Moving On To The Next Project

I finished my afghan last night.  I wanted to knit a few more rows but I was running out of the main color (orange).  I have enough of the green, pink and beige to make another cat blanket.  Or I might use it to practice my crochet skills.  The afghan ended up being 53" x 45".  I'm going to try to wash it on gentle cycle to see if I can soften it up just a bit.  The yarn I used was acrylic but it's not scratchy or rough.  I also want to make sure that my weaving in the ends will hold up to a wash.

I actually like the colors

I started working on Pedicure Socks (you have to be a member of the Paton's website to view this free pattern).  I'm just some KnitPicks sock yarn that I've had a for a while.  I couldn't put my hands on my bamboo dpns so I'm using this nickel-plated dpns.  The yarn slides easily (too easily) on the nickel-plated and I have to be very careful not to drop stitches.

I've decided to put the idea of a third cat on the (very) back burner.  I'm not sure that Delilah or Macy would be accepting of a new cat and we've only really begun our lives with these two.  I've already asked a lot of these cats to be housemates; asking them to share their house with another creature is probably asking for trouble.  The good news is that we might be moving to our new house as soon as the middle of August and that will certainly be an adjustment for both of them.

We've moved forward a tiny bit on our house purchase.  There is now a completely signed contract and the closing is "scheduled" for August 16.  We also did our home inspection and we are pleased with the results.  The roof on the house is in good condition, as is the air conditioner.  There are a few items that will need to be addressed, and the pool is just gross.  Mr. Grumpbump and I have decided that we will have a professional come out and clean the pool to get it in decent shape and then we can take it from there.  I'm hoping that we can get into the house pre-closing in order to get a fresh coat of interior paint on the walls and to clean/sweep up the kitchen and master bedroom.

My plans were to take as little as possible into the house and just start over with all new items.  However, I'm going to have to redo my budget because I have to come up with more closing costs than originally expected.  The short sale lender would not approve the contract unless we reduced the Seller-paid closing costs to 3% (from 4.5%).  Additionally, we have to buy all new appliances.   It's scary to think about spending so much money but I'm cautiously optimistic about having a house of our own in just a few weeks.