Psych, Part II

So much more to be said, but let me update my last entry. After receiving yet another letter providing a later date for a decision to be made about the second batch of documentation provided to the IRS, and then receiving a letter telling me that they have determined that my documentation is sufficient and a check will be forthcoming in 6 to 8 weeks (which would have put me into early July), I was blown away yesterday to actually receive and honest-to-goodness check from the IRS with my first time homebuyer's tax credit inside. With interest. Who knew that the IRS paid interest? Not me, but I'm not questioning it!

I deposited the check first thing this morning. Now for paying off the credit card on which I put my dining room furniture purchases last fall when I presumed a check would be in the mail any week now (ha!), and for finally putting shelves up in my master bedroom closet. I'm so excited to get that organized!

Just What the Doctor Ordered

So a few things have changed since July 27 (ahem). I packed, I moved, and I am slowly unpacking. I was so exhausted from the pre-move frenzy that I haven't forced myself to rush to get everything unpacked. And then I got distracted. Not long after the move my Mom went in for knee-replacement surgery. The surgery went fine, recovery not so much. Ten days after the original surgery they did a second surgery. Then she went back to the rehab facility. Finally, finally, just last Friday she was released to return home. Everything's going well now, but it's been a hectic three weeks that has left me getting home at 10 p.m. many nights. That wouldn't be so horrible if the alarm clock wasn't set for 5:15 a.m.

Friday night I joined two girlfriends for a little knitting and a lot of chatting. It was a great way to end the week. The rest of the weekend I spent holed up in my house. From Friday night through Sunday night, I didn't leave for one minute, and I loved it. I cooked chili, unpacked a bit, cleaned a bit, did a lot of laundry, and took care of a pet who was under the weather. I also watched football and read and knitted some more. It was just what I needed to recharge and refocus after several months of good but time-consuming distractions.

I Got Nuthin'

Hi there. Yes, I'm still here. I'm just in one of those ruts where I don't think I have anything very interesting to say. The house buying is progressing. I'm closing on August 5th and hoping to move on September 3. I've picked out paint colors and will be buying the paint on Saturday because it's on sale and the savings are worth having to store it for a few more weeks before being able to start actually painting.

Over July 4th weekend Mom and I went up to Cincinnati to shop at all the great stores Louisville unfortunately doesn't have, like Ikea, Crate & Barrel, West Elm, and Restoration Hardware. While we spent two whole days shopping, we honestly didn't buy too much. It was mostly a planning and documenting trip with plans for a repeat visit once I have the condo, and more importantly, the first time home buyer's money! In terms of big ticket items, we found a couch (unplanned), a dining room table, and pieces to make a "mud room" sort of bench/cubby combo. I did buy the bed I wanted, because I didn't want to move a full size bed and only weeks later have to remove it for the queen that I'm splurging on. The best part was that I was able to use my iPhone to take pictures of all the items I want to purchase next time and their information tag, in the case of Ikea products. That will make the return trip much easier to handle.

In the meantime, the house is a wreck and awash in packing boxes, piles to be sent to Goodwill, yard sale items (those are Lisa's; after last year I swore no more yard sales for me), and stuff to be thrown away or recycled. I'm trying very hard to take only what I need or what I love. We'll see.

In the craft department, I've packed up most everything I have, mostly to make sure I'm not tempted to procrastinate the packing process too much. The one item I left myself was a very large, long-term knitting project that is for someone who reads this blog. So I can't even show you a picture of that, because even if I didn't identify what it was, she would know it was for her because of the color.

Anyway, be forewarned that any future posts, at least through September, are likely to be house and moving related. I'll try to at least post pictures to make it visually appealing. This will be easier once the place is actually mine and I can get into it at any time, without the help of my realtor and permission from the seller's realtor.

In the meantime, enjoy your summer!

A Home of One's Own

With respect to Virginia Wolff, I appreciate the idea of a room of one's own, but I'm finally ready for a home of my own. Or in my case, condo. This is a view from the walkway leading up to either the (open) front door or the side porch. More pictures can be found at my flickr site. One thing none of the pictures show is the fact that the condo comes with a full unfinished basement. Woot!

