I went away...and came back

For a bit... After school ended I took Chris to a day camp with his school where they had a nice outing every day... Then I took out a week of vacation to take him to the lake Balaton to my father's summerhouse but because of the awful weather we only got there on Thursday (and the weather didn't improved even then). The early part of the week we spent at my fathers house, in the city I was born in. We managed a visit to my aunt, and I showed Chris the houses my grandparents lived. We've also passed the church I was christened (at least according to my godmother... that was in the height of the communist times, and my father was an air force officer, so t had to be done in secret, and according to the family legend I had to be stolen out of the house) and the playground we played so much while visiting the grandparents.

The rain started to fall and we went into a cafe, and from there I called Jenny:
"Hi there... It is wednesday and I am sitting a California Cafe, and I am knitting"
" Oh dear I am late, but I am on my way...so you didn't went away..."
"The one problem that this California Cafe is in an other city..."

We also went to the Balaton for the second half of the week, but the weather stayed awful so there was no going into the water... except for two times in the week. Once we went into the thermal bath about 50 km from the city my father lives, where there was a wave pool, huge slides and all that. The second time by the Balaton there is an other place which is more for swimming than entertaining. The first place I did 1600 meter, in the secon 2000 which is not bad considering I haven't swam in more than a year...

As for knitting I took an ample supply of WIPs with me, but I spent most of my time knitting the Icarus shawl I started a day before we left from the yarn Teal sent me as a part of a "yarn therapy" ...

Getting back, saying goodbye to Jenny and leaving Chris with his father was hard and sad...
At work I came back to the announcement that GE finally decided on the faith of the program I work for, and though the scope and the number of projects was cut down drastically, all the people working here is staying, even if they have to move withing the organization.
As for me, I am staying where I was and luckily my project is the biggest and most important in the program, and from now on I will be organizationally where I am actually working.
My sorrow that I will loose the bosses I love and admire. The woman who already was my manager in the call center and the man who made the decision employing me here. (He was the one who wanted to learn to knit, remember?). Both of them liked me for some reason, helped me a great deal, and stood behind me even when things were not all that great. I am deeply sorry to "loose" them as a close work colleagues. I will have to see about the new boss. From what I hear she is strict and demanding but absolutely correct. My first few "contact" with her was positive, so I am hopeful in that front too.

Hopefully next time I can give you more crafty things along with pictures.

Hey Red!

I could write down the story how buying a red skirt resulted in me buying a pair of red shoes, that resulted me buying a black skirt that made me think: "hmm a nice red cardi would finish this outfit of", but I spare you the details... those who know me, also knows how my mind works when it comes to clothes and outfits, those who don't would be bored by it...
It is enough that the red cardi ended up being knitted... started out as a really fast knit, but due to the recent reorganization project in my flat it dragged out much longer than I anticipated...
I guess I don't have to say how I love this pattern, since this is the second time I knitted it (and very easily not the last). The yarn came from the turkish comepany, ICE yans, so soft, especially considering it IS cotton after all. I also love the color, but boy, it is the splittiest yarn ever! Needles are 4.00 mm bamboo, and 3.5 addi circs for the button band and the neckline.

WWKIP day

I love this day, and last year I was so hopeful, and over the winter it did looked like we managed to pull a small group toogether, but it is diminishing so fast... Dinara dissapeared... Kriszta is coming ever so rarely, Jenny is moving back to England in a couple of weeks, Natalia is going at the end of the summer... Soon i will be back where I started, knitting alone at home...But today was the World Wilde Knit In Public Day and however small our group is we still got toogether and went out to knit... Pictures are -as usual by now- shot by Christopher. In the cafe:

Since we had kids with us, when the wind seemed to subside we moved to the playground...(Picture by Kriszta)

And me knitting and talking at the same time... And yes I can knit without looking at it...But I've been knitting for.....shall I say it out loud...more than 35 years.

More pics at the Club's blog, link at the right side...

Before and after...

It is not ready...it will never be ready, at least not for a long, long time, but for now here is a bit of an update, a couple of before and after pictures...

Chris's room before:

And after... The bed is at the left side of the pic, you can't see it, because I tried to take the same angle...

The living room before:

After some furniture has been moved but chaos still reigned:

And after:

Still so much to be done, like putting toogether the wardrobe cabinet I bought almost a year ago, or putting up lots of shelves (which involves the almost inpossible task of drilling holes into these cement walls)...And then long term, wallpapers, floors need to be changed, I need a writing desk (what is there now is two office meeting table), a bed (between me and the sprongs there is only the sheets some places) and so on... but for now I think I could rest a bit...

