Hello 2023

 It has been a cold and snowy winter, and that pleases me greatly. There is no better knitting weather than cold and snow. I have been able to wear nearly all of my handknits!

That is, of course, except for the ones that need mending. Or buttons. Or to have their ends woven in. And somehow I have something like six projects on the needles and I want to cast on one (or ten) more. 

I am working on grad school applications, hoping that one of them will accept me and I can get out of Utah. 

I have just started a self-paced for-credit Norwegian 101 class through the University of North Dakota. I have been studying Norwegian with DuoLingo for almost a year now and I'm hoping that an actual academic class will help me gauge where I'm at an what I need to do next. 

I turn 50 in just over a year and I have stopped coloring my hair. I have this swathe of white/silver at the front and I'm curious to see what that looks like. 

Not sure if I'll keep going with the blog, it's been a while since I have done this regularly, but we'll see. 

Dan teaches me drawing

I had not done a lot this past week, art-wise, since a number of things came up that prevented me to showing up at the - what - drawing board? I guess so. I made significant progress on knitting my Sunwheel mitten - which isn't technically art but it scratches a creative itch. Given that I'm working on a complex pattern, people are super impressed when they see what I'm working on.

There is a thrift store chain in Salt Lake City called Deseret Industries, or "DI" for short. I go there quite regularly, probably twice a month, and I often check out the area that has picture frames, mirrors, and paintings. So far I have come home with a few small canvases with ugly paintings on them, the DI sells them for $1. I knew I could paint over them and start from scratch, so I had a tidy collection of them that I finally got to tonight.

Dan already has a good collection of acrylic paints and brushes, but tonight what I needed was a large volume of white to make a clean slate, so to speak. Soon into this very simple act of covering up old paintings with white, I realized that I needed a painting smock. Dan leaped out of his chair, he had just the thing! And quickly fished out a lab coat he used when he worked at a distillery. It's very big on me, but perfect for my purpose.

He's been bugging me for a while about gesture drawing. He wanted to teach me gesture drawing. I did a drawing exercise with my weekly art planner that I mentioned last week, and he basically said okay when you are finished what you are doing, we'll do some gesture drawing together. As luck would have it, all three kitties were in the living room and available to be subjects for drawing. So we started there.

With manila paper and charcoal, we drew a few things. Feiminn. Djarfur. The IKEA watering can that they use to drink water out of. And the cat tree we assembled on New Year's Eve. (There were a few other things too but they are not worth sharing). Dan gave me encouragement and praise for my technique, and instructed me for what to do next time. He's been to several art schools, and has thousands of hours of drawing logged himself, and he also happens to be a great teacher.

Feiminn

Djarfur, cleaning himself

It turns out I like gesture drawing better than I like line drawing. At least for now. I think that will help me develop confidence.

I started a drawing class

I am the forever student. I am always learning something and have so many interests so always want to learn much more than I realistically have time for. I have been studying Danish for almost a year now (according to Duolingo, I am 67% fluent, though I have yet to converse with a native speaker). Near the end of 2017, I decided to declare 2018 my year of Art Exploration.

My husband is an artist, part of a larger family of artists. His youngest sister is at a fancy art school in Ireland right now. His mother has been painting for 30+ years and is having a show this spring. I have no art at all in my family history, I have only dabbled here and there with things. Of course, you can count my multiple knitted sculpture as art (and I do), but those days are long behind me now as I have not had time to knit since before immigrating to the United States (almost five years ago!).

A thing I do sometimes is go to Salt Lake City's largest thrift store chain, Deseret Industries, and buy secondhand paintings on canvases. Not because I like the subjects (I really don't need a painting of a temple or of 'Marissa' (?)) but I've heard a thing that painters do sometimes is paint over an old painting. For $1 a canvas, how could I go wrong?

However, people keep telling me that you must learn to draw before you can paint.

I have drawn things in the past, mostly stick figure cartoons or goofy animals (mostly cats and sheep, duh), and one year for Christmas I drew caricatures of my husband's family as matryoshka - in lieu of gift tags. But I am only familiar with pencils and colored pencils.

Last week I started a drawing class at a local art store. The supply list was awfully long (!) and I doubt I'll ever be interested in using graphite sticks regularly, but I now have all the things I need going forward to explore different drawing techniques.

I have also started listening to some art podcasts. The first one is the Thriving Artist, and I think I've only listened to one or two of those. The topic was about the business of being an artist, that is, making a living doing it. Very interesting. I just got promoted in my research job last month and have a shiny career ahead of me, so I don't have any plans to be a career artist any time soon, but you never know where life will take you. The other podcast I found is the Savvy Painter - that one comes out every week and it's been very interesting learning how people manage their lives around their painting.

