Meeting neighbors

We officially funded the loan on our house and the title got transferred last Wednesday. Granted, we've been living here since the 1st of the month, but it's really and truly ours. And we've already started to put our stamp on it.
The first couple of days we were here, I met our neighbor to the south, Jennifer, who is a widow and has lived in her house for a little over 20 years. She's in real estate I think. I have also seen some 20-somethings at her place recently. I think it might be her son home from college (I'm only assuming). Later in the first week, I met Jeanine who lives across the street. She's been in her house since it was built in the 1960s. About 2 weeks ago, I met Jeanine's husband (but his name is totally escaping me right now) when he came over to help Hubster and I with my mom's car.

Well, I just met our next door neighbor to the north. Sandy's been here since '66. "I've known all 4 owners of your house. It's a good house." And she brought us grapes from her own vines and apologized for potentially waking us up because she and her husband get up around 3am. So now I've met everyone except the guy who lives behind us (who I've heard is pretty nice too).

It's a nice sense of pride when we move into a neighborhood like this. When these people hear that our kids are going to the local school, that husband works there and I am teaching at the junior high up the street, you can see in their eyes and smiles that they know we're bringing goodness back into the neighborhood; not that it's bad, but that there has been a transition in the neighborhood in the last few years. All these people have had their kids grow up and move away. There are not a lot of children in the actual neighborhood around the elementary school here anymore. In fact, on our street, I think there is only our family and the single-mom with her kids about 3 houses up the street. Everyone else is grandparents. You can see it in their smiles though; they're happy to have us here.

Extroversion?

Had a very introverted reaction to today. Was helping "sew all the things" at a Sylvie's house but there were just so. many. people.

Normally I love a busy household and the chance to have multiple opportunities to converse with a variety of folks. But the crowd, the noise (made a gazillion times worse by my own squealing serger in want of oiling again), trying to process cutting diagrams in the busy atmosphere (when I want to do a really really really good job and not f*** it up since it's for royalty so I'm under pressure). . . it all just led me to feeling completely mentally exhausted. Drained. So strange for me when I'm normally energized by the opportunity.

I guess my mind was just on other things today; honestly there was someplace else I would rather have been. When I think about it, spending the day in bed feels like it would have been the most enjoyable activity I could have chosen. Like I said, a very introverted reaction which I'm not used to. And I'm not sad I went. I'm just overwhelmed I think. Need a bit of quiet reflection time (which is also not happening because I got home to one grumpy child and then my mom coming over to help pack/toss stuff for the upcoming move.

And the house? Still haven't gotten word on closing status yet. Lender mentioned on Friday we wouldn't hear anything until Monday (tomorrow). Job interview from Friday? Went pretty good and the principal really liked me (I left feeling like they would be a great group to work with), but he can't actually give me the job. HR has to do their work and then offer me employment. What were they doing on Friday? Oh the district office is closed on Fridays so I won't here anything until at least tomorrow.

See, my mind is definitely other places and being around so many people was exhausting.

quick mid-June update

And this is how I find myself a bad blogger who doesn't regularly update. I haven't been doing any projects and I feel like no one really wants to hear about other events so I haven't posted since the 6th.

The house purchasing problems continue to plague us. We're at 2 weeks until we have to be out of our current home and we still haven't closed escrow on the home we're buying. Argh. That being said, a lot of my sewing room has been packed away. No progress on the list. Progress on the house purchase is that yesterday I made an unscheduled drive to Santa Rose to get signatures on the initial loan disclosures from our cosigners (my brother-in-law and his wife). They hadn't consented to e-sign documents and so that meant all the docs have to be signed the old-fashioned way and we were looking at maybe only getting keys on the 27th of this month. But Haley, you said you had to be out in two weeks. Yes, I did. You see the dilemma. That literally gives us 2 days to move out and turn around on the house. So driving out and getting their signatures so I could drop the loan paperwork off to my loan officer in hand yesterday evening? Well that moves the timeline up to the 23rd for keys. That gives us a week (including a weekend so we might get some moving help from friends).

It was suggested that my $10 Latchet shoes might make a good class (thank you Hubster - you're smart and encouraging). I like the idea of teaching a class that is very hands on and that you can leave with something period-oid for SCA as soon as you leave the class. I will definitely consider it.

The fabric for Hubster's doublet arrived this morning in the mail. Part of me wants to dive dive dive into this project immediately. See aforementioned issue with having half of my sewing packed for move. Frankly it should all be packed at this point.2 WEEKS PEOPLE!!! We have to be gone in two weeks!!! But it's a 7.1 oz linen from Fabrics Store in cobalt which is a lovely dark, but not quite navy, blue. He loves blue. It will be very nice for the doublet. Yes I know there are no real examples of linen doublets. But I'm gambling with my husband even wanting to wear it. And it gets hot here in the Sacramento/Nor Cal events. He's one of those guys that thinks one must wash every article of clothing after a single use (which to be honest is kinda necessary because boys are cute - but smelly) and I just can't do that with wool. So this will be a very simple, very "easy-going" doublet. And I'll feel better about doing it in linen anyway as it's my first time and if I royally screw up, well I didn't spend $20+ per yard on it. Plus, he's getting the striped mock-up as the lining and that just rocks.

We made a snap decision to go to June Crown tournament in Tres Pinos. It was our first time at that site. I had a really great time. I wasn't committed to doing anything "responsible" except for one shift of trotting along behind the Lady of the Swan (our soon to be Princess of Cynagua) and attending to her needs. I didn't go to any meetings. I didn't take any classes. Vittorio wasn't fighting for me so I didn't need to consort for him. I actually spent a large part of my time in the Publick House gambling with borrowed monies and drinking. And it was relaxing and fun to be so low-key. Shhhh I didn't even go to Court in the evening. And I never skip court. By the way, the awesome news is that my new friend Sylvie (go check out her blog - she's one of the ones I follow along with) is the Lady of the Swan. Her husband, Fearghus, and she will be stepping up as Prince and Princess of our area in July and they've asked me to be on their court. I am very excited. I like to be on court a lot. I declined the offer during this most recent reign for two reasons; I was worn out after serving on the last 3 consecutive courts and the most recent one I had been on had felt very stressful and socially awkward. But that worked well because I instead got to know the current Princess, Katherine, socially and in a crafting way. I got to just hang out with her. That was nice.

Okay, now I'm totally digressing on the point about Sylvie and Fearghus...this weekend at Crown, Her Excellency asked if I would serve as a Princesses Artisan! What?! Holycow!!! And she totally did it in the best way too. She's already cleared it with my Laurel (and my grand-Laurel happened to be standing right there waiting to talk to her about artisans too) AND she told me to only consider it if I didn't have too much on my plate with the house-moving and the no job thing. I've asked to at least wait until I've signed my home loan paperwork to consider, but I'm totally totally honored. This is the first time anyone in Cynagua has considered me worthy of being an artisan. Dah schucks [scrapes toe in the dirt]. I still have to think long and hard about it though because there are a lot of steps/tasks that we are being asked to do as part of the position and I know me. . . I want to do them perfectly and completely. And I don't want to take on a job that I know I'm only gonna half-ass.

Anyway, tonight is business meeting for my Shire and since I'm the one in charge of that circus, I better have some notes to talk to my monkeys about. Right now, the Shire is a huge source of anxiety with me. More on that later (or not at all because I don't know how comfortable you are with hearing about my mental issues). The quick update ended up being a little longer than I expected. But that's a good thing I guess.