Scraped knuckles, pruney fingers

This is the first time I've ever gone through a house sale as a seller. What a job! I'd had no idea--when I bought my house a long long seven years ago, I thought buying a house was an ordeal. All the open houses! All the drudgery of walking through one ugly house after another! All the nervous waiting--would I ever find the right house for me?

That's nothing compared to being the seller.

Our house officially goes on the market on Friday, but today was the "preview" day for the local real estate agents and the day that the photographer showed up to take pix for the web. So, we spent our "holiday" weekend getting the house in shape (in and among other obligations, like Aidan's music lesson and his long-delayed 5th birthday party!).

There's nothing more humbling than viewing your house through the eyes of a judgmental potential buyer. Oh, the cat hair! Oh, the grubby handprints on the wall! Oh, the paint chips and the dented moldings and the unfinished projects!

Yecch.

However, now our house is a gleaming jewel. Tim put up crown molding in the hallway that gives an elegant touch to our modest entryway. I thinned out my collections (okay, I'm a pack rat) and packed away all the extras. Tim hauled it all away to hidden corners of the basement. And then we scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed some more.

It's a good thing I've never been vain about my hands. I've always had short wrinkly fingers with a lousy manicure, and a weekend of soaking in cleaners and degreasers didn't help any.

But the house sparkles.

And somehow, magically, it got about ten times bigger! Isn't it amazing what happens when you get rid of the clutter? Note to self: remember the joy of anti-clutter. BECOME the joy of anti-clutter. I want to live like this, always!! (Of course, that means fighting with a habit that's been entrenched for 40+ years, but it's never too late to change, right?)

Next hurdle: the open house on Sunday.

Oh, but the good part about all of this is that we don't have to be a buyer at the same time as a seller. We have a second home in upstate New York--Tim's house from before we got married--and we've decided to leave the big city in favor of some semi-rural peace and quiet. It'll be a big change, but a welcome one. I'll miss Boston, but I'm ready to slow down the pace, enjoy life at a quieter pace, and have LOTS more time for knitting!!

Knitting is taking a back seat

Things are really busy chez Woolies these days. The big news is that we're getting ready to put our house on the market, so there's lots of work to be done! It's a sobering thing to look at your own house like a stranger would. Suddenly, you see all the imperfections in glaring clarity. All the unfinished projects, the semi-organized piles of papers, the kids' toys everywhere--what you have lived with comfortably for ages suddenly seem vile and unacceptable.

So, we've been having a big clear-out. Bags of papers to recycle. Boxes of outgrown clothing and toys sent to Goodwill. Do we really need this? Do we have to take that?

And then there are all those little repairs that hovered on the to-do list for months (okay, years). Painting the front stoop, repairing the broken bathroom fan, putting up crown molding in the entry hallway (after replacing the ceiling drywall 6 years ago and never getting around to quite finishing the project...).

And on top of that is the "staging." I've watched too many real-estate programs on TV and I have a giant insecurity comlex that our house needs extensive prettifying in order to appeal to a buyer. So, I've been tidying the garden, planting a big container to warm up the front door, spreading bags of mulch to cover up the bare earth until the perennials come all the way up. And that's just the outside!

By the time all these big jobs are done, then we'll have the task of keeping the house eternally clean -- with two exuberant boys whose middle names are "Mess-Maker"!

UGH. So, needless to say, there hasn't been much actual knitting in the Woolies household, though there has been a lot of fantasy knitting going on. Does that count?

There is life on the other side of this, right?

NH Sheep and Wool Festival!

For Mother's Day, my boys took me to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival. Good sports all, they were very patient with me as I coveted the yarns. So much selection! And there were so many spinners out--when I have just a little more time, I must learn how to do that! It looks like so much fun.

I managed to avoid temptation--I bought not a single skein of yarn! But I came home laden with business cards and brochures. I just can't make decisions on the fly like that--I know that I'll either buy nothing at all, or buy everything in sight. So, to spare my pocketbook, I decided to take the cards and brochures and decide later.

But the boys loved the animals! Who can resist a freshly shorn sheep? And the alpacas! Why, they look like something out of Dr. Seuss when they're freshly shorn.



We watched a few rounds of competition with the border collies and sheep, delighted in a homemade apple crisp, and jumped for joy when Aidan finally lost that wiggly front tooth! He was so proud. One more wiggly front one to go!

giddy flashes of color

There's something about the intense colors of spring that make me go all giddy inside.


It's the quick onslaught of color, after months and months of dull grey skies and leafless trees.


Each year it happens, and yet it's different every year. This year, we didn't get so many blossoms on our forsythia. I must have pruned it too late in the season last year.


I especially love the way the ferns emerge all curled up. They really do look like fiddleheads.


But then there's always the big dose of reality. My most successful flowers in the garden are bright yellow, bloom all summer, and can't be killed no matter what. Gotta love the dandelions.

Studio Furniture Show in Boston!

Support the arts!

Come see a gallery show that opens this weekend at Gallery NAGA on Newbury Street in Boston. The show is called “Coffee, Hall, and End: Small Tables by Studio Furnituremakers” and it runs until June 2nd.

My beloved husband has a table in this show (ten points if you can guess which table is his!). Come see the tables!