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Now that the seller has agreed to the repairs I've requested, everything should go smoothly. (Ha!) Closing won't occur until sometime in August, probably, but I'm having a hard time thinking about much of anything else these days. I'm really looking forward to being able to paint all the rooms different colors. In fact, I've just about figured out what color each room will be, all based upon this fabric, which will be my bed set. Those of you who know me well won't be surprised that I love the colors, but you might be shocked because it is a type of floral, which isn't something I'm typically attracted to.

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My camera still hasn't appeared, so this little site might be without decoration for awhile. I'm going to use what I've got, and see how my iphone pictures look when uploaded, but it could get a little grim. A new camera isn't in the budget right now, when I'm planning for closing costs, movers, and a new bed!

What I Did On My Blogcation

DSC00897, originally uploaded by kyredbutterfly.

Apparently this is just going to happen from time to time, these unexpected absences. There are several excuses, such as the awesome vacation I had with my good friends in Portland, or the fact that I lost my camera cord for a couple weeks when I returned and couldn't download pictures (and was too stubborn to go and buy another cord when I knew it had to be somewhere in the house). Then there was the evil illness that befell me. No, it wasn't swine flu (no matter what you say, Mom), but it was bad enough that even though the computer was within reach, I had no interest in turning it on. For two weeks.

But really, the biggest reason for the absence is this little toy that I got a couple months ago. I love, love, love my iphone. I love how convenient it is to pop onto facebook or the internet, and jump off again. It's so bad that I've basically stopped turning on my laptop, because I can do just about everything I want to do on a computer on my iphone. But blogging from my phone, though totally do-able, is tedious. I promise, I'll try to do better! Promises, promises.

Green Week 2 - Ripening

Well, I'm shamelessly copying Sarah, sort of. Her avocados were homegrown and shipped to her. Mine come from...somewhere much more tropical than Kentucky in March. And mine are definitely not ripe yet.

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I stopped by the store on the way home and knew I had to pick these up, along with all the ingredients for a great salad. I've been craving salad, which I don't believe is a sentence I've ever thought, much less admitted. I'm not a huge salad fan. Don't get me wrong, I like my veggies. I don't usually prefer them raw, but I eat them that way a lot, just not all mixed together in salad form. But all day yesterday, that's all I wanted. I thought I'd get one for lunch, but that was a no-go. I wasn't able to grab lunch until 2 p.m., and by then I was afraid of what might be left on the cafeteria salad bar. So I knew I had to remedy that last evening, and after buying lots of green goodies, I came home and cleaned, chopped, and packaged up a ton of good things to take with me to work today.

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Good thing, too, as I'll probably be eating three meals there, at least until Friday (and maybe even then). It's the time of the long days, every day, as the legislative session reaches its fevered pitch.

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Maybe the avocados will be ripe by the weekend. Something to look forward to! In the meantime, here's the flickr link for Green Week. But also check out the blog entries, listed here.

Yellow Week 4 - Yarn Love

Before I could pick an angle to snap a picture of the yellow yarn on the quilt, Cassius snuck up and started getting comfortable. Eventually, he was resting his little chin on the skeins of yarn - so sweet. But photographing a black cat can be difficult with the best of light. At night, getting a good shot is nearly impossible for me. But I liked this one best, with the yellow light infusing the shot. However, he was much happier when I stopped taking the pictures and he could settle in for a long nap.

Don't forget to jump over to Flickr to see all the other great pictures from Yellow Week! I'm so impressed by the submissions. It's like we're willing spring to come.

Yellow 3 - Tonight's Dinner

I've decided to go Moroccan for dinner, so here are some of my ingredients for my take on the Squash and Chickpea Moroccan Stew from SmittenKitchen. When I add the saffron threads, even my dinner will remind me of yellow week! As the picture shows, I'm going with a fresh lemon instead of the preserved lemons called for in the recipe. I'm not sold on them enough to go on an expensive search. A little lemon juice, some zest, and a little more salt added to what's called for will be just dandy for me.

