Thermalgal’s Temperate Mumblings

Tomorrow’s the day…

…when we buy our first home. Very exciting! Lots of last minute things. Still don’t have the exact closing costs from the settlement agency, should be getting that in the next hour. My bank is open until 7pm, but I think I’ll attempt to run over before then (assuming they didn’t close early because of snow!). Oh yeah, it is snowing right now and we are supposed to get 8-10 inches total! My mom said that the “bulls eye” for the storm is bascially centered on my house! Lucky us…

We’ve checked the snow policy for the settlement company and it sounds like as long as we can get there, they will be there. Good to hear since I have a 4 wheel drive. We will be there, even if we have to leave two hours early to make the fifteen minute trip! Might put a hamper on our move tomorrow though. Good thing we have the old house until the 15th. Should be some good days between now and then to get everything moved.

T - 3 Days and the house is empty

Not the one we are currently in but the one we are buying. Our realtor called last night to schedule the walk-thru (will happen tomorrow) and he said that the sellers will be gone today. I drove by the house on the way home and they had a moving van out front! Yeah! The sellers also went into the settlement company on Friday and signed all their paperwork, now don’t ask me why they insisted that we change the settlement date from Feb 28th to March 1st when they signed and were gone by the 26th. I figure that back in December they didn’t know exactly when their new house was going to be finished.

And to make this weekend even more happy, I found a couple of hours last night to work on Night Flight… and I finished it!

And I just have to post this picture. My DH decided to make Pushkin a fountain instead of buying one of those water bowl fountains. This is what we saw this morning…

MAFA Conference

I was just surfing around trying to get more information about a local guild when I found this…

http://www.mafafiber.org/conference.html

The Mid-Atlantic Fiber Association will be having their 2005 Conference Basics and Beyond at the National Conference Center in Landsdowne, VA. They have lots and lots of different classes but I’m most interested in the intermediate spinning class. And the most tempting thing about the conference is that it will only be about 22 minutes (according to Mapquest) from my house! The registration for non-members starts next week (the day we close to be exact) and late registration begins on the 15th. If our closing costs come in around the good faith estimate, I think I’m going to try and do it. But if it comes in higher, I’ll have to pass for this year.

T - 4 days!

I bet most of you will be happy when I move so I can start coming up with a more witty title for my blog entries. But for now, the move and buying our first home is taking up most of my brain power. Today is the day that the sellers are going to the settlement agency to sign all the papers. Their movers are coming either Sunday or Monday and then they are hopping into their motor home and driving to Florida.

Yesterday was a very good day around here. We got word from the mortgage loan processor that the package came back from the underwriter approved! Yay! The lender and the settlement agency just need to talk they know how much the closing costs will be. I’m hoping to get that information either today or Monday. I definitely need it before Monday or I’m going to get a check cut for the amount from our last good faith estimate.

Yesterday I worked in Night Flight’s seemingly endless black basketweave border. I stitched on it for about an hour at the stitch ‘n such at lunch time and then about two hours at Sue’s last night. And I’m happy to report that I finished the border! All that is left now is to put some random sparkle in the moon and figuring out how I’m going to sign this monster. I’m leaning towards backstitching with sparkle in the border. I’m hoping to have some time this weekend to do that. But who knows with only 4 days until we move!

T- 6 days

T-6 days until closing and the stupid fax didn’t go through on Saturday and when I tried to resend it today it is getting a busy signal or didn’t send all the pages or something stupid. The last time I sent stuff I scanned it into a pdf and emailed it. I might have to do that again since the stupid fax machine isn’t working on their side (or maybe it is ours, whatever)…

And today is my good friend George’s birthday! It is amazing when I think about how long we have been friends. I first met him almost thirteen years ago after spring break of my sophomore year in college (he was dating my roommate). I think George is one of my oldest friends. Not that he is old, just that we’ve been friends for a long time. One day I’ll have a post about the coolness of George. Everyone needs a George in their life. Maybe I’ll do that in May since that is when he is being called up from Army reserve to active status for 5 months of training before being sent to Iraq.

Spinning!

Over the weekend, I finished spinning a second bobbin of the pink pencil roving. After my first disastrous attempt at navajo plying, something clicked on Monday and I got it and plied up an entire bobbin. So, I have pictures! First up is what is left of the big wheel of pencil roving that I got for my birthday.

Second up is the small of the two bobbins I’ve spun up so far.

And last but not least, is the skein of navajo plying that I plied and washed on Monday. The result is a 3 ply worsted yarn (about 10 WPI).