I'm baack!

No good reason for not posting, just that life got in the way. I know, I know, life is what I'm supposed to be posting about, but I got too busy living it to write about it. So, you may ask, what was I so busy doing that I couldn't write a simple post in a simple blog? I'm glad you asked!

Old news first. We got the music room finished! It took a *lot* more steps and time than I thought it would, but eventually we got it done. First, we did it bass-ackward. I know that, but that's just the way it worked out. We spent a weekend tearing up the carpet and padding and taking out the nails (some of them seemed the size of railroad spikes) holding down the tack strips. That was just in time to have the floor re-finishing guys come in and do their thing. After the floor was done, we bought some good drop-cloths and set to work on the ceiling and walls. (That's what I mean by "doing it backwards". If we'd had the time, we would have let the carpet be our drop cloth.) The ceiling needed some serious scraping and then I had to mud the places where the paint *didn't* come off. We also had to sand down the stencils that were on the walls. There was too much texture in the stencils to just paint over them. So we did that, put 3 coats of primer on the stenciled places on the walls, 2 coats of primer on the ceiling, and then put 2 coats of color on the walls. Keep in mind that this one small room has 3 doors, a window, moulding at the ceiling and tall baseboards to paint around. I shouldn't have been surprised at how long it took, my dad remodeled the house I grew up in, on evenings and weekends, but I just didn't think it was going to be such a big job. After all, we weren't knocking out any walls, or even putting any holes in them. Well, we eventually got all the painting done and the furniture moved back in, and it's now a really nice, useful room.

The next big thing that came up was that we went through a fierce crunch on my project, where I work. I call it "mine" though I'm most definitely not a manager. Anyway, we had several weeks in a row where people were putting in horrible amounts of "overtime". That last word is in quotes because we're all salaried, so we don't get paid any overtime, we just have to put it in. Well, we got through the crunch, and no-one lost their minds, though it was probably touch-and-go for a while.

Right after that (in fact it ended up overlapping by about a week) I ran sound for a production of "Mr. Roberts" at a local community theatre. That ate two evenings and an afternoon for 4 weeks, in addition to Tech Week - where it ate *every* evening. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy working on shows at the theatre, it just takes a fair chunk of time.

Towards the end of "Mr. Roberts" it was getting into Spring - which means the weather around here gets to be good enough to ride my bicycle! So, I started taking my bicycle with me to work and riding it at lunchtime. Now, I'm riding it to work when the weather lets me do it. So far, I've logged 4.5 trips at 20 miles each. If you think you detect a certain air of smugness, you're right. That's the most commuting by bicycle I've done in quite a while, and it's only the start of the season!

Through all of this I've been knitting. I've knit winter scarves for two of my nieces, a scarf for a friend and a nightie for myself. I finished a sweater for myself, I've started a "Moderne" baby blanket for a grand-nephew, and a pair of socks for myself. The socks are the "Interlocking Leaves" pattern from Knitty in J. Knits "Pueblo" yarn. I've got a *lot* more projects that I want to start (and finish), but the socks and the baby blanket are what's active on the needles right now.

That's probably enough for the moment. I'll try not to let so much time go by before my next post.