Tea Time - Yellow 2

A mug of lemon tea was a welcome respite to a stressful day. Made all the more so because my computer and/or internet has been giving me fits for days now. Just when I commit to uploading pictures daily for Yellow Week, my computer doesn't want to let me link to pictures on my blog or upload them to Flickr. A borrowed computer was the only way to solve the problem!

This and That

If I had blogged last week, as I intended to, the title would have been "Snap, Crackle, Pop" as the perfect description of living through the snow and ice storm that shut down large swaths of the state. It snowed all day on a Tuesday, then that night the ice started, and you could hear the tree limbs creaking and snapping under the weight of the ice. Finally, by Wednesday, lines started snapping and transformers popped as the power went out, at our house and throughout the state. Here are my pictures from the front porch and back door of our house.

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But this weekend has been about puttering around the house, cooking, laundry, knitting, and listening to "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on CD. My second attempt at bread from this book was much more successful than my first loaf (the rest of that dough went into the trash after the storm). Seriously, is there anyone out there that doesn't have this book yet? Everywhere I look, someone is blogging about baking something from it. I've had it for several months now, but peer pressure finally got me to start trying it. This could be very bad for my health goals for the year!

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The mushroom barley soup I made to go with it on Saturday tasted great, except for some of the mushrooms were too woody to eat. This is rather disappointing, since they came from a "gourmet" dried mix of mushrooms I bought at Costco. I love mushrooms, but they have such horrible shelf-life that I like to use dried mushrooms. These looked like a good deal, but if half of them aren't palatable, it doesn't do me much good. The broth and the rest of the soup is great, though. The recipe is definitely a keeper. I just have to find a better mix of dried mushrooms.

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Today I indulged in one of my favorite meals. I made a "hearty" breakfast of scrambled eggs with peppers and onions, hash browns and bacon. I adore breakfast. I adore hash browns. And I love, love, love bacon. So much so that this is the first time I've bought bacon in over a year. I have a hard time saying "No," so it's better if it just never enters my house. But I'd been craving this kind of breakfast for about a month now, so I finally gave in on a lazy morning. It was a very nice treat. When I was in law school I'd cook this kind of breakfast once a month or so, for my roommate and I. It's the only kind of luxury I could afford back then. It's a good thing I don't indulge in this habit too often, however! The bread is going to be bad enough.

(**Sorry for the stars...for some reason I keep having trouble getting new paragraphs to format correctly. This at least keeps the entire post from being one very long block of text!)

Baby, it's COLD outside!

Canada, thank you very much for the generous offer, but you can have your frigid winter temperatures back now. We in the south - even the northern edge of the South/southern edge of the Midwest - aren't prepared to handle this commitment. We have to save up for air conditioning, bug spray and citronella candles for when the temperatures top 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity levels make us feel like we're breathing through water. If we could work out some sort of swap, I would definitely be interested. You can always put on more clothes and find/knit more blankets when it's cold, but there comes a point where taking off more clothes to beat the oppressive heat of summer will get you arrested. So until we can come to a timeshare agreement, you need to come pick up your negative wind chill and take it back to where it belongs. Thank you.

Coveting is Bad, Right? Giveaway Alert.

I read this post about the Epson Artisan 800 printer and literally, I started to drool. Just reading mommycoddle's description makes my brain start whirling with ideas. I've wanted a scanner/printer/fax for a long time, but with plans for buying a house this year, I was living with the idea that there was definitely no room in the budget anytime soon. Maybe I'll win this one that's she's giving away! Go over there and post a comment. If you win, I promise not to be (too) jealous.

UPDATED: I didn't win. And I'm jealous. But I'm filing away the information about this wonderful toy/machine, for later. Maybe by then something bigger and better will come along and this beauty will be discounted!

Goodbye to Time

Okay, so that may be an exaggeration. But this is the first year since law school that I feel like I've had a Christmas break. Being a single person without children and a very small, flexible family, I'm always the one who happily works during the weeks of Christmas and New Years while others take time off. But this year I've been away from work for a week and a half, and most of the days have been rather unstructured (Read: A few days have been spent in PJs, knitting away and watching football and movies). It's gotten so bad that my roommate and I have been confirming with one another what day of the week it is.

