Further Adventures in Moving

Sorry to leave you all hanging there. The suspense is killing you, I'm sure. Did we manage to take down all our furniture and box up all our possessions in time for the carpet cleaner to come on Saturday morning?!?

Yes, we did. And it sucked. Here is a picture of our dining area with everything piled into it.


















I was away at work on Saturday but The Brain had to spend his entire day either crouched on that chair or out on the deck in the sun. He had his iPad and laptop loaded with video games, and he totally had access to food if he shimmied past the mattress and into the kitchen so don't feel too bad for him. It took the carpet roughly 48 hours to dry so on Monday, exactly a week after moving in, we got to celebrate our independence by hauling boxes (AGAIN) and getting our furniture set up.

That musty smell hasn't gone away though, so now I am convinced that the carpet is rotting out from under our feet. I am still recovering from the spider infestation so there is no way in hell I'm peeling back a corner to take a look. I simply don't think I can take the knowledge of whatever is happening under there. I'm trying to be all zen about it. Maybe I can take on a new identity as a quirky knitting lady who smells like rotting carpet. It could be my thing. And then people will get to know me and discover that people who smell like rotting carpets really aren't that bad. It could be an After School Special. Do they still make those things?

So let's recap, shall we? In the last few days we have had our carpet professionally cleaned (The Brain tells me it was one of those super-powered giant tanks on a truck with a long hose), we got our power back and our hot water turned on. Things are looking pretty good, no? Except that I have filled one and a half pages on a legal pad with things that are broken or installed incorrectly or just plain annoying. As Nora suggested to me, I'm putting everything in writing and delivering it to Landlord Man so that there is no confusion later on about who was responsible for what. I am including everything from the fact that we need to run the dryer three times before the clothes are no longer damp to the leaky toilet that is draining water all over the bathroom floor. Now not only do I smell like rotting carpets, but I have the classy distinction of getting to pour a bucket of water down the pot while standing on soggy towels every time I visit the restroom.

Things are not all bad though. Landlord Man brought his own personal washing machine over on Sunday so that we could do laundry (a process which led to our discovery of the faulty dryer). I finally took matters into my own hands and WD-40ed the heck out of our post office box and now the lock works again. The Brain even managed to use his powerful biker's legs to press the front of the dishwasher back into shape so it doesn't catch on the baseboard. Now we can open it all the way! And it was with great relief that I turned on the AC today and discovered that something in this place actually works.

And in case any of you are still wondering what possessed us to move here (aside from a rent payment hundreds of dollars cheaper than before), I leave you with these:

The view of the canyon from our front deck:


















The view of the canyon out the door of the guest bedroom:


















The sunroom/office, overlooking the canyon:


















Every day is kind of like waking up in the middle of a jungle...a jungle with its very own ice cream truck driving up and down playing "Oh Susanna" all the livelong day.

It Continues...

Problem #16: The garbage disposal does not work. The landlord's response when I told him? "Sometimes you have to take a broomstick..."

Problem #17: We were given only one key for the mailbox. It's one of those group thingies shared by the whole cul de sac. Problem is that the landlord forgot which box was ours and never called me back to let me know. Once I called him and got an answer, another problem appeared: the lock is old and dirty and probably bent inside. I just spent 10 minutes up there trying to get our key in the lock so we can get our freaking mail. No dice. Landlord told us last week that he was going to replace the lock. We're still waiting.

Problem #18: No doorbell. It's just gone. It's one of those battery-operated things with no wires that you just stick on the wall. Apparently the previous tenant removed it to replace the batteries...and then lost it. Landlord told us weeks ago that he was replacing it but...

Problem #19: I was cleaning the kitchen cupboards when I found the doorbell. Yay! Problem is there were so many bug carcasses in those cabinets that I am completely unwilling to put any food inside unless it is sealed in a snap-loc container. That means another trip to Target. We've already been there every day this week.

Problem #20: We started out with hot water in the shower, which quickly disappeared over the week. My shower this morning was so cold I was shivering. I scouted around and located the water heater in an outdoor cabinet. It was turned off. Gee, thanks Landlord Man. No electricity and no hot water? Way to do your freaking job.

