Pictures!

So I keep all my pics on the Mac at home, and most blogging has occurred from the laptop so - an update in pictures is due!

First, some knitting. This is the blanket I've started for Krystal's new son, Jaxson. He's gonna have a bit of a wait on his blanket unfortunately - but it's on the way!  I'm loving the colors - it's a bit hard to really see how awesome the blue is in these pics, but I'm super excited about the final outcome of the blanket!

K - so on to pics of the house. Not really the HOUSE more like my fave room in the house so far - my closet room! 

My fave part is definitely the vase of hydrangeas - they looked amazing for about 2 weeks! 

Yay picture post!

The RAT

This post is something I have to write about in order to purge it completely from my mind. I won't even pretend that it's interesting or funny, I will only warn you - it's gross. Plus there is absolutely no knitting in this post - mostly it's just cathartic for me.

So the first night we were in the new old house we picked up Subway for dinner. I had ordered a cookie (big surprise) but it was really gross and stale so I didn't eat it. I left it on the kitchen counter as we didn't have a trash can at the time. The next morning, when we showed up for the actual move, the cookie was on the floor, with a good size hole in the bag. (Side note - not much of the cookie was eaten, so clearly my little vermin friend thought it was nasty too.) We figured there were mice that were stirred up with the move or something so we set some glue traps out - didn't catch anything or see anything strange for the first week so we kind of just forgot about it and moved the glue traps out of the way of the dogs - poor Fender has fallen prey to one before and while hilarious, it's kind of a mess to clean up.

Fast forward to the first full weekend we were in the house - the husband was out of town at a friend's bachelor party, leaving me alone at the house. Now a little back story: I have all types of neurosis, but mostly they all center around the same thing and that's being alone at night. I've never lived alone - moved from a house with 6 people, to a dorm with a few hundred, to an apartment with 3, to another house with 3, then 2 apartments with 2, then a house with 3, and now a house with just me and the Hubby and the dogs...needless to say, I can count the number of nights I've spent in an empty house on probably 2 hands. So after a fun filled day of shopping and dining with my dear friend Chelsea I come home to a dark empty house, let the dogs out, and proceed on my neurotic path of turning on every light in every room and inspecting every nook and cranny for lurking bad guys.

So I make my way back to my Closet Room (pics soon), flip the light on, and hear *rustle rustle rustle - PLOP - scurry* Imagine, if you will, the PLOP to be something about the same weight as a large somewhat clumsy kitten. I am silent, b/c what's the point of screaming if no one is there to hear you anyway, right? Then the little bugger pokes his RAT head around a box - no, not a mouse, a RAT - he draws back immediately, probably just as scared of me as I am of him. I then back my way into the living room, stand in the middle of the room and begin making panicked phone calls, as that is the only course of action that initially occurs to me. First I call the hubby, who doesn't answer b/c like I said, he was at a BACHELOR party...so naturally he's a little tied up, then Chelsea - she managed to calm me down to the point where I could walk past the closet room and into my bedroom and curl up, fully clothed, in the middle of my bed - then my mother, who proceeded to freak out as much as I had. My dad was in the background shouting out suggestions on how to catch the R.O.U.S. (rat of unusual size - b/c by now he was no longer the size of a rat, but more like a small pony), which included a 5 gallon Gott cooler, a suspended strip of bacon, a newspaper with a slit in it, and a yard stick....none of which I possessed and even if I did - LIKE I was gonna get up off of that bed with a RAT roaming the house! So I manage to put myself to bed - still fully clothed as all my clothes and pajamas are in the closet room with the RAT.

At about 2:30 a.m. I wake up to the sound of two glue traps falling to the ground (we had them up on some boxes, out of Fender's path). Truthfully, kind of glad I saw the rat, b/c the idea of an actual human invader bursting into my house at 2:30 never entered my mind. So the next morning Mom calls as I'm waking up. Between the two of us we decide that I HAVE to get out of bed, I have dogs that need to pee and are probably pretty hungry. So I prepare myself - I figure of the 4 glue traps, if he knocked down 2, surely he's on one of them and I was hearing his final struggle or something. Oh no. I let the dogs out and then inspect the traps...the little Houdini managed to get a tuft of hair stuck to one of the traps, but that's all! I saw imprints of his mammoth paws and tail in the glue and was totally grossed out. He actually managed to eat a good amount of the bait on the traps (peanut butter and dog kibble). From this - I determine that the little f-er is smarter than the average f-er. Oh joy, just what everyone wants in their home, a SMART RAT.

