"Beskikk dit Hus"

I think nearly everything that could go wrong since last Thursday did. Our washing machine broke. With impeccable timing, E wet his bed three mornings in a row as a celebration of the fact that we had no washing machine. I did a terrible job teaching. I had a monumental case of PMS. I was stood up about three different times in different contexts, including the girl we hired to cover our week to clean E's preschool (yes, the parents have to do it all, from scrubbing toilets to emptying trash to vacuuming and washing about 120 square meters; yes the girl who agreed to do it blew us off on two of our three evenings). E was kind of on the warpath. KE had what seemed like dozens of extra activities scheduled, meaning I barely saw him. Our house just reached a new nadir of filth. And to top it all off, I had to dip into savings to make it through to my next paycheck, which thankfully arrived yesterday. I can't remember the last time I had to do that.

As of today, I'm slowly starting to impose some order on the chaos. I actually spent most of the day cleaning, which is a rarity. KE was a hero and, with the help of a neighbor, carted home our brand-spanking-new laundry facilities. With a huge sigh of relief, I present you with...my bathroom:

What is that strange creature on the left, you ask? Lo, it is a dryer. We haven't had one since leaving the US. I have been quite smug about not needing one, but I had to bite the bullet and admit that there's no way I can keep up with all the bedding and workout gear by air drying on two indoor drying racks. I feel like a sellout, but I also want to have a tidy house. And of course I don't have to use it for every load of wash.

Even better than these behemoths (well, almost) is what E did with some of the packaging:

Too cute.

Rarely can I say that I'm too stressed out to knit, but that was certainly the case this week. Normally I would have been done with the Riborama pullover by now, but I have barely made any progress at all. I've managed to finish one arm and get a few inches on the other. In the meantime, I've done a little experimenting with the Shetland yarn I bought in Denmark this summer. Five of the eight colors I bought looked really lovely together, but I couldn't get any of the other three to work into the combination, so I broke down and ordered another color online (BC Garn). Here's the result, which is the corrugated ribbing for an Ivy League Vest (Ravelry link here, non-Ravelry link here), which I'll probably add arms to:

I'm thinking that looks pretty good. I'm not going to agonize any more over it, and just go with what I have. It's the lightest, wheat-ish color in the middle that I just ordered.

Another good thing about this terrible week bears remembering: I exchanged WIPs with my friend L at work, and we had a really productive and exciting critique session yesterday morning. She had such amazingly insightful comments about my chapter on the Peer Gynt films. Since yesterday was the fifteenth of the month, I also did a page tally for the book, and I now have 110 (out of a projected 170) pages written! Granted much of that is rough, but still, I'm making decent progress. I was really anxious for L's feedback on this chapter so that I could get a sense of whether I'm on the right track with the book, or whether it's a big waste of time. She was enthusiastic about it, which gives me a lot of hope.

ETA: a link to one of the coolest studio apartments I've seen in a long time on Apartment Therapy. Here's the same place during an earlier decorating iteration. I think what I like is less the individual elements than just the idea of starting out life as a college kid in a place like that. I'd love to be able to set up E in a funky place of his own if/when he goes away to study (in about 12+ years...). Look at me, already living vicariously through my child and he's not yet six!