Tentacle Sweater

I've been working on my latest sweater since June and I am finally done. Sort of.

Yeah, that's the sweater. Not really done but at least the only thing left to knit is the button band and hem (which I'm probably going to do at the bottom and on the sleeves). Of course, I have to seam all the pieces together, too, since it looks a bit like I made tentacles instead of a sweater. But considering how boring this has been to knit (since knitting just creates pieces, not something wearable), I'm pleased as punch to be so close to complete.

By the way, those sleeves? Knitting both sleeves at the same time, each stripe took about an hour an a half. There are thirteen stripes. So yes, that means the sleeves took me over 18 hours to knit. Thank goodness I didn't track the back or front panels. (Nor will I keep track of how long it taste to seam and finish. Nope. Not gonna do it.)

Also, it looks like I'm going to have a decent amount of yarn left. I'm starting to think I need to make some stash busting socks to make my way through all leftovers I have from my various projects. Maybe after I (start and) finish Dan's socks, which is my next planned project.

Honestly, after this? I'm looking forward to socks!

Crazy Talk

Well, it is officially fall. Our heat kicked on for the first time a few night ago and, even though the high is near 80°F today, I'm going to say that the cold has officially begun.

I think we've sort of stagnated in getting our house all fixed up. The few remaining boxes are still remaining, our garage is still a jumbled & unorganized mess, we have paint picked out for at least two rooms that we just haven't gotten around to buying (much less actually using), and the third bedroom looks like we are in the beginning stages of an audition for Hoarders. But we've been so busy lately. This weekend was the first weekend in six or more weeks that we didn't go anywhere. Crazy!

That's not to say we weren't at least a little busy, though. We did some major renovation of the front bed - dug up the flowers and bushes we didn't want (or that were dead), pulled all the weeds, turned over the dirt and, drumroll please, planted the irises! Finally! I have irises from our old house (that I'll need to tag & mark next spring so I know which type they are), some hopefully bronze ones from my parents' old house, some purple ones from someone in our new neighborhood and four special ones that I bought from Clark Gardens last spring. Hopefully they all do great in the front bed and next year I'll be able to mark them, dig them up, separate them by color and plant them in the back yard.

Speaking of back yards, ours is in semi-bloom right now. We have some lovely fall wildflowers, most of which I have no idea what they are. Besides pretty, that is. I took a decent number of pictures this morning and uploaded about 20 of them. Don't worry, I won't post all of them on my blog, but they are on my Flickr page (link in the sidebar 'cause I'm lazy), just in case you end up bored and need to kill time on the internet. Here are my favorites, though.

Yep, all that is in our back yard! I'm still kind of floored with how large our yard is. And that it has wildflowers! (Speaking of which, drop me a line if you know what the flowers are! I'm looking at you, Pop!)

In other backyard news, we had our first meeting with a pool company! Whee! We have another one set up for tomorrow and have one more company we want to talk to, but so far they haven't called us back. So we might end up talking to a different company because I'm totally not going to chase someone down and beg them to take my money, you know? But yeah, pool planning is happening! We should get the first company's plan (and price estimate!) Friday. We already know one thing: we will spend a big chunk of change on the fence. Like, not quite pool-sized but, depending on the choices we make, big enough that it could be in wading pool territory. For real. It's crazy. Or maybe it's not so crazy and I'm just not used to spending the big bucks. I think there is still a big part of me that is that college student who thought that having three grand in the bank was amazing.

Now, that college girl couldn't even buy a fence!

Two Things

I learned two things today:

1) Never put jalapeño seeds down the garbage disposal (unless you want to napalm your sinuses the about two nanoseconds after you turn the disposal on) and

2) Gidget is a shameless rule breaker.

(Kitties are not allowed on the table. However the first time I saw her up there, I yelled at her to get down and she just flicked her ears at me. Agog at (and somewhat admiring of) her boldness, I took a picture to show Dan the blatant rule-breaking, then removed her from the table.

The second time, I removed her and put her in a more kitty-appropriate window-gazing spot.

The third time, I was finally loud enough that I might have gotten through to her - she actually got down off the table quite rapidly.

Of course, those three times were within 15 minutes and I was in the kitchen - about ten feet away - each time she got up there. No shame. None. At least the other kitties wait until I'm in a different part of the house before getting on the table or counters.)

Olive Update

Olive is starting to turn into a real kitty. She's figuring out this love thing (though she still hasn't quite got cuddles down) and has an endearing awkwardness when she rubs against us.

She seems pretty smart - she watches the other kitties a lot and seems to use them as a model of what to do. Which is great when it comes to learning how to deliver toy mice to loving parents, not so great when it comes to scratching on the back of our chairs. She and Gidget are tussling a lot together, most of which seems consensual so I try not to hover and worry too much. Though I am looking forward to the day I interrupt a mutual grooming session instead of a session of mutual bunny-kicking-the-other-kitty's-head.

She's starting to get a little squishy so I probably need to watch her food intake as she will eat pretty much whatever is put in front of her. (She even likes eating lettuce. Strange kitty.) But at the same time, the rounded edges make me feel like she is truly our kitty and no longer the scraggly little (swollen) stray we picked up two months ago.

We Had A Visitor

Not too long ago, Dan and I were discussing the fact that we hadn't seen the roadrunner(s) around lately. Someone on the neighborhood email group mentioned seeing a hawk eat one last week, so I think we were a little worried something had happened to (them/)him.

Happily, though, the rain over the past few days apparently brought out a lot of bugs and they, in turn, brought out the roadrunner!

The kitties were fantastically interested in watching him strut across the yard, eating bugs (and sadly, a butterfly). And, of course, I enjoyed stalking him too as he meandered across the yard snacking.

I'm pretty sure at one point he heard my camera because the little comb went up and he went into alert mode.

Once he had a little freak out, though, he seemed to realize that I wasn't going to bother him and he went back to snacking. But he did alternate eating with watching me cautiously.

Yay for roadrunners!

Now if I could just manage to get a picture of the rabbit that I think lives in the back...

All the Yarns!

Today was Yarn Crawl Part II for me. Last weekend I was really good and limited myself to one skein per stop. Today... I was not so good. At the second stop today, I cracked a bit and got two. But on the third stop, I had a bit of an impulse control problem. I got six skeins. Two are for Dan though!

Here's what my final Crawl haul looks like:

In my defense, two of the skeins pictures above were free - one was a Yarn Crawl goodie and one was a drawing prize... because I spent so much. Sigh.

But I did get some lovelies. See? (The peach and off-white yarns that are the third row down are my freebies. Yay for free yarn!)

 
  
 
 

And I mentioned that Dan got some goodies, too. Here are his!

 

Okay, so technically his yarn is still for me but after I play with the yarn for forty hours or so, he'll have new socks!

As much as I enjoyed the Yarn Crawl and having a reason to go drive all over creation to check out different yarn shops, it's probably good that it is over tomorrow. Neither my yarn cabinet nor my wallet can take much more.

Yarns!

Yesterday was the first day of the DFW Yarn Crawl. Naturally, I thought this was a great idea, so today Dan & I went a' crawling. We hit four stores and I was really good - I only got one skein of yarn at each place. But they are all oh so pretty.

      

Yay for pretties! There's at least one more store I'd like to hit (that was closed by the time we got near the area) and honestly, if I'm going to hit that one, I might as well hit whatever else is nearby, right? But that will be next week. Until then, I have plenty of pretty yarn to pet. (And ultimately make some socks out of... one day.)