One Dollar Mitten

Yep. One dollar a skein. Bargain priced yarn at the dollar store - and it's pretty good!

When I saw some mittens at the LYS in Wausau with a cable cuff - the cable ran around the wrist - I knew that I had to make some. I picked this yarn to experiment with and....





Pretty nice, no? For the next pair I will make a few changes. A wider cable cuff and more ribbing, and maybe a different shaping style, but all in all it was a good first effort.

We spent the weekend in Sheboygan again, visiting Opa, Grandma, our nephew, my brother and sister-in-law, and Nalena. All in one day. EXHAUSTING, but a great day. The Easter Bunny left an early basket for Nalena, and the girls went outside to blow bubbles, play with the chalk and play in the sandbox. It was chilly, so coats are still required for little ones.





House
Because this is primarily supposed to be a knitting blog, and because I need to find some space to purge all of my financial agnst, I decided to separate posts into knitting and "the house" which is our primary finacial strain. This way, if you are interested only in knitting, you can skip right over this part. And if by some strange chance you enjoy hearing the continuing saga of our house, you can find those updates without having to read through knitting stories. Brilliant? I thought so.

We had an offer a few weeks ago, did I mention that? No, I checked back. I didn't mention it. That's probably because it wasn't worth mentioning. The offer was $45,000 below our already $20,000 reduced price since the lower level was gutted. She came up $5,000 and we went down $5,000, and then she said it wasn't worth any more than that. Since then there have been two walk throughs. Their comments are ringing in my ears because it is now always the same story, again and again.

"The lower level will require too much work."
"The siding is old and starting to deteriorate."
"The garage door is old and the trim is starting to deteriorate." (the garage door is actually a new problem)
"The upstairs bathroom is out of date."
"The kitchen floor has a tear in it."
And, "It needs new carpeting in some places upstairs."

All true. And impossible for us to do anything about.

A friend of mine was asking about the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition application that I sent in, and I told her that this was sent over a month ago and so far we have heard nothing. Their application very clearly said that we would hear nothing unless they were interested, so no news is not good news. Then my friend asked me if I had considered the Oprah show. I hadn't. I haven't watched the show in years because I'm never home in time, but I went to the website and they wanted me to condense my "remodeling project that has become stuck due to financial reasons" into 2,000 words.

I began writing. I read it to DH and he liked it. Then I began to copy and paste it into the form online and... whoops. It said 2,000 CHARACTERS, not 2,000 WORDS. Great. Four pages of text and now I had to cut it to 2,000 characters including spaces? Hmm... challenging.

I wrote a poem:

Lessons in Life

Stuck
Wheels spinning in mud
Nine long years
Young children watching, learning
Lessons in life

Job to be eliminated
Back to college, both
House damaged
Windows and roof replaced
Full time work and classes
Young children watching, learning
dedication

Heart attack
Quit job
Savings gone
Finally graduate
But no job
Young children watching, learning
determination

Hundreds of applications
Still no job
Substitute teacher
Three years
Waiting
Children watching, learning
Patience

Finally a job
Three hours away
Separated but happily married
Two homes
Finances stretched
Children watching, learning
Sacrifice

One year becomes almost two
Finally another job
Rent
Family reunited
Pop-up camper is home
Children watching, learning
Healing


New savings gone
Repairs, new carpet and paint
Credit used for bills
Finally house for sale
Buy beautiful lot
Children watching, learning
Effort

Flood
Mold
Oma has died
Finally accepted to adopt
But no – testicular cancer
Teenagers learn
Despair

Chemotherapy
Lost wages
Disability
Money spent driving
To cut grass and remove snow
Teenagers learn
Hopelessness

Decreased property values
Sluggish house sales
No money for updates
House decaying
Adoption pending
Teenagers learn
Heartache

Our story in basically 2,000 characters. We have proposed donating our home to a needy family if we could have a home in our new town. This is my plea for help. Hopefully they will hear me.