Another one bites the dust

But there's knitting, at least!

Yup, another seller, another completely unreasonable expectation as to sale price. We put in an initial offer on a house that is an estate sale, has no mortgage, original owner, had a blank seller's disclosure, blah blah blah. It was a low offer, but then again, the house needs quite a bit of work. We figured we'd try to lowball by bidding about 10K less than we were willing to spend. The seller was "insulted" by our opening offer and countered with an offer only $2400 less than his asking price! Ok, fine, we came up another 7K (just below our final price, figuring if he countered with a more reasonable price, we could come up that last little bit). His counter? Only 3K less than his first counter. There is NO way this guy is going to meet us halfway. Or even close. I'm not even disappointed at this point, because I was totally not expecting this jerk to come down even close - and I knew if he did, that every repair that house would need before settlement would have been a catfight to get his help on. This is the THIRD unreasonable seller or realtor we've come across since we started looking back in AUGUST. It's getting old. Really, really old.

But there's knitting content at least! And fibery goodness!

These are socks in action that I knit for Ella out of Trekking XXL (colorway lots and LOTS of pink, damnit!). She likes them, and I have enough yarn left over to either knit another pair in the next couple of weeks when her huge feet get even bigger, or to knit myself a pair of footies.



And here's a hat I knit for a long lost friend I recently cyberstalked and finally got up the nerve to contact. He was impressed by the yarn and the knitting liberally sprinkled throughout everything I do, and asked for a hat. So I knit up some of my FAVORITE yarn into a soft squishy hat for him - it'll be winging its way to him by the end of the week (ignore me, I always look like a psycho in "self portraits"!).



And when all else fails, these pics warm the cockles of my heart (WTF is a cockle, anyway?!?!)





The best part? She did that with no prompting from me. Gotta love her!

Craftland Skein Count: 20 down, 10 to go (oh, and 9 of 10 batts, too!)

Wow...

Ever see someone wearing a sweater that you could swear was handknit, only to find out it wasn't? I was at a Weight Watchers meeting this morning, knitting on a sock, and this older, very well-dressed and -coiffed woman came in wearing the most stunning sweater! It looked like it started in a circle along her one side, and the pattern circled out from there. It was a raglan with a ribbed collar (measuring less than an inch, I'd guess) and ribbed cuffs. And the color? Oh, the color was the best part! Predominantly a dusky lime green, with swaths of berry that slowly blended from the lime green, and then became the only color, and then blended back to the green. The yarn looked like a Noro yarn or something, rustic, not a solid green but flecked and just damned interesting. And the stripes CURVED off the main circular motif at her side. Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. I asked her if she'd knit it, and she told me she wasn't talented enough to knit (a nice compliment, since I was knitting my vanilla stockinette sock at the time). I didn't have the nerve (or the thought, really) to ask her where she'd purchased it, and while I was DYING to pull out my cell phone and snap a pic, I didn't. Now I'm wishing I had. SUCH a gorgeous piece of work!

Soul Sucking...and a Meme!

