Busy week...no pictures

I keep thinking I want to make sure to include pictures when I post, but if I wait till I get the gumption to process pictures, we could all be waiting a while, so here's a recap of the week sans pictures.

Birthday girl
That was me last Saturday, and it was a great party. In an unusual turn of events, everyone who said they would show up actually did and a person or two who hadn't said they would come showed up. It was a good mix of family, old Apple friends, cruise buddies, neighbors, business owners turned friends, and one high school chum. I will get to processing pictures...soon...I promise.

Tom's eastern North Carolina Barbeque-style was a hit. Most tried and liked the "traditional" sandwich by piling the coleslaw on top of the barbeque on the mini-buns made just for us by Market of Choice. The appetizers brought by friends, my Bill Neal shortcake with Oregon strawberries and, sweet tea (to complete the southern theme) and we all ate quite well.

What a great way to turn 50!

Move-in days
Monday we headed to IKEA to pick up a bed frame and dresser for my mom, then down to Wilsonville to wait for the guys from Take Care Move Assistance to arrive. Somehow we'd managed to fill the moving container in pretty short order, just the two of us, but we were very glad we hired Bill and his guy because to move the contents of the box from the loading area up three floors and down the hall 150 paces (Tom size...he counted) to my mom's new apartment. What took them 1 1/2 hours would surely have taken us the full day. And there was time left on the clock for them to build my mom's bed. Now you just cannot beat that.

We had decided that it was best to start her new apartment experience Tuesday morning so everyone was fresh. So we packed her clothes that we'd moved via Alaska Airlines baggage check and headed over, where even more clothes were waiting. Thanks to neighbor Laurie, we had enough hangers to accomodate without having to make a side trip to the Container Store. We made our first grocery store trip and inagurated the refrigerator. Tom built the dining table (chairs having been built on Monday) and the entertainment unit.

Wednesday the dresser was built, the new phone programmed, and the TV set up (except we couldn't find the remote), and my mom had spent her first night in Wilsonville. She seemed pretty spunky and on seeing her yesterday, she is settling in quite nicely. She's doing something she could never have done in Sun City West - walking Tootsie outside twice a day. We have lovely weather and her new pacemaker to thank for that, I think.

Miscellany
Lest you think I was slacking when we weren't hanging with my mom: I also managed four morning walks and a belated birthday lunch at Zeppo's in Lake Oswego; had printed 200 Columbia River Sewing Guild newsletters which I then (with a little help from my cool hubby) stapled, addressed, stamped and posted; located a long lost cousin to whom my mom wanted to send an address change; made and sent out the address change notices; and made and sent out thank you notes.

Baltic Blossoms
And I finally managed to get in some forward progress knitting on Saturday.

I started the border in early June when we were in AZ. I took out 6 rows of said border when we were in AZ. I thought was my first attempt at nupps but in researching a definition, I find that I must have knit them in Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail. At any rate, they were giving me fits (k1,YO,k1,YO,k1 into one stitch, purl 5 back). I didn't like the results so in my second (or maybe third) attempt I found that knitting into the front and back of the stitch for five stitches made it much easier to purl back. Still, after making unfixable mistakes, I ended up pulling out 16 rows of border (over 200 sts each) without winding the yarn as I went and then spending the ensuing day untangling the yarn. The next time(s?) I did it, I wound the yarn so resuming wasn't to difficult.

Saturday, with no distractions, and Sliding Doors (which I've seen many times) in the background, I whipped out 32 rows of the border without so much as a hitch. Go figure.

My projects for today are to get to the last set of border rows, and do laundry which I don't think I've been caught up on since March. Maybe this week.