The Nini

...has arrived, finally.

Uh, notice how the water is smooth as glass? No wind today at all, unfortunately. The Steves (as I call them) got her assembled, and she is beautiful, but the maiden voyage was only a few feet from the dock and back again. We are praying for wind tomorrow!

Weave My Way

So long since I have posted ... so much to tell you.

Let's start with the knitting.

I have stalled out on the sweater project, as I ran out of the tan color. I made both the sleeves and the body longer than the pattern stated, so it is no surprise. But, while I wait for one more ball of yarn to show up from KnitPicks, I had to start another project to tide me over, right? And surprisingly, I couldn't come up with a knitting project that was inspiring me, so I got out the loom and made this:

(Tree McGee, you might recognize the yarn, leftover from your Christmas present last year!)

Weaving is sssoooooo much faster than knitting. I made this stole, about 20"x60", in three days without too much effort. Of course, I was too absorbed in what I was doing to get any pictures of it on the loom. By the time I thought to get out the camera, I was done with that part! But it is lovely and soft and my new favorite.

Riley Update

No surprise, he came home from his first week at school with a chest cold. The whole second week, he was coughing and such, but not so bad that he couldn't go to school. Last Sunday night, he was up all night coughing, so we kept him home on Monday - not that it did any good! The child REFUSES to nap, no matter what, but I can sometimes trick him into falling asleep in the car. I sent him back to school on Tuesday - shouldn't have - the nurse called me a couple of hours later and said he was in her office with a slight fever, so I picked him up. Kept him home one more day on Wednesday, for good measure. By Thursday I was getting sick of him, I mean, he was feeling better, so off to school he went and stayed there this time. He is not over this cough, but seems to be feeling much more himself today.

Levi Update

I wanted to take a picture of him. He wanted me to take a picture of his bacon.

Levi has this cold, too, but not nearly as bad. I think this is because he has been eating my zinc, echinacea and vitamin c lozenges as often as I will let him. I have been having them, too and I have not been sick at all yet KNOCK ON WOOD.

Not much news on Levi, except that he has the knitting group completely fooled. He goes with me, of course (10-12 on Thursdays, at the Bear and Cub, if you are in the area! Oh, my minions of readers!) They keep saying things like - He is so well-behaved! He is so smart! He is so quiet! It is very hard for me to keep my mouth shut and just say thank you. Actually, when it is just the two of us hanging out, he is pretty good. And I would never argue that he is not smart - he can count up to 13 or so, and recognizes lots of letters. He can type his name out on a keyboard. Pretty good for one who has not even been to preschool yet! There are advantages to being the second-born.



WA House Update


SSSSSSOLD!

It closed yesterday, checks are going out today, including one to us for a really sad, small sum. I hear the buyers have keys and will be moving in today or tomorrow. They are very happy. The sellers are happy, too. Sort of. As I have said, it is way better than foreclosing.


VA House Update


We have a well.

I went over to the builder's office today to pick out colors - countertops, carpet, exterior paint, etc. Fun, but scary, too. They are ready to order the house - we just need to come up with another mortgage! And the whole country is in mortgage-freakout mode! I sent all of our financial information to the local banker, and haven't heard anything back from him for a week. He's probably under heavy sedation until this blows over. But anyway, assuming Steve Sr. will still put up the cash to get the project started, they are ready to order the house on Monday (tell the builders to start building it.) Meanwhile, they build the foundation, and in three or four weeks, the house arrives. (!) And three or four weeks after that, it is ready to move in!

Box Tops Update

There is a contest to see which class can turn in the most Box Tops by October 24th - pizza party for the winners! So if you have some, send them along by then, so we can turn them in. Thanks!

Phew! So, is that enough for one post? Perhaps we should do this more often, eh?

What's so special about September 15th?

Well, it was our 7th wedding anniversary. And, it started out looking like this:

A little later on, the crew showed up to put in the septic system for the new house!! The excavator operator let Levi drive for a few moments before the real work started.

I don't know when you usually mark the official "breaking ground" day for a housebuilding, but I am going to say that day is today - as it will be easy for us to remember. The trees came down a couple of weeks ago. As I write that, I realize that I took pictures of it, and intended to blog it, and then didn't! Oops, sorry. Life gets in the way, you know.

