I Am Never Moving Again: Our New House

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move. --Benjamin Franklin

We're finally here, finally in the new house.

It all happened like a bit of a whirlwind... or what would have been a whirlwind, if it hadn't been so incredibly hot outside on moving day. Maybe we could call it a slow bake in a convection oven. And, poke me with a fork, because I'm long past done. I gotta say: the friends that helped us move are among the best people in the world... and I am very sure that's the last time they'll ever want to help me move again. Not that I want to move again. I give you all permission to give me a stern talking-to if I mention moving house ever again.

I couldn't bring myself to write a single blogpost over the past few weeks because all I could think about was packing our stuff, how we were going to move all this stuff, and how I was going to unpack all this stuff. Man, I thought I was done gathering stuff. Turns out, I'm just getting better at justifying it.

It got to the point where we started labeling boxes like this, which is always a bad sign:

And so, here we are, slowly getting to stage where this house feels like ours, complete with random stuff everywhere:

I still have to figure out where to hang some pictures and organize the spare room and office, but I thought I'd organize all our books and all my knick knacks first. I knew I just wouldn't settle until I had all my treasures in the right places:

Even the stash has a place... or at least SOME of it does. There's much more in the house, currently hidden away. This stuff is just the sock yarn. And no, I don't have yarn a problem, thank you:

In the midst of all this, I did finally finish my top. I can't even remember when I finished it, except it was on a stinking hot day when I finally sewed in all the ends and tried it on and stood sweating and looking at myself in the mirror and said, "Good enough!"

It was a bit of a hard fight to get it finished. I knitted the first side of the shoulders and neck, and was starting the second side when I realized I had a problem. I had been experimenting with doing my ssk stitches in a slightly different way to try to get them to lay more flat, which involved twisting one of the stitches. This worked for the most part, but when I had many of them in succession all stacked up on top of one another, this made them pull in tighter than the opposing k2tog stitches. I thought I could live with it... I figured I could make that side the back. I carried on with the other side and switched back to not twisting any stitches, but once I got it finished, the obvious difference bothered me. For illustration, here is what the ssk stitches on the first side looked like (stitches circled for clarity):

And here's what the ssk stitches on the second side looked like, with the stitches more open and more symmetrical to the k2tog stitches:

And so... I ripped back all the stitches on the first side again and did it all again. It was for the best: I was running out of yarn and I needed to shorten the first side anyway. That's what I told myself. I was too tired to grumble anyway.

Somewhere in the blur of the last couple of weeks, I washed and blocked it, and it got packed away somewhere with all my stuff, got moved over here, went missing for a couple of days, and was finally unearthed while I was unpacking things in the office. The weather finally cooled down long enough for me to throw it on and take a few photos on our back deck. Yes, we have a front AND a back deck. And a heckuva lotta trees, which made for quite a nice backdrop:

I am for the most part happy with it. I am glad I had enough yarn to make some decent sleeves, and I am also very happy with the overall length of it. I'm glad I ignored the instructions and worked more repeats, otherwise I'd be tugging at it every time I put it on:

I didn't work the neckline per the instructions, mostly because I couldn't be bothered trying to figure them out and because I was afraid of running out of yarn. In trying to make the neckline symmetrically, I ended up making the neck hole a teensy bit too small, which means I have to wiggle my head through until it pops out. I'm hoping I won't bust a seam sometime, but I do have a little bit of yarn leftover in case I need to re-do it... somewhere in the house...

It's a long weekend here, and I took an extra day off to give myself a four day weekend, and I'm ever so glad I did. I've got most things put away now and even took a few naps, so I feel more like myself than I have in a long time. I really love this house: I love the yard and the kitchen and the whole feel of it in general, and I especially love being away from the noisy highway we used to live next to. Oddly, I lay in bed last night and thought about the old house and started to feel a little homesick for it:

Perhaps I long for the familiarity of it. Or maybe it has memories attached to it that I'm afraid to lose: it is, after all, where Rascal used to live. I miss my boy, even now, and I'm afraid to leave him behind. He would have loved this house. But Seymour loves it just as much as he would have, and that is sort of like having Rascal here as well:

I'm off to bake a cake this morning. Have a lovely Sunday.