new socks, new yarn, and the blues

I finished my Old School Tie socks last night! TA DA! It only took me two months... (begun 8/17 according to my knitting journal). I need more practice on the short-row heel--I had holes on both of these where the heel joins the rest of the sock. I also learned what a difference there is in the yarn used by a knit stitch and that used by a purl stitch--you'll see how drastically the pattern of rings changes on the foot from the leg, because I didn't purl the yellow stitches on the bottom of the foot. I kept having to advance the yarn a few inches on the foot to keep the colors from pooling. Still, I think they turned out nicely, and I won't be ashamed to wear them. I have quite a bit of yarn left over--ankle socks, or toddler socks, or maybe fingerless gloves?

Then the final shipment of the Sock Yarn Club arrived in today's mail! Yay! The picture below doesn't *quite* capture the real colors, which are rather darker, but it's close enough to give you an idea. Very autumnal, with the unlikely colorway name of Brouhaha. ? Dyed by Dream in Color, 100% superwash merino, 450 yards. I wish there were more of it; I'd like to make a sweater out of it.

Poor Ts. This is the first day of my four-day vacation, and I'd intended to get up, take them out to play, drive out to look at a house in one of the nearby little towns, come back, eat lunch, go to my appt. with my therapist, go buy stuff at K-Mart (like ammonia and 0000 superfine steel wool to get the glue of the back window of the van), go to the post office (I still haven't mailed Leo's socks and hat--he's probably outgrown them by now), come home and let them out to play, knit, listen to music, work out in the yard. I woke up feeling pretty good, but sometime this morning I just crashed. I'm not sure when or why, but I haven't stirred out of the living room, except to go out and get the mail. Poor Ts.

Since I have to go to my appt., I'm likely to get to the post office, which is only a block away. I wont vouch for K-Mart. Walgreens has 3 cases of bottled water for $8, and the grocery store has 3 cartons of diet Coke for $10; they're across the street from each other and a block from the therapist the *other* way (small towns--), so I'll probably get to them, and buy some cat-food for Annie and some yoghurt for Timber because his ears are itchy. I do have to get the glue off the van window though, because I can't see very well and it's kind of dangerous. Maybe I'll feel like driving out to look at that house tomorrow.

It *sounds* like a nice house: "This wonderful Ranch home on a cult-a-sack [sic] offers 1500 sf of living space. You will find three bedrooms, one full bath, large eat-in kitchen, living room, large 23x15 family room with fireplace and walk-out to a patio area, new furnace, new water lines, storage shed and country setting. "

It's got a lot of the things I want:

• Ranch= no stairs
• large eat-in kitchen
• full bath (I bet it's got a shower!)
• big room with fireplace
• 3 bedrooms (one for me, one for a guest, one for the study)
• "country setting" (it's way the heck at the edge of town, although I'd be willing to bet there'll be some kind of subdivision there in 10 years) (or less)
• room for a garden
• I could have bird feeders
• lots of T-space

It doesn't have a garage but I could probably manage. It's not a long drive, esp. if you avoid the highway and come in the backway on the country roads. I would have to get up considerably earlier than I do now. :-P I'd have to have the lot fenced for the Ts. I would *definitely* have to have new transportation. With cornfields as neighbors, all those herbicides and pesticides would be bound to drift over our way. And one reason I want to look at it myself before I talk to a realtor is that in the satellite map on Mapquest there's something several blocks away that I can't tell what is. It might be a feed co-op with dryers going night and day, or a cement and gravel place (major dust).

Oh well--it's all probably moot anyway. I can't imagine anyone would want to buy my house.