What a ride...

Well, we ended up selling our house in a mere 16 hours. We moved 3 weeks later. I have to admit it was a tough time for me. While I was out straight working, my DH was left to handle the last of the packing, cleaning and unpacking.

We are currently living in a house my family owns. It used to belong to my Gram and Grandpa, so it has so many wonderful and happy memories. While leaving the house I called home for 17 to move into a temporary house was more emotional that I thought it would be, I am grateful we are not in an apartment or worse.

We've been able to fit, into an already furnished home, ALL of our furnishings! No easy task, and we feel cramped and are living out of boxes & off of clothes racks...but again, it could be a lot worse.

Our focus has been on the new house. Every day there is a new development. I went on a business trip for 4 days in early summer and in those 4 days all the framing went up!

The stage we are in right now is the finish stage, painting, molding, flooring then cabinets and counter tops. We hope to be in sometime in early October.

I just hope we both still have our sanity by move in day!

As for the craft front, again glad that knitting can be a relatively small hobby. It doesn't take up much space. I have 99% of my stash in big plastic tubs that isn't readily available, so I preplanned my knitting for the summer.

I kept out the largest single skein I owned out, during our month of staging, and subsequent month of packing up.

That would be Buffalo Wool Sexy, 800 yards. I bought it at the last Stitches East I went to.

Knowing that I wanted to create a shawl and fingerless mitts that matched. I went pattern shopping to find a simpler shawl pattern.

Windward by Heidi Kirrmaier fit the bill!

More details here. It is hard to see the pattern, maybe this weekend I'll ask DH to take a better photo.

Happy Knitting (in cramped spaces)!

House to a home and back to house...

17 years ago tomorrow, we purchased our first home.

It wasn't a big & fancy house, but it 'fit the bill'. We knew we could turn it into a home just the same.

We hosted parties and holidays. We had friends, family, even the furry ones come in our front door. We turned this house into a home by the events we had. We created a lifetime of memories that will forever be with us.

We had highs and lows in this home. It got us through the worst times, when what you want cannot be provided - even with medical intervention. When you celebrated the accomplishments, when you got the opportunity to hit the ceiling with the champagne cork, you knew you were home! The times you needed just to curl up and have a few hours of stress feel life tucked away with a good book, it was home!

As we lived in our home we improved it every year, ourselves.  There was the fun 'vacation' week of gutting the bathroom. Remembering the hottest summer ever that we built the stone wall, or hand dug for a pool in time to close it for the season, or took down the pool, built not one but two decks...we painted and painted and painted.

We put in a new roof, windows, boiler, new electric, shed, footings...we bled, sweat and nearly gave up. But we didn't!! We kept being determined to finish the plan.

Shall we take a trip down memory lane with some of our proudest accomplishments...

We built a shed:

Built two decks:

 We always knew we had a place to go. Called home. One of my favorite pictures is below. However, the pool is now gone and it doesn't show the new roof, walkway & windows.

Now that we have packed up 60% of our home, we've turned it back into a house. It's time for someone else to love it like we have over all those years.

Tomorrow we open our house for others to view what will hopefully turn out to become THEIR home.

Cheers & fingers crossed!