I'm not sure if I'll stick with the drawing class I'm enrolled in - I don't 100% love it, but I'll finish out the month I paid for and go from there. Dan has offered to draw with me (he's taken tons of drawing classes, has been to three art schools) so I think we may take that up. There are other things I want to explore too - such as painting, ceramics, fiber arts, and maybe some other sculpture. We have three kitties now, so whatever I end up making has to be cat-proof, but I think I'm up for the challenge. I do think I have the discipline for self-study though. After training for a half-marathon in 2016 and learning a second language using an app on my phone, I know I can persist if something really catches my interest. So I will explore.

I plan to use all the learning tools available to me. We have a fantastic library system in Salt Lake City with a massive art collection. There is also the Internet. I even have some artists in my life here that I could hang around. I'm not sure about posting pictures of my progress and projects, we'll see how happy I am with them. I'm not interested in being "good" - I'm too whimsical for that. I just want to make things that I like to look at. I joined Instagram a couple of months ago and that will help with inspiration.

If you, dear reader, have any recommendations what so ever - books, videos, podcasts, IG accounts - please throw them my way! I'd love to hear from you and get exposed to things I have not yet seen.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy this year-long journey with me!

An attempt at telling you about my recent knitting

 What's this? I haven't blogged about knitting in a donkey's age, and that has to do with not blogging as well as not knitting. 2013 was a bum year for me, knitting wise, because I had neither the time nor the inclination to get much done. Projects that should have taken me a couple of days got dragged out over months, and it got to the point where the only time I would get any knitting done was when Dan and I took a road trip somewhere. I guess that house in Kinston was just not very comfortable for me to knit in.

  Above is a hat knit out of mercerized cotton that Toni gave me a few years ago, and an improvised pattern. (I used a chart repeat from a legwarmer in one of my knitting books). See, I wanted a "summer" hat to wear (as in not so much for warmth but to hold my hair in place or keep my head cool) and I don't think I even finished this until the fall. In fact, it's still not finished, technically, I have yet to cut the yarn, removed the needle, and weave in ends. Sigh. It will be a nice thing to wear though.

 This is a little project I started last year. We went to New Bern from Kinston shortly after I arrived in North Carolina, and I picked up this Cascade 200 at the LYS there for this very purpose. Somewhere on the Internet I found a pattern for these shamrocks, and my big plan was to make a bunch and hang them as a garland for the St. Patrick's Day dinner party we had last year. Only I didn't get to finish. Well, I think I have enough yarn left to double my shamrock count and finish that i-cord to boot, but I still won't get it done for March 17th this year. We aren't having a party this time around, so I am content to either continue working on it for next year. I am also reinforcing the shamrocks by stitching a denim backing to them, to keep them flat.

The Shibui yarn for this sock was purchased at Great Yarns in Chapel Hill early last year. Dan bought me yarn to make a pair of socks for each of us. He also bought me both of Wendy Johnson's toe up socks books, so this was my first from-a-pattern attempt at a toe up basic sock (I have done this before, improvised, and it worked out to about the same). I actually knit this to the heel, then realized it was way too long, and ripped the whole thing out. This is another one of those things that I started a l o o o o n g time ago and finished the first sock on the way to Utah. Soon after we arrived I started doing a test knit for Donna Druchunas so this one sits and waits. I think it will be the next thing I pick up though, Dan *loves* his snuggly socks!

Years ago when I was working at Knits by the Sea in Tofino, I bought Victorian Lace Today. I am a beginning lace knitter so I thought I would work my way through the book starting with the easy patterns. I used the silk bamboo from Gaia's Colours (now closed down) and I really enjoyed knitting this but, again, it took me a long time. I still need to weave in ends and block it, which will make the edging pop a bit more, and it will hopefully be easier to see the beads. It's not quite big enough to be a hip wrap, as they have in the photo in the book, but it is definitely a pretty neck scarf. 

I have also picked up on working hexipuffs again for the Beekeeper's Quilt, and I think I have unpacked my knitting projects enough to be able to get all the hexipuffs in one place for a photo. I have a lot of leftover sock yarn - some of which I have held on to for mending socks but some I am ready to let go of. Hexipuffs are a good use of that yarn. I think at some point we'll get those big cylindrical vases from IKEA to store them in until we stitch them together into the quilt (I say "we" because Dan has offered to help!)

