I paid them $250 and they gave me a pen...

Yes, my car is back from the shop. We'll all do a short jig of eternal joy. I was at the shop like 10 minutes after they called. It looks so pretty, it almost brought tears to my eyes. They even cleaned the inside and left me a fancy pen all wrapped up in a box in my cupholder. Now, hopefully the weather will cooperate tomorrow and I can drive with the top down. Yippee.

Good news on the "must use yarn in my stash regime" where I'm on self-exile. We have a match! The cabled sweater pattern I bought at Stitches from Blackwater Abbey yarns works with the tweedy yarn I ordered from elann.com last year. I have no idea what I was doing ordering it. I don't even think I had a pattern in mind when I ordered it... Stupid Gwen... But, it's a pretty yarn and now it has a purpose. Hurrah!! I think I'll work on a guage swatch this weekend. It will be the perfect winter sweater. Starting the sweater may mean that I'm going to have to exchange my lunch reading time for lunch knitting time in order to complete projects. My christmas knitting list is more challenging this year as I have been on a more difficult pattern type kit. Yes, I'm starting obsessively early. I know about my propensity to procrastinate and I had two choices-make the list realistic or start early. I'm still probably deluding myself, but we'll see. On the bright side, knitting could get me outside. We have a little block park stuffed inbetween several buildings and our parking garage with benches. I could knit there. See the justification working already???

So, I came to the final conclusion to move. My lease is up at the end of October, but my apartment complex is already on me to renew, so I knew I had to make a decision. In fact, I got the letter that said I needed to give them 30 days notice (which would be Sept 30th for me) and notify them immediately (which would be more than 30 days???). This place is pushy I tell you. Moving is a huge pain, but my rent went up $100 last year and would go up $55 more this year (for the record 18.5% last year and another 8.6% this year). My salary doesn't increase that fast, I don't know about you. Besides which I work downtown and it takes me 15-20 minutes to get to a highway (stupid high school...) in the mornings and, even worse, I don't have a patio or balcony. Which bugs me. I want to BBQ. Before I moved 75% of what I cooked was BBQed outside. What was I thinking when I found this place... So, I found a place that has all the amenities I want. It's actually less money than I'm paying now. Closer to the highway with a balcony/patio and possibly a fireplace. So, what's the problem you're asking??? I don't move for 2 more months. I'm ready to go now. Worse, I have no desire whatsoever to clean my apartment since I know that I'm moving. What's the problem you ask??? I have yarn everywhere. I usually keep it contained, but it's on the kitchen table, quilt rack, hanging on hangers on the ironing board, on my dresser, on the table in my family room, on the end table, stuffed in the bookshelves (when did that happen??) I have books everywhere too. They used to be neatly put away in the book cases which now seem to be stuffed with yarn leaving no place for the books. I think this weekend is going to be a major cleanup operation.