Anyway, later in the day, there was some loafing in the web swing (as the boys call it - also known as a hammock.) Steve took the day off to hang out with us, and unfortunately Riley missed all of this fun.

The well should be going in this week also. I don't know the timeline on the rest of it (like the actual house - heh) but I think it is going to happen pretty quickly. For some reason, I had the idea that this was going to take seven months - I swear that is what we were talking about when I first got to Virginia and we were talking about doing a modular house. Then the plan veered off into another direction, and kind of lost momentum. Now we are back on the modular idea, in fact, Steve Sr. has signed the deal and the project is underway. Steve Jr. and I are going to take over the financing as soon as our house in WA is sold - KNOCK WOOD - at the end of this month. (We got escrow papers, filled them out and signed them, that process is still going fine as far as I know.)

So with the modular, one crew builds the foundation, while another is building the house in another location, in sections, and then it is delivered and ... I don't know ... glued together. Might sound funky to you, but it really does make a nice house. And quickly. Like 7 or 8 WEEKS, rather than months! YOU MEAN WE COULD HAVE BEEN DONE BY NOW??!! Oops, did I say that out loud?

You can see the basic plans here. Only not yellow. And we will not build the garage right away. The first floor will be finished (with two bedrooms) and we will finish the second floor as we are able, with a bathroom and two more rooms. Exciting, eh?

Box Tops for Education!

Riley's school is collecting these box top coupons - and so now you are, too!

I don't quite understand how or why this works, but for each of these we turn in, the school gets ten cents. I thought they were just on cereal, but as I look on the website, there are tons of different products that have them, with brands like Ziplock, Cottenelle, Yoplait, Pilsbury, Hefty, etc. So look through your cupboards, I bet you can find a bunch of these.

So start collecting these and don't stop, I'm sure we will be turning these in for years to come.

And what is Levi up to? Well, one of the houses on our street has some cactus growing out front, and Levi has become fond of these plants, to the point that he is disappointed when they are not on "his side" of the car as we drive by. And you know how a three-year-old can get when he is disappointed. One of the grocery stores we go to also has some cactus, and we always have to stop and admire them when we go there. He expressed interest in the cactus plants at the coffee shop where I meet with the knitting group (did I mention that I have been going to a knitting group?) and the proprietor gave him cuttings off of two of her plants. Levi could not be more thrilled. Does this sound to you like an odd thing for a three-year-old to be thrilled about? Well, I guess we named him after the right side of the family.

And, yes, those are some giant boxer shorts sticking out of the bottom of his shorts. I still can't find any in his size!

Did you think I was going to forget to add a picture of my knitting? Not likely. I have finished the sleeves, and started on the body of the sweater. The pattern was not written in the round, but I just couldn't see doing all of that lovely fair isle back and forth. I am using this project to finally (after 20 years of knitting!) learn to hold the yarn with one color in each hand, the proper way.

Another thing I have never done in knitting is a steek. This is where, for instance, you knit a sweater in the round with a few extra stitches in the front, and when you are finished knitting you (have a strong drink to steady your hand and then) cut the knitting up the front to make it a cardigan. Yipes! I have just never worked up the nerve. But I think that may have to be my next project, because I feel the need to challenge myself, and break out of my comfortable knitting rut.

All for now!

Oh, Hanna, we hardly knew you

Well, the big storm turned out to be not so big, just wind and rain for a day or so, not even any thunder and lightning. There was a high tide around 5:00 PM on Saturday, which was very high with all of the rain, but nothing damaging or anything. By the afternoon, the boys and Steve were swimming off the dock. I apologize for the sidewaysness of the videos, I didn't realize that there would be no way to turn them around! Blog and learn.

Here is a shot of the dock - I don't know if you can tell, but the floating part is higher than the rest of it, because the tide is so high. It got even higher later, and most of our neighbors' docks were underwater.

So other than a high tide, it was just a little disappointing, and now Ike is headed to the gulf, so I guess it is back to our normal weather pattern for awhile. Hopefully that means that we will have decent weather for the Harborfest and Duck Race.

House news: papers are being signed, we have a notary standing by, no news is good news, at least for another week or so.

Other house news: permits for well and septic have been obtained, placement of said infrastructure has been chosen, next week may bring some more real progress on that project.

Knitting news: I know you are all dying to know how much progress I have made on my sweater, aren't you? Oh, you forgot all about it? Well, I will take a picture for the next post, so check back.

