Recently in Life and Such Category

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!

It would seem you missed the memo. Spring sprung several days ago. Snow is best reserved for the winter months. Sunshine and flowers are the to do items for spring. Please get on it. Thanks!

On a happy side note, Grant's company got a sweet write-up in the NY Times. Congrats love!

This is unreal! Do I get to issue them an IOU due to my budget problems and cash shortage and keep them from taking new taxes out of my check? OK, to be fair, they no longer get a piece of my check, but I know there are plenty of you out there that are still paying them. And, of course, I can't even get in before the 1st because I still don't have my W-2.

Thanks to all for the advice on the thank you note situation, very interesting solutions to ponder.

As you all know, I gave up my day job last June in order to pursue SCK full time. This has lead to a tightening of the budget around here until I can increase my revenue streams. One of the first things we realized is that cooking at home is a huge savings, however, I hate cooking. In a world with infinite money, I would have a chef on staff that would cook all my meals for me. Alas, I'm not in that world.

So, much as I hate to admit it, there have been a disproportionate number of frozen pizzas and hot dogs consumed of late. I can somehow manage to feed the monkey all sorts of nutritious food (don't get me started on the sheer number of bananas we go through in a week), but when it comes to Grant and I it just falls short. However, once in a while we'll be adventurous and try something new. Tonight was one of those nights.

We made some of the best pasta ever from random ingredients in the fridge and it was super simple. So easy, even I can handle it. Though, to be fair, Grant handled the bacon end of things (I hate touching raw meat). I have to share it was so good.

Boil up a pot of noodles. In a skillet fry up some pre-chopped bacon with butter, onions and fresh thyme. When the bacon is cooked, drain off a bit of the fat, and then dump the rest of the mixture over the noodles. Grate Mizithra cheese on top of it all, toss, and add a bit more Mizithra on top before serving. So freaking tasty!

So let's say you got married back in May of 2000. It's now January of 2009. You're going through some boxes and you come across some written, but not mailed, thank you cards from your wedding. What do you do?

This is all hypothetical of course, because I never forget things, or lose them, or have piles of old papers in boxes. Nope, that's not me at all. Just pondering a hypothetical.

This story is at the same time one of the funniest, sweetest and most frightening things I've read in a long time. And I thought Monkey's new ability to climb out of his crib was bad! Could you imagine being those parents?

I've been missing from the blog world for the last few months. During this little time off I've been growing SCK (I added another physical store to my distribution network) and helping my monkey grow. One of my missions in the later arena has been to teach monkey good manners. This has become a bit of a joke with our friend group, so much so that we received a lovely gift from some friends in that vein.

I have been extremely proud that monkey has taken to using please and thank you largely unasked. At times he's even taking to thanking himself, it's pretty damn cute. Some how, though we haven't been prompting him, he's picked up excuse me too.

Last night, we walked to the local Mexican place for dinner and margaritas to ring in the new year. Along a narrow stretch of sidewalk a large woman approached, monkey stepped to the side, smiled at her and said excuse me. My heart just about burst at that moment. I'm not kidding when I say that I got a little teary eyed.

I can't wait to see what 2009 holds. Happy New Year to all of you, may 2009 bring you much joy!