We finally got our Internet just three days ago and I am slowly getting organized. It's been years since I have had all of my things in one place where I can see/access them and oh. my. gosh. it is so amazing. I had no idea what an impact not having access to my stuff had on my mental health. I am so much happier now.

I've been a terrible blogger

I don't think it's just me. I have been hearing reports of lots of people letting their blog fall to the wayside. In fact, just the other day on twitter, one of my friends said "Is blogging still a thing?"

Sigh. I want to be blogging more, honest I do. For some reason I am finding it really hard to get to my computer. Sometimes that includes *finding* my computer. All joking aside, I feel like I have been working away at all kinds of things and blogging seems like leisure time that I can't seem to muster without feeling guilty*

An update of what's happening. I am now six weeks into my job at the health food store. Really? That sure went by fast! I am getting more hours than I complained of at the beginning and have really settled in. I really like it there and the people I work with. It's tiring and engaging work, but I learn something every day and have fun doing it. Judy tells me every day she appreciates my work and let me tell you, as an employee, that goes a long way in my books. When I first started, Judy told me that she would sell anything I made. Thus, I have been busy making soap!

These last two weeks have seen me in full-on soap production as I have whipped up eight batches which are now curing in the room that was supposed to be our dining room but has actually turned into my craft room/office area. They will be ready around Thanksgiving at the end of November. Since then, Cynthia at the Overland Gallery has also offered to sell them. This makes me happy! Back in Victoria, everyone and their neighbour makes soap but out here, no one is doing it, so there was definitely a niche there for me. What else can I do?

In the spring time I planted TONS of sunflowers and marigold seeds, mostly that were given to me by friends. I have since harvested all the seed heads they have produced and I have hundreds of thousands of those seeds. I could separate them all out and put them in packets for the spring. Wouldn't that be fun?

Kinston has some really weird and strict health restrictions around food production or you know I would be all over that.

Dan and I took a trip to Asheville a few weeks back - I didn't take a lot of photos but maybe a blog post about that is in order. Next weekend I'll be heading off to DC for the AMIA symposium I mentioned in my last post. I have picked out all my outfits for those four days and they are all black, so I'll see if I can do some switching up. I get to take the train! Dan has booked me on the Amtrak and I am so excited to be on a train. It even has wifi!

There has been tons of stuff I have wanted to blog about these past few weeks but didn't write down any of the ideas so I'm falling short here of what to talk about, so this is probably the best place to sign off, especially since dinner is ready (Dan is cooking!)

*knitting and reading novels also fall under this category

making time for you

I have spent the better part of the last five years with having all kinds of time to do whatever I wanted, as long as I hit a few deadlines or showed up to a thing every now and then. Now that I am working and managing a night club, I am finding myself with not very much time on my hands these days to knit or get out into the garden.

That makes me a little sad.

However, I am really learning a lot about booking bands, ordering beer and wine, creating a drink menu with spirits, what it takes to run a bar and be a real bartender (something that was on my bucket list), manage staff, interface with other people in the community, promote events, participate in social media (I had to return to facebook), learn North Carolina liquor laws, deal with difficult customers, happily interact with nice customers, while cooperating with all the other people I work with in order to get my stuff done. In short, I am working my ass off these days and I am really learning a lot.

I thought I would have more time to write once we got past the BBQ Festival on the Neuse a few weeks ago, but that hasn't been the case. I'm amazed I get any laundry done but thank the heavens we bought me a front-loading washing machine a few weeks ago, as well as a clothes drying rack, so I am managing to stay on top of it.

Things are really happening in Kinston, and I am excited to be a part of it. Just before the festival was the opening of a new Asian restaurant called Ginger 108. They are in a sense part of of the Mother Earth family (or really the larger food and beverage community in downtown Kinston) and we have had the opportunity to go and sample menu selections they are considering, which is really fun. Of course Dan and I have lived in Asia and are from the Asian part of Canada (Vancouver/Victoria), so we have a good sense of what those flavors should be.

Another thing that happened recently is the opening of The Overland Gallery. (note: neither of these places has websites yet or I would link to them). Cynthia and Michael Dunn have renovated an historic building in downtown Kinston (which, incidentally, is not even two blocks from our house) and have thrown their doors open wide for artists and patrons to come and enjoy art that is produced locally. Recently they announced a call for submissions called the 4x4(x4) for anyone and everyone to make a tiny piece of art for display in August. The idea is to make art accessible to everyone and I think it's great. I went into the Gallery yesterday and Cynthia (who loves to brag about Dan) asked if we would be submitting. Of course! I said, but we don't know yet what to make. Dan can do any number of mediums (metal, wood, pen/ink, textile, clay, glass, or whatever he can get his hands on, really) and mine will very likely be textile. Cynthia gave me two 4x4 inch panels as a guide or the base for the submission. My mind has been chewing on this challenge since yesterday and I already have two ideas - one flat piece and one 3D (4x4x4). You'll see in August what I end up making!

