I miss this! I miss blogging and reading other blogs regularly and having those little conversations and connecting with my knitting people! But I’ve been so consumed with the upcoming move that I simply haven’t had the time, energy or material for blogging. I haven’t been knitting or anything really fun. I’ve been packing. And cleaning. And packing some more. That’s not terribly interesting. But a few noteworthy things have happened, so here are the highlights of the last couple of weeks.

I have a new nephew!! He was born at the end of June and he’s perfect! Can’t wait for cold weather so I can make him all the baby hats. The boy turned 12! 12, can you believe it? I can’t! As busy as we are, we squeezed out enough time to have cake and ice cream with some of the family, and David got lots of LEGO/Doctor Who/Hobbit stuff.

The husband tore out our 16-year-old tiled shower and is in the process of re-tiling it. It will be gorgeous and fabulous and I’m jealous that my sister will be the one getting to use it. Thankfully, we do have a bathtub in which to bathe so we are not all stinky.  I watched fireworks on the 4th with my two favorite children. During one of our recent mega-thunderstorms, a branch from the neighbor’s tree fell on my husband’s truck. We’re so lucky: no damage at all! Not so lucky: during *another* mega-thunderstorm, we got water in the basement. The basement that’s been try for the last ten years or so. But the ground is just so saturated and it was raining so heavily that the water soaked through and found a weak spot to pour in. Perfect timing, eh? Prepping to move in 10 days and we get water in the basement. Sigh. Seriously, though, I’m glad it happened before we moved out so we can take steps to prevent it happening again. And there was some luck here too: the sump pump alarm went off, bringing me downstairs before the water flooded too much. I saved the Christmas decorations that were in harm’s way, the husband dug a trench to divert the flow of water, I got buckets put down, and started mopping. With a fan, it was all dry within 24 hours. Could have been so much worse!

I think that’s all. Isn’t that enough? Oh but wait, one more thing!! Yesterday it was raining again and I was tired and achy and discouraged and so frustrated with all the moving stuff that I rebelled. I pulled out my chevron scarf, turned on Wimbledon, and spent the day knitting. It was marvelous. By late afternoon, the knitting was done and it was time to learn Kitchener Stitch to graft the ends together. Guess what?? It wasn’t nearly as hard as I was expecting! I know there are variations, depending on whether you’re grafting knit or purl stitches, but this was just stockinette and I picked it up really quickly. And I LOVE it. It looks fantastic. I can’t wait to do it again; I think this will become by go-to seaming method. I should have done one more row of black before seaming, but I thought the Kitchener would add a row of black, plus I wasn’t sure I had enough yarn. And in the next photo, you can see where the points of the chevrons don’t match exactly all the way around. But in the grand scheme of things, those tiny imperfections don’t matter a bit. Once it’s on, you don’t see either of them. I love it. I can see myself making more of them in different color combinations and widths; I think I’d really like a skinny one next. But as long as this one took, it might be a while before I cast on another.

That’s really all, folks. Today I’m back at the packing. Not much left, really, just some more kitchen stuff. Everything else is essential and will get packed right before moving. With any luck, we’ll close within a week and be moved within 10 days. I can’t wait. I’m so tired of having *this* view everywhere I sit in my house!