I swear, why do people bother to sell their house? We've only had our house on the market for a month, and what an entirely soul-sucking experience it's become. C'mon, people, what the fuck do you want from me? It's a ROWHOME. A great starter home, but after 5 years here with pets and a kid, there's NO MORE ROOM. What brings this on? Today my new realtor (yeah, we've already had to fire a realtor!) came by to take some new pics of the house, and gave me feedback from the showing Monday. The one where I had 90 minutes notice, and no hubby to help. I almost had a heart attack literally running around the house the entire 90 minutes trying to clean up. Even though the house has been cleaned and straightened almost every day, it took me 90 minutes at full speed to get everything done. AND pile a cranky toddler, 2 of the 4 cats, a 95 pound dog, and a screaming cockatiel into my overloaded Mazda and get over to my in-laws' house. And the feedback? The floors are gorgeous, and there's too much stuff in the house so it's hard to visualize it. That's from the realtor. Wow. Too much stuff, huh? Well, let's see, we have a 3 year old who has enough toys to support a FEW daycare centers, we have NO attic, NO garage, and a basement with only minimal storage. We already moved TONS of stuff to my in-laws' house and I have 2 contractor trash bags full of stuff over there for a yard sale, too. And my realtor told me to put pictures away and do things like clear off my fridge. My fridge is cleared of everything but my daughter's artwork, and there's NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL I'm taking that down. Spare me. If you can't visualize what the house would look like with your stuff in it because my daughter's artwork is on the FRIDGE, you're a retard, plain and simple. This house is spotless, and yes, there are a couple of toyboxes in the living room (but in corners) and yes, the smallest bedroom (seriously, it's 6x10 - more of a walk-in closet than a bedroom!) is full of fiber (all neatly stored in either cubbies or storage containers) but it's a ROWHOME. It's a big rectangle. That's it. There are no redeeming features, no special things about it. It's basically an apartment you can earn escrow on. That's it. Get the fuck over it. We've mostly had positive feedback - from the whopping 7 people who've been in the house - everyone loves the floors (damn straight they'd better!), mostly people think it's well-priced, someone didn't like the garden (it's been a very dry summer, so the garden's looking a little past it's prime - oh, wait, it's FALL! Of course it's past it's prime!), and I can't change how busy the street is, or the fact that it's a completely nondescript ROWHOME. Sheesh. And don't get me started on the house we've put an offer on and that asshole's idea of a counter-offer. Just. Don't.

So, on that note, Colleen tagged me for a meme. Here it is.

You have to open the book you're currently reading on page 161 and read the fifth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag with.

"These horses were all we knew and recognized because from time to time they'd wander together across the farm to the little wooded meadow at the southern boundary of St. Peter's domain and stick their heads inquisitively above the gate that backed onto Goldsmith Avenue, where the crap game I'd come upon was taking place."

From The Plot Against America by Phillip Roth. He's verbose, huh? Let's put it this way, that sentence? The fifth on the page? Started easily 3/4 of the way down the page. Great fucking book, though.

I'm not tagging anyone. Just consider Black Cat Handspun the blog where memes go to die.

There is knitting. And dyeing (check Colleen's blog for pics of the day - I forgot my camera). And spinning (for this year's Craftland - oooh, the suspense - can she spin 30 skeins of yarn and card 15 batts by mid-November?)

Edited to add: This, though, this makes me happy!

New Feature!

FINALLY! I have a mailing list! Check out the sidebar for my NotifyList.com mailing list. Sign up for updates to my Etsy shop!

More later, promise!

Distraction

You are Marianne Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are impulsive, romantic, impatient, and perhaps a little to vocal in your honesty. You enjoy romantic poetry and novels, and play the pianoforte beautifully. To boot, your singing voice is captivating. You feel deeply, and love passionately.

(Romantic? Sometimes. Impatient? All the time. Captivating singing voice? Oy.)

Dyeing to Dye!

So! Excited!

I got an email update from loop yesterday, and they are having a sock yarn dyeing class with Beth Casey of LORNA'S LACES! I LOVE LL! And I've been DYING to learn to dye sock yarn (ha ha, yes, pun intended), really dying to learn ANYTHING fiber related from a pro - be it spinning, dyeing, carding, what-have-you. I dropped a quick email to Col, figuring she'd like to get in on the fun, and figuring it would be nice to have a buddy to drive into the city with! I checked my email at work every two seconds until she emailed back, and was on the phone to the friendly ladies at loop in a flash when she emailed back to tell me she was in. For $24, you get TWO skeins of the LL base yarn, and the opportunity to spend 2 hours dyeing with Beth, and hear about how she started her business (the opportunity to pick the brain of a successful woman in the fiber biz is irresistible!) What's not to love? It'll be a nice diversion, too, from house-related things (we're having an open house on October 14, and probably a big yard sale with my in-laws October 21 - oh, and we got positive feedback from our first - and so far only - showing...house is priced well, shows nicely, and the buyer just wasn't interested because he just started house-hunting. Maybe he'll be back! And we're thinking of putting an offer in on a house we really love, but that's priced too high, in the hopes that the seller, after having had his house listed for almost 8 months with no offers - because it's really priced too high - will take ours - ha ha! And isn't this the longest parenthetical ever?), medical problems for both me and Hurricane (possibly serious for both of us, but hopefully not), and just the stress of being back at work - albeit part time.

Can't wait till October 20!