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Whew! It’s been another crazy week in my life. So much to say. But because this is a knitting blog, I’ll start with the knitting first and then move on to the drivel about my life that may interest about five of you.

Thanks!
Thank you to everyone who voted for me in the Amazing Lace challenge. I appreciate all your support. Sundaes all around!

Knitting!
Progress! Now that I’m working on the edging, the Shaped Triangle shawl is starting to look more shawl-like and less blob-like. According to my handy-dandy anal-retentive spreadsheet, I am now exactly 83.06% finished with the shawl. I’m a little nervous because when I was 75% finished, I had used more than 75% of the yarn. I’m not allowing myself to panic yet as I think I can do a little fudging at the end to save yarn if needed.

More Knitting!
Peter and I happened to be near Yarntopia on Tuesday (see below for the reason), and he suggested that we stop by. (Yes, his idea, not mine. Isn’t he great?) As soon as I walked into the store, Amy said, “You didn’t waste any time!” Huh? What?

As it turned out, Amy had sent me an email earlier that day to tell me that the yarn and pattern for my fall Yarntopia sample knitting had just come in. For reasons described below, I hadn’t seen that email. So it was all a surprise for me! I’ll be knitting Serenity from the new RYC Style booklet using RYC Silk Wool in a luscious purple color. That’s 50% silk 50% merino. Yum. I’ve swatched and will cast on this weekend. Expect a yarn review soon.

Puzzle solved!
Monkee has been hounding me about whether or not I’ve solved the crazy clues that were sent to me over my trip. It was hard, but I did manage to decode the clues. Instead of making anagrams of the FIRST letters of the words, I had to make anagrams of the LAST letters of the words. As soon as I did, the answer was obvious:
Sherry Floyd.

Yes, Sherry Floyd. Who is she? She’s no one right now, but I happen to know for a fact Monkee plans to change her name to Sherry Floyd as soon as possible. Why does she want to use that name? Well, it’s because Sherry Floyd is an anagram itself for “fleshy or dry.” Monkee, being the die-hard Texan that she is, loves Texas barbeque. And like all good Texans, she’s picky about her barbeque. She likes her barbeque to be either fleshy or dry, but not both at the same time.

Ingenious isn’t it? That Monkee sure is a clever one. If that’s not the answer to the clues, the only other possible answer is that the words are completely random and designed to drive me out of my mind. But I’m sure that can’t be the case. Monkee wouldn’t do anything like that to me.

Drivel!
Last week, I informed you that Peter and I were planning on selling our house and moving. I even complained loudly about the stager who invaded our house. Just LOOK what she made me do to my bookshelf! Peter and I have six large bookshelves and four of them look like this now. (The other two have books that I use for my work and I refused to pack them up.) I wonder if people who come into the house think we’re crazy for having so many bookshelves and but so few books.

But that day with the stager was only the beginning of an eventful six days. Here’s the play-by-play:

Friday afternoon: Peter goes to our buyer’s agent’s office to sign an offer for the place that we want to buy. At the same time the stager is in our house driving me batty.

Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday: Peter and I work furiously to do the things the stager asked. Lots of packing and stashing boxes in the attic. The last half of Sunday is used to completely clean our house from floor to ceiling. Scrub, dust, vacuum, mop, touch-up paint, repeat.

Sunday night: We get a counter-offer from the seller of the house that we want. We discuss and decide it’s good.

Monday: Call buying agent tell him to find out a couple more details from the seller, but that we were happy with the rest of the terms. Meanwhile, our house officially goes on the market--property is listed on the MLS computer, sign goes up, keybox goes on door, photographer comes to take photos of our now perfectly staged house.

Tuesday: As we’re preparing to go to our buyer’s agent’s office to sign the official offer papers, we get a call telling us that the first showing of our house will be that afternoon. We tidy up (hide the cat toys and cat beds) and leave. We finish signing papers but there’s still more time to kill before the showing at our house is scheduled to be over. Peter suggests going to Yarntopia. We do. Yarny surprise! As we’re driving home Peter says, “Wow! This day has been perfect. We’ll get home and there will be an offer on the counter.” We both laugh.

As soon as we get home, Peter calls our seller’s agent to ask her a question. Before he can ask, she tells us that we have an offer on our house. For our asking price. Offer is sent to our house. Peter reviews it. It looks good.

Wednesday: Peter calls seller’s agent to tell her that we accept the general terms of the offer but want the timing of the closing adjusted. Our buyer’s agent calls and says that our offer on the new place as been accepted and signed and we are now under contract for our new home. CELEBRATE! Seller’s agent calls to say that our requests for the adjustment of closing were accepted. We sign those papers and now our house is under contract, too. CELEBRATE! And then fall down from complete exhaustion.

Thursday on: Now it’s time for me to worry about the actual moving process…