Last week I attended a function called From Our Farm to Your Table, at which there were a number of people from the community who had tables with information and samples, and one of the farmers gave a talk about the importance of creating local food systems. Coming from a permaculture perspective, naturally I support this movement and I am excited that it is happening here and that I get to be a part of it. First I spoke to the lady at the Farmer's Market table. I am not a vendor (yet) but I would like to get involved, so she invited me to a function sometime in June. Kinston's farmer's market runs year round on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and they are looking to start occupying an indoor space in the winter. One of Kinston's two health food stores had a table there, and she is a fervent supporter of local farmers, even offers a CSA through her store.

Vivian from Chef and the Farmer was there with her sous chef. They were serving a spicy beef sampling on lettuce leaves with some fresh herbs, that alone made it worth the trip for me. So good. We talked about things I might be able to grow for her, as Vivian's mandate is to support local farmers and I want to be a local farmer. I am also hoping to collect their fruit and vegetable scraps for my compost bin; we'll have a conversation later in the month.

Vivian's sister Leraine owns Queen Street Deli, she too had a table there with some offerings of her shop. The staff at Queen Street are very familiar with everyone from the brewery, as we all go there at least once a week for lunch. It's to the point where, yesterday, when I ordered a sandwich for Dan (who wasn't with me), they knew he wanted his sandwich on pumpernickel and that he wanted potato salad on the side. I'm hoping to talk to them at some point about getting their coffee grounds for my compost.

Next to Leraine was Warren, the only vegetable farmer there. He recognized me from The Red Room (and this is happening more and more, gotta love small towns). I purchased from him some baby bok choi, kale, new potatoes and some broccolini. There was also a meat farmer and a poultry farmer. It struck me odd that out of the three farmers, that there was only one produce guy. There is room for growth, room for me to become a food producer and I bet I could find customers for my produce within 1000 yards of where I live.

This got me pretty excited. Now that my compost is going, I'm going to need sources of biomass to keep it going. I got my hair cut at Salon Steven last week and asked Kari if they would be okay if I took their hair trimmings for my compost pile. She said she would ask, and I think that would be a cool thing. Turns out there are slugs in North Carolina and hair makes a pretty good mulch around lettuces against slugs.

I have been invited to join both the Historic District Commission and the Mitchelltown Preservation Society. Unfortunately I am not eligible to vote in Lenoir County (or at all yet, not until I get citizenship) so I don't think I would be allowed to join the HDC, but the MPS is still an option. The neighborhood we live in is Mitchelltown, so I have a vested interest in keeping up with the Society.

I'll work tonight and tomorrow night at The Red Room, and then after closing Saturday night (Sunday morning) Dan and I will drive to Washington, DC, to visit an aunt he has not seen in more than ten years and whom I have never met. Dan has business in Philadelphia on Monday, we'll return on Tuesday. It will be quick trip but it will be nice to get out of town, do something different, meet more of Dan's family, and see more of the US! (Yes, we have someone looking after Sam).

So on the whole I will say that I am very busy these days, forced to be organized (which I enjoy), and while I don't get to spend much time with knitting or gardening at the moment, at some point the dust from the whirlwind will settle, I'll hit my stride and relax into a routine. It's good, I am happy.

MIA because we moved into the house...

Hi guys,

Sorry you haven't heard from me. We moved into the house in town last week and have been very busy with cleaning and unpacking ever since. I have not been able to leave the house much because I have had tradespeople coming through too...


We moved in on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, I took a bath, then walked over to the brewery to find hot water to make coffee with. Dan came back with me an hour later to find this in the hallway, a puddle below. Not only that, Sam was missing.

Just before they came over to rip open the ceiling to find the leak, we saw cute kitty footprints near the site of the puddle on the floor, so I knew she had to be somewhere in the house. We found her in the cupboard in the dining room, but later when I put her in the upstairs bedroom to keep her safe from the tradespeople in the house, she headed straight for the chimney.
 OH great. That explains why she was so dirty! She was covered in soot, my little cinderkitty. This house has six coal fireplaces (not in use) that haven't been cleaned in forever and oh by the way also aren't sealed. Perfect.
A pool noodle comes in handy! 
 
