I wonder if the snails told them there was [near] beer?

I spent late Saturday night chasing waterbugs, the really big roaches that live outside and like to come in when it’s wet. Not the small black roaches or the bigger German browns that are so pesky when you live in apartments, and which [thankfully] appear not to have made the move with me. That last place was safe, but buggy.

The little roaches usually mean that you are a rotten housekeeper, or that your neighbors are. The big ones are not such an embarrassing declaration, merely a confounded nuisance. But a great source of aerobic exercise! I have a clear plastic container that I plop down over them [so I can keep an eye on them], and a large, thin sheet of cardboard that I slide under the container, the better to transport them to their watery grave in the loo. Having lived in Texas for nearly 30 years, I am a gold medalist in the five-meter waterbug death sprint!

This is the downside to having all these trees and bushes on the property :(

I am hoping that when we get the new doors and the woodwork is replaced on the bathroom window, that I will have seen the last of these guys. I flushed *three* of them Saturday night.

But my resting heart rate is stellar, thank you very much!

On to more pleasant topics. I think I know what I want to do with my unpainted bedroom walls. I spent too much time watching HGTV how-to videos on my computer on Saturday night [in between sprints] and studying several faux finish techniques. I think I want to do a parchment effect, using the second color on my paint chip [Behr Rose Chintz, #140D-5] as foundation and the other two colors [Shangri La, #140D-6 and Classic Cherry, #140D-7] as accents.

I love love love the Classic Cherry, and it tones wonderfully with my quilt, but I’m thinking it might be a bit much for three whole walls. If I have a mélange of the three darker tones on the paint chip, everything will play nicely together. But that also means that I will probably want to glaze the first wall with the last of its paint, thinned with acrylic glaze and water, so I won’t have three eggshell walls and one matte wall. That would also take care of the two or three bits that I missed when I painted it two weeks ago.

And it would keep me out of the pool halls just that much longer while I wait for the KnitPicks order I hope to be placing on Friday. [Tinks, Sisters of the Wool, is there anything you need to order from them?] I’m planning to get color cards for all the WOTA varieties and Harmony needle tips in US 5 through 8 and maybe some of the shorter cables. And maybe Harmony DP’s in sizes that I lack; whatever it takes to hit that magic $50 mark that equals free shipping. I might even bite the bullet and get my own set of blocking wires. It’s almost time for Mystery Stole #4.

Fourthborn’s Fiancé’s socks are done. I finished the first one, all but grafting the toe, at church yesterday. And by the time that Relief Society was over, I was nearly ready for the toe decreases on the second sock. Pictures are up on Ravelry. I’ll post them here sometime after his birthday.

This is what I am doing while I wait for the right needles to make the Sunrise Circle Jacket. And/or the cropped cardi. I have had Adamas in my queue for the better part of a year. And I am hoping it will prove sufficiently simple for train knitting. It may go into timeout for MS4, or I may finish it and knit MS4 long after everybody else has finished. [No, I am not the world’s most compliant knitalongeuse.] This is the yarn I will be using.



I suspect that I will be making several cardigans this fall; the thermostat for our meetinghouse is controlled remotely. As in, Tennessee. I could wear my black leather jacket at church, in Texas, in August. It is so cold in our building that it is a relief to walk outside after church and sit in the car for a minute or so before turning on the A/C. [How cold? Well, I don’t foresee a passel of baby brass monkeys anytime soon.]

When I came home from church with 1.9 completed socks and my scripture tote and my big red bag and [Almost]Cozy, the painter was locking up the other side of the duplex. He will be getting started today. [It was he who removed the “Eloy please call” sign; he thought it was delightful.]



I caught this post about 15 seconds before I had scheduled it to be published. I love Adamas. And I do not like the yarn, at least for this pattern; I think it will probably be perfect for Muir, which is also in my queue. So I wound up a ball of the KnitPicks Gloss Lace in Aegean, and I think I will like that much better.



Yes, this is the yarn that I bought to make myself a floaty tunic of a sweater. Yes, I might be putting that project in jeopardy. Yes, I will deal with that in the best Scarlett O’Hara tradition: tomorrow. And yes, I am also packing my much-neglected copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide, just in case I’m not any happier with Adamas 2.0.

And I found out what is wrong with my tomatoes: borers of some sort. Sigh...