Added to the sense of being out of the normalcy of daily life was the short trip I took with my mom to Daytona Beach. She had to go for a high school boy's basketball tournament for which she was keeping the score books. I "had" to go because it meant a few days staring at the ocean, walking on the beach, enjoying fresh seafood, and generally loving life. It was all of that and more. Our seventh floor hotel room had two walls of windows overlooking the beach, and a long balcony to sit out and enjoy the ocean air. The weather was beautiful, and there was always a nice breeze. The water was pretty darn cold, but I didn't do more than dip my toes. We drove on the beach, explored back roads and ritzy developments, and took in a movie (Doubt: very good acting, mesmerizing story, but you leave with as many questions as you have throughout.). It was the perfect tonic to the gray and cold winter weather of home.

But tomorrow the alarm will go off while it's still dark as night outside and I'll be forced to wear work clothes, put on makeup, and do my hair. I'll be getting to work around the time the sun rises, and I'll leave when the sun is setting. With the legislature coming back to the capitol this week for the beginning of the legislative session, it will be busy. Time to jump back into the regular tempo of life with both feet. As I sat in church this morning, after having taken communion and waiting while others were served, I have to admit my brain started racing on all the things I need to do this evening to prepare for the week to come, and all of the errands that must be done. Sigh. It had to come to an end at some point, and the day has almost arrived.

But first, one more moment of time away. This afternoon, the University of Kentucky plays the University of Louisville in men's basketball. In this basketball-crazed state, this is *the* game of the year. Time to go root, root, root for my team!

Simplify

One enduring aspect of being my mother's daughter (and oh, am I ever!) is that at least half the time that I see her she hands me something. Either something she's unearthed from my childhood, like the Christmas ornament from our trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park when I was about 11 years old, or even more likely, a clipping from a newspaper or magazine. Last week when I received the ornament I also got a couple clippings.

There was an article from the October 2008 copy of Southern Living magazine (I can't find a direct link to the article) entitled "Less is More" by Jan DeBlieu. It's a commentary, the kind frequently found at the end of a magazine. She starts off quoting a cross-stitch sampler from her childhood which said "Use it up/Wear it out/Make it do or/Do without." That phrase certainly speaks to me today after spending hours wading through the accumulation of paper from the past year and bringing a certain degree of order to chaos. I love feeling organized, but I'm very lazy about staying organized, so for me these days tend to require Herculean efforts. Tonight I'm feeling good about what's been accomplished and trying not to be overwhelmed by all that has yet to be done to bring order to the house in general.

It also speaks to me as I begin to prepare myself for packing and moving later this summer into a condo of my own. Having moved many, many times since I graduated from high school (4 official addresses in 1998 alone, as I graduated from law school, moved back to my hometown, moved to a small town near where I work, then moved a block away from where I work. Ugh.), I know that I don't handle the rush of packing that every previous move has required, and end up so exhausted by the process of getting everything ready for the move that I live amongst boxes for months afterwards, not caring to see my possessions again. But I want this move to be different because it's finally going to be my stuff in my place, and I want it to feel like mine as soon as possible. So I'm hoping small steps of packing as I purge makes the pre-move period a little less stressful. And as I go through everything, my mantra is to be brutal. I want to take only what I need or love, and nothing more. Sorry Mom, because I know the pack rat in you shivers at the thought of what might be given away or tossed. What you don't know can't hurt you.

Please Be Patient With Me

When I was a little kid my mom would frequently intone the dreaded saying, "Patience is a virtue." I had no idea what that sentence was supposed to mean, but I was smart enough to know that it was invoked when I wanted something, and wanted it now. Finally, when I was about four years old, after hearing this phrase yet again, I replied, "If patience is a virtue, I don't want any virtues!" Needless to say, my mother was rather shocked at that idea. Of course, had I known what a virtue was, maybe I wouldn't have been quite so emphatic.