Update: The Brain and I spent all yesterday evening dumping 4-pound boxes of baking soda on the carpet and then finally vacuuming and putting together our bedroom furniture. We even managed to get the couch set up so we can have a place to sit, and hooked the tv up so we could flop on the couch and turn our brains off for a while. So of course when I called the landlord this morning to reiterate the carpet problem, he finally admitted that he never actually asked the previous tenants if they had cleaned the floors--he just assumed they had. The end result is that he is having someone over tomorrow to shampoo the carpets. This means that we have to cram ALL of our belongings into either the kitchen or the bathroom. Tonight. This oughta be good.

I also told him how upset we were that he doesn't have a washer for us yet. Apparently he is scouting around town trying to find the cheapest used washer he can. I told him we need to do our laundry and we're tired of waiting. He said he could bring over his own washer to let us use until he finds a replacement. WTF?!? Just buy a freaking washing machine!!! Or hell, give us a cut on the rent and we'll rent one ourselves!

Uff Da

So did y'all like that little teaser in which I told you I was back to blogging but then disappeared for ages again? Good one, huh?

Yeah. I went on that week-long trip to visit the fam and I totally meant to blog while I was gone, but then...you know how it goes. The trip was fun and I got to spend time with my brothers and sisters and friends so I'm glad I went.

But then I got home and had a day to pack before we moved apartments last Monday.

And let me tell you, this week has nearly killed me, mostly because I have no patience for other peoples' bullsh*ttery, and there has been a lot of it this week. I'm apologizing in advance if this post is super cranky or complainy. It's just been one of those weeks and I really have to vent about it. I actually typed it all out and then almost didn't post it. It's long. Feel free to skip it, if you want. There are no pictures and no knitting content because I can't find my camera cable yet and I haven't knitted a stitch since before the move. It is what it is.

Problem #1: Way back on June 16, The Brain and I met our new landlord at the new place to pay our security deposit and first month's rent. The previous tenant was finishing up his move-out, so there were still a few small things hanging in the closets, etc. Everything still needed to be cleaned. No big deal. Except that there was no power. This detail will be important later on.

Problem #2: On Saturday, June 25, The Brain and I met with the landlord at the new place to pick up our keys for move-in on Monday. Still no power. The landlord guesses that the previous tenant had the power completely shut off instead of reverting it back to the owner. Now he tells us that we'd better call the power company ASAP because they can sometimes take a couple days to turn on the power. Umm...I'm sorry, but shouldn't that have been the landlord's responsibility at any point during the last 10 days? The answer is yes, yes it should have been.

Problem #3: On this same visit I notice that the floors are still dirty. Landlord tells us the carpets have been "cleaned". Kinda hard to do when there is no power, isn't it?

Problem #4: We go home on Saturday and The Brain fills out the online form with the power company to get the power turned back on, hopefully in time for our move-in on Monday. He gets an automated reply telling him to expect a response within 48 hours. So far, so good...maybe.

Problem #5: Knowing that the floors were probably still filthy, I want to bring a vacuum on our first run to the new place and give them a once-over before moving all our belongings in on top of dirty floors. But the lack of power thwarts that plan.

Problem #6: We spend all day Monday moving into the new place and have to put our (new-ish) mattress on the bedroom floor. I refuse to put the furniture together until I can clean the carpet. We keep the mattress in its plastic bag and sleep on the floor Monday night...and Tuesday night...and Wednesday night.

Problem #7: The Brain makes a special trip out to pick up a shower curtain. Gets it home to discover that both the packaging and the curtain have been sliced through. Makes a second trip to the store to replace it.

Problem #8: No power until late Thursday afternoon. This means no vacuuming the floors, which are clearly filthy and full of cat hair. It also means running to Target for some cheap camping lanterns so we can pick our way through piles of boxes and furniture when the sun goes down.

Problem #9: All the cat hair from the previous tenants are aggravating The Brain's allergies. We still can't vacuum all the floors because they are under our stuff. We can only move and clean patches at a time.

Problem #10: There is a VERY STRONG musty or cat smell in the two bedrooms. Our mattress smells from being on the floor. Our bedding smells and has to be dry cleaned. As soon as we got power we cleared everything out of the room and used up two large boxes of baking soda doing two rounds of odor-eating treatment. It's a bit better but still hits you when you walk into the room. I'm sitting on the couch in the living room right now, a good 5 or 6 feet away from the bedroom door, and I still get wafts of mustiness from in there. Not sure if it's a cat smell or if there's something else going on in there.

Problem #11: Still no washing machine. We were told one came with the unit. There is a dryer, but the washer mysteriously disappeared between the time we viewed the unit and when we moved in. Owner/landlord says he is "working on getting one", whatever that means.

