Snack Time

So, this morning I awaken to loud, pleasant chirping. The chirping sounds really close to my window, like the source was in my bedroom. I glance at my window and see a brown bird, a wren maybe, between the glass and the opened screen snacking on the dead stink bugs that were laying on the sill. The bird flew off before I could snap a photo and I looked back later and the entire collection was gone.


 

An Odd Collection

I'm tired of stink bugs. Do you have them? Ever since Christmas I've been escorting out or flushing down about four of the little buggers a day. I can't figure out how they're getting in. the windows have been closed for months now. Maybe they got in back in the summer when I had a window fan in our bedroom and have been waiting stealthily until now to come out now to drive me crazy. I escort them out my window. I've amassed quite a collection of frozen stink bugs on the window sill now.

Oh Dear. They could be in hibernation, only to come back to life in the spring bug us once again.

They scare Fern, which I find funny. It's just an ugly bug, herbivore at that, no bite, no sting. They don't even smell very much. But they are annoying.



 

Finally....

Wow, it's been so long since I've posted. The busy season here at work is almost over. I'm a front-end survey design programmer for web-based surveys and I have three mail-outs this month. That means, I deliver three different systems, each with a different client, over the next couple weeks.

I keep wanting to add to this post with a summary of Anne's Household activities, but I can't even string together more than a half a thought at any given moment. I'll post this now with hopes to come back soon to post more.


 

Another Clothes-Line Basket, this time in blue

Dyed Clothes-Line Basket

Finished!

Quilt Retreat: Project #1 done

What I did on My Birthday

I'll just skip right to the end of the day: Dan took me to a Wizards' game, floor seats, row C behind the bench. This is what I saw:





Javale MaGee in the top two, Gilbert Arenas in the bottom one.

I ended up taking 160+ pictures of the game. It was fun to be that close, the game seemed to fly by faster than when I'm in Dan's usual upper level seats.

I gotta get ready for work, maybe I'll get to post more later.


 

My Latest Batch of Dyed Fabric

Hitting the Peanut Jackpot

Knitting a Moebius Scarf

This is the moëbius scarf Fern and I are working on.

To make this, provisionally cast-on 150 or more stitches on a 36" circular needle, size 9-13, with worsted weight yarn. Knit across in your desired pattern (seed stitch, lace pattern, etc.). Now, remove the provisional cast-on and keep knitting your pattern. You will have 300+ stitches on the needle and the circular needle cable will loop around. The first few rows are the hardest because there's no give yet. As you keep going, your piece will get wider and wider. Cast off when you get bored or run out of yarn.

 

Another Pair of Socks

I finished these the other day. I love using the worsted weight yarn, the socks knit up so quickly.

Now Fern and I are working on a knitted Möbius strip scarf. The hard way. The easy way is to knit a flat strip and when you're done twist it once and join the ends. The hard way is to knit all at once on extra long circular needles. I'll have to take a picture of it. It's not hard once you get it started. I'm making her work on it too, so it'll be hers when it's done.

 

I'm knitting again...

These are scrap yarn footies made from the left-overs from all those socks I knitted for Christmas presents three or four years ago. After Fern shrunk the wool+bamboo pair I just finished (to a size a four-year-old could wear), I had to make another pair with a blend that won't shrink.

These are the first socks I've made toe-up. I used a provisional cast-on and a short-row toe, both firsts for me. I like learning new things, keeps me young. Right? My daughter's ice skating coach thought I was 39. Love her.

I have too many unfinished quilts to be back into knitting. Oh well. I'll get tired of this soon.

Probably right before that large ebay order of yarn arrives. Right?
 

Brrrr

Yesterday was the first really chilly day so far this fall and when I got in the car to go home the tire pressure light had come on. It seems to come on every year on the first chilly day of the fall. So, today, I wore a jacket to work and put air in my tires.

When I took the girls to the beach a couple weeks ago I bought a ball of wool+bamboo yarn and knit up a pair of socks. I hadn't been in a knitting mood for quite a while and when I finished with that pair I managed to buy two new sock knitting books. One of the books had several patterns using two or more colors of yarn. I've never done anything with more than one color so I tried it out:


I got through one iteration of the pattern and stopped. Knitting with two colors was easier than I expected, but it was also harder. Controlling the two different yarns wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be, but the knitted fabric doesn't stretch like pieces made with one color do. I need to relax the yarn that's not being used at the moment, if it's too tight, the piece doesn't give. It's hard to pull on socks that don't give. Next time I consider a sock pattern I won't shy away from the two-color ones.

Weekend Stuff

The weekend ended with more rain. We had gotten 5.12 inches from Wednesday evening to Friday morning. Saturday and Sunday were pretty, but the rain started right after I filled the tank on the ride back from Winchester and the rain gauge collected another half inch over night.

Fern and her boyfriend and I went out to Winchester for my mom's art show reception. She didn't know we were coming, it was a nice surprise. My mom has been a member of the Blandy Sketch Group (not just for sketchers) for several years now and they have an annual show of members works.

