Saturday, February 28, 2009

I Got Served!

Tuesday morning, while I'm getting ready for work, a strange man knocks on my door. He was a process server; my landlord is being sued for foreclosure.

My first response was definitely emotional. I worked myself up in a span of a few minutes and declared that I was not going to pay my rent if he wasn't going to pay his mortgage. Unfortunately for me, my lease does not include a clause that the landlord's failure to pay his mortgage is a material breach.

I've heard from so many different people; and each person tells me to do a different thing: Pay the rent; don't pay the rent; move out immediately; don't move out right away. And, I work for an attorney, so I've gotten the "legal" opinion as well. However, I have decided to do things my own way.

Therefore, I filed an answer to the summons (I was included as the "unknown tenant in possession") and I will pay March rent (due on Monday). After all, my lease is still a contract and I obligated myself to pay rent to my landlord. Stupid as it may be, I'm not going to do something ethically wrong just because it has to do with money. My plans are to eventually negotiate, or request the court to order, my release from the lease so I can move out. Even if the bank does go through the whole foreclosure process, the courts in Florida are so backed up that my lease term will naturally end before that time.

Whether or not I made the right decision will not be known until this is over. But I made a decision and I'm going to follow it through. I'll check back at the beginning of next month to see if my ethics are still intact and I haven't given in to the temptation to not pay my rent.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Equality in Knitting

I am a big proponent of fairness. Of course, holding onto this belief means I am so often disappointed or embittered. Nothing is fair; I just want it to be. Which leads me to my anger at this economy. Someone, some group, somebody is responsible for this downturn. And their greed, stupidity, or selfishness has directly affected me. I'm obviously not a employee who is a lifer. The longest job I had was immediately after I graduated from college. I worked for a law office in Lakeland for six years. Since then, I've changed jobs every three years. Of course, I have that itch to move jobs again, but circumstances dictate that I just sit still. So this is how I ended up lamenting the inequity of the recession.

I offset my troubles with my day job with my knitting. I'm still knitting novice and seek out beginner pieces, mostly patterns that are repetitious or easy to read. I finally broke down and bought some Lily's Sugar and Cream cotton yarn. There are a ton of patterns out there for this yarn, and I got a good deal at Michaels. Here's one of the dishcloths I made with it.



I've been working on a scarf (surprise! no, really?) in a lace pattern. This scarf will definitely need to be blocked because it's rolling in at the edges. The pattern repeats every four rows so I can do this practically with my eyes shut. A few mistakes here and there; but I like this because it's helped me to recognize new stitches.



I bought a lot of straight bamboo needles off of Ebay. The metal ones just don't hold the yarn well; it just slips off too easily. I also have a mishmash of circulars (only one of which is bamboo). I have one set of metal double-pointed needles. There is a sock tutorial online that many people recommend. After my scarf is done, I'm going to try it out. If I can learn socks, I might just quit my day job and become a professional sock knitter. Now that's what I call FAIR.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Friends and Flowers

Would you not agree that these are very pretty flowers? I love the purple/pink color of the daisies and whatever that mum-looking flower is (I'm really bad with identifying flowers).





The flowers are in a vase on my dining table. My night consisted of eating sushi from my favorite corner sushi place, talking to a girlfriend for an hour trying to help her upload a new profile picture to Facebook, and knitting. Not exactly an exciting night but it's enough to keep me awake and not in bed by 9 p.m.

I have to say I have really wonderful friends. Sometimes they really amaze me with what they are willing to put up with (from me). I only hope I return the favor in kind. Someone recently told me "to have a friend is to be a friend".

Happy Valentine's Day!

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Before and After

As a Christmas gift, my mother went to Penney's and bought me window valances and the hardware to hang them.

I finally got around to making the apartment presentable enough for photographs, so now you can see before and after. The before is the move-in condition of the apartment and after is with all my furniture in the rooms.

The solarium, which I use as a dining area

BEFORE:


AFTER:


The family room

BEFORE:


AFTER:



I'm pleased with the window treatments; they fit the room really well. Also, I put up some pictures on the wall; the place actually looks lived in and personable. I moved my yarn into the corner by the love seat to hide it. Just before these "after" pictures, I had projects and yarn and needles everywhere. I have a shadow box I want to hang this afternoon and it will go on one of the walls in the dining area.

My mom also gave me the area rug and the lamp. In fact, I have a matching rug in the bedroom, thanks to Mom. Her hand-me-downs are usually of pretty good quality.

Now I'm off to try and fix the laundry room door. It's a bi-fold door and I pulled it off the track a few days ago.

Have a nice Saturday!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Super Sunday

Yesterday was such a pretty day. I took a walk over to the Publix shopping center and ate at the sushi restaurant next to the store. Sushi has easily become my favorite meal.

A close second is Vietnamese food. Unfortunately, there aren't any such restaurants in my neighborhood. The best places to go are downtown Orlando, which really aren't that far away (20 minutes or so). I dined at a downtown Vietnamese place with a friend last weekend. After lunch, we shopped at the asian supermarket, where I bought items for summer rolls. Next time I make the rolls, I'll photograph it and post it on the blog. So simple yet delicious.

We might still manage to have some cold weather this week, so I can wear my hat and scarf combination. The one problem with the hat is that my hair is so big and fluffy that the hat does not fit right on my noggin. I love knitting cables. I find them so easy and the result is something quite beautiful and it just looks like it was so complicated.



Yes, I'm knitting another scarf. This pattern is well-known on the internet but the yarn you are supposed to use is just way out of my price range. I settled on yarn lower on the cost scale, but it does not matter to me. I just wanted to see the pattern in real life. I love the way the stitching looks, and, when I'm done, I'm going to add fringe to each end. The pattern only consists of repeating the same two rows so once you have the hang of the stitches it goes quickly. However, this scarf will probably require some blocking, and I've never tried that before.



I am going over to a friend's house to watch the Super Bowl. I'm not really interested in the game so we will probably just hang out and talk while the men watch the game. Please don't let me forget I have to bring paper plates.

Hope you are having a great Sunday too.

Finding My Treasure

Now that my shawl is complete (yarn purchased during the Orange Blossom Yarn Crawl in March), it is just hanging out in my foyer until I de...