In my previous post I promised to share some of our home upgrades we did. I also bring news from my Virginia trip.
Virginia
I left Nashville on Wednesday. I drove to about the halfway point, which is Abington, VA, and stopped for the night. I drove through torrential rain for about the last 100 miles in East Tennessee. It rained all night in Abington and through the first 100 miles on Thursday in southwest Virginia. By the time I got north of Roanoke it was behind me. I arrived at my hotel in Winchester and got settled in for the week. I went to do some grocery shopping.
Friday was set up day at the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival. too. It was lightly raining here by then but nothing too bad. I got a few pictures that show my new booth fixtures better than the tent ones from last weekend.
The weather on Saturday was quite nice, surprisingly, especially considering what was going on in the rest of the southeast. Nashville got about 5″ of rain but our home and family had no problems. I am grateful for that but my heart does break for the devastation to so much of the region . :-( Sunday was a little wet again but nothing problematic. The festival turnout was good and I believe the vendors mostly had good sales.
I have four days as a break here while I await traveling the short distance to Orange, Virginia on Friday for the Fall Fiber Festival. I am mostly hanging out at the hotel. I have sent out a few orders, done some knitting and reading, and a bit of book shopping on Monday.
Knitting
I know I said I was going to work on the Veritas Shawl, but that hasn’t happened yet. I was more in the mood to knit something simple, so I cast on a new pair of Hedgerow Socks. I made these before in 2009. Those were gifted, so these will be for me. I have picked out some yarn for new samples but since I haven’t wound or cast on for those yet, I’ll report when I do.
Home Upgrades
Finally, I want to share some of the lovely home improvements that we (mostly Jerry, to be fair) have done.
It started with this HVAC vent that Jerry installed in our main bathroom. We should have done this decades ago. When we bought this house in 1998, there was a crappy attempt to vent the heat and air to the bathroom under the vanity. It was a terrible idea. It wreaked havoc on the contents in the drawers. Jerry removed it and blocked off the hose. The bathroom was poorly ventilated though and would retain moisture. Finally he decided to try installing a proper vent in the floor. It has made a big improvement!
The next thing we did was to install a ceiling fan in our bedroom. Oh my! I love that thing! I no longer have to run my noisy little bedside fan. The next day we went out and bought four more fans to install in the den, second bedroom, my office and the kitchen. It is so nice to have air circulating throughout the house. We run them 24/7 on low and I turn the one over my bed up to medium or high at night.
While I was in Wisconsin, Jerry decided to tackle installing one in the living room. The only reason we weren’t initially planning to that is because it required installing a new box. The overhead in our living room is on the side of the room, over the dining area and we wanted the ceiling fan in the center where we sit. He did a wonderful job and now it looks like it was always there!
The final upgrade was in the kitchen. We built an island/work table and a small shelf near the stove. I had always been leery of this idea because, while I like the idea of more workspace, I feared it would clutter our somewhat small kitchen. This is the lovely thing that he came up with and I do love it! I am probably going to get some nice canisters and store my baking supplies on the bottom shelf. I am off to do some looking around to that end. See you again soon!