Moving is hard OR to NM edition

We are here in New Mexico now. Finally! Seems like I have been working towards this move for months. Oh wait I have been working towards this move for that long!

In some ways I feel this move was easier and in others is was way more difficult. Isn't that always the case? I had the time to plan and work towards this one and we were only in the house for a few years rather than the decade + for the old one. We had less time to accumulate stuff but that meant we wanted to keep most of the stuff we had. And this time we have two curious and active kitties, that had never taken to using halters and leashes. One of whom is quite skittish. So I had to think about how long could we be on the road a day and how would we handle her in hotel rooms? Litter boxes, scoopers, litter, beds, food, water, dishes, uncramped carriers so many things to think of. Honestly it was a bit overwhelming.

Enter the solution to Mellie in a hotel room. We call it the Burt Yurt (trademark) but it is for Miss Mellie. There is a zip on lid so it keeps her fully contained. Room for litter box, food and water and some comfy bedding. Solution to one problem acquired.  

It worked great! I am so glad we got it. Even though she got lonely in the night and I spent a portion of every night on the floor zipping my upper torso in the door. Bonus to that solution was that I was right there to witness she was peeing and pooping which can be a concern. Honestly I have never been so excited to scoop litter boxes before.

I got new tall wide carriers for them to stretch out in. I set them up as soon as we received them so they could get used to them and decide they were a good safe place to retreat. The mesh was great so they had plenty of air flow even in the back seat. I started out with them covered to cut down on noise but that seemed to be too hot for them. 

The problem with these is that they are not really carriers as much as back seat traveling carriages. There is no good convenient way to pick them up and carry them. But we did it and I would choose them again. Bonus they fold flat so they are easy to store. We had them set up in the closet while they were packing the house and again in a different closet here when our stuff arrived. I have not seen the kids in them since our stuff arrived though. Turns out a week in them makes you less fond of them, if you're a kitten.

Our surprise of the trip was that Burt was the one we had a bit of difficulty with. That story will be told later. Mellie turned into our grin and bear it girl. You know other than demanding Momma come sleep in the yurt with her. Our last day in a hotel was a bit more relaxed so we slept in some only to awaken to cat yowls and growls. Mellie had pushed just right on the zipper and got it open enough to escape the yurt. Luckily she let me catch her and put her back in before causing any fits of the vapors. 

One tip I am really thankful to know is to travel with water from home for the kitties. It helps prevent upset stomach due to different minerals in the water in different places. It did feel funny to have human water and kitty water. The kitty water was much more valuable and protected than the human water!

We seem to be settling in fine so far. It did get much better when we could sleep in our own beds. And not have to get up and drive 400 + miles the next day. D commented on that specifically several times. Burt totally agreed each time too.

Well that is the first move report. I'm sure there will be more as I think of it. But we are all safe and sound for a little bit. 

Words

I am still in the thick of things. Getting things ready, giving away things no longer useful for us. Calls and emails have been sent and received. Yarn and fiber have been vacuum packed. 

I texted my BFF (Best Fiber Friend) and got her opinion on a sweater that has been in time out for a long while. I sent picture so me wearing it and came to the conclusion this was never going to work for me. I took a picture before I frogged it. I wanted to like it so much more than I did when I put it on. 

Alas Teatime Cardigan you are all wound up into being just yarn again. It was fun while it lasted but it was never going to be love with us.

The woolie washing continues too. Mellie made sure I was blocking properly. I also compared my shawls and found I do not love purely triangular shawls. The never seem to wrap me properly. But this one will stay handy on the couch to warm me up if needed.

Burt and Mellie are testing out their road gear too. I have made them into nice hidey hole quiet rooms and we both marked our scent in them. But not in the super smelly scent marking way just the warm sleepy fur kind of way.

To contain Momma's Little Pistol Mellie in the hotel rooms while we travel, we now have a playpen for her. Although we are calling it Burt's Yurt just to make sure everyone is happy.

 Soon enough we will be on our way then we will be there and new fun begins. 

A Better Rhinebeck Room

When we moved in I named my knitting room Rhinebeck in honor of my favorite wool festival. As you know I'm not a neat and tidy person by nature. I tend to leave things out that I am working on, even if I have not worked on them in months. You never know when you might need something so why put it away in its proper place when I can leave it here? Luckily I have a darn fine memory and usually know where I have left stuff so that kind of qualifies as its place, by default, right? If I can locate it, it must be in its place?!

In my current clean up phase, almost everything that I consider knitting I moved back into Rhinebeck. Yes it is true Rhinebeck was trashed. Rhinebeck was also used for all my seed experiments this spring and had not recovered from being a multi-use room. OK fine I simply did not pack away my seed stuff. I am a horrible person. No not really I am just easily diverted. Look Squirrel!

