Chapter Two ahoy!

Chapter Two
It's a little known fact of physics that things can, indeed, suck and blow at the same time.

The next few days were both the most boring and the most stressful of my life. Boring because there's only so much sitting in a closet knitting that you can do before you start to go insane. Stressful because I still expected the front door to fly open at any minute. I tried not to let my imagination go too far as to what would happen after that, but once or twice it wandered too far. Mostly it had to do with things like giant steel spikes, huge vats of boiling oil, and other known instruments of torture. Once there was a scenario involving an espresso machine and a length of tulle, but it's too horrible to recount. On the up side, I did also finish four scarves, an afghan, and an assortment of socks. If I survived this, I was in good shape for Christmas presents.

The one question I couldn't decide on a good answer to was the most important: how long were they likely to watch my house? I hadn't seen any more suspicious beams of light since that first night, but you never know. And I needed to have some sort of plan for if I did flee. I couldn't very well just waltz down to the police station, could I? Would they believe me? Or would I run into the one rotten cop who'd turn me over to Mark and his cohorts? Is that a chance I was willing to take? I spent a good hour contemplating what my plan of attack would be as I soaked in the bathtub. I finally decided on the path of least resistance. I would tuck tail and run. At least until things settled down and I could safely come back for my stuff. If I ever could. I sighed as I looked around the cozy little house. I'd miss it, that's for sure. It was so perfectly me. Sure, it was small, but how much room did I need? All the mismatched furniture I'd collected at garage sales and thrift shops over the years added character. Nothing matched, but that was okay. It almost looked intentional. Shabby Chic was all the rage, anyway.

( I gathered up a collection of clothes and stuffed them into a cloth bag. (read more) )

Hello, Wednesday!

It is Wednesday, right? I was very confused this morning. Probably owing to the fact that I spent all of yesterday at a seminar about concrete roadways - knitting, at least, to keep me from chewing off a limb to get free. And, oh yes, they had a presentation on dowel bar optimization. If you don't know what that is, count yourself lucky. I've seen it... six times now? I guess there's only so much stuff you can cover that basically says concrete kicks asphalt's... asphalt. ("It's just the planet moving granite - kicking our asphalt!")

So, two scarves (brown fun fur, green wool/cotton bramble stitch) down! Woooooo! My hands are tired, though. And it occured to me that it was silly to do some of this by hand when a machine could just buzz right through it (the brown didn't have any special stitch, it's just fuzzy). *shrug* The pride of working with your hands? I dunno.

I'm also taking tomorrow and Friday off, they're supposed to be starting work on the driveway today! I figured I didn't need to be there for the tear-out (if they can't get that right, I'm in serious trouble), but I'd like to make sure they put it back the way I want it. Just in time, I think, too, because as we were going to the gym Monday night and I was backing out of the garage I hesitated, and I felt the broken chunk tilt and drop even more under the tire. I have pictures, which I will eventually get around to posting, but it's pretty bad. And there's still a void space under there, the only thing holding it up is the piece of trim it's under, keeping it from tilting even more (that makes more sense when you see it).

While I'm excited about not having to go to work for the next two days, I'm also depressed about my rapidly dwindling vacation time. I've never used to much in the ten years I've been here! And *most* of it has been for house-related things. What fun. Ergh. I also transfered $5700 from my HELOC so I can pay for the drive (that, thankfully, was the low bid - it's a heck of a lot better than $8200!). Just as I was getting that sucker paid down. :( Oh well, at least it's going to significantly improve the house (this will not only keep the cars from falling into a crack, but fixing the front walk should really improve the drainage, which, as many of you know, has been a problem since we moved in).

Also: WOOT-OFF!