Secret Project Revealed: John’s Room

I disappeared again.

Let’s take a minute or two to talk about old houses, shall we?

Old houses have been around long enough to have their own personalities. The initial phrase people use is usually ‘charming’. As in, what a charming old house this is! You have to focus on the charming to get past the fact that nothing is going to go right when you’re working on an old house. Or at least, it’s never going to be perfect- but what house is? They’re like people that way, kind of wonderful. (Often frustrating.)

This is John’s room.

I love John, he’s a wonderful husband and friend. He’s also a dictator of a big brother and a very devoted son. He does a lot for the people in his life that he feels deserve the best. He’s always going out of his way to make my life as perfect as possible and sometimes I get teary just thinking about how great he is because I’m that kind of sap. Honestly, words will never express how much he means to me, so I’m not going to bore you trying. You get the point: John does a lot for others but he’s never really focused on himself or what he wants.

That’s my job.

So while John was planning a trip for his job, I was trying to come up with ideas for what to do for him. Originally he was planning on being out of town for two weeks. (Two weeks at the beginning of February, in Des Moines. All of that sounds like a fantasy work trip, right?) With two weeks, I could do it all right?!

Or maybe I could just… clean.

That corner confused me the most. It reminded me of Toom’s from the X-files. Only instead of bile and newspaper, I thought John might be making a nest out of old socks and clothes.

Let me show you a few problem areas that John had been looking at every day.

The people before the last owner were big fans of starting projects but not finishing them. (The last owner didn’t do anything to the house except cover it in bird seed and glitter.) So as you can see here, they painted the ceiling but let it come down onto the wall. Maybe they were planning on painting the wall eventually… None of the walls have been painted in the house though. Half of them are in various stages of (bad) repair, with a lot of drywall tape making appearances in weird places.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The doors all looked like this at the top of their frames.

Plus his room had the worst corner in the whole house. Which also happened to be right next to his computer. He told me that he hated seeing that corner because it just reminded him of how much work needed to be done.

Before we get to the in progress shots: there was one wall next to a chimney that runs through his room that was the worst as far as the walls go. Any wall next to a chimney- especially a plaster wall, is going to have cracks. If it gets to the point that you can see it, that means that there’s even more going on beneath the surface. You should actually do some wall repair so that you don’t just paint it and it shows up ten times worse a week after you’ve painted it.

Now you can actually see what I was working against. Every crack had to be caulked, taped and then mudded over with drywall mud. Sanded and then mudded again until it was smooth and blended with the wall.

That’s a lot of work. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d had the right tools. When I finally got around to sanding, I only had 200 grit sandpaper. Which made me want to die. (I needed more like 80.) My dad got a bunch of tearful messages that week and he decided to show up and see what was going on. When he saw the sandpaper I was using her was like, “that’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight, Linds- no wonder you’re having problems.” Then he showed me how to use a power sander. All that I worried about after that was choking to death on drywall dust in the frenzied tornado it caused.

Well, okay, maybe that didn’t get rid of all my worries.

There were some major problems near the window. Problems I didn’t even know how to begin addressing. Once I pulled that big piece of plaster out of there that was just floating around, I found I had more questions than solutions. So I decided to just ‘throw some mud at it.’ A phrase my dad was fond of using this past summer when we were working on the upstairs. (Which I still haven’t gotten around to posting pictures of, sorry!)

My Dad knows he’s awesome. Also- see that corner? That’s the same one that had the hole.

John’s Dad and brother came over and helped us move the big book case so we could paint the wall behind it. If they hadn’t, it would have stayed how it was originally and that would have been fine. But I was glad that they helped us because the room looks so much more put together with every wall painted.

John also had his work trip cut short to a week. Meaning all of the things that I wanted to do also got cut short. I had plans for this and that, but here’s where we were after a week:

Can you tell that he’s a fan of maps?