Problem #12: This place is crawling with spiders and other bugs. Literally. I have emptied two cans of Raid already just on the doors and windows alone. I have taken to carrying a spray bottle of Hot Shot around with me and I am constantly checking the corners of the rooms. For someone like me, who emptied and re-packed all the boxes we had in storage at our old place just to be sure I wasn't bringing any bugs into the new place, this is a special kind of hell. At least when we had no power we couldn't see them. The Brain counted 5 spiders hanging out near the ceiling of the bedroom closet alone. I just want to dunk this whole building in a vat of toxin. It would help if the owner/landlord had actually sealed things like doors and windows. Instead, this retired-community-college-professor-turned-property-owner has installed his own doors (badly) and windows (badly) using mostly recycled items that don't quite fit. There is a good half-inch gap underneath and between the french doors that lead directly from the living room to the front porch. There are numerous openings between the floor and the outer wall in the self-built sun room. Gee, I wonder how all the bugs are getting in?

Problem #13: The fridge stinks from sitting around in the summer heat for two weeks with no power. Another run to Target for more baking soda.

Problem #14: Most of the food we had in the fridge and freezer at the old place had to be thrown out because we had no place to put it.

Problem #15: Having no power and no place to store food also means having to eat out for all our meals. This means having to eat cheap meals. I don't even want to think about all the crap I have put into my body this past week.

At this point you're probably wondering why we moved to such a horrible-sounding place. Well, it's like this: our old apartment was in a great location and we really liked it...except for the things that we didn't like. For instance, we didn't like that it was on a very busy street with deafening bus and truck traffic. We didn't like having to battle it out with our neighbors for parking every day, let alone having to park more than half a mile from our own home when there were events at nearby Balboa Park. We didn't like that the hardwood floors were so old that they sometimes gave us splinters. We didn't like smelling what our downstairs neighbors had for dinner every night. We didn't like that the windows leaked cold air in the winter, and we didn't like that there was no way to cool the place down in the summer. And finally, we didn't like that our already-expensive rent increased every year while the landlord made no improvements to the building.

So we found an upstairs/downstairs duplex that sits in a canyon at the end of a dead end street. It is surrounded by palm trees and other plants (hence the bugs), but it has TONS of windows, a veranda, a back deck, a sun room, and just enough space for two people with no kids or pets. It is SO QUIET and I love that I can open the two sets of french doors and get a nice breeze. It has air conditioning if we need it, but I doubt we will. It came with all the appliances (except, apparently, a washing machine?) and it has so many wall sockets it's kind of crazy. So we loved it at once, but now we're discovering a lot of problems that we couldn't have known were here. I'm just hoping that things will settle down and once we spray the heck out of this place and get the floors cleaned, things will start to look up. Either way, we're stuck here for the next year so we might as well make the best of it.

Thanks for letting me vent. I'm off to call the landlord (again) to let him know that the garbage disposal does not work, and to inquire about the washing machine (again).

We Have Winners!

Ugh. I've had a whopper of a couple weeks there so I'm a bit late with posting the yarn prizes. I'll get to that in another post, but for now I just want to get the winners' names out there so I can mail off some good stuff!

I used my trusty Random Number app to pick winners. (Just kidding. It's not trusty at all. I mean, it does exactly what it says it will do, but it's not the smoothest interface. But why am I complaining? It's an app that picks numbers for me. If that's the most I have to complain about, I have it pretty good.)

(P.S. That is not the most I have to complain about right now. TRUST ME. You'll get an earful in my next post.)

So without further crankiness, here are the winners:

Julie from the Lotus Blossom blog will receive the Berroco Flicker. I enjoy reading Julie's stories about her sweet little girls and all their adventures. Congratulations, Julie!

ccr in MA from the Knit Reads Cats Hockey blog will receive the Universal Yarns yarn. Congrats, ccr!

And finally, Linda B. (not Johnny) will receive the Noro Kirameki. Linda is a Rav friend from the podcast days and I always enjoy the periodic messages we send back and forth.

I have sent the winners emails (or Rav messages) to ask for your addresses. If you did not get an email from me, please let me know at clumsyknitterATgmailDOTcom. Thank you!

And a big THANK YOU to everyone who welcomed me back from my time in the woodwork. I appreciate everyone who took the time to say hello!

History Repeating Itself?