  My black and white kitty, temporarily black and grey.

Meanwhile, the upstairs bathtub has been torn apart. The plumber has been by every day this week working on this, trying to figure out the problem, replaced all kinds of things. In the end, it was the taps themselves that were malfunctioning so when we redo this bathroom (more below), new taps will be put in. Until then, we will use the downstairs bathroom.

So that was one thing. On Sunday night the toilets were backing up and when the draining of the bathtub made the toilets burble, well, let's just say there were some expletives projected. This was not acceptable. What is going on? First thing Monday morning the guy with the augur came and cleared out the sewer pipe - turns out there were tree roots growing through this old iron pipe. So that was fixed.

We also were still without appliances. Since we have been eating out for a month, we are anxious to get a proper kitchen together so we can prepare healthy meals.

 I can't remember which day the appliances came. Monday? Tuesday? The delivery guys from Lowe's were fantastic. Friendly, quick competent. They set up the fridge right away, but they aren't licensed to install the gas range, so we'd need the plumber to do that. Since the plumber was coming and going anyway, we had him hook it up but then we discovered the spigot that the hose attached to in the kitchen was not actually connected to where the gas comes from. Frustration. That was two days ago. We're still waiting for the gas guys to come and connect that so we can use the range.

 We also still don't have a washer or dryer. I'm not sure what's happening there, if one will be provided to us or if we are to get our own. Last night we took four loads of laundry to a laundromat. So romantic!

  On the weekend we drove to Charlotte, which is 230 miles away from here. We stopped at a glass store in Durham along the way (we'll be replacing some of the windows that are currently broken or plexiglass with stained glass) to buy a sheet of red glass. Dan downloaded two books about how to do stained glass on his Kindle, read them, and now knows how to do it. No really, I'm sure he'll have it figured out in no time. (He did go to glass school, after all). In Charlotte, we went to the biggest and busiest IKEA I have ever seen. There must have been a full square mile of cars in the parking lot. We were on a mission: to buy a bed! We've been sleeping on a 4" foamie for far too long, and it was a longtime promise to ourselves to get a bed when we were reunited. I've been sleeping much better ever since!

   In other random news, it has actually been too cold and I have been too busy to go outside and get busy gardening, but we have at least plotted out where we're going to put our first keyhole bed. Dan is going to build an octagonal frame with a south-facing entrance. I have already planted seeds indoors and can't wait to get this bed going!

On Monday night I hosted my first Stitch Night. My first night here I met two new friends who were interested in getting together, and met a third friend via Twitter who had just moved back to the area. Hopefully in the subsequent weeks the knitting/crocheting space will get noticeably more comfortable!

  Today I decided to tackle this room. It's a sun room on the southeast side of the house. It has 6x2x6 panels of windows, a handful of which are plexiglass, and I washed whatever interior window I could. This house was build in 1901 but I think this room was later closed in from what used to be an outdoor porch. The windows are old but the latches have been painted over, rendering them immovable.

 Somewhere along the way someone also painted the rope that rests on the pulley that lifts these windows, also producing immobility. Thanks, guys.

 There was a lot of dust. I took all the door hardware and put it in a box (I guess we'll attach them to the doors later?), brushed the shelves, then wiped them with a dry cloth and then a wet cloth.

 When these windows were last painted they didn't tape off the trim so I took a razor blade scraper to get the paint off the windows.

I am happy with the state of this room now. Well, happy for now. I'll have to be careful with what I put in these shelves, since yarn and book spines are likely to fade in this sunny location. I'll need lots of plants.

 Ok this is a view of the house from the back, across the street. Because we are on a street corner and there are no trees in front of the windows, it feels very exposed. Eventually we'll plant tall things and hang window coverings, but it's not like we have any furniture at the moment...

I haven't taken any photos but the drywall guys came today and closed up the hall ceiling. So that's good. What I forgot to tell you above is that, since the upstairs bathroom is ripped up now, we've decided that that will be the first room we renovate completely.

One more thing:

My tiny seedling collection! In February I ordered seeds from Sow True Seeds and have used every available container to plant in. I cut up the carton from the milk and soy milk, a tofu container, used the mini-cinnamon bun tray from the grocery store, used fast food cups and plastic salad containers. When the plumber saw that I had seedlings going, he offered to bring me some planting trays, so they got used right away! I have planted tomatoes, peppers, herbs, flowers, lettuces and sunflowers. I NEED MORE SPACE. As I mentioned above, it's been cold here, so it's almost good that I haven't been able to go outside to play in the garden (I've been busy organizing the house) because I don't have compost, manure, topsoil or even really a place to plant seeds out there just yet.


