Missive From Amid the Mess

The last few days the house has been variously without power, heat and/or water, each of these on their own and sometimes in combination for extra fun and excitement. Sometimes its planned and others a special surprise.  Perhaps in sympathy my mouse seems to be loosing its ability to left click which interestingly seems to be more difficult to cope with than all three of the others combined. 

I'm still shopping around like a maniac for the bits I need to go into this hastily arranged renovation/redecoration, helping out with my brother, hosting a little impromptu dinner party here Saturday - are we nuts? - and of course leaving the whole mess behind to go skiing on Sunday - we are nuts!!

Being clearly nuts aside, I do have to say both the Saturday evening break in the program and the ski day that saw the four of us together from the pre-dawn drive north through watching the Oscars together in the master bedroom on the only working TV in the place were both very nice breaks in the renovation/redecoration marathon. (Our first exploratory meeting with the contractor was only two weeks ago tonight!)

Yesterday I headed to my mother's with last week's laundry. The absence of electricity, water, washing machine and laundry sink made doing it here a bit tricky. I cooked dinner at her place for her and Number One Son (The other two were out and about) as the laundry fest continued into the evening, only rolling back in here just before 10:00.

After judging the leak in the laundry room pipes the contractor left behind last night to be something that could wait to be attended to this morning, I made a massive mug of peppermint tea and landed with needles in hand just in time to watch Project Runway Canada. It was the first time in several days I was able to steal a few moments to knit! I can't remember the last time I went so long without knitting. While working on the long stockinette rows between the cables and the point at which the sleeves are joined to the body of Tangled Yoke I felt like a smoker taking long drags on an overdue cigarette. It was calming and grounding and familiar and comfortable. Ahhhhh.

I must admit I have been kind of filling the knitting void by carrying my new copy of the spring issue of Debbie Bliss Knitting around with me, stealing a moment here or there to leaf through it. (In fact that's what I did en route to and from skiing because I just didn't have the energy to organize knitting to take with me) I'm quite smitten with many of the designs. Good thing too because IK's spring issue seems to have nothing that appeals to me.  The mag really does evoke early Martha Stewart with features about DB's travels, collections, inspirations and featuring photography that's longer on mood than illustration. The obvious departure though is what I think is a real absence of good writing. As a fan of DB patterns, books and yarns I've long noted her utterly unimaginative names for designs. So too I find her books never have enough language dedicated to the knits' features, her web site similarly lacks evocative text about her yarns. At this point though I'm probably not capable of enough sustained attention to appreciate anything beyond pretty pictures so I'm nonetheless enjoying the issue immensely. 

Today the electrician is back to finish up connecting the pot lights, outlets and switches that are all in place and with all wires run.  Once he's done, they can start putting in the insulation so that hopefully the drywall can start going up tomorrow.  I'm off to pick up the flooring for the laundry room - hopefully it will be bailed out and dry by tomorrow in time for the floor to be installed. Realistically I'll be doing laundry at my mom's at least one more time but I'm pushing hard to have a working laundry room ready by the end of next week so its ready for the week's 10 loads to be done here.

Number One Son is off very early tomorrow morning on a French ski trip to Quebec. That means another scramble today to get him packed and ready but it also means his laundry for the week will be largly reduced to long underwear!

Thanks for dropping by to follow along with my household adventures - there should at least be some better stuff than stud walls and bare wires to show soon! I'm even hopeful proper knitting content is about to return!