Thank you all for your comments on my last post! It is so nice to see that so many of you faithfully kept me in your blog readers where I just popped up. I will admit to going through my Google reader once a year or so and clearing out any blogs that haven't posted in a year so I am happy to see that most of you are not as anal as I am about clutter (virtual or otherwise). Remember, you still have until Friday to comment on that post for a chance to win some yarn.

I also have to add that I tried to reply to all of the comments, so if you did not receive an email reply it's because Blogger does not collect email addresses and I have no way to reach you back if you don't list your email address on your blog or web page. I went searching for each and every one. I apologize if I was not able to get to everyone, but thank you for saying hello anyway.

In my last post I mentioned that I had no idea why Berroco named their Flicker colorway 'Siegfried'. Commenter WillyG said that it reminded him of a character from Wagner's Ring Cycle, so I looked it up along with other Flicker colorway names. Alas, it was not Wagner. But, a quick search of some of the more unusual names directed me straight to the character list from Swan Lake, which is apparently where all the Flicker colorway names are pulled from. Thank you, WillyG, for pointing me in the right direction while simultaneously allowing me to reveal my ignorance of famous ballet character names.

Before I re-started this blog, I made a joke that as soon as I started blogging again I would magically get hired for a great job and be too busy to keep it up. As fate would have it, the very next morning I woke up to find an email(!) inviting me to an interview for a job to which I applied ages ago. The interview is not until early July and the HR rep I spoke with was very unhelpful so I don't have many details, but if anything comes out of it I will be sure to let you know. It is only a part time job, but it is in an area of interest for me so I will keep you posted.

In the meantime, I am going out of town for a week to visit my family in MN. I haven't been back for a year and a half so I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. I am also looking forward to some thunderstorms. It's been several years since I've been able to enjoy a good thunder and lightning display. Two days after I return home, The Brain and I are moving to a new apartment. I'll be sure to keep you posted as I try to cram 1400sf worth of stuff into 1000sf with no storage. Word of the month: PURGE!!!

Once again, this post has been brought to you by random FO shots.

Knock, Knock! Anyone There?

Yup, it's been a while. It's been a looooong while. I really kinda left this blog hanging, didn't I? A few of you were even nice enough to email me to ask if everything was OK because I hadn't been around for a while. That was very sweet of you, so thank you for checking in.

Yes, everything has been fine. I just got overwhelmingly busy in a short span of time and several things had to go by the wayside, this blog being one of them. I'll give you a (very) brief overview of my life this past year. There are prizes involved if you read to the end!!!

I'm starting the blog back up because I never really intended to let it slide. It just sort of...happened. And then Kristen was having a blogiversary giveaway on her blog, and I realized that we started blogging within a couple weeks of each other. We found each other's blogs way back in the beginning and I've been following her story for years. I also realized that my blogiversary would be the perfect opportunity to restart things. My brother was also very enthusiastic about the idea because he says he never knows what's going on with me otherwise. That was a good enough excuse for me, so here we are on my 4th Blogiversary.

So when last I left you a year ago, I had just been hired on to a new part-time job. Here is my life in a nutshell since then (complete with random FO shots):

1) Part-time job became full-time. Woohoo!

2) I earned three degrees to make copies and travel plans for other people full-time? Boo! :(

3) Quit job (sort of) to go back to school. Agreed to work part-time until replacement found.

4) Last fall semester: Worked 20 hours a week, volunteered 10 hours a week in psychology lab, took 6 classes, studied for GRE, applied to grad programs, managed to survive. Woohoo!

5) Didn't get in to grad school (shortage of research experience). Boo! :(

6) Spring semester: Volunteered in research lab, took 4 classes. Much easier to manage. Woohoo!

7) Still can't find a job. Boo! :(

8) Started working at my favorite LYS on Saturdays. Woohoo!

It is now summer and I am still getting research experience in a different psychology lab on campus. The flexible schedule allows me to pick up random shifts at the LYS during the week and get to the gym more often. (Yes, I joined a gym. I'm super excited! It is brand new and it opened in April. It is women-only and has a spa and you can go to as many classes as you want. Woohoo! Unfortunately, my overzealous running habit caused me to come down with a nagging case of plantar fasciitis nearly three months ago. Still can't walk without limping. In fact, I just got a night splint and casts for custom orthotics today. Boo!)

I am back to my old problem of trying to find a job and weighing the pros and cons of going back to grad school. If I can get a decent job in my line of interest without more schooling I would be thrilled. I'm trying to break into market research analysis. You know, running focus groups and doing the statistics and all that fun stuff. We'll see where I end up.

