Summer Blur

It would seem I managed to miss an entire summer's worth of updates here on the blog. It was a very short and fast summer with lots going on; you'll have to forgive me. Let's hit the highlight reel.

On the personal front the house hunt is at long last over. In March we got this crazy idea we should buy a house. The prices were low and so were the interest rates thanks to the economy tanking and the government was offering up an $8000 tax credit to first time buyers. Wow, I had no idea how slim the pickings would be in our price range in our desired neighborhood. After 5 months and 200+ houses visited we finally got one. We've passed price negotiation, inspection and appraisal. At this point it's wait for the end of the month to sign the papers and get the keys.

Though it was an arduous process I'm glad we stuck it out. There were lots of options in our price range if we wanted to leave Ballard, live on a bus route or have bedrooms in the basement. But I just kept hoping for a little house, on a quiet street with a nice backyard for monkey to run around in Ballard with all the bedrooms above ground; and that's exactly what we're getting. It's only 1200 finished square feet (I've had bigger apartments), but I can live with that. There's lots of storage room in the basement and the backyard is very big, with an apple tree to boot! I'm so excited it's all I can do to keep myself from driving past it every time I'm out and about. We walked there on our way home from the farmers market just to see how much closer it is to downtown. I love it!

On the mommy front I'm super happy too. Monkey started pre-school last week and loves it! He's at a pre-school that does part of the day in Spanish, which is awesome since I've been lax at teaching it to him. I've forgotten so many words at this point that it's hard for me. So yay for school! It gives me 8 hours a week of quiet time to myself, which is great. Along with school monkey is finishing up potty-training. I've finally decided to pull the plug on night time diapers. He asked very nicely to sleep in underpants instead of diapers the other night and I said yes. I figure if he's asking for it he's ready. The first night was perfect, no accidents all night! The last two, not so much, but it's a learning curve. I just feel so lucky to have such an independent little man!

And lastly, on the work front, SCK is trucking along quite nicely. I accidentally designed yet another sock that was already out there, this one was featured in Knitty no less (thankfully I found this out before I published it), but other than that the summer of the sock went quite well. I added 4 sock designs to my existing line of patterns and did wonderfully at Sock Summit. I actually sold out of the design I debuted at Sock Summit (50 copies no less)! I recently added a new wholesale account, so you can find SCK patterns at Twisted in Portland, woo hoo! My portfolio is up to 8 for sale patterns and 5 free patterns. I've got one more sock almost finished and have plans for at least 3 more designs this fall.

So as you can see it was a crazy busy summer here and I don't see it slowing down any time soon!