Manisk

I can't control myself! I don't want to work. I don't want to take care of my house or family. I just want to knit, crochet, read about knitting, read about crocheting, look at yarn, and think about all of the above.

Clearly I'm attempting to avoid reality, and reality is pretty overwhelming right now: We're selling our house and moving overseas. My father is very sick. My husband is stressed out. My mother is sad that we're leaving. My son is in constant need of attention. I have students expecting me to guide and advise them competently. I have friends with whom I want to maintain friendships. I'm going to be starting a new job in a foreign country. Argh. There's just so much to deal with!

So, instead we have:


This is made out of left over linen that my mother gave me, improvising a pattern out of Erika Knight's Simple Crochet. It makes me very happy, even though it doesn't really have much of a function.

Then there's this:

Or, rather more accurately, these:

Which are the grannie squares for the "Häkelbeutel" purse that I failed miserably at last month. I won't have enough yarn to finish it, and I am too cheap to buy more, so why even bother? Manic behavior. But ah, the triumph of mastering the evil "grannie square." What I didn't understand before is that, unlike in knitting, in crocheting you don't make the stitch into the stitch below, but rather below the stitch below (if that makes any sense). It changes everything.

And then the German sock yarn (Trekking XXL, purchased used from a Raveler) for making the Drops "rillejakke" arrived in the mail the day before yesterday, and it is so gorgeous that I absolutely had to drop the Lattice lace pullover (which I'm finding rather demoralizing since I'm convinced it will be too small) and start knitting. It's kind of a midnight blue with various blue, teal, and purple highlights. I'm really enjoying the easy garter stitch. Very therapeutic for my addled mind...


And if that's not enough I spent a lovely afternoon with my mother yesterday deciding on her birthday present. I'm going to -- what else? -- knit her a hat. After visits to three different yarn stores we settled on three skeins of this (O-wool Balance, 50% merino 50% cotton, all organic in a color called "Ruby"):


I did manage to work my way through my mail-in election ballot, and turned it in today. I also finally managed to call a plumber to set up an estimate for the plumbing work that needs to be done before the sale of the house goes through. And after a reminder, I faxed a form over to the title company. Little by little I do a few things, but mostly I just sit in a fog, frantically manipulating needles.

Forberedelser

Thinking of our move to Norway, whether it takes place in December 2008 or June 2009, is pretty overwhelming. I'm trying to take some steps this summer to get ready:

• The exterior of our house is now painted! Yay! It looks so much better, and for the first time I'm not embarrassed to live here. The guy did a great job. It cost around $2200, which seemed incredibly reasonable for a 1600 square foot house (plus 400 square foot attached garage)
• We have hired a finish carpenter to do some work in the house. The bathroom and master bedroom doors are missing trim, and we need to have the trim around the kitchen floor replaced, and a bunch of other little jobs. These are things that drive us crazy on a subliminal level, and if they're not done I think it will turn off potential buyers. Of course no one (but us) will notice them when they are done, but they really need to be done any way. It will cost about $600
• We have hired an electrician to take care of a whole bunch of nagging little things--including the power strip that the former owners have mounted on an exterior wall! This long list of little electrical things is a bigger job, about $1100
• We have signed up for our neighborhood's big summer yard sale from 25-27 July. It will give us the opportunity to get rid of a bunch of things that we don't want to take with us. We're not planning on storing anything here in the US, so we either take it with us or sell/donate it. That can be a bit overwhelming. Even though I'm a minimalist, we've still accumulated a lot. And this neighborhood sale comes a bit too early--we can't get rid of everything, since we still have 6-12 more months to live here.

Unfortunately, there are even more things that I haven't begun to take concrete action on, even though I've been fretting about them for months:

• Figuring out how to ship belongings overseas. We'd like to get a quote for a standard container of some sort and then just purge our belongings down to what fits, but that doesn't seem to be the way shipping companies work. When I tried to get information they kept asking me "how many rooms" we would be shipping, which seems ridiculous. Doesn't it kind of depend on how big the rooms are and how full of stuff they are?! Give me the height, width, depth, and weight, and I'm okay, but this "room" stuff is totally frustrating.
• Figuring out how to transfer financial assets. Obviously I'm going to let my retirement account sit, but if we get any money out of selling our house (please, please) we'd like to take that money with us. I need to find out any tax implications.
• I think we also need to get some interior painting done in the house to spruce it up a bit before selling. Not sure if it's worth the time/energy expenditure to do it ourselves, or whether we should hire someone.

fordeler og ulemper

Why, actually, do we want to move? We could continue as we are for any amount of time. Why all the trauma?

Pros (real or perceived)

1. We both love the location of our home in Norway. It has great sentimental value, since KE inherited the land upon the death of his father and designed the house himself. It's a cool, artsy community, close to the center of everything (a short ferry ride from Oslo), but still extremely quiet and laid back.

2. I think that Norway would be a better place to raise our son. I think the schools are better, in that they stress independent thinking more than here, and haven't fallen into the testing trap.

3. Proximity to the sea. Our house in Norway is a ten minute walk to a marina, where we have a boat slip and a beat up old motor boat. Both of us grew up close to the water, and miss it here.

4. Finances. Higher earning power in Norway and less to pay off on the mortgage there mean that we would get ahead sooner. Our lives will be so much easier once we have only one property to worry about, and once the mortgage debt is gone we'll be in a much better position.

5. Proximity to the rest of Europe. What can I say? I'm one of those obnoxious Americans who deeply and obsessively loves European cultures. I know that's irritating to lots of people, but it's just the way I am.

6. KE's happiness. He never even wanted to visit the U.S., let alone move here.

Cons (real or perceived)

1. Distance from my family, especially my mother.

2. My career. If I get the fellowship I'm in a great position to continue. If I don't, the move may well signal the end of my career. That could be a really good thing for me. It could also be disastrous.

3. Ice. Lots of it. For months and months. I don't mind snow and darkness, but I can't abide icy sidewalks.

4. Isolation. I seem to go in waves: In some places I've lived, I have developed great friendships. In others I can't seem to connect (that's the case where we are now). I'm anxious about my ability to build up a strong network of friends, especially now in my 40s. It only gets harder, I think.

Underveis

On norwayfarer.blogspot.com I set up the problem my family had: staying in the Pacific Northwest where I'm from, and where I have a great job, or moving to Norway, where my husband is from. The move would entail an uncertain future for us both career-wise and would be unfortunate in some respects because my mother lives here, but would have great cultural benefits for us and for our son (although he adores his grandma, our place in Norway would be the perfect place for him to grow up and go to school).

In the intervening months we have come to our decision: the move is in the works! There is a lot of anxiety attached to it, including the worry of selling a house in what's looking more and more like a recession, selling off (almost) everything I own, and figuring out how to make the actual move. Luckily we have a great house to move back to. It's a duplex with two 800 square foot units that have been rented out the whole time we've been here in the states (coming up on four years).

Basically, once the decision was made, everything has started falling into place. Despite some trepidation (I'm terrified of ending up working retail), I'm actually looking forward to starting over in Norway. I'm pursuing some job options and toying with the idea of either going back to school or trying to write full time.

So, the countdown to June 2009 has begun...