All for now!

Saturday morning update

The night was pretty quiet, but it is quite windy this morning, with rain off and on, sometimes pretty hard. I think the worst of it is supposed to hit us around 2:00 this afternoon, which will coincide with a high tide, so it may be a very high tide. We are hanging out and enjoying the storm, cooking lots of bacon and coffee. The electricity flickered for a moment, but for now, we have power. Later!

Storm Update

Raining hard tonight, off and on. No real wind yet. Check back later!

Batten down the hatches!

There's a storm a-comin'. We have all of the watercraft out of the water and secured, as well as all lawn furniture and such. People are hauling cases of bottled water out of the grocery store at a tremendous clip. The weather has just started to turn this afternoon, clouded over and started to get just a tiny bit windy. The Harborfest celebration in Onancock that was supposed to happen today and tomorrow has been postponed for a couple of weeks. One big part of Harborfest is the Duck Race (one of those things where you "sponsor" a yellow rubber duck, and they dump them in the water to see whose crossed the finish line first). It is Hospice's largest fundraiser of the year, so Steve has been helping to reschedule and reorganize everything. We'll see what happens!

In other news, I think we may have actually sold our house! Can I get a woot-woot? A couple who has been wanting to buy our house for months finally got their finances together to a point where they could offer us a lease-to-buy contract, which we were not thrilled with but were probably going to accept, and not 12 hours later, we received an actual offer (from someone else, obviously) to buy! The original offer was a little under our break-even point, so we counter-offered back up to just above the break-even point, and we have a verbal OK that they are going to accept it! This second couple (hereafter to be referred to as "The Buyers") are in a big hurry to close - they are using a program called Nehemiah to cover their down payment, and I guess it expires at the end of the month, so they need to close by then. They have even waived their right to an inspection! All they want us to do is have the furnace serviced, which is already scheduled. While I am not exactly jumping up and down at the prospect of selling a house I really loved for no profit, it will be a big financial relief for us (better than foreclosing!) and another big step toward getting our life here in Virginia sorted out.

Riley has (almost) completed his first week of school, and is still having a great time. School was 2 hours late this morning because ... was the hurricane here early? No. It was foggy. It seemed kind of funny to me, with this big storm coming, but I suppose you can't have the kids standing around next to the roadways in the fog.

I'll let you know how the storm goes, at least while I have electricity. We lose power at almost every thunderstorm, so I can't imagine we will get through this weekend without the electricity going out for awhile at least. Hope all is well with all of you. Hey, comment once in a while, would ya?

Riley's First Day of Kindergarten

...Was great. The bus picked him up at 7:40, and dropped him off at 3:40, and he had a smile on his face all the while. He really enjoyed it and is looking forward to going back tomorrow. What more could you ask for? May the rest of his school career go as smoothly!

Yes, I took a picture of him both getting on and getting off the bus.

That's "Miss Karen" driving the bus, has been doing this for many years, I am told.

And Levi was fine, too. I was afraid that he would cry or feel left out when Riley went off to school - but I think he really grasped the idea that he gets Mommy to himself all day. We are going to have a fine time.

Again with the crabs

OK, the rest of the process. Brace yourselves, it gets messy. Here we are, in the kitchen with the crabs in the pot.

We add a cup of water, a cup of vinegar, and some Old Bay seasoning. The crabs don't like it.

(Hope that worked, I haven't done video yet!)

Then we put them on the stove, 5 minutes on high to get the steam going, and then another 25 - 30 minutes to steam. And of course, they turn red.

And that's when it really gets messy. I dump the crabs into the sink to drain and cool a bit, and then clean them. I take one in my hand like this:

...and then pop the top shell off, exposing all of the glop and yucky stuff inside:

Clean out all of the gunk and the gills and the skirt (underneath), and it looks like this:

A wee bit more cleaning, and a last sprinkle of Old Bay, and they are ready for the table.

And then you have to pick them! Does this seem like a lot of work to you? Believe me, it is worth it.

