Nummies

I made creme brûlée yesterday. It wasn't perfect but it was definitely tasty!

I have figured out a thing or two I want to tweak for next time, and there definitely will be a next time! This experiment could be very dangerous for our waistlines.

Monkey News

That unimpressed squishy face? Is the unimpressed squishy face of a kitty that has a healthy spleen!

A while back I think I mentioned that the vet discovered that Cooca had a heart murmur? Well, in testing to see if the heart murmur is a problem (it has been dubbed "incidental" which means her little heart should be fine), they noticed that she had an enlarged spleen. So yesterday we had her appointment to get her spleen all checked out and apparently, she just has a "generous" spleen. A "generous" but normal spleen.

So now she officially has a velvety soft shaved belly, a little bit of grump, and healthy organs.

Trauma

So today was a bit traumatic. Lately we've been getting a lot of tiny lizards in the house. I don't want them getting eaten by the cats (or setting up camp in the house) so when we see one, we try to catch it and take it outside.

First off, their tails fall off really easily. And when they fall off? THEY START FLOPPING AROUND LIKE MAD. It's super creepy. Short little quarter inch tail just thrashing around like a fish out of water. HORRIFYING. I think I've finally gotten the hang of catching the little things and keeping their tails intact because that flopping tail is really traumatizing.

But if I thought flopping tails was bad, today was awful. I found a lizard stuck to a glue trap. (Our pest company put a few out to see what bugs they would collect in case they needed to change their treatment of our house.) It was still alive but the entire thing, including the side of its face, was stuck to the board.

Thanks to the internet, I figured out how to unstick it (olive oil and a plastic spatula, though the internet recommended a plastic spoon) so after a few minutes I got it free. It survived but was pretty wobbly so I don't think I can go so far as to say it was 'okay'. I got it set up outside in the front flower bed with some water and moistened cat food. (I have no idea what a tiny lizard would eat but it wasn't like I could catch a gnat for it so cat food it is.) Each time I checked on it, it was okay and still able to move around and then last time I looked (a few hours after releasing it) it was gone. So I'm going to cross my fingers that it's off living a happy lizard life. Though worst case scenario, it went somewhere and died, but it has to have been a better experience than dying trapped to a glue board.

So new house rule! No more glue boards!

(Not Really Any) Fishies!

Last week, Dan and I took a day and went to the Dallas World Aquarium. We've been there a couple of times and always enjoyed it, but this time they had a couple of residents I really wanted to see: the flamboyant cuttlefish. Of course, we saw other neat things, too. But cuttlefish.

I also brought Cuddy (because I'm a dork like that) to meet the flamboyant cuttlefish. I think he enjoyed it.

Fun fact: flamboyant cuttlefish are actually the only toxic species of cuttlefish. They are as poisonous to humans as a blue ring octopus, but only if you eat it. So don't eat the tiny purple things.

A large part of me really really wants a pet cuttlefish. They are supposed to be massively smart but not jerks like octopuses. But they only live for a year which would be horrible. I don't think I could bond with a pet to only have it die after a year. So I will limit myself to aquarium and stuffed cuttlefish.

Also, if you have an extra hour that you want to use to learn about cuttlefish, the PBS documentary Kings of Camouflage is awesome. Seriously, I've seen it two or three times. Cuttlefish are awesome.

Bears! (Okay, No Bears)

This post is pretty late, but mostly because, in the grand tradition of vacations, we needed a little recuperation time. But yes, last month, Dan and I went to Vogel State Park in Georgia. Mostly, it was for a family reunion but we managed to get a fair amount of fun in the form of hiking, grilling, putt-putt, and even zip lines squeezed in. Good times! There was even a wedding! (But sadly no bears. Lots of chipmunks though!)

Guess What I Did!

It's been a year and a half since my celiac diagnosis. It's also been a year and a half since I've eaten something made by someone other than myself, Dan or my parents. Until today.

 

I actually teared up a bit when talking to the cashier to make sure things would be okay for me to eat. (I knew In & Out was supposed to be very celiac-friendly but I still gotta make sure!) A year and a half is a long time to feel you can't eat anywhere but your own house! So today was a really big step. Go me!

Happy Birthday to Me!

(Yes, I made a tiny knit unicorn. It's awesome.)

Yay! Boo!

In my last post two days ago, I mentioned that our a/c went out. Well, we got it fixed before the house got too hot and afterwards the a/c seemed to be running better than ever. I even had to turn the thermostat up a tad because it was cooling so well and so quickly. It was pretty nice.

Well, that joy ended this morning. The air conditioning started making a weird rumbling noise and stopped cooling so now we are without a/c again. Sigh.