Sorry for the slapdash formatting of this post. I'm trying to get it up in a hurry so you all know what I've been up to! Now that I can actually leave the house I'm hoping to post more, and we should be getting the Internet hooked up at home soon too. I haven't had much luck looking for jobs just yet - I simply haven't had time.

an update with photos

I had a post written that I was going to post on Monday, but it seems somehow obsolete now. Instead, I'll just show you a bunch of photos and insert commentary.


Dan and I don't usually do anything special on Valentine's Day. We figure we have so much love in our life every day that to devote only one day to it seemed silly. We don't need commercial excuses to go out for dinner or do nice things for each other. So what ended up happening is that Dan picked me up and brought me back to the tap room while he did some stuff. I hung out, knitting (an easy project) while Sean the tap room manager poured me beer.  Oatmeal Porter, in particular. It was good. I had great conversations with a number of people about knitting, gardening, food, and pouring concrete.

Later Dan took me to one of Kinston's three Mexican restaurants for dinner. I am still not accustomed to the volume of food they give you in restaurants here.



Earlier in the day I had decided to make a little Valentine's decoration. I happened to have some love-colored card stock from when I was sending out heart butterflies last year, strung the hearts together with some yarn, and voila! A romantic gesture. Dan thought it was sweet.

 Dan recently acquired a musical saw. Did you know that there was such a thing? As in a saw made by Stradivarius and other makers of fine instruments? Well, Dan is one of those people who can just pick up an instrument and figure it out. He can play any sort of wind instrument (he played low brass in high school and university), and has been earnestly playing his banjo since he's been in North Carolina. He even built a canjo (banjo made from a can) and put up a YouTube video (flounderguts). Back to the saw, Dan was finding it a bit hard to handle at the end so, you know, he just whipped one up. He had a bit of mahogany laying around, zip zip on the bandsaw, a turn of the lathe, then attach it to the saw. As he was doing this, I tweeted it. It got noticed by Natalia Paruz, The Saw Lady. (Seriously, go check out her story, it's so inspirational!) 

(I am still trying to convince Dan that we should go to New York in June. I think that would be awesome. I have never been to New York).


In other news, I mentioned previously that we'll be having a St. Patrick's Day party. Dan's plan for the event is to make Corned Beef and Cabbage, one of the meals he prepares that are my favorite. On Saturday, we drove out to New Bern to meet a new friend and to do a bit of exploring. We had lunch at Spunky McDoogle's. 

 Yeah it was a bit kitschy but who doesn't love kitsch? It was on our way back that it started snowing, as I mentioned in my last post, so we headed back to Kinston.

The next day, since Dan couldn't go outside and work on the Dodge (cold, wet), we decided to take a trip to Goldsboro, about 35 miles from here. Since we had been expecting to move into our house by now (I mean come on, what is taking so long?), we hadn't unpacked our boxes of books from the truck. Dan wrapped each box in saran wrap before we left Canada. Dan covered the truck with a tarp the night it snowed but even with that, some of the boxes were wet. WE PANICKED.

 We brought all the books to the storage area at the brewery and unpacked/checked for damage. It wasn't as bad as we thought. It would really have sucked to have been carrying these books around all these years and then 3,600 miles only to lose them to a night of water damage. A few of the paperbacks were wrinkled but it was mostly the boxes that took the hit.

  I should add too that it was late Saturday night/Sunday morning that I got the message that my mum's aunt Mid passed away. She was 86 I think, had lost her husband (Unc) of 63 years in 2010 and immediately fell into dementia when he passed. She had a fall last year sometime and was put into a care home, but the stubborn old gal hung on I guess, until these last few weeks when she decided to leave. Mid and Unc were surrogate grandparents for me and my sister, since my mum's mom died when I was in grade 5 (1984?) and Grandpa died in 1992. Mid was the record keeper of the family, the one who kept in touch with everyone and always remembered every birthday. Her passing was not a sad one, but one of joy, since she can finally be together with her beloved. I can't help but think she was waiting for me to move to the US and get settled here so I wouldn't feel obliged to attend her funeral, as I have no doubt that the family shit will start flying soon. What better time to open old wounds and fling accusations than when a family matriarch has died? Yup, I'll be happy to avoid all that. My mum and sister will go to the funeral this Saturday in Kelowna, BC. I'll wait for news.

