Seven Months In.

We're now over half a year here, I've been at my job now for about 5 months. Everything has been quite a change, hasn't it? We had a Week Of Winter last week, this morning it's in the mid-50's and we have blue skies for the moment. We had beautiful weather yesterday - the predicted rain never showed so I had the dogs out about 20 times, taking advantage of the sunny skies and the not so mucky yard. I spent most of the day cleaning yesterday, the floor are a disaster with all this mud! Part of me thought this was useless but the house looks lovely for now. The kitchen continues to progress, I love it! David used butcher block for the counters which is so pretty but he's like an annoying mother hen with them - he reports every water drop and stain. We had a 4 minute lecture the other day about a coffee stain with a follow up discussion of how to Avoid These Disasters In The Future, he's been oiling them to death. I just ignore him and go about my business. The pets have settled in nicely, Molly and Reuben have plenty of things to annoy in the yard and continue to point the cows across the road. We have tons of geese in the field across the way, they like to meet there, hundreds of them, honking away like they're doing something. Then they all take off - I was outside with my camera waiting to catch that, all zoomed in and everything- they waited til I turned it off and went inside. Dammit.

I started that shawl I consider my Opus, but I may be canning it. It's lovely, intricate, challenging......and very annoying, way too many charts to keep track of. I got the middle bit done and the upper border, I might just sack it until I feel like working on it again, I can just stick it on stitch holders for now. I have plenty of other fish to fry. The thing with my knitting is it's a hobby and something I love to do to have fun and relax, especially since I have have enough annoying and stressful things that I  HAVE to deal with. Given the choice I would prefer not to - so I think I'll just put it away for now. We had our Overnight Guests over Christmas and it went well, we have faraway guests coming starting in March - by then we should have the shower done and a few other things sorted out. We have a big,claw foot tub with a shower but you have to step up into it and there really isn't anything to hold on to. The other thing that has been hard is getting used to having one bathroom. 

I can't believe we are already 2/3rds of the way through January! It's just crazy how fast this year has been flying. David has started working on the Astoria house, that has been different for us too. Foreclosures are more here than we've sold finished houses for back east, it's the same with materials. Wood is much cheaper because they produce it here, vinyl siding is very expensive because they don't. We continue to scour Facebook marketplace and the Restore for supplies to save money - but you need to have time to invest with that. David saw some beautiful kitchen cabinets and took the morning off - they must've photo shopped them because he said they actually looked like the stuff he pulls OUT of houses, not puts in! The woman got snotty with him too - they are still for sale if you're interested. I turned off the heat today, it is way too warm for it, who would have thought I would have ever been able to say that in the middle of January? Not me!