Ten Years

I just realized this morning when I was scrolling through my TimeHop app, it's been ten years to the day since I closed on this house.  It's kind of hard to believe I've been here for a whole decade, but it's true.  I'd hoped to be a lot further along in getting it fixed up, but I guess I was a bit naive about how long it would take to save up that amount of money. 

But, Becky, you may say, why didn't you just get that money when you took out your mortgage?  Because at the time, all I could think about was getting my monthly payments as low as possible.  We'd just come out of the recession of '09, in which the housing market had been hit especially hard -- and still hadn't fully recovered.  And my job is closely tied to the housing market. There were several years when were only working 32 hour weeks for about half of the year.  So that was still weighing heavily on my mind. 

That's part of it.  The other part is, now that I do have money and can pay for it, I just can't seem to get my act together.  I can't multi-task because I get overwhelmed if I have too much going on at once.  For example, I have someone supposedly coming tomorrow to pick up some scrap metal, and I don't feel like I can do anything else until that is marked off the list. I keep saying I'm going to hire a project manager, but I can't even get my act together to do that.  

OK, let's talk about something a bit more pleasant -- knitting.

Yes, like I said yesterday, I cast on a new hat last night while watching LSU beat Clemson and prove where the real Death Valley is. 

This is some old school Red Heart in the colorway Green Sage, and it is not so much of a joy to knit with.  But it's what I had on hand, and I'm trying to use up the stuff I have before buying more.  I think I might make a scrappy hat with the leftovers.  Maybe I'll try helix knitting again.  

I'd done a hat in that technique before, and did OK, but had some tension issues with my color changes.  That will improve with practice, but to be honest, I didn't really enjoy it.  The helix technique, I mean. Maybe I'll just do stripes.  I don't know.  We'll see.  At this point, I'm just winging it. 

In other news, I dragged my boxes of Fall decorations in from the shed, but haven't started putting any of them out yet.  I'm just not feeling it.  Maybe I'll do it tomorrow while I'm waiting to see if those scrap metal people show up.

On the other hand, look who did show up! 

Spider lilies!  

I've got spider lilies in the yard, football on the TV, and leaves starting to turn.  It's almost Autumn for sure.