As stated before, I like to crochet. I’ve been doing it for years. That doesn’t mean I am good at it. It just means I like it. Because I can’t really read the patterns, I am limited with what I can make. Basically I am only talented enough to make baby booties, baby hats, adult hats/scarves. So yes, everyone I know owns a set. (Hey, they make great gifts).

I may have also mentioned that The King and I are going on our own European Vacation over Thanksgiving. We successfully talked our friends, The Most Beautiful Couple We Know into going with us. It’s a short trip (just 10 days). Because it’s so short we can’t visit too many places. As it stands right now, it looks like we’ll start in Berlin (as The King used to live there and is fluent in German) and then head to Paris (because you have to see Paris and I know our friends will just love it there). After a few days we’ll split up and The King and I will go back to Berlin (because, hello, he loves it there) and The Most Beautiful Couple We Know will go to Spain for another week (because the husband is fluent in Spanish and they are really worried about going anywhere and not knowing the language).

You may ask, “what does this have to do with crocheting, Isabel?” Don’t worry, I’m getting to it.

We have some friends that live in Berlin. The King has known the wife since she was about 12. We seriously just ran into them on our first trip to Berlin in 2003, and the wife recognized The King from her childhood. (That is an awesome story and I’ll tell you about it one day.)

We keep in contact with them and even met them in San Francisco last April when they were in American touring around. They are super cool. It also helps that they both speak perfect English so that I can be included in the conversations. Because just because The King is fluent in German, I only know about 30 words. None of which are going to help me in life.

The King and I wanted to take our friends something special for when we see them in a few weeks. Andreas mentioned when we saw them in April that he would love an iPod but they are just too much money in Europe. We’re thinking of taking him a little iPod shuffle.

Sarah on the other hand is harder to shop for. The King decided I should crochet her a hat and scarf. Thus began the hunt for the perfect yarn. He wanted it to be made out of something extra soft and just the perfect color to match her gorgeous blond hair. Thank goodness we finally found the yarn a few weeks ago.

See, I told you this story would go back to crocheting. You just have to stick with me.

So there is the picture of the hat and scarf I made for Sarah. I love the green color. Oh, and I tried to lay the hat so you could tell that the ball on top is loose. For some reason The King likes them to dangle. I think it turned out pretty cute. I’ve even started a nice gray one for Andreas. We’ll see if I can get that done in between working and packing (remember, we’re moving out of our house this weekend.)

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When we got the camera out last night to take the picture to share with the Internet, The King said “do you want to take a picture of me naked? I am sure Toot would love to see it!”

I said “It’s Miss ZOOT, and no, she doesn’t want to see it.”

She doesn’t.

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UPDATE:

You have just got to visit ReDinkyDink’s blog and see the pictures of the adorable dresses her Mom has crocheted for her unborn baby (I love the beads in edges, how does she do that?) and the blanket she has been making since she found out she was pregnant this summer.

We got an offer on our house last night. A nice single guy looked at it on Friday and put his offer in last night. He offered more than we were asking and even had an escalation clause up to 20k more!! Even though we won’t be able to get that extra money, it’s really nice to know that he is willing to pay that much. That means he loves the house. Maybe not as much as I do. But he’ll grow to love it.

The King faxed me the contract today and I signed it. Now I just need to fax it off to the real estate agent. We have until November 8th to move out. That means we have to find a place to live until our new house is built. The new house that hasn’t even been started on yet. And I’ve told you that we can only afford a small one bedrooms apartment, right? Since we’ll be paying rent and the full mortgage on the house (that we’re planning on tearing down), plus the money to build the new house.

Basically what I am saying is that our baby is going to sleeping in a drawer. And liking it. And we have no idea how long we’ll be in the apartment. The house we just sold took 3 years to finish. I can’t handle that again.

My heart is torn. I know that we need to sell the house. That was always our plan. It was an investment. And it turned out to be a really good investment. But I am still attached to it. I mean, we built it. We have spent most of our marriage working on this house. Blood, sweat, and tears baby. Seriously.

How do people deal with selling their homes?? Any advice on how to stop my heart from hurting and my stomach from being nauseous?
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And we have this little trip to Europe over Thanksgiving to plan. As it looks now, we will probably spend most of the time in Germany. That works for me since The King speaks the language. The husband of the couple we are going with speaks Spanish, so they’ll stick around a few more days than us and tour around Spain (they are afraid of going to a place where they don’t speak the language). I am getting more and more excited for the trip. And less and less excited about packing my backpack around Europe with a pregnant belly!

We put our house on the market a few weeks ago. Since we need all the money we can get out of it to build the next house, we decided to sell it by owner. (I mean, do you know how much it costs to use an agent?!) Needless to say, it’s a slower process and a harder one. We aren’t in a hurry, so we aren’t really worried (at this point). It’s not like we have someplace else just waiting for us to move into. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. We have no place to move into. (That’s a whole other topic that we can talk about later).