Since I conclude that the rat was definitely in the kitchen, and had moved out of my closet room I manage to talk myself into getting dressed and leaving the house till it was time to get Tom from the airport. To be fair, I don't think the rat hung out in my closet room for long - no droppings or anything so one can only assume, right?

So once I'm teamed back up with the hubby, I'm feeling pretty good - a little brave even. Don't get me wrong, every time I walked into a room I would flick the lights and yell "Rat, rat, RAT!" Not like - hey honey, here's the rat - but like in a menacing scary way that I hoped would scare the rat away...I don't know, doesn't make a ton of sense but it made me feel a little better and more in control of the situation so no judgement please.

We make our way over to our friendly neighborhood Lowes and pick up a few of the old time-y snap traps. We were pumped, like tonight is the night and I'll be able to resume unpacking the house without constant fear that every box was harbouring little vermin surprises. We do our best, google how to set the darn thing, bait it, then go to bed in anticipation of the imminent rat death that would soon occur.

Yeah right.


I mentioned our rat was smarter than the average rat, right? Well somehow this rat managed to LICK THE TRAP CLEAN and not trip it. How? HOW??? I mean, peanut butter is some sticky stuff, so part of me was totally impressed with this rat, like even if it wasn't a trap, to lick it CLEAN is pretty impressive. We figure we set the trap wrong, Hubby figures out a better way and we set it and go to work...we come home to nothing. Apparently our guy is completely nocturnal.


Monday night me and the hubby could hardly wait to go to bed - well we were tired, but also b/c we had a gut feeling that this was our little rat friend's last night terrorizing our house. Finally, we were right. At about 3 am we both jolt upright in bed to what sounds like a gunshot in the kitchen. We hear a few rustles...then silence. Hubby gets up, shaking with glee, and sure enough - the rat. Trapped Wicked Witch of the West style with just his little feet and part of his face sticking out from the over-turned trap. I was asked to identify the body, just to make sure. It was him.

Our rat was dead.

Our rat IS dead.

Neither Tom, nor I went back to sleep that night, we were so jazzed. Well, Tom was jazzed - I was a little sad. I wish I could have just removed him from the house...truthfully I didn't mind his existence, just his presence in my home. I'm sure the little guy had a perfectly nice home before he wandered into mine (I can only assume he made his way in while doors were open during all the moving fun, probably the old tenant moving out) and he probably would have very much liked to return to it. Guess we'll never know. I do know I actually feel a modicum of guilt about his demise. Poor guy.

Not gonna lie though, I'm mostly just glad that my house is rat free.

We haven't seen so much as a dropping since then, so we feel like we're in the clear for now. Who knows though...with Ike there could be all sorts of thing seeking refuge in and around our house, just waiting for a chance to sneak in to my closet room and freak me out.

Ugh.

Can I get some electricity with that hurricane, please?

So much has happened while I've not been blogging - 1) the hubby and I moved into a new old house, experienced the agony of scrapping wallpaper off of walls in three bedrooms, then painting said walls, 2) dealt with a rat invader, 3) lived through a hurricane, and 4) cast off the Hoover blanket!

1) The move itself was uneventful, but all the preparation for the move was ick. And seriously I think wallpaper should be made illegal. At least when a paint color doesn't work out or goes out of style or starts looking dingy, you just paint over it - not that big of a deal. Wallpaper however is, in my experience anyway, almost always instantly a mistake. An expensive mistake in most cases, and one that is incredibly hard to rectify. I made a horrible wallpaper decision as a child that I was forced to live with for 6 years. The sad thing is that that horrible wallpaper is STILL in that house, terrorizing tenants, to this day. Plaid. Ugh. Why? That being said, never made the wallpaper mistake again. Of course that doesn't mean I'm not dearly paying for other people's mistakes.....oh hideousness, in THREE bedrooms, the bathroom, and HORROR of all horrors, the KITCHEN. Took us three very long days to get the bedrooms done, I imagine the bathroom will take around half a day since it's tiny, but the kitchen is a floor to ceiling beast, complete with border that I anticipate taking a long time, and a LOT of elbow grease. And this is a rent house. Why? I don't even own this place why do I care about the walls??? Oh I wish I could stop myself sometimes.