Now that I have updated you on all the pertinent information, it's time for the fun stuff! I picked up some fun blog prizes at my LYS this week for three lucky commenters. All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment to let me know that I still have some readers. And hey, if my brother and my mother are the only ones who comment, then I guess we're keeping the yarn in the family. ;-)

First up I have two lovely skeins of Berroco's new Flicker yarn in the Siegfried colorway. (No, I have no idea about the name either.) It is a gorgeous, light gray with subtle glints of silver. I love this yarn. Get this: it's a worsted weight and comes in 189 yds/skein, but each skein is only 50g! This yarn is so light and lofty it's unreal. It has a unique chainette construction a lot like my beloved Rowan Lima and it is super soft and squooshy. Berroco has just released photos for their dedicated Flicker pattern book in time for TNNA, so they should be hitting stores soon I hope. In the meantime, you can download a free Flicker ebook from the Berroco website. Two skeins are enough to make several of the patterns in that book.
















Next I have two skeins of Universal Yarns Classic Shades in the Harvest colorway. I love this yarn, and I don't normally say that about mostly-acrylic blends. It is a 70/30 acrylic/wool machine washable yarn with amazing color changes. I would definitely opt for this over Noro any day. It is super soft to the touch and each colorway is very pretty--none of those "ugh" colors like you find in Noro. Two skeins will give you 394 yds of fall-colored glory. This is plenty of yarn for a couple of Noro Hats or a Noro Striped Scarf, without the scruffiness and veg matter from Noro.
















And finally, lest you think I don't like Noro, I have a skein of their laceweight Kirameki. The color I have for you is a mix of pinks and purples which I think is just lovely. I got a skein for myself and made Grumperina's Volna scarf and I LOVE IT. I loaned it to the shop I work at to be used as a model so I'm looking forward to getting it back so I can wear it. ;-)









If you are interested in winning any of this yarn, or even if you aren't, please pop up and say hello. I will accept comments until this Friday, June 17. I would love it if you can let me know if there is anyone out there still reading this. LOL In the meantime, thank you for reading!

Still Alive

Sorry about that. I didn't mean to be all, "OmigodIhaveanewjobwoohoo!" and then take off for weeks at a time. I do appreciate ALL the comments you guys left for me on my last post. I replied to everyone who I could find email addresses for, so THANK YOU to those of you I wasn't able to reach. It's been...busy around here, as you can imagine. I started my job a week and a half ago and it's been a bit crazy since then.

Work has been fine. Not really stressful, because like I said I'm pretty much doing the same things I was doing back in Minnesota, but with different people and different proprietary software programs to learn. I always hate the first few weeks at a new job, when you're spending so much time trying to remember peoples' names and what they do and who to call when you need help figuring out how to order office supplies, or where to drop off time cards. Working only 20 hours a week is not a benefit in this case. My to-do list grows daily--every time I cross something off, I add two or three more things. I still don't have access yet to most of the websites and programs I need, so that limits how much I can do. Why did I have to start at the busiest time of year for academic offices? In addition to the normal day-to-day stuff to deal with, I also have to help plan all the commencement activities this department is putting on, and let's just say that they do A LOT OF STUFF at the end of the year.

Note to anyone out there thinking about working in academia: start in the summer. The campus is a ghost town and you get nearly a year to get up to speed before having to plan for the graduation hoopla. Don't start mid-April when the office is fielding calls from students frantic about whether or not the bookstore is handing out the wrong color tassels for their major, and the faculty is trying to decide on how many cookies vs. bottles of water to order for their commencement reception.

The good news is that everyone I work with has been great so far and I'm confident that as I learn my way around the bureaucracy, my to-do list will shrink. I'm not as confident that this Mac girl can learn her way around Windows Vista as quickly. Seriously! They moved everything around! I feel like I'm learning how to use everything all over again. :-/

As for knitting? Well...my knitting time has dropped off dramatically. Even though I am only working 20 hours a week the amount of time I spend preparing my clothes, packing lunch, showering and blow-drying, commuting, and all the millions of other little things you do to prepare for work is the same as for a full-time job. It would almost be easier just to stay at work for the full 8 hours than to leave after 5. But I do get Fridays off, so I can't really complain about that. :)

Sorry for the long, photo-free post. I'll try to have something more interesting for next time, but I just wanted to pop in and give an update.