Last time it was a capacitor. Dan says this time it seems more like a fan motor issue. We've got a call in so hopefully we'll be up and running again soon.

Of course, worst case scenario, I'll just have to convince Dan to knock off of work early and drag him out to the pool. It's much cooler out there. Well, if you are wet. Dry and it feels a bit like an oven. (A wonderful, wonderful oven.)

Peacock Redux

I know my blog has been kind of quiet lately. I ran into some food issues so that's thrown me all off. But I think I'm starting to feel a bit better, so yay! Not that feeling better will necessarily increase the frequency of my blog posting. There are pretty things in the yarn but I haven't taken many pictures to share (though I probably should!) and otherwise there's not too much going on other than knitting, and knitting takes time.

There is a slight bit of news today, though. Our air conditioner is broken. Oh dear.

It's currently 82°F in the house and getting warmer. I might have to escape outside soon - the pool makes hot weather much easier to take. Hopefully the a/c will be back up and running soon. With seven cats, I dare not open a window and honestly, doing that would just mean we'd get hotter inside faster. (It's easily ten degrees hotter outside.)

The only other excitement here has been knitting related, and honestly I'm not sure how many people will actually find it exciting, but I'm going to share anyway because it is a bit of a triumph for me.

In my last post I shared a picture of the yarn I had picked for my next sock project. Well, I knew the pattern I wanted to do (Jaywalker) because I had seen someone else make some chevron socks with this yarn and it looked fabulous. However, it didn't work out so well for me. Unfortunate color pooling was the result, not the fun mishmash of random colors. Boo.

So I tried another pattern (Hermione's Everyday Socks) and while the blocks of color were smaller, the pooling was still rather unfortunate. Double boo.

Then I tried another pattern (Dalekanium) and that one almost worked but not in an exciting way. More of a meh then a boo, but still.

At that point, I was kind of stuck and frustrated. Then Dan (knitting genius that he is) said 'wouldn't it work to do something where you knit in wedges so the pooling couldn't happen, like the ones you just did?'

Why yes, yes it would! See, he's a knitting genius.

Of course, this means that this is the third pair of socks that I will have knit using this pattern. Rarely do I ever enjoy a pattern enough to knit it twice, but this pattern seems to be one of the few. (Though really if you think about it, to make a matching pair of socks, I have to knit pattern twice, so maybe I don't have the dislike of repetition when it comes to socks? Which is good since I like matching socks.)

That isn't to say that I necessarily look forward to doing a pattern three times, especially twice in a row like I am doing right now. But it does help that I think this time I've finally cracked the code of what you are supposed to do at the end of a round in this pattern. (I think the first rows should be K2, w&t, P4, w&t and then you continue on working 4 sts past the last w&t until you work the last w&t 3 sts after, leaving 4 sts between the final wraps. This seems to lead to neater ends to the round and matches up the tall bit and the short bit of each wedge better. And even if it isn't what you are supposed to do, I'm liking it so I'll keep doing it.)

While learning something new does make repetition easier, I do think it will be a while before I do this pattern again. I'm pretty sure I will do it again, though - Dan expressed some interest in some of his own and I really can't say no to that.

Still Breathing

I realized I've been quiet lately but contrary to recent speculation, we have not drown in all the recent rain. While there has been a ton of rain, the only issues it has caused us is unbalancing the pool chemicals, making the pool too cold to swim in, and making the grass grow really quickly.

Not much actual news going on here but I did finish a new knitting project: another sweater!

It was a nice, educational experience in that I learned a new way of doing contiguous sleeves. Sadly, the new sleeve method is not for me as it makes me broad shoulders look even broader, but not all sweaters can be perfect!

I'm working on a pair of socks that I had intended to finish last month but (obviously) didn't. But I've only got a little bit more to go on them so I'm sure I'll be posting about them soon!

The only yard news I have is from our front porch (because there has been too much rain to go tromping): we have more baby birds!

I've waffled a bit but I'm still thinking they are Eastern phoebes. (Eastern kingbirds are the other options, but it looks like the babies are all gray (no white chest) so I'm back to thinking they are phoebes.)

I'm Delicious

We've had a ton of rain the past couple of weeks. Which is a good thing since the lakes are all so low and we are still in Stage 1 drought measures from summer. Added bonus, it also gives us pretty rainbows.

But lots of rain also means that lots of bugs have been making their way into the house. Most of the bugs are little centipede type things which seem to have quick (kitty-assisted?) deaths upon crossing our threshold. But we've also had at least one mosquito. And mosquitoes love me. So now I have tons of bites - mostly on my back but some on my arms and legs. Fortunately, things on the itching front have been much better since going gluten-free. Less inflammation in my body to react to the bites perhaps?

