Or maybe I should say what’s old because I’m still knitting socks! Here are the finished Valentine’s Day socks.

Pattern: Gentleman’s Fancy Socks by Nancy Bush

Yarn: Fleece Artist Merino in Simply Sock Yarn’s personal colorway

This is what I started next:

These are Monkey Socks by Cookie A.  I’m using STR in the color Farm House. I’m loving the STR for how soft it is on my hands. I also enjoy watching how the color plays out, whether it pools or stripes…I’m actually further along than this picture and hoping the yarn will pool interestingly along the instep.

Today Richard, Dick, and Dale poured the walls for the front porch and back patio. 

 …and the back patio…

The back patio will most likely be topped with exposed aggregate.  In front, we haven’t quite decided whether it will be exposed aggregate or stamped concrete. Next up, they’ll pour the parking pad in front of the garage and Richard will back fill inside the walls that got poured today.

Actually we have a lot of carpet pad installed and just a little bit of carpet sitting in the family room.  But tomorrow we’ll have lots of installed carpet. Just having the pad has cut out a lot of the echo in the house.

The master bath is almost done.  Richard has been working hard in this room.  Check it out…

Look at how the tile goes around the tub and the tub deck is granite.

A close up…

I still really like it! Now look at what else Richard did today…

I love it. It turned out darker than expected, but it goes very nicely with the hickory cabinets.  If you’ll recall, this is a fiberglass door.  I know it looks good in the picture, but I can assure it looks very nice in person too.

The master bathroom is turning out really nice.  As you can see, the tile design used 6 inch tiles, 12 inch tiles, and a decorative border.  There were two firsts here for Richard – setting tile diagonally and wall tile.

The tile looks beautiful next to the granite too. I’ll have to try to capture that in a photo later.  The Tropical Gold has definite pink tones and the tile is taupe.  As always you can go to the Photo Gallery (last link in the right hand column) to see bigger photos.

I cannot stop with the socks. I want to knit them all the time.  I am proud to say I have never given in to second sock syndrome even though I’ve been tempted.  Even though I have 4 sock needles (2 in 2.25 mm and 2 in 2.75 mm) I have yet to have more than 2 pairs of socks in progress at once.  That may have to change.  My mom gave me two wonderful sock books for Valentine’s Day and they inspired me to complete my collection with the purchase of Favorite Socks and Knitting on the Road.  (I was afraid KOTR might go out of print since Amazon takes 4-6 weeks to get it.)

I know it’s crazy – all these free sock patterns on the Internet and yet I now have FIVE all sock books.  Yet I feel like this is a complete collection.  There are so many amazing patterns I’m having a difficult time resisting the allure of having 4 sock projects going at once.

For now, Glenda’s socks have been finished…

and I made myself finish one of the Valentine’s Day socks before starting anything else.

Then I cast on for a new sock! There’s not enough knit to show you yet. But I can tell you that I’m only an inch into the ribbing and it’s already pooling in an interesting way. I’ll have pictures soon.

Taking care of these guys…

and these two up on the hill too.

I am home now and will have new knitting pictures and house pictures soon.  The pink and black striped socks are finished and the first Gentleman’s Fancy sock is finished.  The house has not changed much this week, but we have big plans for the next week – tile in the master bath, pouring part one of the concrete, and carpet installation.

See the granite window sill?  If we used the same sill that is in the rest of the house, it stuck out too far for the faucet.  Richard had this idea and asked Whittington’s to make it for us. Richard has also been installing the door handles.

I’m horse-sitting for the next week.  If the weather turns nice again (it’s not supposed to) I’ll have new horse photos to show you.  If it continues to be rainy and windy I’ll have more knitting to show you. 

We are getting down to the final punch list to get final occupancy.  On the list we have the stair railing and banister, temporary steps out the back doors, boarding over the door to the upstairs deck, trenching to the well for our water hook-up, installing towel bars and toilet paper holders, tiling the master bathroom, carpet installation, door hardware installation, staining the front door….yeah, it’s still a fair number of things, but you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

The house has been masked and taped for most of last week.  It’s not the most exciting thing to take pictures of, plus it obscures all of our pretty granite and cabinets.

The wiring is also finished. There were just a few things that needed to be finished up.  These pendants for the kitchen were back ordered for months.  Here they are, finally installed.

We’ll both be glad when it’s done.  Sometimes (most of the time!) it’s the last few items on any task list that seem to take forever.  Then we can get the barn and the fencing going!  The first estimate for the barn should be in this week.