Right. On to happier things. Below is a photo of a chandelier that Dan built for the distillery. I don't think it is rigged up with lights just yet, but I believe it will have LEDs in it. The ceiling is made of recycled barrel staves and the wall made of recycled pallets.





This is the entrance/exit to Dan's office. Up by steep ladder/stair, down via slide.




Now that Dan and I are back together, we can eat meals together again. He's a great cook, did I tell you? Dan makes the best salads.

a few days in

I've been here for four days now and it's still a bit surreal.  The day we arrived, we were invited to a party at the home of the owners of  Chef and The Farmer the next day. There were a number of us going so Dan suggested we drive the brewery bus. There was a PBS film crew there when we arrived, and it would almost have been impressive with this van full of people - except that there were only five of us pouring out of the van.

 This was an Oyster Bake or BBQ or something. I don't even know how to describe it. They washed the oysters, laid them on a bit of tin roof, then placed the tin on an open fire. There were LOTS of oysters. Dan had a few dozen. I had one! That was enough.

 The gal doing the filming had her lens trained on Dan as he expertly shucked oyster after oyster, shuck, add cocktail sauce (what's that?), slurp, flip the shell, repeat. He was also good at commentary so when we had the big pot of fish stew with instructions on how to eat it (make sure you get an egg, have it with bread, etc.), Dan had lots to say about the tastes and sensations of the soup. (I wished I could have given the fish scales to Sam, but she wasn't with us!)

 And if you are going to go to the house of a celebrated chef, you want to know what cookbooks are on their shelf, right? It went like this: Southern, Southern, Southern, Argentinian, Southern, Southern, Jewish, etc. I haven't heard of any of these cookbooks but I am really excited about learning Southern cooking!

So in this photo I am standing on top of the brewery. That blue house is the one we'll be moving into sometime this month. We went by there on Monday and there is still at least a week's worth of work left on it before we can move in, alas. We are, however, doing okay at the farmhouse that Dan has been living in all this time.

It has felt kind of funny though, like moving into my boyfriend's house for the first time, except that I recognize some of the kitchen tools (where are the rest of them?). Dan started packing up the house before he came to get me, so most everything is in boxes. We were sort of expecting to move into the blue house right away but since we are not, we have had to go grocery shopping. That was an interesting experience. There are three options for groceries: Piggly Wiggly, Food Lion, and WalMart. There is an unbelievable amount of packaged food with lots of sugar in them. Is it the same in Canada and it just wasn't on my radar? I don't know. The prices on the whole are significantly cheaper, though some things are comparable to Vancouver Island.

There are no coffee shops in Kinston, I'm sad to say. We'll be taking a trip down to New Bern on Saturday to meet a new friend and do a bit of exploring. I've done my homework: three coffee shops, one yarn shop, an art supply store and three thrift stores. My new friend suggested we check out the farmer's market as well.

The weather here has been interesting, ranging from colder than I'm used to to warm and humid like Asia. I still don't know where all my clothes are (especially my socks!) so I'm really limited in my wardrobe is. I don't want to unpack all my boxes just to pack them up again next week.

At the party on Sunday, there was a fly hovering above the food on the table, and when the woman I was standing next to learned I was from Canada, she asked if we had flies, what with it being so cold and all. I did my best not to be incredulous, but said yes of course, and that right now Kinston is colder than Victoria.

I love languages and can pick up pronunciation very easily. After talking to a few people from around here, I can't help but affect the accent - it is totally unconscious. Two minutes after meeting Dan's boss he said "you're already starting to talk like a Southerner". I don't know quite what to make of this - do I just go with it? That seems to be the easiest thing.

We don't have Internet at the farmhouse, as I mentioned, and the cell phone reception there is terrible, so I have been largely incommunicado. I also haven't figured out how to get my email to show up automatically on my new iPhone - it's a bit complicated transferring accounts from Canada to the US, and I haven't taken the time to sort that out yet.

Hopefully my green card will arrive this week or next, and I don't recall if we were able to apply for a social security card. Without the SoSec card, I can't start work. That's good and bad. I mean, I'm still unsettled being in a temporary location, so starting a job would really complicate things. It also means I get to do a fair amount of knitting and getting in some much-needed relaxation. It also means I'm still without an income, but I trust that everything will happen as it needs to in good time.