Rhinebeck had done its job well of collecting up all my stuff. It had also collected all of D's annoyance in one room. We are well matched but have different outlooks on stuff and just how much stuff is needed in our lives. My minimum stuff level is higher than his maximum stuff level. I come from a family of keepers and he is not sentimental about anything. Sometimes I am shocked that even I have lasted this long guess I am still useful and that's why he keeps me around?

Wait let's get back to Rhinebeck shall we? D tried to help me clean up Rhinebeck!

I know I was horrified too. It is a bit like someone reading your diary and your last twelve entries were all you venting how they are the stupidest, most horrible person ever because they asked you to do some small thing for them. My knitting room is like my journal, personal, private and horribly awkward to explain to anyone what you were thinking. Hey I at least don't have any hot pink fun fur laying around that I need to justify.

Once I got over the invaded feeling we talked and I asked him to give me half an hour to get it to something he could tolerate.

I think I went above and beyond.

And then I disappointed him all over. 

OK fine a little bit of explanation is needed. I cleared it by just putting things in totes to make us feel better. A few days later I received the vacuum bags I ordered and pulled things out to give the stash a proper tossing. Pack it away in a compressed, more protected fashion.

I found four different sets of needles in abandoned projects and reclaimed them safely to the needle storage pack. I have missed doing a proper stash tossing. I didn't rip everything back but I did a few things so I can keep them safe. I did remember most of the stuff I had started thanks to that darn fine memory of mine.

All of my Swedish Death Cleaning has been preparing for a move. I have been washing my woolies and preparing to pack them away for a trip. Turns out I have woolies all over the house. Well I did till Rhinebeck started collecting them for me and I was able to start the wash up process. 

This batch of woolies struck me with its randomness. Guess I will knit almost anything? I found my TARDIS kindle cover. Three tiny knit things that I use as ornaments. I also located a hat, a cowl and a headband. So tiny woolen things washed up and packed away. 

Don't worry I managed to return Rhinebeck to D's comfort level and have opened up two more totes. I am sure I will find more woolies as I prep the house for sale. 

I did find some carefully labeled practice swatches I made from when I first started knitting, December 2006. I think the first knitting group I went to was September 2006 because I know they were going to Rhinebeck for the next meet up and I bowed out of it. Because I didn't know what kind of yarn to buy or if I was going to keep up this new knitting thing. I know sometimes I still kick myself for that. Then other times I realize how overwhelming Rhinebeck would have been for me and thank my lucky stars I did not scare myself out of knitting!

I was able to let the practice swatches go since I never use them and my knitting changed once I started knitting socks. I am glad that I can document how enthused I was with knitting from the start though.

Burt remains as supportive as ever.

Yay it is fireplace weather again!

Cleaning up and finding things.

Burt do you want to help Momma do some Swedish Death Cleaning? 

I don't know Momma would it increase my food allowance? No? Then I think I am pretty comfortable right here. I'll make sure I can cheer your on from here. Go Momma get rid of some stuff!

 

Burt look what I found! Looks like Momma was always destined to find you and bring you home. 

Yep Momma I was always headed your way. Keep up with that cleaning Momma. You can get rid of some of that cross stitch stuff. You're a knitter now, no need to hold on to old stuff. You can just enjoy all the stuff you finished. Keep going Momma!

Momma do you need me to cheer too? I'm valuable too even if I was not "predestined" to find you. Grumble grumble stupid cross stitch stuff forgot about grey kittens...grumble. I'm a pretty good girl!

 As part of my cleaning I have consolidated all my yarn and knitting supplies. My Rhinebeck room is collecting all the knitting things. Yes it is the worst room in the house now. But on the plus side I found a tub to put all my handspun yarn in. I am very surprised at how much I have spun. It is rather nice to be putting things in their places. But oh my Swedish Death Ceaning is so not fun. I am looking forward to having it all done. 

Burt and Mellie are being very helpful keeping me on task.

Keeping busy

Burt would like you to know that we are all about self care in this house. Well and we care for others too but we secure our air mask first. Here he is doing just that. In order to be supportive sometimes you need to be supported. Or something like that, it is hard to be a cat philosopher all of the time. It interferes with his napping schedule, secure your own mask first, blah blah.

A few weeks ago we took a drive out to the coast with a friend. This lighthouse is neat because it is shorter and you come down the trail seeing just the light portion below you. Most if not all lighthouses I've been to are quite tall and you have to look up. this one is short and built into a lower level so you walk up to a great view of the Fresnel lens. 

Plus looking at lighthouses always make you look contemplative. My guy happens to be highly contemplative but looks so much more here. 