I can still...

KNIT!!! Even make up something from the top of my head... I was struggling with my latest projects, the tangled yoke was a major frogfest, and so is the current, orange wrap cardi... and there came a point when I needed to proove (to myself) that my knitting mojo is not entirely gone...
So diving into my stash and retrieveing four balls of a totally unknown yarn I knitted up...this

I know, it is just an other racerback tank top...with some lacy bits and crocheted picot edge.

Yarn came from the so famous second hand store, called Pellana Top Print, 125 m/50gram balls. I used less that four balls, knitted on 3.5mm needles.

A note from India

I might mentioned that I've spent the last three weeks in a workshop where I was translating for the people from the contractor company who came from India. At the last day I received this message from their leader:

Dear Agnes, Veronika
With the workshop drawing to a close, the OFSS team would like to thank you for all the help provided by Anett during the sessions in translating important conversations into English thereby enabling us to be a part of the dialogues. It was a great effort on her part in perfectly understanding the context of the discussions and relaying it on to us.

Thank you once again Anett, Agnes, Veronika..

Warm regards,
Ganesh

Agnes is the project leader and Veronika is the integrator who was leading these workshops. So my three weeks of hard concentration (understanding what they are talking about in my mother tongue) and giving up the planned vacation days was worth it.

I survived

the weekend. The tale of de-cluttering was left where we started to move furniture around, but couldn't even move much because of P.'s stuff here. On Monday I had a breakdown... Probably because I was so high with all that was going on or who knows, but I was sitting here in the middle of the living room on top of some boxes and cried that this is never going to end, that all my summer will go with this, how could I let this happen, etc...My poor son didn't really understand. But then I got myself together, did an other day of translation...but then I really managed to get myself worked up enough to do something about it.
First I contacted the ex colleague I knew had a Ford Transit-it turned out the file cabinet didn't fit.
Second I contacted the mother of a classmate of Chris, I knew her hubby drives a truck.- They would have loved to help me, two weeks from now.
NOT good, once I set my mind to something I want it now...
An other friend sent me three phone numbers.
I just didn't like the voice that answered the first one.
The second one was asking an extra-orbitant amount.
The third one sounded great, professional, asked a normal amount, but they could only come at 5.30 Saturday... well I am so not an early riser, but for this.....Friday I was up until 2 AM preparing the stuff to take away. Went to sleep and got up at 4.15 to start taking everything out to haste the process. Te guys were there at 5.20, they took everything I prepared (never even made a face because there was a lot more boxes than I originally planned. Unfortunately because it was too early I couldn't get in the basement so (the other) his bike and the satellite dish stayed...
Kim was right about the secret and the visualization... Just after she mentioned it, I got the email with the phone number of the movers and everything went great... It DOES work, so I would have to do more of this...
We arrived to PJ at 6.40, found the perfect parking space, and started to take up the things. You just should have seen the look in his face when he looked in the car and saw how many things I packed up for him (heheheheeeeeeeeee... )... Chris was sleeping at his fathers, so I took him, we had a breakfast at McD, went shopping to the market for fruit, then went home to continue. I moved the sofa and the two small shelves... Sunday I started to take down all the books on the shelves (which were also to be moved), dust and clean up everything as I went along.
Only stopped while I took Chris to the movies. i promised him long ago, if he brings home the sufficient amount of red hearts (it is how they evaluate their days in school I will take him, besides it was international Children's day, but there was rain so an outside program wouldn't be feasible. We saw the 3D version of Fly me to the moon, which was great fun, I enjoyed it tremendously. (Much more than Happy feet, or Horton).
After that I continued the thing at home until 1 AM. Monday I was up at 7AM, my father and his wife came around 10 and we moved all the furniture around... Things are crazy now, because everything in boxes, now and in heaps, all I started to put Chris stuff in the cabinets/shelves we've put in his room. Every furniture in its place now, we even put together a kind of corner table for me from two old office(meeting) table(desk). I still have no idea how am I going to fit so many things into so much less space...
In the meanwhile they brought LOTS of cherries, and the wife put them into bottles and I made up a syrup (after 11 PM). I have no idea where will I put those either...
Now I would really need two or so days off, but there is so much work in the bank. Finishing the workshops there are tons of documents to translate which I am absolutely happy about.