Knitting, how I miss you! I haven't been too motivated to knit much these past months, and was hoping to get more done on our trip, but with the driving at night and the kitty roaming around, I only managed to finish one project and put a few rows on another one. Part of it is not having all my knitting kit in one place, so when I finally do unpack I'll be able to see all my yarn in one place. Since I've had a bit of time to relax and catch my breath, I am now chomping at the bit to get knitting and I have lots of ideas. I'll check out the yarn store in New Bern on Saturday and see what they have, but I'm anxious to knit more with locally produced fibers. The Carolina Fiber Festival is just seven weeks away and I'm looking forward to going!

some photos from our trip

We drove 12 states in five days, stopping only for sleep, gas, and biological functions. Here are a few photos.

 Eastern Washington.

 Kind of a funny joke between me and Dan's father. When we discovered that we both like Baroque music, Paul took me to a few concerts at the Conservatory in Victoria over the winter. Because we were there for quiet a long time with no refreshment, we smuggled in some contraband - these chocolate-covered cookies. When I told Dan's father that I *love* these cookies and that my sister used them for cheater s'mores, it became a fun thing we shared. Just before Dan and I left for our trip, Paul came by with a gift-wrapped box that said "Do not open until you cross the border", which of course I could not do, as they at the border frown on bringing in boxes of unknown contents. Luckily I had peeked before we left to confirm that there was something chocolatey in there. Sure enough, they were these cookies. They sustained me for our whole trip!

 This is Mr. Cupcake in Montana. My friend Irene in Connecticut had made this little guy for me sometime last year when it seemed like we would be making this trip a lot sooner than when it really happened. Most of the following photos were taken for the tweets I posted during our trip, thus I don't have the metadata to indicate where they were taken unless I was taking a photo of a welcome sign. 

 Sam was such a good kitty on our trip. Above she is trying to reach between the seat and the console to - what? I don't know. But she was really persistent.
 

 It was nice when she settled in. Then I could knit.

 This is a chicken toaster cosy that I knit for Dan's mum for Christmas several years ago. The chicken lives in the family condo in Missoula, Montana, and Mr. Cupcake was happy to see the chicken!

 Wyoming?

 A train, in Nebraska I think.

 Coal.

Mr. Cupcake longing for good coffee. So was I. Dan bought me this excellent travel mug at Canadian Tire the day we left. 

 Massive breakfast at The Egg & I. Nebraska still, I think. Nebraska as HUGE. I ate half, took the rest and ate the other half yesterday.

 This is the market bag I had been working on for a few months, my first time knitting with linen yarn. I really liked the project, though it was a bit fussy in the beginning because the linen yarn is so slippy off my Addi turbos. I'll make this again.

 I think this is the Missouri River.

 The exit signs in Missouri were very confusing. They had letters on them which seemed to allude to nothing. We drove all the way from Kansas City to St. Louis and could not detect a pattern in the letters. Finally, when we stopped at the Motel 6 just outside of St. Louis, Dan asked about the letters on the signs. The gal said they didn't know either, but they get asked about it a lot. Well played, MoDOT.

The Mississippi River? 

 Sam and Mr. Cupcake.

Mr. Cupcake got in the way of the Welcome to Kentucky sign. 

 The Beer Trappe is a great beer store in Knoxville Tennessee where Dan walked out with four boxes after spending 45 minutes in the shop.

 It's hard to get a good photo of a sign when you are driving by at night at 70mph. We entered North Carolina around 9pm on Friday, February 8th.

I was pleased to see so many trees! As you can see, we had excellent weather the whole way and somehow managed to avoid the cold and stormy weather that the rest of the continent experienced.

We rolled in to Kinston two days ago and it still doesn't feel real. I mean, in some ways, I have basically been camping for a year and a half, and I still can't unpack. We are now staying at the place where Dan has been living all this time, and the house we'll be moving into isn't quite ready yet, just a week or two more. I've met about 50 people, been hugged by a few dozen, have already been to the tap room, a bar, two restaurants, and the best party of the year. I have also sustained, ahem, two hangovers. So I'm tired and still a bit unsettled, and I'm really anxious to move in to our house and get busy with that but I also need to start looking for work. What kind of work? It's hard to know. I have a lot of interests and a lot of skills, but I expect things will work themselves out.

I will say, though, that it has been great to be with Dan with our stress load significantly reduced, and for us to stay put and not have to get up and drive away in the morning. I've been told that Dan is a lot more relaxed with having me around. It's good. We are both pretty happy right now. He's back at work already, of course, and at the moment I'm in his office writing this post, since we have no Internet and crappy cell phone reception at the house. But good things will come to those who wait, as they say, and I have developed excellent skills in being patient during this time apart.