Back up the hill we had to go see the Octopus tree. So named because there were eight huge limbs growing from one low trunk. We counted and debated if it were truly octopus now. Some of the limbs have been removed due to storm damage. There were smaller limbs but I don't remember if we got to eight again.

Burt reports that the star blanket is still progressing, but not terribly quickly. Momma has been busy baking and cleaning. Pumpkin bread and muffins are all right. Burt has been a little cranky because he has to use the food ball again instead of a dish. The vet said he is too smart to just sit in front of a dish and eat. Hopefully working to get food will reduce his waistline "smarts." Who knew they could be measured in pounds with a scale?

Both he and Mellie are telling me that she is smart too and should get a second Mellie food ball. She has figured out how to work it and was eating his food ball food he had left in protest of Momma's unfair new program. Don't worry Burt ended his protest just as soon as he heard someone eating his food.

Stay strong and defeat the food ball my friends!

Someone Else's Star

Shortly after I left my job, I had lunch with a former coworker, now just my friend. When her son said he was expecting we picked out a pattern for a baby blanket for her to make. We found a very interesting Ten Stitch Star pattern by Frankie Brown.

She bought the yarn and we started the pattern one day while on lunch. And we restarted the pattern the next week on lunch. And we restarted the pattern the week after that in a lighter color so we could see what we were doing. Alas it went home with her and sat in the bag from the yarn store. Cough for a year and a half cough. 

Yeah it seems like the projects you want to do the best on just sit there sometimes. 

Anyways I brought lunch to her the week after I left my job, and we had a lovely chat. We solved all of the world's problems and I knit on a sock. She sat there and finally got up the courage to ask...could she pay me to knit the baby blanket? 

No! You can not pay me to knit it, but I would consider knitting it for you but reserve the right to give up and return it to you. 

I took home a nice bag of yarn and pulled out some needles and started knitting. I had been looking to do something besides socks for a little while and could not land on anything. I could have knit on a sweater that has been on the needles for a while but nope. I really need to try the sweater on and see if it will work for me before I progress. But that is a story for another post.

I cast on the next day and soon had a star. It required a little bit of seaming but it was pretty interesting to knit. Time to move on to the next color.

I have found that rewriting patterns can sometimes help me make what I am doing, clear in my head. I do have to be extra careful I don't misunderstand something and keep on with an error. But that is always a risk you take. It is just as easy to think you understand reading something when in fact you misread it and have totally missed the point. But my star still looked like a star part of the way through. Keep on knitting.

I of course was heavily supervised. The kids were getting used to having a full desk to sprawl out on since my work computer went back to the office.

They kept me fortified with tea and supervision. They even allowed for bathroom breaks and snacks. What more could a working cat mom ask for?

As the star grew so did the time it took to knit a full star. Such is the joy of knitting?

Once the third star was done it was time to check and see. So the star is 14 inches (I think) from point to not a point. This thing is so hard to measure. Then I started really reading the pattern and thinking about what we have. Yikes how big is this thing going to be and am I really willing to knit it?

So the pattern picture shows 12 stars. Uhm each of my star stripes is about 2 inches. No I did not do the math at this point because ppppttthhh, I don't want to. It is going to get pretty big. We discussed a plan and I knit a stripe of ten stitches on smaller needles. That stripe was slightly smaller than 2 inches. The command was given to knit on as is. Next color is a maroon so we shall see. We may need to eliminate some of the rounds but now is not the time to make that decision. 

So yeah, I am knitting a baby blanket for a toddler. And Mellie keeps stealing the yarn. It only took three times for me to relocate the yarn bag for safekeeping from a stripy kitten star.
 

Recovering

We have been in recovery mode here for a while now and I think it is starting to become normal to feel less stress. I know Burt has been working extra hard at absorbing all my bad emotions and recycling them through Purr Therapy into happiness. He claims a trademark on Purr Therapy. Not only is he inventor, developer and practitioner; he is also a satisfied client.

Melissa is still punching in for work in the old home office. Turns out she did not quit her job just because Momma quit hers. She is even willing to work overtime!

They both have decided the desk is not inherently bad by association and we can work even more comfortably without that pesky computer, screens and phone. More space to sprawl! 

I have had the crockpot going for three days straight. Cooking up some tasty meals and getting some stuff used up. So nice to have the time to think about making things again. I do need to pull out the bread machine too but one day at a time, according to Burt. We wouldn't want to rush into anything.

I have been attending to my garden also. I love that I can grow things to eat too. I will need to start planting for some fall produce too. This is my second ever home grown zucchini.

I am being closely supervised in my knitting project for a friend. See how easy it is to convert a work desk into a hobby desk if you follow your cat's recommendations?

Started a puzzle but they are not as much help with that as they would like you to believe.

So yeah I have been keeping just the right amount of busy. Thanks kitties for making your momma feel more like her true self.