Anyway, the rain has also really helped things in our back yard grow. This is what it is currently looking like.

Lovely, isn't it? I'm hoping the grasses won't get too tall too early though. We still have at least one more good month of profuse wildflower blooms and I'd hate for them to end up hiding in the tall grass.

Speaking of wildflowers, we still have new stuff popping up almost every day. On my last two visits out there, I found lots of new things blooming.

Yes, that last picture isn't the best, but it is the season's first Firewheel (aka Indian Blanket, but Firewheel is such a fun name!) so I had to include it. If this year is like last year, the purple and yellow in the yard will give way to red and yellow soon enough and we will have lots more of these popping up!

Of course, new flowers mean new things attracted to them (and everybody still loves the antelope horn). We have tons of pollinators outside right now. Two weeks ago we were overrun with ladybugs but now, it is butterflies. Pretty much everywhere you look you'll find a tiny sulfur or a hairstreak fluttering about. And mixed in are some more unusual ones, too.

That second to last picture is of a very lucky Buckeye. I'm not sure what took a chunk out of his wings, but it didn't seem to bother him. Hopefully the birds in our yard are better behaved than that, but really, I think they just have better aim.

There are more pictures on my Flickr because I take a ton each time I go outside. Seriously, this last butterfly safari? Over 200 pictures. Most of them horrible! But in my defense, butterflies are really hard to photograph clearly so it takes me ten or twenty tries before I get it right.

Travel Time

Dan and I just got back from a trip to the St. Louis area. We were there for a relatively short four days, but it was for his sister's wedding, so it was still a pretty big trip!

Except for some colder-than-expected weather (the event was mostly outside), the wedding was really lovely. Sadly, I don't really have any pictures as I'm not a huge wedding girl and was having more fun just being social with folks, but I think I was one of only a few few folks not snapping shots, so I don't think anyone will notice the lack. Pretty much the only thing I got was the reception site during the decorating, just to prove it happened!

The trip was much easier on my health-wise than I anticipated. The day after the drive there (and back) was a little rough but otherwise I was good. Though apparently four days of fairly regular activity is about all I can do before I start to turn to mush. Yesterday was a day of mushiness and recovery. I'm starting to feel a bit more non-comatose today. (Of course, we seem to have brought the cold and rainy weather back with us and that's not helping. Dang it! I'm ready for pool weather!)

The last time we drove to the area, I think it snowed for about half of the trip. This time, the drive was really nice. Long, but nice. (Made longer by the fact that Dan went the speed limit the whole way there. Which is good. But yeah, makes it longer than normal.) Oklahoma had a metric ton of Indian paintbrush and it was probably a good thing I hadn't brought my 'real' camera as I was already tempted to make Dan stop too many times for pictures.

(I held myself to just one wildflower-related stop, but I did manage to slow the trip up there a little by also getting in a yarn stop. I couldn't help myself.)

The way back we ended up listening blindly to GPS a little too much which took us a slightly different way (skirting around OKC but then we ended up unable to get on the turnpike because we didn't have exact change) and that way had tons of paintbrush but also some crazy vibrant and dense patches of crimson clover.

All in all, a very good trip.

Oh yeah, and did I mention yarn?

 
 

Whee!

More Visitors (and Blooming Things)

In other yard news, though on the horrific side of things, Dan and I mowed yesterday. Which normally wouldn't rate as horrific, but this time, I apparently mowed over some smallish rodent. I mean, I stopped the mower once to rescue a skipper that was having trouble flying away and another time to allow a ladybug to remove itself from a flower I was about to mow over, yet somehow I managed to mow a mammal.

I'm kind of horrified. Like seriously had trouble getting to sleep because I kept seeing the resulting pieces. HORRIFYING.

And to add insult onto, well, mammal-cide, when I was using the blower to clean off the patio bits, I found a chunk of bird wing on our front door mat. Not a feather. Part of a wing. Not sure where the rest of the bird went. Really hope it didn't get mowed over. Or weed whacked. But are bad as Dan can be about accidentally weed whacking my irises (HOW DO YOU DO THAT? THERE IS A SIDEWALK BETWEEN THE YARD AND MY IRISES! HOW?!?!), I doubt he'd be so careless to weed whack a bird.

So yeah, not the happiest mowing experience yesterday. On the plus side, the baby birds on our front porch are all grown up and ready to fly! And turns out there were five of them (I had only counted four.) How do I know? That's how many dive bombed me from the nest when I went out to get the mail.