Yarn Quest

On Saturday, Mom and I went on a little errand adventure, with me driving to get the practice. After lunch, we were heading to Ft Myers to check out a yarn shop that I had seen online, called Hooked on Ewe.

When we were getting close, I found myself in an exit-only lane and had to go a little off the route, so I decided to put the address in the GPS and have it guide me the rest of the way. This was not a mistake, but did lead to confusion.

You see, I had looked at the map to find the store, and if you look at the bottom circle on this map, you will see that it appears to be in the outlet mall there. Which seemed a little odd, but not impossible. However, as it turns out, if you put the actual address into the map, it shows the real location, nearby (top circle).

Not only that, but the GPS did not use the route that I would have chosen, based on the actual location. I've drawn lines on this map to show it.

The black line is what the GPS wanted us to do, and I did follow it at first, though we were very puzzled as to why we were being sent through this little side neighborhood. When it looked like it was sending us down someone's driveway (that last curve), we said nope, went back out the way we came in, and followed the red route to where I had thought the store actually was, aka, in with the outlets. When, of course, it wasn't there, we went out the other side of the outlet mall and followed the GPS from there. Honestly, the GPS would have been much more sensible to send us the blue route in the first place. Confusing all around!

The store was nice, though, so I call it worth the trouble. It's a good-sized place, with lots of good yarns and other things, like fun knit-related decor.

I was on a mission for yarn for a baby blanket, and ended up coming out with this:

Not the greatest photo, though! It's Major, from Universal Yarn, colorway Aloe, and it's tones of blues with green and sort of light beige and I don't know what. It reminds me of the beach and the water. It's soft, it's machine washable, it's all good.

So on Sunday, I swatched, since the blanket I chose, Camilla, calls for Aran weight and this is bulky, so I may not make as many repeats across. To be determined!

I like how it comes out, at any rate.

Swatch!

We have achieved a swatch.

Details to come.

No, Thank You

This is one movie you couldn't pay me to see.

Clammy existential disquiet??

Real Progress!

Now, I only unpacked two boxes and two bins today, before stopping in accordance with the wishes of my arms and back. However, something crucial was revealed.

Houston, we have knitting needles.

In case you were wondering, the Glenlivet container holds something nonalcoholic; after all, knitting drunk is not a good idea, unless you enjoy fixing mistakes, possibly while hung over.

But the actual contents are still wonderfully addictive.

Progress in the Office

I took it easy yesterday, in terms of unpacking and carrying, and my hands and arms were much less vocally unhappy. Today I did a cautious bit of work. While I don't have the office 100% settled, it's gotten a lot closer.

I've starting putting my things on the wall, like the Rogues of Wool poster:

And the boarding school photo, which I swear does not look crooked in real life.

Those three bins in the middle will go down to the garage (right now, the roofers keep blocking off parts of the walkway, and I haven't wanted to get things downstairs only to find I can't make it the last few feet, but this weekend I should have a clear shot). The odds and ends in the squares will clear out and make room for more yarn.

Freddy will go up above where he is leaning, but at least he's closer. And again, the odds and ends in the squares will mostly clear out and make room for more yarn.

There's yarn in those bins!

Closing the closet doors hides a multitude of "where do I want this to go?" items. The big-cats-painted-on-palm-fronds to the right of the doors are my mother's, and fit there too perfectly to move.

Well, technically I moved one of them, since it was to the left of the closet before I found that the bookcases fit there. But you see what I mean.

Considering I arrived two weeks ago today, not bad! I mean, do you notice what is not in these photos? Cardboard! All the upstairs boxes are unpacked. There are still 11 boxes (and 10 totes) in the garage to be unpacked, but I started with 56 boxes (and 15 totes), so this really feels like progress.

Living Outside

I could (and probably will) write a whole lengthy screed on things I am adjusting to being different about living here (not all big things and not all bad, but just a lot of different), but one thing that struck me tonight is how different it is that I'm spending more time outside. This is mostly due to the lanai, but also in part to the existence of the pool.

