We finally had the chandelier installed on Friday.

Remember the “bad” dining room I told you to ignore when I showed you my new table? (It’s only partly bad in that shot. The red had already been applied over the purple). Well, here’s the pretty dining room (although I forgot to take the step ladder and blankets out first).

It was dark purple on top, bright white on the bottom, and trimmed in plastic moldings. Shudder.

Now it’s red, and cedar, and loverly. And temporarily put together until the furniture refinishers come to take my table away for 5 weeks. Totally sucks.

I’ll try to get my stuff together for the knit along by Friday, in that I hope to have a name and a button. But I’ll be ready to see what anyone has to show, for sure.

And Carrie…. Hi!!!! Send me your email address, or email me privately (see sidebar) so I can have your addy.

Any brilliant ideas on what to name our Christmas Stocking-along? I haven’t had any. And Nate hasn’t made a button. But I’m wanting to get this party started, so comment to this entry to tell me if you’re in. Even if you’ve told me already, comment again (please?). It keeps it tidy for me, and I don’t have to worry about stupidly missing someone. I have emails spread out over the last few months from people that want to participate, and even if I go looking, I’ll miss somebody.

Wool of the Andes from Knitpicks seems really nice. Thank you to Jen for suggesting it. It hadn’t even occurred to me. You rock.

Sunday night, while laying in bed, we heard loud crackling sounds on the deck, so we got out the flashlight and went down to the basement to chase off the raccoons.

They’re still stinking cute.

There were four of them. I think they’ve gotten a bit bigger since we saw them last. We shined the big light on them from inside the house, they retreated a little bit and stared at us, waiting for us to go away, which we didn’t because they were around my pond. Three of them laid their little chins on a flat rock, side by side and I couldn’t believe how cute they were, considering they’re vermin.

Happily, I still have all of my fish, so I don’t hate them yet.

As for the swatch, I don’t like the ribbing or the garter stitch, so I’ll probably do a rolled, stockinette top. I still need to measure the swatch and work out a basic pattern. I’m thinking that most of them will be stripes within our color palette, with a duplicate stitch design added after it’s done. That way, Olivia can help with the knitting. But I still like the idea of Nate’s and mine being argyle.

Clark didn’t sleep too well last night, and at 4:30 this morning, he was done sleeping and kicked and clawed me until I lost all hope of going back to sleep myself. So I’m going to do some laundry now.

I’m cheating and post dating this entry for Saturday. As usual, things have been very busy. We went for a great walk on Sunday, and I did my physical therapy and weights last Saturday. I’m still trying to get back into a schedule. Nate wants to work out together at 1 o’clock every afternoon, after V goes to school and Clark goes down for a nap. Sounds good. We’ll see if it sticks. I have to admit to being a bit skeptical, as Nate is very busy with work right now.

I have to keep telling myself that I exercised daily for 5 consecutive weeks this summer, and the two weeks I added great eating were fantastic. I did it. I can do it again.

Part of what’s been throwing me off that my house was turned upside down while we were away for my sister’s wedding, while the floors were being refinished. And there are still contractors in my house nearly every day. That just messes stuff up. But we made good progress on the house today (Monday), and I’ve been working on it daily all last week during Clark’s naps. I’m slowly getting there.

Stocking yarn arrived!

Olivia is giddy. She’s been wanting to knit her stocking for months. She can’t stop touching the yarn and putting colors together.

That’s my girl.

The girls got on the bus this morning, and even arrived at school eventually, but what happened between those two events had me in near hysterics for about an hour. The reason I’m not going to give you the details is because it involves particulars about my children’s transportation, and I don’t know everybody that reads here. But the words “alone” and “stranded” are certainly applicable. It’s the only thing on my mind this morning, so it’s the only thing I can think to blog about.

Right now, I am still very actively focusing on calming down. Which seems the perfect time to show you a picture I’ve been hanging on to for awhile.

One of the many, many things the previous owners of our house left when they left was a bird feeder. We put seed in it at the beginning of the summer, before school was out. The birds didn’t stop by for a long time, but they do now, and it’s fun to watch. We get seemingly hundreds of these chickadees, and I think we get the brown ones, too. We get a lot of red-breasted nuthatches, some Blue Jays, and I’ve seen two other birds, each once.

This one that seemed to peck a hole in the tree and then drink out of it-

and a messy looking brown bird with what looked like mottled red on its chest.

Oooh, ooh, and I forgot about the hummingbird. It zoomed in to the yard, came right up to the big windows in the living room, hovered there for nearly 10 seconds (we were practically face to face) and zoomed off again.

I want to get a hummingbird feeder, because that’s just too cool.

And now I’m going back to deep breathing and concentrated calm.

I take Veronica to kindergarten in a couple hours, and you’d better believe I’m going to be there this afternoon when they’re getting on the bus to make sure they’re on the right one, or even get on one.

It’s so strange. I can’t believe the summer’s already over. I’m sad. And a bit stressed that we’re entering the school year at such a disadvantage. With the homework (Abigail received TWO homework assignments in the mail that are due the first day of school. Olivia’s teacher assigns homework every weekend) and helping in class and everything, I wanted to be all organized and ready. But I’m not. The house isn’t put back together from the floors being redone. My garage is still a mess, which keeps me from being able to fully organize my house. I’m hoping that I can work on it more when the girls are at school. If Clark cooperates. We need to go shopping for school supplies still, and I don’t have a list from Abby’s class, but I’m hoping to get one this afternoon.