It definitely looks different. What do you guys think? Have you ever tried to surprise someone while they were out of town? How did it go over? I still have plans to get a rug and a few other things to bring the room together but now all of the big stuff is out of the way. Plus, he was genuinely surprised by the whole thing. I thought for sure he knew what was going on because I’m terrible at keeping secrets but he had no idea what was up.   [<- that link takes you to a movie of his reaction.]

Seriously though- tell me what you think in the comments!

I hope you hate your eyes…

Because this hat is ORANGE!

This is the third hat in my Christmas Hat Fest Extravaganza. It’s the beautiful Devra Hat by the lady behind pieKnits. So you might be wondering, where’s the brim?  Heh. Well, in the perfect plane of existence, there’s a brim on that hat.

Ideal Stores

So I’ll just randomly start this post out by saying that tomorrow will mark a year since John and me tied some sort of knot in infamy and looked at each other lovingly and said “sure”.

No, he’s a pretty stand up dude. Don’t let me fool ya. I still have no idea what to get him though. I guess anniversaries aren’t as big of a deal as I was building them up to be because everyone I’ve asked can’t remember what they got their sig. oth. for their first ann.

Does it bug you when people constantly abbreviate things that don’t need to be abbreviated but they do it to be cool or something?

Yeah, me neither.

What does bug me is that sometimes I get the shaft when I go into stores. Well, both John and I get a lot of crap. I think a good majority of the disdain radiates because of our baby faces. Although John is growing something on his face to cover up the baby smoothness.

This photo isn’t even completely current because I did make him cut the hair and trim up the… yeaaah. Well, once his hair got cut, something happened and it was like he magically morphed into Abraham Lincoln to me. Which, I don’t know if anyone here has ever seen Robin Hood: Men in Tights but the other night I was like “Hey, Blinkin” and he was like “Did you just say Abe Lincoln?” Then we tittered. OKAY WE’RE YOUNG. (And pretty damn weird.)

But does that mean you have to belittle me when I come into your store? My crazy baby money is just as good as snooty old jerk money.

There is a yarn shop around here that I pretty much refuse to go into anymore because they’re just complete snobby aholes. Or at least the woman who owns it and was always magically there when I went was mean to me and just an unabashed beeeyotch. Which isn’t to say that the yarn shop I go to now isn’t completely filled to the brim with snobbery- oh, it is. However, I usually get over it because of the amazing selection and fact that they’ll leave you alone and not follow you around like you’re a thief… Hrmph.

Anyways, I started thinking about my ideal yarn shop. Which made me realize that I’ve had this problem before I got into knitting… oh yeah, that’s right- I had this same problem with comic book stores! Now, I don’t pretend to be some sort of comic expert or even comic novice, I just like to read em because I like the art and I like the storytelling sometimes.

So there was this store near where I used to live and they were pretty awesome. They always had recommendations that really hit home and the guy who worked there was bald, which completely fascinates me- oh, and he also happened to know what he was talking about 100% of the time but without being pretentious about it. This guy really hit a home run with me. However, after every recommendation he would look around and say, oh yeah, I guess we don’t have that in right now but I can order it in for you. So two weeks later I get a call and I’m like, wait, what’s in? Whatever sense of being amped up I had was pretty much faded by the time the comic got in.

That made me run to the other store, which usually had everything that I’d ever wanted… and then a totally brain dead zombie running the cash register. It’s a scary thing when you’re contemplating checking somebody for a pulse and then expecting correct change, let alone recommendations.

I needed a middle ground!

That’s how I feel about yarn shops too. There’s a really great yarn shop (heh) and the people are awesome and will give you all kinds of advice on how to save money even. Then there’s the shop that actually has the yarn that I want.

Also, speaking of store snobbery, I got a new computar!

My last trip to the Apple store was pretty disastrous. However this trip was FRIGGIN AWESOME!

Oh yeah and I also got a promotion at work! So things here at Baby Face Central are pretty awesome. Or at least when people at stores aren’t being jerks. C’est la vie and also psycho killer, qu’est que c’est.

super awesome happy fun day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN BEAR!

