Changes

hello everyone!
I've been away for a while working on my final projects for school and trying to knit on the Sexy Vesty with some recycled yarn that I got from a store bought sweater. I'm also still working on losing weight (and succeeding) and trying to get to Dante's track meets, and spend time with my bossy toddler. There's so much going on and so many changes at work. My department was just cut and we have about 4 weeks before we either have to go work in the customer service department, or take the severance package. I've been with my company for five years so if I take the severance I'll get 13 weeks severance pay at 100% plus unemployment. That's about 3 months making more than I get paid right now and I'm already applying for new jobs. I'm blessed to have a rent controlled apartment so if I have no income, I pay zero rent and that means that I don't have stress about my rent. My concern is really that if I take the job in customer service, more layoffs are coming in about 6-8 weeks and if I get laid off then, I won't be offered a package. My manager fought to get this package for us and none of the other departments were offered anything. Plus they don't want us to go there if we only plan to be there for a few months.
I'm praying about my decision but it really seems like a no-brainer that I should take the package and the summer off to work on school, spend time with my boys, knit and hit the gym, and knit stuff. I've got an excel spreadsheet with all of the jobs I've applied for and when I applied so that I can follow up on them. Fortunately for me, I work in customer service and have management and clerical experience so these jobs are more plentiful now then the type of job that my husband or friend is looking for. The higher up you are, the harder it is to find a comparable job.
So now I'm going to pray on it more, and then knit some more and make a decision from there. Maybe I'll get lucky and stumble on a part time job available in a local yarn store!

Holy yarn, Batman!

Today, Sister Keeler met me at work and loaded my car with a knitting machine and several boxes and small bags of yarn. You read that right... she gave me a knitting machine and lots and lots of yarn... for free. I haven't had a chance to really look through all of it yet because I just don't have room for it all yet but I did get to go through the bags and I didn't really find anything I thought I could actually knit anything with. The woman who gave the yarn and machine to her had a thing for spinning her own yarn and she had tons of empty cones in the box plus a lot of partial cones with small amounts of yarn on it. Nothing really that I could knit into anything. Then, when I thought it was hopeless and it was going to be all junk, I opened the box and it was full of huge cones of lace weight yarn! More lace weight yarn than I could ever knit. And the other box had more still, but not in any colors that I'm really in love with. I'll have to hold on to that box for a little while to see if it grows on me but for now, I have thousands of yards of yarn to knit any and every shawl I could ever stand to knit. What's a girl to do?
In the quest to lose weight, I know that I stopped blogging about it but I've been sticking with it. I'm still using Slim Quick and I've lost about 15lbs over about 6-7 weeks. I'm back comfortably in a size 12 again and I see a real difference around my waist. I look the same without my body shaper as I did with it (when I wasn't working out). I'm only about seven pounds away from being at the weight that my doctor suggested for my height. That's a really exciting thing to say. I might just get into a bathing suit this year.
And now in family news, Dante worked really hard this quarter and got his name on the honor roll with a "B" average! We're really proud. He earned 20 bucks from mom and his grandparents are taking him out to buy any video game he wants, plus he's spending his entire week of vacation with them. All good things.

Window Pains

So tomorrow we finally get new windows after waiting for about 4 years. This is all well and good but we didn't find out until Monday and we have to clear out of here asap. The window men come at 7:30am and are scheduled to be here through 4:30pm. Two days ago they didn't finish the apartment they were working on until after 7:30pm. I sure hope they don't take that long tomorrow because Alex has to get into bed by 7pm and he just can't/won't sleep anywhere else but in his crib. We have to box Eddie up, take Alex out to breakfast and go over to my MIL's house to hang out and wait. We'll let Eddie out in the small bedroom so that we can crate him back up more easily, and we're going to take Alex to his first movie tomorrow to get out of the house for a bit. Her house is really small and it just isn't child-proof so I want to cut down on the amount of time I have to chase him away from all her stuff. I took the day off to help Aaron with the kid wrangling, as Dante doesn't have practice tomorrow either so he would have had all three of them for several hours before I got home from work. At least now it won't snow on my husband's head anymore in the winter while we sleep.
In knitting news, I'm working on a pair of elbow length hand warmers that match my new green trench coat (I may have mentioned that...I really should read my own posts every now and then). I've added the project to my Ravelry page and I'm keeping the pattern notes there so I can make sure the second one matches the first. The fit is really tailored so I don't think I'll be adding this to my patterns page unless there is request for it. I'm finally on the gusset stitches for the first of the pair and so far I'm pleased with the way the colors are working up. the color repeats are short enough that I'm not getting striping or funky pooling of the color, but I don't know what would happen if I tried to use the Koigu KPPPM for something with more stitches cast on than the 84 I started with. Maybe I'll have opportunity to find out soon. I picked up the book Knit So Fine and I've been reading about the many benefits of working with "fine yarns" or yarn that works up thinner than worsted weight. Lately I've been using a lot of fine yarn and working with small needles so it doesn't feel funny for my to do so. I've just never tried to knit a full sized garment with anything finer than worsted. Anyway, after reading all about how much easier it is to customize fit and how much more refined the finished garment looks, I'll be thinking seriously about giving it a try.