Up north, I mostly went outside when I was going somewhere. I do recall pulling out the camp chair last year and setting it up next to my car, since I didn't have yard space, so that I could get a little sun, but it was a makeshift fix at best, and I couldn't stay out there that long, and couldn't leave things set up there.

Here, in the morning, I get up and take my tablet and coffee and sit on the lanai to read the paper. I usually eat lunch at the table on the lanai. After work, I sit on the lanai and knit or read or chat with my mother. It's nice out there, and before you ask, yes, it's hot. The temperature is usually in the 80s or 90s, and the humidity might be 70 to 80 as well. But the mitigating circs are mostly not being in direct sun; being on the sixth floor, where there is often a breeze; having the ceiling fan if the breeze is not enough; lots of ice water (and thank heavens for the ice maker, Fred, who is very enthusiastic about his job); and most of all, the just sitting there and not exerting myself. If I had to actually work out there, physical work, it would be a different story. We keep the air conditioning on inside, so that's always an option, but mostly, I'd rather sit and look at this:

Who wouldn't? And while the screens interfere with my photography something wicked, they make it tolerable in terms of bugs; only the no-see-ums get through, and they aren't year-round, at least. Without screens (and some buildings don't have them, don't allow them), the lanai would not be nearly so useful.

As to the pool, I haven't been in it every day, but probably every second or third day, I pop down and float around for half an hour. There's a mesh pool float that supports you but keeps you in the water, and I just love it. The water is warm, there's usually a light breeze, the sun is nice, and my goodness, am I enjoying it.

Still Overdoing It

I woke up with sore arms and hands this morning from all I did over the weekend, unpackingwise, but when I checked work and didn't have anything to work on, I thought perhaps I would be able to get a little more done. I went down to the garage, put two bins on a cart, brought them up and unloaded them, and took the empty bins and a few of the empty OED boxes back down to the garage.

At this point, belatedly, I listened to how much my hands were hurting and stopped, but too late; my hands have been sore all day. It's just so hard not to go from doing that one thing, to one other thing, and eventually too many things.

Ow.

Meanwhile, there were thunderstorms this morning (which cleared after some rain), and there are more tonight. I made tuna noodle for dinner, and I'm (slowly, carefully) doing a little knitting.

With lots of rests.

Pictures!

Time for some settling-in pictures! They are fairly crappy, but a lot of things have been unpacked but not yet determined where they go, so of course it's a bit of a mess that way. These are from Saturday, so I'm happy to say that there has been more progress since then. My intentions are to take it slowly with the unpacking, but intentions only take one so far, and I do keep working until my arms hurt. (As one of my dad's relatives liked to say, we get too soon old and too late smart.) But the process of unpacking is so much more fun than packing was. Figuring out where to put things is satisfying.

Most of my big bookcases are in the living room. I got the OED unpacked first, and then put in the combined fiction/mystery/sci-fi/fantasy books. Oh, and then the TV.

The fiction etceteras start here, then there are two shelves of DVDs above that. We've got room for a couple of shelves above, and will put photos on them, probably. The Ikea cube is there because it wouldn't fit in the bedroom or office when the movers came; it may stay there, or may move, undecided. It's not in the way where it is for now.

Looking into my office. All but one of those boxes are gone now.

The chair was a give from a friend of my mother. It's pretty comfortable. The idea is that when we have a house guest, the chair goes into the living room, which leaves a spot for the airbed.

The desk area:

I was so glad to get that set up Tuesday afternoon, so I could use my second monitor for work.

I didn't take photos of the bedroom, but I will get to that, and update these, as things continue to fall into place. For now, I'm off to do something that doesn't involve lifting. At least, not anything heavier than a water glass, or a book.