That’s my manic unicorn

I think he’s had a super awesome happy fun day. Mostly because today his promotion became official! He is now a senior something or other but you can call him senor badass. We also went out to eat for his birthday and got a desert brownie that I took a very dark picture of (it’s on the flickr). Then, since I was tired of hearing him talk on and off since Christmas about how we should get a friggin XBOX 360…. I finally got fed up and said, sure, why not?

ONLY on the condition that I get a cute pink controller and Juno. (Okay, so I also was the one who was rallying for Rock Band since that’s the only game I really want to play on the whole system.)

So yeah, John’s birthday = promotion, crazy brownie, XBOX 360/Rockband. He’s got it super sweet here guys, I’m just telling you. How did the cats contribute?

DO NOT WANT!

(ps Avenue Q was hilarious and great! (Except for my obstructed view thanks to the blob man in front of me the whole first act.) Sorry I dropped the ball on that, this week has been pretty crazy. What with the promotion, we went away last weekend, I had training at work… blah blah blahblahblah)

They saw me coming…

I went to the yarn store to pick up a book…

Oh yeah, and some chunky alpaca yarn.

Did she see me coming or what? The thing about yarn stores is that you can’t get mad because it’s not high pressure sales really. (Well there is one store around here that I had a high pressure sales experience with but that was just a weird situation, so I don’t know if it counts.) It’s friendly pressure sales. She was my friend who knew I was interested in some yarn (like a month ago) and she happened to get it in (two weeks after I stopped caring) and it was kind of the color I wanted (except a little chalkier than I wanted) so I really couldn’t argue with that.

Dang, am I bitchy or what?

Oh yeah, it’s probably because my cat is in hiding thanks to this little fuzzball:

Fur EVERYWHERE.

This is my husbands new cat. I say she’s my husband’s new cat because if I said she was our cat, you would be getting posts from me from the beyond since that is where Sax will send me.

Tensions are running high here. I think we need to get a kitty calmer but dang those things are expensive. At least I coaxed her out from behind the TV and got her to stop hissing long enough to force her to take a yarn shot:

Such a sweetie.

So yeah, we have a new cat! However, we tried calling her Jade, as per Betty’s suggestion and she was having none of that, so we’re still looking for name suggestions. So far the only thing she has responded to was Dilophosaurus and considering I can’t even spell that and she eventually got irritated with the name, we’re back to square one. I honestly think she’s just playing it up. Like she plays up the gimp leg- but that’s another story for another time.

Oh crap, she’s giving Sax a run for her money.

In the next post: actual! finished! project!

Maybe send a search party because I might have died.

The first rule of Fort Snax is… your hair will definitely look freaky.

We had some people over, who (although it’s hard to believe) are also married adults… however it quickly digressed to this:

Snackopolis. This is a Fort City.

I swear- we try to be upstanding and dignified. However, when it’s cold out and you’re bored and you’re with some goofy people, it will almost always end up in a fort. If only to keep warm. Because it all started with people feeling cold, so we brought out alllll of our blankets. (Maybe also a couple of pillows.)

Also, I still haven’t boxed up the Nutcrackers. This laziness has definitely started affecting my knitting. The colder it gets, the lamer I get. I’m not going to lie, I’m going through a [burnt out on knitting] stage.

Sax however is not feeling these same thoughts and is instead very energetic. She’s decided to run for office:

Doesn’t this picture just scream Sax in ’08?

There are others on my flickr. However, she definitely chose the dirtiest corner in the whole place to pose for her campaign shots.

Sorry I’ve been so lame guys. I know I was gone for like two weeks, then I come back with nothing cool to show for it (because I can’t go on with my lace, I just can’t right now) and you don’t even get a crappy souvenir ashtray even though you don’t smoke and it’s kind of insensitive… Geez. You don’t even get an insensitive gift that you can try and sell on eBay. I give up- it’s time to go into hibernation.

