Comfortable Clutter

Well, this apartment is starting to feel more like home. I've been spending much time in the living room right now, and there are currently five stitch dictionaries and two books on edgings, as well as the new EZ book here (to remind me to take it to work tomorrow). I've got my knitting notebook and calculator, as well as the second-most-recent Woolgathering, some yarn, a needle, and a swatch to my left, my book on its stand in front of me on a chair (to make it the right hight for me sitting on the floor), Aylin's shawl and the Estonian lace book, a kitty brush, and the yarn for the sweater I'm designing with Yowza on my left. It's been a nice weekend, even if Penny has taken up residence in the cabinet under the bathroom sink and Gino spends most of his time under my bed.

Penny and Gino

Well, the cats (I got a second one yesterday) have spent almost all of their time with me under my bed. (Penny did come out a bit last night for a cuddle, though, which was nice.) I'll take pictures when I can.

In other news, today was my first day of work-- I'm going to love my job, I think.

Kitty, Apartment, &c.

My parents and wonderful younger sister helped move me into my apartment this weekend. With the four of us working, we were able to move all the stuff (read: furniture, books, and yarn) in fairly quickly, and unpack the multiple boxes and bags with startling efficiency. After helping me set up more things, my parents left on Sunday morning, but Annie stayed through this morning. Yesterday we did one of the most important things on my list: We started the process of adopting a cat. Her name is Penny, and she is fat and lazy and wonderful. I am very excited!

While I wait for the phone call saying she is on her way over, I thought I'd post some pictures of my apartment.

Here is the living room (I only show half because the other half is empty. This is the case with much of my apartment-- I need to collect some more furniture, and strew yarn about, to make it feel more like a real home. Mostly strew yarn about.)

The kitchen/dining room area (all paintings are waiting a week or so to be hung up, so that I know where to put them in places I'll see them most often. The Elizabeth Black painting on the dining room table is the only one I know exactly where to put.)

My wonderful Workroom area-- books, a desk, a dresser, my wheel and sewing machine cabinet, and so on. It's a great room-- especially because of the closet full of bins of yarn! This weekend perhaps Penny and I will sort the yarn properly-- right now it's just shoved into bins so that we could unpack everything else.

The ever-so-exciting bathroom (although it is very pretty-- we got a lovely curtain and rug set)

The washer/dryer set my wonderful neighbor Chris helped to haul up the steps and install-- today Penny and I will make banana muffins for him and his family in thanks.

And last but not least, my really empty looking bedroom.

There's a walk in closet which is also fairly empty at present. I have no doubt that none of this emptiness will last, knowing me.

Tomorrow I start work, and that should be fun, but today is all  about Penny! I'll post a photo of her later.

News!

Oh man. I've got so much going on...

This past few weeks I've been collecting furniture and other household items... I now have:

•  most of what I need for a kitchen, less the large devices that come with an apartment
•  a dining room/kitchen table and four chairs
•  a desk and chair
•  a bed frame and mattress (well, I'm taking the mattress I currently use, and leaving my current bed empty.)
• two dressers (one from my current room, one from an Uncle. Maybe one from an Aunt's attic if we can figure out how to get it down here, then down there)
• three large bookshelves
• possibly my sewing machine and table, depending on how large my apartment is
• several other bits and pieces
• over eight boxes of knitting books and magazines 
• YARN!! everywhere. In many bins, on the floor to be sorted, in boxes and bags-- this needs to be figured out soon!
• and much, much more waiting to be packed, sorted, &c.

So that's been my past few weeks. Today was my last day at Aylin's, which was sad. Last weekend was Maryland Sheep and Wool, where I bought one skein for a sweater for my Dad, which was needed to complete it (this I know, although it is as of yet unstarted...) and a sweaters worth of a lovely orange from Brooks Farm (rather like this, although I'm not positive that's it, as it seemed to be a prototype with no real name on it.) That's probably the most restrained I've ever been at Maryland, and I was mightily impressed with myself!

This coming week is busy as well. Packing, sorting, buying last minute things (I need more bins for yarn, and a toaster, that I can think of right now. I'm sure there will be more...), moving Annie home from college, and then on Friday going down to Abingdon to look for an apartment. Hopefully I'll find a nice one (and since I've been really lucky so far in this whole job-hunt-thing, I should probably be able to do so...), then the long drive back home on Sunday, to continue packing, sorting, &c. 

Next weekend I'll probably be moving. So, I really NEED to finish packing. But I'm not quite sure what to bring until I know how much space I'll have-- for instance, I for sure need to bring Marie's quilt to finish, along with my sewing machine, if not the table, so she'll stop carping at me about it. But can I also bring another quilt to finish piecing, along with the batting and backing for that? Do I even have batting and backing for that? Again, something I must investigate. (Luckily, Mountain City has a quilt shop, so if I don't I should be able to find something that works. However, as most of the fabrics are from the same line, I'm hoping I was smart enough to buy all I'll need.)

OK, enough typing. Time to go buy bins and sort more yarn.