more househunting
Aug. 14th, 2005 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabin other news, we're making another offer on another house... high end of our price range, but very, VERY good condition, excellent location, has pretty much everything we need, although a bit small. Has a carport. Has a covered terrace as well as a deck. Has an above-ground swimming pool, which we don't need. The family was home while we looked at it, and we spoke directly to them - usually a real-estate no-no, but in this case, we felt like before making an offer, we might just as well discuss what the disadvantages of our contingency would be, and ask whether there was even a faint chance they could live with that - why do all the paperwork if they said no?
Thursday I drove up to my sister Steph's house, just north of Philadelphia. It's about a 2-hour drive from here, not counting stopping for gas and other liquid issues. Tolls are $9 each way. Mitigating the toll cost is the fact that the car got nearly 30 mpg on the highway, instead of the 24 it had more usually been getting lately. I didn't take the bike - a small street bike with no windshield or faring, not ideally equipped for travelling on the interstate at 70-80 mph to begin with, and especially not on roads I had never been on before, so I had no foreknowledge of their state of repair or disrepair, ongoing construction, or other material road quality issues.
Anyway, I carried some yarn and needles up there, to expand my niece Hanna and nephew Ian's knitting repertoire. Even Julie, who is almost 5, was somewhat interested. (Brenna is 2, and must be diligently kept AWAY from other people's yarn and needles...) Ian is actually more into weaving than knitting now, and as it happens I do that also (I own a couple of rigid heddle looms, and two tabletop 4-harness looms, one of them an antique) so next time I go up there, I may bring along some of my weaving. I was able to help him out with a couple of questions about warp thread. Meanwhile, for Hanna, I went over the basics of pattern reading, refresher course on doing the purl stitch, and then how to do ribbing. We did some initial discussions of calculating changes in gauge and how to determine how much to cast on for making hats without a pattern. She picks stuff up fairly quickly. Steph is expecting another in December; if we have a house before Thanksgiving, I'd tentatively like to do Thanksgiving at our place, so she doesn't have to do all that work. We'll see. With so many people now in this area, family holidays could get crowded! My folks have had a nibble at their house in Maine, so they may well be down here in Delaware by winter, if the nibble turns into a bite.
Newest niece, Anika, born to my brother J and his wife B, in Oakland, CA. Cute, from the pictures. Have crocheted hat finished, must go finish more stuff. (That's niece/nephew number 34, for those who are counting!)
Thursday I drove up to my sister Steph's house, just north of Philadelphia. It's about a 2-hour drive from here, not counting stopping for gas and other liquid issues. Tolls are $9 each way. Mitigating the toll cost is the fact that the car got nearly 30 mpg on the highway, instead of the 24 it had more usually been getting lately. I didn't take the bike - a small street bike with no windshield or faring, not ideally equipped for travelling on the interstate at 70-80 mph to begin with, and especially not on roads I had never been on before, so I had no foreknowledge of their state of repair or disrepair, ongoing construction, or other material road quality issues.
Anyway, I carried some yarn and needles up there, to expand my niece Hanna and nephew Ian's knitting repertoire. Even Julie, who is almost 5, was somewhat interested. (Brenna is 2, and must be diligently kept AWAY from other people's yarn and needles...) Ian is actually more into weaving than knitting now, and as it happens I do that also (I own a couple of rigid heddle looms, and two tabletop 4-harness looms, one of them an antique) so next time I go up there, I may bring along some of my weaving. I was able to help him out with a couple of questions about warp thread. Meanwhile, for Hanna, I went over the basics of pattern reading, refresher course on doing the purl stitch, and then how to do ribbing. We did some initial discussions of calculating changes in gauge and how to determine how much to cast on for making hats without a pattern. She picks stuff up fairly quickly. Steph is expecting another in December; if we have a house before Thanksgiving, I'd tentatively like to do Thanksgiving at our place, so she doesn't have to do all that work. We'll see. With so many people now in this area, family holidays could get crowded! My folks have had a nibble at their house in Maine, so they may well be down here in Delaware by winter, if the nibble turns into a bite.
Newest niece, Anika, born to my brother J and his wife B, in Oakland, CA. Cute, from the pictures. Have crocheted hat finished, must go finish more stuff. (That's niece/nephew number 34, for those who are counting!)