No Photos Tonight

Because I'm very tired from the doing of it, but I unpacked boxes and boxes of books tonight, and was so happy to see them again! (The books, not the boxes, obviously.) My mother said, not complaining but in surprise, "There's a library moving in!" And so there is. My library. Yay.

It was worth every drop of sweat and each ache and pain, but I am so, so ready for bed right now. But I'm going with a smile!

Looking to Friday

It's Thursday night, and I am feeling the end of the week, so close but not yet here. The week after a vacation is always a little rough to work through, isn't it? And with all the work I did for the move, my "vacation" wasn't a complete vacation, either. Plus, now that my stuff is here, I keep wanting to unpack things, which is satisfying, but quickly tiring.

Which leads me to watching tonight's hockey game, or at least, wanting to. If the Capitals win tonight, they win the Cup, and if they do, I'd like to see it, but given how tired I am before the game has even started, I don't like my odds of making it to the end. I've been going to bed pretty early for the last week.

Comment Weirdness

Last week or sometime, I happened to notice that someone had left a blog comment but Blogger didn't email it to me, as it always does with comments, and I thought, "Oh, how weird," and promptly forgot about it. But today, when I realized that there have been comments since then that I also didn't receive, I looked into it, and it turns out Blogger is having a problem with that, and yeah, they're totally going to fix it! Soon! As of a week ago, so ... I won't hold my breath.

So, if I haven't answered your comment, that's why! I'm trying to catch up on things, but tonight, unpacking the OED came first.

My Stuff, It Is Here

And I am happy!

And so tired, and sore, from just what unpacking I've done (not that much). It seems my body really remembers how tired it has been, and wants me to know that I am not quite forgiven yet.

Early to bed.

Back to Routine, Ish

Or, at least, after tomorrow, which is when the moving van comes!

I did work today, so that's half "back to routine" and half "making old routine new."

We're getting there.

Settling In

I'm doing better with the exhaustion than I was, but I'm still feeling a bit slower than usual, so I will just pop in to share a few photos from my new locale.

Like the pelican we saw yesterday while eating lunch (outside).

And the osprey we saw while eating lunch today (outside):

 Closer up:

From the other side:

And, just in case I get nostalgic for snow removal (ha!), I can visit this mailbox:

Getting Here

While the move process isn't exactly done until the moving van gets here (probably the middle of next week), I have made it to Florida, as has my car, without any major problems beyond the expected exhaustion. And wow, such exhaustion! Happily, I took the whole week off, so I have a few more days of being a bump on a log before I have to work again.

Meanwhile, I will sit on the lanai and contemplate the question of whether I will carry the "ccr in MA" name with me, as I am carrying my cell phone number with its 781 area code, or whether I should try "ccr in FL" on for size.

Movers Day

It's quarter to 8 Tuesday morning.

Last night, I did reach Packing Levels "Sobbing on the Couch From Exhaustion and Pain" and also "Fuck It, Just Throw It Out."

However, I did not reach Levels "Can't Go To Bed, Too Much To Do" or "Movers Are Here Soon and I'm Not Ready," so overall, it's a win.

So although I am very much this:

I will follow this:

Because, this:

Later.

The Friday Before

I opened Blogger as usual today, and there was this notice at the top of the page:

It says that (because of this EU privacy notice thing that you've probably heard about, along with receiving dozens of "We've updated our privacy policy!" emails recently) they have added a notice to my blog about it, but ... I didn't see it? I even tried their suggestion to log in to a .co.uk version of the blog and it wasn't there. But when I flipped back to that window, there was a message at the top about cookies, and what Google does with the data it collects, so I guess that's it.

