off their dupa and take out the trash.

If any of you have found these mojos or have extra that I could use I would greatly appreciate it. For now I will try to make mojo from to do lists.

Uh-oh. It seems that I disappeared last week. Quick summary:

Monday: went to knitting Guild meeting, packed my suitcase, got shafted by Dayton area taxis and flew to DC where I met up with bunnyquirrel. (By the by, apparently when you only live less than 2 miles from the airport it’s not worth it to the taxis to pick you up and take you to the airport…)

Tuesday: went to work at the office, showed off pictures of my new house, secured financing for the home, caught up with co-workers, met new co-workers, interviewed potentials and put in a recommendation to hire a new person. After work we had happy hour, which turned into happy hours for myself and two co-workers. We finally wandered home/back to the hotel around 10 pm. Woops!

Wednesday: went to work, had my annual review, found out they still like me and received a raise! Missed knit night in Ellicot City due to snow and DC traffic, caught my plane home where I was greeted by 4 to 5 inches of snow on my car.

Thursday: got work done, thought about cleaning, started the switch of insurance companies, skipped yoga due to the rapidly falling snow outside and made a budget instead.

Friday: thought harder about cleaning and packing, chatted for a bit with the insurance agent, drove home for the weekend and thought harsh thoughts about the ice on the car that didn’t want to be scraped off, especially off the mirrors.

Saturday: HOME INSPECTION! We got our home inspection done. Everything was hunky dory. One minor thing to check out with the electrician tomorrow. Home ownership is coming closer. Went to Sears and bought a washer and dryer. Yes, we got a top loader so that maybe some day I can try felting. Drove back to the apartment to pack more boxes and donate goods to my brother who is moving out in two weeks. (He is taking the job in NC!)

Sunday: Relaxed a little bit, then more packing and planning for the move. Decided on which bank to go with for our new account.

Today: Turned in our notice to the apartment, opened new bank account, got quote from movers, started master to do lists and thought really hard about organizing and packing for the move. Went to knit night and worked some more on Alpaca Surprise. I am off to bed to get some more of this thing called rest. I promise to try to not disappear for quite so long next time.

So what did I do this weekend you ask?

Well, I bought a house.  Yep, that’s about it. (To be fair we are “in contract”however the home is lovely, sits on .5 acres and the current owners have taken wonderful care of the home. We don’t expect the inspector to find anything drastic this weekend.) If I am in and out or missing in action you can attribute it to all those details associated with home buying. For the nosy among you, we close and take possession toward the end of March. Yay!

Today’s lovely yarn is brought to you by the letter R and the number 5. This is the very yummy yarn that I am using for my Tiger Eye Scarf. The scarf that is just chilling right now while I whip out a few things with actual deadlines. Enjoy!

There is reason for great celebration. Well at least there was last night because I completed my first swatch for the Master’s program. Hoorah (let there be great fanfare and much rejoicing)! I still need to block it, but first I want to read up on how to properly do that thing you do with the last stitch because I swear I have been doing it wrong. If anyone has any insight I am ready and willing to soak up knowledge. For my proof I give you two pictures. Enjoy!

At last I have some knitting to share. It was on hiatus for a minute while my world exploded with activity but things have calmed down again. Not to mention I now have no roomie to distract me in the evenings. In good news though, he is very much enjoying his new job with all it’s perks – mandatory lunch breaks, continuing education courses, uniforms, fancy new fast computer, his own line with his name on the voice mail (as opposed to the previous occupant’s who has been gone 2 yrs…) Sometimes it really is all about the little things.

I have finished the back of the Jacket for my friend’s daughter. Now to work on the next piece, the left front. Tschüs!

Today I learned how to get candle wax off furniture and walls.

Today I learned not to wind a ball of yarn with the project still attached.

Today I learned that the cool little favicons show up once you click the link in your toolbar.

Today I learned that I will probably spend more on a house than I want to and more than I think they are actually worth.

I am really really working on getting some knitting done to show you. Alas, I am lame.