Here’s an old picture of the boy knitting (and the cat helping):

The Duality of Man

I just watched Full Metal Jacket for the first time the other day. Surprisingly, I’ve seen all of those Vietnam war movies… Apocalypse Now, Deer Hunter, Platoon. So John was pretty horrified when I told him I hadn’t seen Full Metal Jacket since it’s THE Vietnam movie OMGWTFBBQ.

We’re having people over to our place now that we’re respectable, with places to sit, things to set things on… and honestly I just want to show people my washer and dryer because I am ridiculously giddy about them still. Picture it like a game show… only you don’t win anything, you just get to look at the stuff. (So basically a pretty lame game show. A lame show.)

Cath’s cat Poo is the sechsie model for this picture. I freakin LOVE this cat!

This is the new project I started on, a pair of socks for Granma. Cookie A.’s Hedera… While I know that everyone is crazy about her Monkeys, I thought Granma would appreciate some lace in her life, since that’s our theme lately. BTW, I’m excited for the spring shawl suprise to start up. Although I’m a little worried about the lack of written instructions. Hmmm.

Oh yeah and I’m knitting those in some delicious Lorna’s Laces:

40% off baby!

I got the yarn and sent Granma some in ‘grapevine’ and forgot to take some pictures! So hopefully I’ll get to see the socks she makes out of it and can get a picture sometime. Apparently she has some sort of pattern that curves or something, so you do it differently for left and right feet. Leave it to her to find the crazy patterns.

Have you guys noticed that I have a problem? There haven’t been any FO’s in the past month and every other post I’m casting on for some new project or another. I’m getting too distracted by everything. I hope I can calm down and focus on stuff soon. In the meantime, I set up a thing in my closet for my yarn because I’m tired of it getting tangled in that bucket.

Which brings me to my next question/thing I wonder about… do most people who knit have a desire to collect things?

PS: He loved the blanket

He also loved the game my mom got him for Christmas. In the video he’s playing it with Jimmy. (Which I need to add that I think it’s adorable that Cath and Jimmy are married and both have blogs. TechnoMarrieds.)

Man, these blog entries just keep getting less and less cohesive and more and more wait- what?

Holiday Vortex

I’ve been sucked into one.

Sax doesn’t care as long as she gets fed.

Every year I fool myself into thinking that I’m a ‘Holiday Person’ and every year I get sad when I realize that I’m just not one. Sure I could point fingers and blame other people for me being a Scrooge but it’s really just in my disposition to hate on Christmas. Or at least the commercial beast that Christmas has become.

So yeah, I don’t have kids and they’re kind of what makes this season so ‘magical’. Or what makes things more stressful- jolly. There aren’t too many twenty-something holiday pageants… if there are any, that’s really creepy.

However, I have already gotten an early Christmas present- it was from my dad:

The gift of clean clothes!

Yippeeeee! He got us a new dryer. How cool is that? I’ve done like twenty loads of laundry in the past 24 hours because I can. It’s getting to the point where I’m just washing whatever I see. The cat has gone into hiding and I honestly don’t blame her.

When we were out looking for the perfect washer/dryer that would mesh well with our lives (I totally picked the washer because I liked the clicking noise it made) my dad said something that freaked me out. It was something along the lines of “this is your guyses first Christmas together.” At first my face ticked, what? All of those other Christmases didn’t count? Well apparently it counts now that we’re married and we’ve gone legit.

Then the worry set in. Wait a minute… does that mean this is like a big deal? Then panic. Oh man, the stuff I got him is lame! A quick call to my Granma cleared everything up though. For her and Granpa’s first Christmas together, she made matching pajamas. (His and Hers PJs.) So logically, for our first Christmas together, I should make John something… which leads to the blanket.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a quilter. I am not pretending to be a quilter. I cannot quilt.

Blankey

Half Life, Rush, Princess Peach, PacMan.

I’ve been making this thing for like three years. What it looks like won’t surprise him but probably the fact that I finished it will.