Technology, man. I can't keep up.

~~~~~
Friday achievements:

• The car is now heading south, and will be there before I get there.
• Though I didn't get to see it put onto the car carrier, which I had been interested to see. Due to nearby roads with no trucks allowed, and narrow streets, I ended up meeting the car carrier a mile or so away, on a street where they were able to park without blocking traffic. Someone drove me back to my house in my car, then she drove it back to put on the carrier. Oh well. I certainly didn't feel strongly enough about seeing it happen to want to walk home after.
• I have a rental car for the rest of my time here. After listening to the Enterprise commercials all season ("Pick Enterprise, we'll pick you up!"), I decided to thank them for their support of hockey, when I finally needed to rent a car.
• The guy from the movers called to confirm we're on for Tuesday. They had originally said 8-9, but he said 8-10, which means I will be a tense wreck from about 7:45 until whenever they get here. Oh well. And then it will be over!
• After I finished the report I was working on, the rest of the work day was quiet. As it should be, right before a holiday weekend.
• I tried to spend the time balancing between "get things done" and "take it easy" so that I wouldn't cripple myself. That's my motto for the rest of the prep time: get it done, but don't kill myself doing it. (The sore spot on my back was acting up today, and trying to send some discomfort up to my neck. Great! Ice pack it is.)
• I'm at the chowder stage of packing, filling boxes with a little of this and some of that and oh hey, throw the other thing in.

And now I'm off to dinner with friends! A good day, overall, even if it did start with my neighbor's blender waking me (is there a stage one can achieve that is beyond liquid? I think that's what they were going for).

This Time Next Week...

...I'll be in Florida, and the deadlines-and-pressure part of the move will be over. Less than a week. Almost there.

This afternoon, I was telling myself, "This time next week, I'll be at the airport" or "on the plane," except I just now realized that today is Thursday, and since I am flying out on Wednesday, none of that is true. And no harm was done, but for someone who has spent as much time as I have today (and in recent days) studying calendars and making plans, it's a little let's-call-it-disconcerting to be off by a day. But at least I wasn't off the other way! That would have been very painful.

Like my back is painful, where the packing effort has aggravated that damned sore spot I got shoveling my car out the last time. Oh, the irony.

I met with the attorney tonight and signed the paperwork for him to take care of the closing for me. It was much less fuss than I thought it would be, and I was out in about 15 minutes. He's very nice, in an I-trust-him-with-this-business way, which I had felt on the phone, but it was good to have confirmed face to face.

I was early for the appointment (what a shocker), so I sat on a bench near his office, in the sun, knitting for a few minutes. The sun felt marvelous, although the cool breeze was a bit more than I wanted. Still, nice to get out in it, and just sit still for a few minutes.

One of the last pieces of furniture I wanted to get rid of was the dresser, and someone came tonight and took it, so that's good. Check! Off the list.

I suppose at some point, I need to decide what I'm doing about dinner...say, before bedtime.

Weather

The weather in MA this spring has been very, very up and down. I present to you the forecast from this morning until I move:

It was over 80 yesterday, but won't hit 70 today. Almost 80 tomorrow, 65 on Thursday. Then 84 on Saturday, 58 on Monday. Up and down, up and down.

Meanwhile, this is the forecast for FL, after I move:

Not just warmer, but so much more consistent! How I am looking forward to both things.

Counting Down, ow

I had already decided that I wasn't going to stay up for the end of the hockey game tonight; if Tampa wins, they go to the finals and I don't need to see them celebrate that, and if Washington wins, there's another game, so either way, eh. But it isn't quite 8 yet, the game hasn't started, and I am already into the sleepy blinks, so at this rate, I'll be lucky to make it to the end of the first period.

I'm honestly still tired and sore from yesterday. I thought that I was pacing myself throughout the day and not overdoing it, but I see by the time stamp on Facebook that it was 5:11 PM when I was complaining about how much my arms and hands hurt, so I guess I didn't really manage that. It's hard, when there's so much to do, and time to do more, to face the fact that the stamina isn't there. Still, I do feel like I'm in good shape*, knock on wood, and I'm not feeling panic when I say that this time next week, I will be looking at the movers coming in the morning. Only time will tell how I feel at that time, of course, but still.
*Not physically, obviously! But in terms of move readiness

Still. So tired wow.