I’m still here, still spinning. No pictures of the yarn, thought is is bright white.

I’m working on Anna’s fleece, first mentioned in this post . It’s a nice, bright white yarn with good luster. I’m really enjoying the fiber. The spinning is going well, I simply am not spending enough time spinning.

Sorry, no pictures of the fleece.

But I do have these pictures taken from the back yard. I was out pulling weeds when look what drifted by overhead.

We took to calling the last House Finch nestling Lonely because he or she sat there all alone for two days before flying off.

The next is now empty and hit has been removed from atop the pillar on the porch.

We think Lonely had a lot more than just siblings hanging around. One day while Lonely was alone in the nest, I counted twenty House Finches in the area. Today, I saw one bird that I think was a house finch. I think everybody was hanging around waiting for Lonely to fly.

In other news, Anna got her picture in this blog post. She was always a sweet animal for us and I’m glad she’s still being sweet for her new owners.

In fiber news, there has been spinning – not much and no pictures, but a bobbin is getting full of fairly fine singles.

All the other nestlings have flown. I suspect by the end of the day, our nest will be empty.

Our new house has these columns by the front door. We’re not really column people, but they came with the house.

The day after we moved in, Pam told me there was a bird’s nest over one of the columns and she thought we should take it down. I love birds and I love bird’s nests, but I’m not really fond of having baby birds right over the front door. I agreed.

I took the step stool and went to get the nest down. Instead of reaching for it to remove it, I decided to look inside. The stool wasn’t tall enough. I couldn’t see anything.

I went in the bathroom and got a mirror. Returning to the nest, I climbed up the ladder and held the mirror up to look inside.

Four fluffy nestlings.

Of course, it has taken a few days to unpack the camera, and it took time to get a really good picture of the nestlings. They’re larger now than they are in these pictures taken yesterday, and they’re much larger in the pictures than when I first saw them.

These are young House Finches. Despite my initial estimate of four nestlings when I first looked in the nest with the mirror, there are five. Both parents are tending them, but the mother tends to spend more time at the nest.

Today, one of the nestlings was standing on the edge of the nest, furiously flapping it’s wings. I guess it will be a few more days before I can remove the nest.

I’m back among the blogging.

Some people don’t write well when they’re stressed. Some don’t write well when they’re busy. Some can’t write and craft at the same time.

Put me down as all of the above.

Stress:
The principle stress is a new house. Yes, we really have been working on this new house SINCE MARCH! I wanted to talk about this house, to write about this house, to blog about this house. Yet, I didn’t want to blog about the house until I knew it would happen – and I wasn’t really confident everything would fall into place until I actually walked into the office for the signing. This house almost didn’t happen in so many different ways. This is easily the longest, most difficult, and most stressful home-buying process I have ever been through.

I couldn’t really allow myself to get excited about the house – I was very excited yet I couldn’t allow myself to be excited. I’d show my excitement and then remind myself I didn’t dare get excited. Planning for a new home is hard enough when you have excitement to carry you. Planning when you don’t dare get excited is ten times harder and a hundred times more stressful. I found it incredibly hard to plan for an event I really didn’t think would happen. At the same time, if I didn’t plan, that would guarantee it didn’t happen.

Simply putting everything together to make the house happen was hard. It seems like nothing was easy and nothing went smoothly. Finding the house was difficult. Negotiating the price was hard – we almost walked away – twice. Getting the required repairs agreed to and completed was hard – although I probably stressed more than necessary in this regard. I don’t think I’ve ever gone through so much paperwork for a mortgage … Really, I didn’t believe it would happen and I couldn’t get excited until we walked into that office for the signing.

I don’t think I realized just how much stress the house was putting on me until I spent the first night under my new roof.

Busy:
Let’s see. Why have I been busy? Shall I start with the day job where the new project is way behind and in the busy part of the cycle? What about all the pieces that have to be put together to make a home purchase work? What about moving? I could continue …

I don’t know how many times I interrupted my day job for an hour to talk to a mortgage broker or real estate agent or sign some papers – and somehow the hour took two or three or more – and I ended up working late into the evening to make up the hours. It’s the boon – and bane – of telecommuting.

Crafting:
Through all this, I have been crafting. I’ve been working on spinning Anna’s fleece. I have made many crocheted flowers – to the delight of stampers and scrappers trading raks with my wife – and I sat down with Pam to make 200 cards for heroes on Memorial Day weekend. I don’t think she’ll ever make a stamper out of me, but I will sit down and enjoy making cards with her from time to time.

While I’ve been busy, stressed, and crafting, life has gone on:
Georgia has a new cria, but she’s sadly blogless.
June has a human cria new baby.
Anna hasn’t had a cria, but she has a new cria in her pasture.
I’ve lost track of the Yarn Harlot, but I think she’s written three whole books since my last post …
Rise has a new (four-legged) cria
And the Knotty Girls have had all sorts of adventures – some of them involving lambs and llamas in the middle of the night.