2) The RAT! - This story is very long and painful to write about, so I will save it for my next post...*shudder*

3) Ike - So....I'm from a small west Texas town where we get little to no rain, the very occasional (like 3 in my lifetime) tornado, but most frequently DUST STORMS. So I guess the wind didn't surprise me, but the whole no power for 8 days thing kind of did. Thank God we were blessed with a cold front, I don't know that we would have survived that well without being able to just go outside and cool down. I also have to seriously thank my dear friend Chelsea and her lovely fiance for letting me and the hubby hang out with them and their electricity EVERY night. We had a week's worth of dinner and a movie dates with them and it was so much fun! I have never seen so many collapsed trees, it was truly a wild ordeal that unfortunately is far from over. We were very lucky that none of the trees that fell over near our house hit the roof, a window, or either one of our cars. The dogs dealt with Ike like champs - totally unfazed. Seriously, Tele - the total Priss who won't go outside if the grass is even a bit dewy, sucked it up and actually went EXPLORING in the lake that was our backyard - the husband and I were totally floored by this! We went out of town this weekend for a friend's wedding and came back last night to electricity! And a house that was 62 degrees, lol.

4) KNITTING! - Since this is a knitting blog, guess I should actually talk shop a little. I FINALLY cast off the green Hoover blanket! I have some ends to weave in, and I'm considering adding a crochet edge for stability like the pattern suggests...but I think it's ADORABLE as is! I need to block it...I'm pretty excited to see it all blocked and finished. Also, so exciting - on our way to the wedding this weekend I cast on the 2nd Hoover Blanket for Krystal's soon to be born son! I know, I know, it should be all done and ready for his arrival - but apparently I suck with a deadline. Sorry Krystal. I'm gonna knit knit knit away and hopefully Jax will be enjoying the blanket by the time the cooler weather comes.

Fun stuff - another busy busy week ahead and then hopefully we can back to some semblance of normalcy.

The boxes have taken over.

So - the hubby and I are officially moving this weekend. We get keys Saturday afternoon - let the wallpaper ravage of '08 commence! We're so excited about this we purchased paint a week in advance! Oh how I love a good, rich taupe....this house is only a rental so neutral it is. We also purchased a new, king size, bed - the hubby is uber stoked about the idea of sleeping whole inches away from the heater of a woman he married. Apparently I'm hot. :)

As for the blanket that I vowed would be finished soon...welllllll, that may not be the case. All I have left is the 3 inch border, so it should go quickly however - naturally I come to the end of my ball of yarn just as I begin the border - no big deal I have another skein. So I go to find the end of the yarn and for whatever reason this is the skein from Hell and I pull literally 4 separate huge rat nest looking knots out of the middle. It took me the better part of an hour to unravel and find a knittable piece of yarn. It has since been saved and a lovely centerfeed ball is all but completely wound, however this hunt and peck took up all my knitting time which is severely limited these days, (see above paragraph about MOVING). All that being said, I do think this is the cast off week for the Green Hoover Blanket, i.e. Summer 2008. I'm sure I'll throw pics up upon completion. More exciting, hopefully there will be pictures of Baby Jax's blanket-to-be upon cast on. I'm ready for new yarn.

Speaking of new yarn, I have to give props to my hubby, the best husband in the world, who accompanied me to a lovely LYS (local yarn store) this weekend. He did so without ANY complaints, and even had some opinions of the yarns we looked at - turns out he favors the feel pure silk but the cost of pure acrylic, no surprise there. I think when I return to said LYS, I will return alone, or at least with someone with whom I do not share a bank account.

Some things are unduly difficult...

Like starting this blog, for instance. I have been contemplating the idea of this blog for a while and have been kicking around a few names for it. I begged the hubby for help, as he is ridiculously clever - his first suggestion "clicking needles" was just him being snarky. "Knitting is the new rad" was good enough to give me pause, but was more HIM than ME...so I went to my dear friend and coworker for help. Together we came up with a few gems, among them was my personal favorite "My friends don't call anymore because I knit." I took a quick poll (love the people I work with) and while it was voted most popular it was also deemed to be too lengthy for this humble blog - so "All I Talk About is Yarn" it is!

Since this is a KNITTING blog, I'll start things off right by posting what I have on my needles right now.

This is the Hoover Blanket. It has taken absolutely forever and I'm ALMOST done. Hopefully I can get some good knitting time in tonight and I'll be able to cast off this week. The baby that it is meant for (hubby's coworker) was born (or "extracted" as the hubby puts it) last Friday. They didn't find out the gender until the birth, so the green worked. It's a boy! Hopefully the little guy won't mind all the silly little mistakes I made. I almost don't want to gift this item but it would be a shame for something so soft and cushy to go to waste in the bottom of my FO bin. I can't wait to see it all blocked and done, and most importantly OFF THE NEEDLES!

So what's up next? Another Hoover Blanket, naturally :) This one is for someone I actually know and love dearly though plus I'm pretty pumped about the yarn I've chosen for her baby.