I think I’m over-stressing. It’ll be fine. Wanting everything to be perfect causes me more grief than I need sometimes.

Topic change- I took a bunch of pictures of Clark last night and this morning.

I took the last one by holding the camera over the two of us. Not the most flattering picture, but it’s still incredibly cute.

I did ok this week. Not as good as I’d hoped, but my milk production is better. I’ve been drinking more water and eating better. I’m doing breakfast shakes again, and my energy level has risen significantly. I need to go grocery shopping to stock up on healthy and fresh food, but I haven’t had sufficient motivation to get me there with 4 kids. Not surprising. So I’ve done more junk snacking that I’ve wanted to.

The girls go to school starting Wednesday. I can’t believe it. Where did the summer go? But I’m hoping to start exercising by the end of this week. And I’m going to go to the store.

I have no idea what I weigh right now. The scale, which belongs on my bathroom floor, is homeless due to the remodel/repair and has been wandering around the house. Considering the way I’ve been eating and not exercising, I haven’t tried very hard to track it down.

Does anyone have anything to report/talk about?

UPDATE- I did my weights and physical therapy this afternoon. It feels really good! I can’t go for a walk or get on the treadmill until the blister on my pinky toe heals.

A DUCK!

Ok, ok, enough of that. I’m probably misquoting anyway. I haven’t seen that movie in at least a decade.

ROCKS! That’s what we’re talking about. Pretty rocks. Rocks that are all over my bathroom floor!

The thinset is still wet. We’re not allowed to walk on it until tomorrow, and it won’t be grouted until the end of next week at the earliest. So when I show you this,

you must believe me when I say that I’m not actually stepping on the rocks. I’m just holding my foot an inch or so above them, so you can get an idea of the size of the rocks. Really, I am.

But don’t tell the tile guy. I had to remove the tape over the door to even see it.

He won’t be back until Tuesday, so we have a three day weekend to stare at grout colors (the little sticks you see in the second picture) and try to make a decision.

Thanks for the love in regards to my table dilemma. I still don’t know what I’m going to do. But today, I get to look at pretty rocks.

And wait anxiously for my stocking yarn to arrive. And think about argyle. In the round. Maybe.

I read the article in an old IK about intarsia in the round. It sounded interesting and doable. But it would mean dealing with messy bobbins again, in a very small and confined space. I’m not sure if I’m up to that with the baby being how he is.

Right now, he’s complaining from my bed where I left him. Not crying yet, but letting me know that if I don’t pick him up again soon, I’m going to be sorry.

I didn’t tell you this, but when our hardwood floors were refinished two weeks ago, some of the finish sloshed through the heater vent in the floor,

out the heater vent in the ceiling of the basement,

and onto our new dining room table that we thought was well out of harm’s way.

Just let that sink in for a second.

The poor guy came out and tried to fix it last week. When he couldn’t, he took it to his friend who refinishes furniture professionally, and we got it back today.

It. Isn’t. Good.

The matte finish on the right is our leaf, which wasn’t refinished (although it was spilled on). The shiny finish on the left is the table top. (The legs are still matte). The new finish ran down the sides of the table, so when you pull out the leaf, there are drips showing along the edges.

This is a spot in the center of the table that rubbed off almost immediately when we were examining it.

On the edge where there’s some finish missing in a big, broken streak, there are rub marks in the finish that run perpendicular to the grain of the wood. It really stands out, although probably not in the picture so much.

The bottom of one side edge is all chewed up from being moved/transported/whatever.

I think the worst part is that on the entire tabletop, there are what seem to be little pin prick bubbles or something that you can both see and feel. Everywhere.

I want to cry. This is our first nice table. Ever. We’ve had it for three months. It represents the most $$$ we’ve ever laid down for any one piece of furniture.

I’m not yet sure what we’re going to do. I’ve called the furniture store for ideas and they’re mulling it over. I’ve called a reportedly reputable refinishing business, and they ball parked $1000 for the top and leaf over the phone, and it’ll be at least 3 weeks from the time they receive it until we get it back. A salesman will come out and give us a more exact figure if we go that way.

All the while, I’m feeling bad for the hardwood guy, who didn’t take the remaining 40% payment for the job and said if it costs more than that to fix the table, to let him know.

I hate this. He deserves to be paid for the great job he did on our floors. At the same time, we shouldn’t be stuck with a messed up table that’ll NEVER be like new again through no fault of our own.

Dangit.

This is our bathroom. The prep is almost done, I think. The whole project was supposed to be finished by Friday, and that’s SO not happening. Our tile guy has personal problems, so he keeps not showing up and not calling. And now, I hear that he’s concerned about our shower structure supporting the weight of the travertine. Or something. I don’t know.

I once read an article in the paper about an older couple that bought a cool old building in Seattle and were their own General Contractors on its renovation. The wife said something about how it was THE hardest, most trying experience they’d ever had to go through in their life. Based on my life experiences at the time, (car accident resulting in permanent injuries and treatments, marital therapy, seemingly incurable obesity, childhood family disfunction), I thought that was completely pathetic.

Well, it’s still kind of pathetic, considering where a home renovation figures on the scale of things that really matter in life, but I have to say that after the last four months, PLUS the nightmare we went through in January and February trying to get our old house fixed and ready to sell, I’ve at least gained some respect for what she’s talking about.

It’s a legitimate pain in the butt.