Yesterday The King paid something like $500 and listed our house with the MLS. That is the end all be all of homes for sale in your area. Usually one of the advantages of using a real estate agent is that they can list on the MLS (and regular people can’t). The King found a company that will list it for you for a small fee. As of yesterday, our house is listed.

We also got one of those snazy key boxes that allow any agent to come to our house at any time to take potential buyers through. This means that the house has to be ready to be shown at all times.

I can’t handle that kind of pressure. I am too busy being tired and trying to have a life and work and play and hang out with my Mom this weekend.

When I left to catch the bus this morning I reminded The King (who was still in bed) to hide my pajamas behind my pillow when/if he makes the bed. I would hate for my dirty PJ’s and bra to be laying on the bed. I’m thinking that is NOT a selling point.
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Oh, and did I mention that The King and I are in the process of planning our Thanksgiving trip. See, we never stick around for Thanksgiving. That way we don’t have to choose whose family to spend it with. We also like to leave the County. Mostly because nobody leaves the County for Thanksgiving. So, prices are usually cheaper.

We are trying to talk the most beautiful couple we know into joining us. They are some good friends from my hometown. We have vacationed with them a few times and it’s been really fun. Hopefully we can pressure them into coming with us this time. We just need to decide where to go. Do we want a “beach vacation” or a “European vacation” Any suggestions of a fun/cheap place to go for a week?

As it stands, The King bought plane tickets to Berlin for that week. Once we get to Berlin we can fly anywhere in Europe for pretty cheap. Last year we flew from Berlin to Paris for like 8 Euros. Seriously.

We have until Sunday to cancel the tickets.

I hope the baby likes to travel.

I am sure you have all heard the news about Amalah and Jason! Holy crap, this is exciting. And also weird that I can get so excited about people I don’t even know.

As I stated yesterday, I recently started to take the bus to work 3 days a week. Today I realized that I could devote my entire blog to the happenings that I witness while enjoying my time on the King County Metro buses. Just yesterday afternoon I was sitting by a group of people, who didn’t know each other. There I was, minding my own business reading my book, when they all started trying to help this one man find his correct stop. At first I was like “man, these people are really nice to help this man out! I love Seattle!”. Then I realized the man had just gotten out of jail and he was trying to find the storage place for the King County Jails to pick up his belongings. Okay, that’s cool; he did his time. So, after the guy finds his stop and gets off the bus the rest of the people start talking to each other. Every one of them started a sentence with “well, when I got out of jail, I had to…”.

STOP! Who are you people and what are you doing on my commuter bus that goes right in front of my house?

To be fair, they all looked like decent members of society, so that’s cool. And like I said before, they were being very helpful to a complete stranger.

I guess I should tell you that my bus has this one specific stop. It’s right before we get into downtown and it’s at a methadone clinic. Needless to say, it’s always exciting to see who will get on the bus at that stop. Today; it was two semi-normal guys who were talking about their forays into drugs. I heard things like “yeah, I don’t really remember those couple of years” and “I don’t like people to see me shower because of my gun and knife wounds”.

Again to be fair, they seem to be getting their lives back in order. So, that’s cool. And it’s a good way to start my day. It reminds me that I am blessed and am truly thankful for the things in my life.
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Oh, The King and I are going to yet another ultrasound today. I am now 13 weeks (or will be tomorrow). This ultrasound is called the “Full Integrated Prenatal Risk Profile” and will help the doctors determine if there are any problems with our baby. I think it sounds a little scary.

I couldn’t remember if my doctor told me it would be an internal or external ultrasound. Either way, I shaved my legs for it this morning.
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We are having an open house for our house this weekend. Both on Saturday AND Sunday. I guess I’ll spend tonight and tomorrow morning getting it all cleaned up. Maybe we’ll sell the house this weekend. My Mom is coming out next weekend, and I am very excited to show her our house…finished. She is probably the #1 person who has hounded us about finishing it, so I want to show it off a little.
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And, “The O.C.” last night? Seriously, I may have to stop watching this show. Too much drama. I can’t figure out, is Ryan Marissa’s boyfriend or her Dad? There is no chemistry between those two. And I need to believe that Seth and Summer are in love-let’s have more hand holding and kissing. Please. (if you didn’t already know it…I am a complete moron!)

It’s official. We have a “For Sale By Owner” sign on our house. The King put it out on Sunday afternoon. He asked me to come and stand by him while he did it. He needed a little support. I understand, because I needed him to.

I’m torn. On one hand we always knew we would sell this house. We designed it so that it would be the type of house people would want to buy. All the fixtures and appliances were chosen to match the general public tastes. We knew this was coming. Then why was it so hard to put the sign out?