I tell this story of myself because we don't have power at the house these days and it's looking like it could be a long while before we get any power back. Yesterday the remnants of Hurricane Ike literally swept through the 'Ville with up to 75 mph winds. My neighborhood looks like a tornado touched down in it. There's actually more people without power than when the infamous 1974 tornado did take down lots of Louisville. They are predicting 10 to 14 days without electricity. I'll try to find a coffee shop with WiFi to post some pictures, soon, but even most businesses are closed right now.

And while I'm excited to get back to the posting, first on my list is finding someone who has power where I can dry my hair. My curly hair without a diffuser is a scary, scary site. Then comes begging for a go at their washing machine and dryer. Then, and only then, will I get back to the pics and the blog!

So, I ask for patience. Remember, it's a virtue.

Fall Forward

Um. Hi. Sorry for the almost two-month absence. I didn't mean to be gone this long. I really didn't start out being gone at all. But here we all are, on the cusp of fall - which I am ready to wholeheartedly embrace, not being a summer person - and I guess I'll just chalk it up to a nice summer vacation!

So, what I did on my summer blogcation -

• Went to New Orleans for a work conference. Drank a hurricane (among other things). Ate a few beignets. Grooved in the French Quarter. Didn't gamble at Harrahs, across the street from my hotel. Ate wonderful, yummy Creole and Cajun food. Sweated and sweated and sweated some more. There's a reason Mardi Gras and the Jazz Fest aren't held during the summer. It's hot, folks!
• Went to Sacramento for a 9 day training seminar. Met fabulous folks who work in legislatures across the country and learned tons of good stuff about leadership and management. Practical stuff. Went to San Fran for one day and did a short boat ride around the bay, bought cheap purses of questionable origin, and ate good sourdough bread. Yum!
• Almost finished an Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket for a friend who had her little girl last month. I'm one row, a bind off, sew-up, and attaching buttons away from finishing my first sweater. And I've been at this point since July 20. Oops. Apparently the blog wasn't the only thing I let slip.
• Am working on a big knitting project that must remain a secret because it is for someone who actually reads this blog regularly. It's going to take awhile, but I'm enjoying it so far.
• Celebrated with Mom that her two big projects for the year are finally, finally finished - her dental work and her new hardwood floors. Helped her paint her living room, dining room, and hallway before the new floors went in. Now she's talking about painting the sunroom and her bedroom! She's on a roll!

Okay, enough for now. Pictures to follow on my flickr page about all of the goodies listed here. Thanks for patiently waiting for me to come back to the fold!

Summer Showers

I got home last night just in time for a thunderstorm. The sky had been growing steadily darker, so I knew it was coming. All I did last night was curl up with a book and listen to the storm. I *love* summer storms. One of my favorite childhood memories was watching the storms cross over when I was at my grandparents' house in Tennessee. You could see the storm building, building, building, until finally the pressure was almost visible, and then that first crack of lightening would light up the sky and the thunder would just roll and roll. One thing I missed when I lived in Portland were thunderstorms. There was just not enough land between the coast and the city to build up that kind of pressure.

I didn't turn on the TV to see what was going on with last night's storm. My love for thunderstorms has been hijacked in recent years with all the new technology that can track a storm's progress, block by block, through the city. Now that I know all the details, fear has crept in and replaced the sheer joy and wonder. Now I worry about where to hide if there's a tornado, or winds strong enough to topple the tree in the front yard. This fear was exacerbated earlier this year when we had a bad storm in the middle of the night. I had heard it was coming, but it wasn't expected to reach my area until after midnight. It was a weeknight and I was tired, so I went to sleep. Anyone who knows me knows that sleeping through a storm is no problem for me...I sleep like the dead. But apparently I shouldn't have slept through that one, probably. One home just 4 blocks away was completely destroyed, several others had severe damage, and you could see where the tornado had touched down and grazed homes within 100 yards of my house. Hmmm...maybe I shouldn't be so sanguine about these storms.

But that didn't stop me last night. I wasn't about to turn on the TV. Blissfully ignorant, I can still enjoy the storm for what it is, rather than what it may bring. Now if I just had a screened in porch where I could sit and watch it roll by.