Friday kind of snuck up on me last week, and I figured that people could use eye candy on Mondays, too, so here’s a flower in one of my new favorite gardens to walk past. (This is the garden with the sunflowers and goldfinches.)
I got a bit of spinning done over the weekend, and I’ve started the next lace pattern on my chai shawl. I’m not sure when I’ll have pictures, though, since I’ll be at work quite late both tonight and tomorrow night.
(Speaking of work, do any of y’all have recommendations for automatic backup software for Windows? I’ve gotten pretty spoiled by Time Machine.)
These are all from my (new) walk to work this morning, and all shot at eye level. There’re a few particular gardens I’m going to miss passing every day, but I’m not exactly going to be short on flowers to admire.
And, because this is sort of a fibery blog, here’s a photo of the shawl I’ve been working on lately:
It’s the shawl I’ve been making up to go along with my Chai yarn from Enchanted Knoll Farm. I’m running low enough on the Chai that I’ve started spinning the Phoenix roving I bought to go with it, since I want this shawl to be bigger than it would be with just the 4 oz of Chai. I’ve also started looking through my lace books for the next pattern to use; I think I’ll add one more lace pattern to the body of the shawl and then do a knitted-on edging.
Not unpacked yet, but all moved in, and unpacked enough to feel more like being at home than like camping. There was an issue with a smell of gas, but the gas company people are out front, working on it, and the building’s gas is off now, so I’m content with not being able to use my stove. (And I’ll just have to wash in cold water in the morning. Not the end of the world.) All fixed now! I have a functional stove, and I should have hot water again by now!
This is the living room:
The hallway with the door at the end of it is off to the left of the bookcases. It’s empty, at least for now. There may eventually be a hook or something in it, but it’s mostly just the way to get past the bedroom.
This is the other side of the living room:
It occurs to me now that the couch is pretty much invisible in these pictures. Pretend you can see the couch between the green-topped cabinet thing in the first photo and the wooden blanket box in the bottom right of the second picture. It doesn’t have armrests, so I’ve developed equivalents. (This apartment doesn’t have a handy wall or windowsill.)
And this is a bit more of the living room, which extends to include the plastic chair, the plant shelf, and the tall bookcase, and most of the kitchen.
And here’s the rest of the kitchen:
It’s going to take some work to adjust to having less space, but I love that both interior doors (LR to BR, BR to bath) are in a line with each other and with the path between the living room and the kitchen. Mel likes that, too, since it gives him a good, long, straight run. And all the stupid little things that were frustrating me about my old apartment are fixed in this one, though it’s got its own set of “why did they do that?”s. One of the best things about this place is how much light it gets. I did turn on the living room light, mostly so the first shot wouldn’t be too grainy, but I didn’t open any of the blinds or turn on the lights in the kitchen. The plants are going to be so much happier! I think I can even justify getting a couple of new ones to replace the ones that didn’t survive the lack of light in my old apartment. (I really want a christmas cactus or two and maybe a small hibiscus.) Plants aside, I’m hoping that the smaller space will help motivate me to get rid of stuff, since I really do have an awful lot of it, and I am intending to move again in the not-too-distant future. I’m also hoping that the memory of this move will help motivate me to work out more, since I’m still sore from all the box-moving, stair-climbing, and old-apartment-scrubbing. (If you really want to know, I will rant to you about all the cleaning my previous landlords required, but this post is supposed to be cheerful.)
Okay, I think I’m going to do some more unpacking now, so I can clear enough space in the living room for Amy the Lendrum to come out of the bedroom closet, where she (and Victoria) were hiding from the movers. (Oh, my goodness, Mambo Movers was especially awesome this time. They moved all my stuff in less than 2 ½ hours, not counting the things we thought were too awkward for them. And they remained cheerful even after hearing that I wasn’t going to disassemble my elliptical machine!)
Okay, some of the swamp is the recent weather, but I’ve been trying to fit science in and around packing and moving. I should really have started the culling/packing/cleaning process weeks before I actually did…so this week is especially Not Fun. On a positive note, though, my new place has lots of light.
This is part of the kitchen (and the view out the back windows):
And this is a lovely present from a college friend. I think she said she got it in Scotland. It arrived yesterday and improved my mood about a hundredfold.
It’s not exactly eye candy, but that’s just about the only non-work photo I’ve taken this week. Packing and moving and science are absorbing pretty much all of my brain right now.
There has been some spinning. Good photos will happen once there’s been plying and washing.
an ent knits 