I May Have Snapped

And I blame the brown sweater. It was just so much brown ... nonstop, unrelenting, from start to 2/3-finish, brown.

I was compelled to cast on something that could be the opposite of the perpetual brown.


This ...  is so not brown.

This is also not something I would not normally knit with, but back when I was first starting out, I bought a lot of novelty yarn and Red Heart. This is one of the skeins of fun fur I've had for six years. It's been in the bin with the other acrylics, giggling maniacally, waiting its turn.

This is meant to be a child's hat. We'll see if I actually finish it or not ... mostly, I just needed to knit something that wasn't sedate brown cables (I'm starting the sleeves tonight, by the way).



The other test-my-patience chore was turning this:

(Textured bedroom ceiling falling down in spots, cracking, generally looking like crap)

Into this (Paint is not yet dry ... it's smooth and uniform now).




It was an awful chore. My friend S. ('Slick' from my other shared blog, ThreeFriendsFitness) came over and helped me scrape the old ceiling. Here are some in-between, on-the-way shots:

It was Not Fun.


It was a literal pain in the neck, and my hands hurt for hours afterwards.

Water damage. I've had the roof redone, but the water damage was from previous (lazy uncaring stupid sitonassesallthetime) owners, who let things remain in a state of disrepair.

The mess from scraping the textured ceiling was horrendous. It left this behind...

This is a tiny sample of the amount of debris. I estimate 45 pounds of plaster was scraped off and swept up. There is dust all over the house. I don't think I'll ever get it all up! (Note the heating pad. Very necessary the night after the scraping)





And the worst of it (for me) was having everything out of place for two days. This is a 1,000 sq foot rowhouse, and there just isn't a lot of room to maneuver if things are out of place.

This clutter drove me crazy. It made my doggie anxious (not hard to do, she is very paranoid and neurotic) and my cats curious and I couldn't wait to get it all back in place again. I'm far from being a neat freak, but I really don't like the disarray that comes with big projects.




This drove me crazy too:

The drop clothes caught about 2/3 of the debris. We picked them up, shuffled them around so all the dust and debris was in the center, then scooped it into bags. I can't describe the dust ... I really can't. It was everywhere, light as air, coating everything. I had it in my eyes (I couldn't find my eye protection, but I suspect it wouldn't have mattered .. the dust was that fine).




But it's over. It took all weekend. The final product is so-so ... I got paint on the walls, and I don't remember what color paint, or brand, I used, but I need to touch it up. Perhaps I can just go browse the paint chips at Lowe's and Home Depot and maybe a familiar name will jump out.

While S. and I were working away, scraping over our heads and sweeping and vacuuming and painting over our heads ... Momma Girl and Coraline spend a pleasant day basking in the sun on my car roof.




Oh, to be a cat.