sitting here in limbo...

and so i have called on all my 'avoidance' skills and ignored the cyber nightmare for four whole days...until my friend Laurie came round today and took a look and said "Tif, it is quite clear that you need to do something about your website"...we messed around with it for a while and then it became even clearer that i had completely forgotten how i even put the thing together in the first place. obviously i did not retain any information in my long term memory and it is completely blank...have decided to do some more 'avoiding' until my man gets home to help.

in the meantime, i thought we would have a little look at a few things that have been distracting me of late, and in turn making everything in 'neglected cyber world' to go so wrong...

first, the yellow house...ah yes, the very thing that is causing my 'downfall' at the moment. i have spent the past week visiting first with the inspector and then with various qualified people who 'umm' and 'ahh' at the problems that need fixing and then give us a quote...then we go back and start negotiating again. i don't hold out much hope this time, it took a long time before, so i have a feeling it could be the end of the road for this house, but we will see. the extent of it's problems are pretty major.

put it this way, the inspector said as he was writing up his notes on the 'major defects' page, "i haven't written this much in ages" ...if we end up in the yellow house, it won't be yellow for long, apart from a lot of other things that need to be fixed, the siding has to come down...

whilst i was waiting around i took a few snap shots, one of the kitchen, which will have to come out. it doesn't look so bad in the photo, but as my friend Laurie said "wow, it looks much better in the picture than real life!", that tells you a lot. secondly, the vanity sink downstairs...i like this sink, i think it will stay, (wallpaper will go) although now i look closely i am wondering if the fake green marble affect has just been painted on!!

now, while all this has been going on at the yellow house, i have been putting our present house into a state of 'ready to market'...this room is now the one that greets potential buyers as they walk through the door.

it originally just had sofas and musical instruments in it, so i have worked on making it look like a dinning room again...i even covered the chairs in my favorite tablecloth, all the time imagining them in the yellow house...opposite to the dinning space is the front room...

looking far smarter than before. so my plan is, whoever walks through the door will see these spaces and go "i have to buy this house, it is perfect for me" and that will be that..oh and preferably on the first day
when i look at these pictures i really can't believe that i am trying to move from this neat, clean, large space to a rambling, quirky, fixer-upper...

on a more crafty note, i have begun to tire of having my studio packed away and everything inaccessible...so i have decided to turn my attention to my clothes and what i can do to customize them, so far i have two willing victims...

victim #1...sadly my favorite skirt in the whole world that got ruined by bleach...i must confess that i do not use bleach to clean my house, however the need to rid the sliders on my windows of mold and mildew meant drastic action had to be taken...and i took that action dressed in my favorite skirt and with a borrowed bottle of clorox. that will teach me to mess around with the enviroment...

victim #2...a lovely pale pink wool skirt by NOA NOA that i have had for several years, it was a victim of a rogue moth last year (i say that quietly as i caught another one yesterday sniffing around my lovely new yarn). the moth hole in this skirt caused me to tear my closet apart in a frantic state of madness, trying to unearth the little horrors. "why oh why" i cried to myself "do you have to frigging choose my expensive skirt, why can't you choose the cheap crappy skirt hanging next to it" but alas, moths do have a certain taste for quality...anyhow i have decided to dye this one with a color called 'black plum' which was spotted on the clearance aisle recently...i have taken a risk that it was 'end of line' rather than past it's 'dye date'...which reminds me, i cleared my fridge out on Saturday while trying to avoid thinking about the cyber world, i found a barbecue marinading sauce (opened) with a 'sell by date' of June 2004, i was just entertaining the idea of combining it with my 'crock pot' when our #2's eyes alighted upon it and all hell broke loose about what else could be lurking in the fridge..

off to see what Mrs W. Machine has done with her wool skirt and an old packet of dye ~ Tif

an inspector calls...

i woke up this morning with a skip in my step, after all i had several 'crafty' things to think about, first my latest copy of Selvedge had turned up in the mail and secondly i had managed to visit the yarn shop yesterday. that could only mean that today was going to be a lovely day of kids in school and me with my reading material and knitting supplies, sigh...

but it soon turned out to be not such a lovely morning and i am not quite as excited anymore...in fact i am at the point of renaming my blog to something along the lines of "a few easy steps to living the life of a mad woman" or maybe "how to mess up every time when you aren't even trying" or perhaps "overwhelmed and under qualified"...of course i have broken one of my blogger rules just be typing this little section. my blogger rule book in my head clearly states "#1. do not post on your blog under any circumstances if you are on the verge of a breakdown." very sensible advice i think... well i have blown that one sky high....so please i ask who ever it is that looked down on me this morning and thought this would be amusing, i have news for you...it isn't.