Something has happened to Fern. I'm not complaining, I've just noticed. I think maybe her "terrible teens" years are over, or in remission. She's been pleasant, I've been getting hugs, she's not defiant, and she wanted to go to see her grandmother, whereas in the past, no way, "Grandma's weird…do we have to?" And, she wanted to take the BF with us. When we got home she said he had a good time and wanted to go back.

The rest of the weekend was boring, I got 5½ loads of laundry done (the other half load is still in the dryer). I got caught up on some of my shows on the DVR, but now have Amazing Race from last night to watch. I did watch a lot of the Ryder Cup over the weekend, too. Oh, speaking of golf, I bought a new set of woman's irons last weekend and tried them out on Saturday. Not good. I need to break them in before I play with them.

Maybe I'll try to post more often, work is in my busy season so no promises.

Fern and her friend sitting side-by-side iChatting with each other

Hold on to Your Hats

I'm posting again.

Somehow, many months ago I got hooked on Gilmore Girls. In the early seasons the shows focused on Lorelai parenting a teenaged daughter. I have a teenaged daughter, I watched, got hooked.

Funny thing happened, Dan got hooked too. It's shown on the ABC Family channel every weekday at 5:00. On the Tuesday after labor day the series rolled around again to the beginning and now it's a thing, we get home from work and watch The Girls, then at 6:00, Friday Night Lights is on the same channel. Go Panthers. Dan will still flip to Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption during the commercials, but he always returns to the Girls. (FNL is a good show to get obsessed about, too.)

I've seen all the GG episodes at least once now, and still enjoy them. Dan asked me how we missed the show when it was first on and I said "Survivor." The Girls were on in the same time slot. I've read different, conflicting things about why they stopped after seven seasons and I may never know the real truth.

Anyway, after I went through the series, either on TV or on DVD, I felt a sense of loss, just as if I had been watching weekly since 2000. Silly me. Now where do I turn? A quick trip to IMDB told me Lauren Graham, the former Lorelai Gilmore, is now starring in Parenthood on NBC and I had just "missed" the premier season. However, thanks to the Internet, I was able to catch up this summer.

Parenthood is a show about a large dysfunctional family, Mom and Dad, with four grown children and their own families. What appealed to me about Parenthood, besides Lauren Graham, is one of the grandchildren, Max, is newly diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and watching a "perfect" TV family deal with the complexities this disorder is of interest. Another thing that is appealing is there are two teenage girls on the show, again, something of interest to me.

As a side note, it was interesting to me to notice how long it took Lauren Graham to morph from Lorelai Gilmore into Sarah Braverman.

Season two of Parenthood premiered Tuesday night at 10:00. I think Dan would like the show too, but he's only seen last season's finale, which didn't introduce the characters well or show why I like it. Dan liked the Gilmore Girls by osmosis so I'll just have to be patient while he warms up to my new obsession just like I warmed up to FNL. But then again, Kyle Chandler isn't difficult to warm up to, at all.



 

Random Bits of Info

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted.

It's my busy season at work, I've got three huge surveys going live in January and I'm trying to make sure that'll happen. I've got oodles of developing to get done and I hope none of my clients throw a wrench into the process.

For Fern's birthday in July we gave her a weekend at the beach for her and two of her friends. This past weekend was it, I took the girls to Ocean City. It was a lesson in patience. It takes about an hour for three teenage girls to wake up in the morning and to cycle through the bathroom for showers after beach time. I tried to give the girls their space at the same time as being the parent on duty. I think everyone had a good time.

I've finished the rush of Girl Scout vests that were dumped on me during the summer. My in-box is empty, but I still have many other projects that require attention. Like the new pair of socks I'm knitting, because I just had to have a new ball of yarn from that shop on the boardwalk.

Long-time readers of this blog may have noticed I haven't posted anything about my Mendoza line in quite a while. That's because I've been over my I-shall-never-be-over-this-weight weight for almost two years. I was successful losing some weight last spring in preparation for our 10-day cruise so I could get into summer clothes. After we got back, I gained it all back and then some. It would have been very easy to just throw up my hands and change my Mendoza line, but I didn't want to, I didn't want to settle for that. I was past the edge where I should buy the next size larger clothes. I didn't want to go up that next size, I didn't want to discard what's in my closed (again) for new, bigger stuff. Dan's been doing Weight Watchers now and has lost some weight. I was watching what I was eating and lost a little, but wasn't really getting significantly nearer my Mendoza line. Now I'm doing WW with Dan and all I can say is "Wow!" First of all, I never realized how much I was eating until I started writing it down and assigning points to it. Secondly, when I started eating within my points range, the weight started to really fall off. The "just one more" mentality does make a difference. I didn't need just one more. It's getting easier to retrain that part of my brain that wants to snack all evening to a) eat a smaller snack serving, 2) eat a healthier snack, and iii) skip the snack altogether. I'm still above my line, but it's within sight, and I'm very excited about that.

I got called a "good mom" by a woman who was about to get her nipples re-pierced.

Kevin Behind the Wheel

Before and After: Removing a Snow Damaged Shrub