A little more about the Iowans

I think I promised a little more about Amber, Andrew and Parker's recent visit. Here is a tiny bit more - at least a couple of pictures. We had a great time while they were here, swimming off the dock, spent a day at the pool, made a trip to the beach. I let too much time go by before writing about it, so it is all a blur now, but here are a few pictures:

...and the pictures are really the best part, aren't they? I also got a good picture of Poppy, hope he doesn't mind if I put it up:

That's Assateague beach, home of the wild ponies. Anybody ever read "Misty of Chinqueteague"? Same place.

A little more about the crabs

As I have mentioned, we can get blue-claw crabs right out of the creek here. I am sort of an apprentice crabber, and the boys and I have been perfecting our technique over the last few weeks. Here's Levi and I heading out to the dock, cookpot at the ready, to see what we have in the crab pots.

(I had to put in both of those photos - I just couldn't decide which was cuter.) He is holding some large tongs, used to encourage the crabs out of the crabpot, or to catch one trying to skitter across the dock and back into the water.

Here's the crabpot (the trap) and our catch for the day:

Not a bad haul! You can see how much Levi enjoys this. We shake them right out of the crabpot into the cookpot after a good rinse with the hose, and then it is straight into the kitchen for cooking. I keep forgetting to get pictures of the rest of the process, as it gets progressively messier, but I have another opportunity coming up, as the pots are baited and back in the water as I write this. So you will see the rest of the process in a few days - stay tuned!

I should put out a shingle

More buzz cuts, anyone?


This is Riley, Levi and their cousin Andrew, on a recent crabbing expedition. I will write more about our weekend with Amber, Parker and Andrew - just wanted to say a quick Hi!

One Stellar Eastern Shore Day

..of which I have no pictures. (If Peter sends me some of his, I will post them later!)

My husband's Aunt and Uncle, Peter and Colby (is there such a thing as aunt- and uncle-in-laws?) were here for the weekend from Charlottesville. On Saturday, after Riley's golf lesson, (I have told you about how lovely this is already...) we all headed out to Cedar Island, which is a barrier island - on the sea side of our little peninsula. This involves packing up the sandwiches, chairs and such, and hauling the boat across to the seaside (we live on the bayside - it is just a few miles across).

After a short boatride, we are on the island with not-too-many other folks, hanging out on the sand, eating the sandwiches, splashing in the water. I wish I did have pictures for you, it was absolutely beautiful. The "activity" of the day was clamming, which involved another short boat ride to the secret spot, and about an hour and a half of squishing around in the mud. The technique is this: find a spot that is underwater, but shallow enough that you will be able to reach down into the mud with your hands without putting your face in the water. Squish your toes around in the mud until you feel a clam. Then reach down and get it and put it in your mesh bag. Easy! Riley tried it (after getting over the squemishness about the mud...) and once he got into it, was very successful. He was just the perfect weight - he sunk into the mud just to the right depth to find the clams.

After clamming, we went back to the beach for awhile, had a fun oceanside swim, and relaxed on the sand for awhile. But eventually, we had to head back home - and cook up some of those clams! We did this in a deep pan with olive oil and garlic, on the grill. You just cook them until they pop open, then scoop them out of the shells, swirl them around in the accumulated juices, and pop them into your mouth. Nothing could be better.

A day at home

I had a request from a reader (OK, my sister) to put up some pictures of the house and dock and such, so here we go. Here is the dock, which is the view from the screened porch, on which we spend a great deal of our time here. You can see why:

Across the creek is a golf course, the Eastern Shore Yacht and Country Club. Jeanie and Steve (my in-laws) bought us a 3-month membership there for the summer, so we go over to use the pool pretty often, and to eat in the restaurant occasionally. There are also tennis courts.

Here's the view back at the porch:

And here is what the boys were up to today:

You could call that the before picture, as they got pretty muddy jumping off of the dock and into the mud:

And needed some refreshment:

Levi's head

Oh, and did you notice Levi's new buzz cut? There is a bit of a story there. It ends with the line: "... and Levi is not allowed to have any more gum for a month." I did not get a picture of the gum in his hair (bad blogger!) because I was concerned that it would only get worse in the time it would have taken me to find the camera. Anyway, it was a messy problem well solved, as he is so darn cute with a fresh buzz cut.

And, now that we can see the roots, we notice that he has a quarter-sized spot of brown hair on one side. Odd, eh?

(Sorry for the crummy picture, it was the best I could do!)

Hey, anyone want to see my knitting?

Just a couple of small items, on lovely KnitPicks Harmony DPN's.