so it would appear i have made a big blunder (that is putting it mildly)...allow me to explain dear readers, a few weeks back i decided to put all my flickr pictures to private. for sometime now i have been contacted by lots of lovely crafters out there wanting to be 'buddies' and that's just fine by me...however i really didn't want to be 'buddies' with men that get their kicks from wearing slips and other things. i'm sorry if i offend anyone but i just don't want to be dealing with looking at profiles and photos through half squinted eyes case i see something i don't want to, let alone my kids coming across it all..."no problem" i said to myself, i will just spend hours putting everything to private. oh the fool that i am, i have been so caught up in vacations, kids, house buying and everything else that i didn't check my little basic website...

for the past few weeks or even longer my little website (which really is rather sad) hasn't had any pictures on it, just nice lovely big rectangles saying "this photo is currently unavailable"...oooh how professional looking. then to add to this situation i am alerted to the 'problem' by readers of a newspaper that ran the Etsy article from way back when, TODAY!!...am i a twit or what, it never occurred to me that these articles appear all over the place and now lovely people on the east coast are frustrated as hell with me and i can see why...no decent website, etsy shop closed...it really is a rubbish kind of day. "Tif" you say "quickly go change your photos to public and it will all be sorted out", oh if only it were that easy. i did that and it still doesn't show up on my website because the URL changes...and while we are at it i have managed to mess up all my archives on my little blog....oh and did i mention the inspector did his thing on the yellow house and let's just say he took my "rose colored" spectacles right off dropped them on the ground and crushed them under his boot...

i have resorted to 'fines' if i find any piles in our current house as it is an uphill struggle to keep this house in a marketable state...so far 'used dog' owes me two dollars for spilling her bowl of dried food...

oh yes, she's screwing up left, right and center... and oh no, she won't be knitting today ~ Tif

see, even the frigging 'spacers' and 'lines' are against me...

and the winner is...

i am back and i have to tell you that i have experienced a miracle. (or i am living the life of a soap character) but i am going with the former...after living for several days in the deepest corner of my 'pit of despair' ( thanking you kindly for all your support) i have been thrown a life line, along with it a large band-aid to patch up my broken heart.

someone or something (i like to think my guardian angel had a small part to play) made the seller of the empty sad yellow house see the light and realize that it is my destiny to live in it. yes dear readers, you are learning just like me that miracles can happen. the seller came back to us, on our terms and it is full steam ahead...i feel like i am living on a roller coaster of emotions these days, and quite frankly i am looking forward to getting off soon, and i am sure you are too!

the next loop on the ride is "the inspection" which will be carried out in a day or two, (shall aim to get some pics for you) and then if we don't fall off it is on to the "putting my house on the market" slow climb beginning of next week and if that all goes according to plan and we get to the top of the hill it is just one long whizz to the finish, where we can all get off, feeling sick but smugly pleased with ourselves for making it through...

in celebration of getting back on track i unearthed my knitting books and flicked through to find something suitable to make for the yellow house (once again counting my chickens before they hatch)...i found this page in my Sarah Dallas Book,

the whole room is just perfect for the yellow house, i showed it to our #3 who quietly marvelled at it and continued playing the game console (wise child), i then showed it to my man who's comment was "those chairs with the cushions look really uncomfortable" (foolish man)...i will not allow his words to cast a shadow on my new found happiness...and so i shall proceed to knit some cushions to occupy my thoughts and calm my nerves over the coming weeks..

in the meantime, i am way way over due on some seriously important "thank yous" and i plan to get through them a bit at a time, but i must announce the winner of the 'cushion give away'...this was so tricky and i wish i had said i would pick it out of a hat. everyone had a tale to tell that i think we could all relate to...but i ended up going with Lily because she made me spill my cup of tea i was laughing so much (obviously before my heart cracked). not so much the nightmare of moving but 'life after the move' ...drop me a line at my email Lily and this cushion will be winging it's way to you promptly!

trying to remember exactly where her knitting needles have been packed away and looking forward to a trip to the yarn shop, leaving you with Lily's 'moving' story ~ Tif

here's my story...

1. 5 years ago, we happily bought our first home. it was owned by an old lady with lots of cats.

2. we discovered cats under our house.

3. after about 6 months the orange one came back and died on our driveway, very sad..

4. whenever we have the lights on in the front living room her black cat comes back and sprays on our front door. this happens even if the lights are only on for 5 mins. the cat must be watching our home.

5. five years later this still happens. we had to move our living room into the dining room (which we only use for large gatherings) and not use the front room.last year thanksgiving dinner with family in dining room (front room). i was thinking, no the cat is not coming tonight...i was wrong, i was horrified when i smelled the combination of fish guts and urine in the dining room and everyone was saying "what's that smellll?

6. yes, five years later, i'm still a prisoner in my own home cuz of that black cat.

7. i've grown to like the cats now, cuz my little boy likes to put on his frog boots to go chase them in the yard and then he'll say "oh they'll be back".Lily