Oh yeah and the ending of that story that Granma was telling me? She said that Granpa still remembers their first Christmas because she left a pin in one of the legs and it stabbed him.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Somebody needs to stop me.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but my personal links are growing a little bit out of control. Plus, thanks to a buddy I’ve just found a new site to be creepy about.

But what I’m really saying is that if you like to read, you should join and add me as a friend so I can look at the books you like and we can talk about books and how much we like them.

It’s kind of scary though. I wasn’t like this before. It seemed like the only thing ever on TV were stories about people, especially kids getting abducted or murdered because of posting too much crap on the internet. They had me freaked out man. I would watch shows on how to evade kidnappers. How if you flipped the lights off and on really fast it was a sign to neighbors that you were kidnapped and if someone grabs you that pulling away only makes them grab you harder- you’ve got to pinwheel that arm to get them to let go.

Yeah.

Then the past year or so I’ve signed up for all kinds of stuff, giving everyone who asks more than enough information than they’ve ever wanted to know about a stranger. Suck it proper decorum.

Boy and kitty together in harmony.

No, but really, if you join goodreads, let me know and we’ll have chats about books and things. Or we could just talk about books without a website-

What are you reading anyways?

Today I had to broach the subject of where my money was with my boss. (Since my direct deposit isn’t set up yet.) He showed me the magical money cabinet that I would never have known about had I not asked. No really, I had to go through the wardrobe into Narnia and success! money time. What can I say except:

Thanks for saying it for me Married to the Sea.

Wouldn’t you vote for him?

I wish it were June 2008 already! (That’s when Dark Knight comes out.)

Well guys, I didn’t even know I was on the wagon until I fell off of it:

Now you know what I was doing the day after Thanksgiving. Temptations is having some sort of a yarn sale… I don’t know, it’s all a little blurry. I just remember thinking: “don’t I have some sort of rule about not buying yarn without knowing specifically what I’m going to use it for” and then telling myself to shut up, stop being a goody goody and I think I grabbed some yarn and rubbed it all over my face. Yeah, I was a mad woman.

Anyways, I hope this Karabella stuff is nice because I got some of it. I also got a yarn that’s called Snuggly. Just because how adorable is that? Snuggly.

I mean, I’m all for not judging books by their covers and whatever but would you buy a yarn called “prickly” or “hives”? Lets not kid ourselves here.

My SWF sweater is coming along nicely:

(Sorry about the dorky picture.)

Only I’m having some doubting issues… See, I went down a needle size after the collar and then it was also looking pretty big, so I went down to the size small instead of the medium. Now I’m thinking I might’ve made a mistake, which is why I tried it on in the first place. However, it fits really well. It’s just, what happens when I wash it and it shrinks to the size of a walnut? That wouldn’t be cool. Although I’ll have a very fashionable walnut.

Opinions? Advice? I’ve never worked with cotton before and my garment knowledge is limited. However, it is 50% acrylic, which makes me think I shouldn’t worry too much.

Also, remember Thanksgiving? Because I’m still recovering from going to so many this year. Plus, it seems like all the stores wanted us to forget about Thanksgiving before it had even happened.

Mom not doing our signature pose.
the signature pose.

Angel setting up dinner.

Granma’s homemade noodles.
Dad and demon Shadow hound.

It was pretty crazy this year. By the last one I was so worn out I didn’t even take my camera to get pictures, which is funny as it was the most eventful of the Thanksgivings we went to. It was at my PILs (parents-in-law, hahaha) and after dinner we all went out and raked their neighbors yard because he has some sort of condition with one of this feet that requires him to wear a special boot or something. (We also got roped into raking his neighbors yard who has a broken arm or something- I’m telling ya, don’t move to this neighborhood!) Then the menfolk went to some house to get some measurements to build a wheelchair ramp for somebody. Then my husband and his brother: R1 and R4, got all burly and manlike and chopped some wood.

No joke.

It seems like I make up stories about his family but they’re Methodists, which I feel explains a lot of it.