PS I forgot to add that I learned about the wonders of Google Reader last week. Well I had heard about Google Reader before but I learned about the Next>> button that can be added to your browser and the ability to download and read blogs offline. I was ecstatic and subscribed to all those blogs I had been meaning to read but couldn’t be bothered to make the effort to get to. (I am terrible I know) In my effort to get caught up on all of the blogs I have been reading non stop for the past two days and much to my delight moments ago I received this message:

Congratulations, you’ve reached the End of the Internet .

My work here is done. I am caught up and now I can resume my normal life.

I know I have been rambling on and on about this Sticks N Stitches event since all the way back in October of 2007. Turns out that it was totally worth it. Last night we had the first annual Sticks N Stitches at Nationwide Arena. My family, boyfriend and I arrived at the arena around 4:30pm with boxes of goodie bags and door prizes in tow. Our wonderful contact at the Blue Jackets let us in and even managed to procure a booth for us to use. The season ticket holders weren’t overly pleased to see their usual space was filled with these ladies who couldn’t sell them Fan Bucks and weren’t quite sure what to make of all the yarn. Woops! They got all straightened out after the 1st period started.

It was fun to watch the first surge arrive. Nationwide Arena has escalators to take folks to the 2nd level and we watched the knitters and crocheters as they rode the escalator with their bags that gave them away. (The boy says you can always tell a knitter/crocheter because they always have a couple of bags.) Everyone was pleased and had fun checking out their goodie bags. The goodie bags consisted of the following:

Each person received either an IK or IC magazine and at random. There were also 3 different patterns and folks received one of them at random. The colors of yarn also varied at random.

When we gave each person a goodie bag they also received a listing of which vendors had donated to the event and what they donated. (The fun part about that list was that at 2pm I realized that I had forgotten to include one business so I began to write that company in by hand on all 100 sheets that had been printed out. Thankfully, my mom stepped in and helped or I wouldn’t have finished!) Everyone also filled out a raffle slip that I had created specifically for this event. The raffle slips included their row and seat numbers so that we could deliver all the door prizes during the game. I got to meet several people that I have been communicating with online and through Ravelry. It was all very fun!

Once the first period started our Blue Jackets contact said that the usual guy who ran the Season Ticket Holders booth would be coming and could hand out our bags as well so that we could watch the game. Score! We cleaned up the area as we didn’t really have very many bags left at that point and instructed him on all the intricacies of passing out bags.

I came back down during the 1st intermission to check on the progress. I think one of my favorite interactions was a guy who came down, read our sign and then said “ahh so this is what all the stitching is about!” He informed me that he had a seat in the back row of our section and was surrounded by knitters. “There were all these people knitting and it just blew my mind!” I heart good sports. There were a few other folks who came over to read the signs and seemed interested in the idea.

During the 2nd intermission I separated out the raffle slips to start the drawings aided by my little brother and my boyfriend. We drew for the crochet prizes and then dumped the crocheters who didn’t win in with the knitters and undecideds for the general prizes. After all the prizes were assigned and the 3rd period began my poor 14 yo brother was sent by himself to deliver Raverly totes and tees to the winners. Let’s just say he was popular. One of the attendees TechnoCowboy looked at him while he was reviewing the winning slips and said call my name. My brother was like hmm are you ___? And he was! Too funny!

The winner of the $100 gift certificate to YarnMarket didn’t seem the least bit disappointed. Our family friends that came along to support my event walked away with two of the door prizes. One of them even won some of the gorgeous handspun donated by Five Llamas. We had 25 door prizes and about 100 attendees so 1 in every 4 people won a prize! Talk about your good odds. The final stats are:

• 113 tickets sold
• 92 goodie bags distributed
• 96 raffle slips submitted

We collected 100 blocks for Warm Up America. I will be contacting one of the local organizations Warm Up Worthington to donate the blocks to. Sadly, the Blue Jackets lost but the rest of the game was great and we should have another one next year!

Feel free to leave feedback from the event here or over on the Sticks N Stitches page. Also check out more pictures from the event: photos and door prizes.