I’ve said it before but I never know if people understand me when I say that The King and I built our house. The King designed it, his Dad (the engineer) made it “build-able”. We formed and poured the foundation, which was the most horrible part and took us way too long (and didn’t save us money in the long run). The King did the plumbing, the electrical, we laid the wood floors and stained them (twice, because the first time just wasn’t enough). Okay, we paid someone to do the drywall, but only because we wanted a specific type of finish that we couldn’t do. We installed all the appliances. Oh, and we even built a 2+ car garage to boot.

Since we had been living in a 200 square foot studio apartment (and sleeping in a twin size bed) for two years while we built the house in all of our spare time, we moved into the house as soon as the toilets flushed. This means the finish work wasn’t completed. We didn’t have any trim, doors, the bar wasn’t done and neither was the master bathroom. We vowed we would finish the house as soon as we could. We weren’t going to be those type of people that lived in a house that wasn’t done.

I am not kidding when I tell you that I spent the better part of our first year in the house painting the railing. The entire second floor has a railing around it that extends down the stairs. It took me a long time. A very long time. I loath the very pretty, pretty railing.

I have spent the better part of this last year painting the wood for the trim. Look around your house. Notice all the trim you have. Now try to imagine spending time in your garage painting 3 coats of paint on every single piece of your trim. I can paint trim in my sleep. Sometimes I feel like I do.

The King has spent the last 2 months very busy inside the house while I am busy outside (in the very well ventilated garage) painting trim. He finished the bar (it took less than 20 minutes and should have been done 2 years ago), made and installed the door for our miniature coat closet, totally finished the master bathroom, finished the tile for the kitchen backsplash, trimmed out the glass block window, hung all the trim that I have painted, and hung all the pocket doors throughout the house. The in-laws even came over and helped last week. They finished building the fence in the backyard.

Do you know what this all means? It means that after tonight (I have one little spot to touch up and The King has to hang the last of the trim in the office) THE HOUSE WILL BE DONE. It looks amazing, amazing, amazing. I have never felt this amount of pleasure after completing a project. I just look around the house and think of all the Saturday mornings when The King made me go to the house to work, all the Holidays we gave up, all the vacations we missed, all the dinners with friends we had to pass on. All of it was worth it. We have a beautiful home.

A home that we are going to sell (disregard that we plan to make double what we put into it). Someone else is going to bring their baby home from the hospital to this house. They will send their kids off to their first day of school from our surprisingly clean front porch. It will be someone else that spends their summers trying to keep the grass in as perfect shape as The King did.

While someone else lives in our house, we will be living in an apartment (local still to be determined) while we do it all again. And this time, instead of starting from scratch-we are going to tear the house we bought last year completely down and build a new house in it’s place. Only to sell that one also. I think we’ve started a trend.

**Oh, I will not mention the Christmas bubble light I accidentally broke on the wood floor right inside the front door last night. Do you know those things are filled with some sort of acid? Acid that burns into the wood floors in about .03 seconds and leaves a very horrible and bright orange mark that is etched in the wood. Well it does. Believe it or not, The King was able to get it out by putting more acid on it. He fixed it all in under an hour. While I sat on the stairs and cried (but I never stopped painting). He is my hero. The man can do and fix anything.**

**Oh, and did I mention we had a doctor’s appointment yesterday? I am officially 11 weeks and 4 days along. We heard the heartbeat and I was able to let out the breath that I had been holding since our last appointment. The doctor also told me I can stop taking the horrible, horrible progesterone pills from Hell this week. Am very happy.**

As you may, or may not know The King and I are trying desperately to finish up the house we live in so that we can sale it (and start construction on a new house). We are hoping to have an Open House this Saturday and sale it as soon as possible. Because of all of this, The King and I have been working like mad around the house. Trying to finish projects that (honestly) should have been finished years ago. Things like trim (ever notice how much trim you have around your house??), and DOORS, and even tile in the master bathroom.

Well last night my in-laws came over to help us out a little. And my Mother in Law (MiL)even cooked us dinner. At my house. She is such a good cook, so it was so good. My Father in Law (FiL) trimmed out the beam going up the stairs, which turned out looking very nice. And also leaving a thin coat of dust throughout the entire house. My MiL helped me paint the doors that will go over the coat closet and also helped The King put paper over the glass for the pocket doors in the master bathroom. Along with making dinner, cleaning up, and doing the dishes. And they don’t even know I’m pregnant. So it wasn’t like she was helping out her poor pregnant daughter in law. They are just this way.

Did I mention that my MiL also helps The Kings sister out every day with her newborn twins. She is incredible and just so full of love.

When I thanked my FiL for helping us last night, he said, “I love doing it!”. He said it with a smile on his face. And I believe he does love it. Not the work, so much, but helping us.

See, I married into a magnificent family.