Fave Fiber Fun

It's Friday and time for another Fave Five.  I might even throw in another one or two fiber fun items this week.  This has been the week of knitting.  Must be the fact that the air is getting cooler perhaps but I find that I've been putting in some extra hours of knitting time.  Hence my Fave Five post this week will be centered mainly around some projects either completed or in the works.

1.  220 Fingerless Mitts - I finished these this week and they were completed in just a day.  They are really a fun knit and one that is easily accomplished.  I used a two-ply alpaca which was pretty rustic.  In fact, it still had bits of hay stuck to it and I found I had to stop now and again to pick out the "bonus" material.  Ha!

2.  Fronds Fingerless Mitts designed by Monica Jines  - My current fascination with fingerless gloves continues and so I just cast on for another pair.  This one has a bit of a lace pattern on one side and I'm using a marvelous deep red yarn hand-dyed by the Sanguine Gryphon artist.  It uses fingering weight yarn and so far, it has been a lot of fun to work up.

3.  Willow Cowl designed by Amelia Lyon - As the temperatures start to drop, there is nothing like a soft, cozy cowl to keep a lady warm.  This is the Willow Cowl and I knit it out of Mini Mochi yarn in a caramel colorway.  I love Mini Mochi.  It is so soft and the colors blend and shift in such a nice, subtle way.  This cowl was a cinch to knit.  The only tricky part was the picot edge at the beginning and the end.  You have to knit up a ways and then you fold it in such a way that you are catching stitches, creating a "hem" effect which leaves the picot part that you actually knit about halfway up in your initial section now on the edge of your cowl.  It was a good technique to practice.

4.  Green Peas Shawl designed by Kathy Nies - this pattern was designed by my friend, Kathy who also is the owner of my local yarn shop.   It works up with just one skein of Araucania Trauco Cashmere yarn.  It has worked up quickly and I'm just getting ready to start the final section.  Once it is blocked I'll have my first Christmas present completed.

5.  Carol Adams Block of the Great American Aran Afghan - I've completed another square for my Great American Aran Afghan.  Par for the course, I couldn't get through one block without making a mistake.  In this case, I missed a cable cross-over at one point but I wasn't about to go back and redo it.  I'll just call it part of the charm of being handmade.  It was actually a pretty easy square and I enjoyed doing it.  I'm thinking it might be a fun pattern to use for a pillow front.

6.  "Desperate Romantics" from BBC - while I've been doing all that knitting, I've been enjoying this BBC show on DVD.  If you haven't seen it, I can highly recommend it.  It follows three actual Pre-Raphaelite painters - Rossetti, Hunt, and Millais.  Other historical people wind through the drama as well, including the painter and art critic,  John Ruskin and William Morris as well as the models who became muses to these painters.  Since I started out in college as an art major and ended up majoring in English with my concentration in English Literature and also majored in Theatre, I found this production fascinating.  Let's face it, people with an artistic temperament are many things but never dull and this show really points that up.  The glimpse into England of that time frame and the relationship between these three painters is just excellent.  Very well acted.   (Just a little disclaimer here - after watching all the episodes:  When I posted the original post, I'd only watched the first 3 episodes of the six.  I still really like the show but have to warn you that it does get rather "earthy" in quite a few spots.  I wouldn't watch it around anyone other than my spouse, if you get my drift.  But it does really stay pretty true to the nature of life among the artists of the day and the artists' models and the "working women" of London.)

7.  Last, but not least, I have to leave you with a picture of my little "sweet pea", Mika.  I'm a Holstein gal and it looks like Mika is taking after her Nana.  She's sure growing, isn't she?  I can't wait to see her in person come December.

If you'd like to write about your own Friday's Fave Five, visit Susanne's blog at Living to Tell the Story.   She hosts us each Friday and it's a great way to reflect back over your past week or to focus on the week to come.

Ninety-Seven Years Young

Today is my mom's 97th birthday.  That's really something, isn't it?  Coincidentally, Tropical Storm Nicole arrived in the area today bringing a tempest of rain and wind, too.  Somehow I think it is fitting since Mom has always created a stir wherever she has been.  But seriously, can you imagine being almost a century old?  I'm pretty proud of her and grateful that God has blessed us with this many years with our mother.

This nurse at the nursing home is a favorite of my mom's.  She is such a sweetie.  Last year she made a special breakfast for Mom of crisp bacon because she knew that Mom loves it so.  Well, this year she actually made a trip to the grocery store to buy bacon on her way into work when she realized that she was out of it.  Then before her shift started, she went down to the kitchen and cooked up some just the way Mom likes it so that she could have a real treat for her breakfast.  That's really going above and beyond and I just so appreciate those special touches that the wonderful staff does like this where Mom is.

We had fun opening birthday cards and her presents and then I finished up one book that we were reading and started another one for her.  When it was time for lunch, I joined her in the private dining room that they have set up for visits from family.  There was another family in there with us and their family member was celebrating her 96th birthday.  After our main meal, the staff brought in this lovely cake that they'd baked for her.  It was angel food cake with a middle layer of strawberries.  Yummy!

My daughter and her husband are coming up on Sunday to join us for another little celebration with Mom.  We'll bring BBQ ribs (Mom's favorite meal) over to the home and enjoy those and then have some more cake and punch and hopefully some of her friends will be able to drop in to see her.  I figure you don't turn 97 every day so why not stretch out the celebration a bit?  Happy Birthday, Mom!

Now THAT'S a Bite!

I headed off today to get the second of my 3 Hep. B shots in preparation for my upcoming trip to Indonesia.  As long as I was out, I decided to do a little shopping.  Not particularly remarkable in itself but that's where it get's dicey.  Just a note to the squeamish.......if you don't like to read about blood, you'd better stop here.  OK?While I was at one shop, I came across a jacket that looked a lot like one that one of my favorite TV vampires wears.  "Oo", I thought.  "Cool look.  I think I'll try it on."

I gave it a go and it looked great.  Wow!  I was "styling."  But then I happened to glance down and noticed something.  My hand was all bloody.  Holy S___!  When did that happen?  My first reaction was to try to figure out where the blood was coming from.  OK, I seemed to have snagged the top of my thumb and now I was bleeding like a stuck pig.  Next thought was to keep the blood off the floor and the clothes. And a third thought was "Well, this has to be the freakiest endorsement of a vampire jacket that I've ever had."   I popped my thumb in my mouth while I groped in my purse for something to wrap around it.  Unfortunately I didn't have any tissues but I DID have an old 50's-era handkerchief so I grabbed that and wrapped it around my thumb, applying pressure over the cut.

I looked at the jacket again.  Oh, oh....the bad news was that there was some blood on the white drawstring at the waist.  The good news was that I was definitely buying the jacket and had already decided that I was getting rid of that drawstring.  It was NOT cool.  Didn't go with the look at all.  But I couldn't exactly pull it out and discard it in the dressing room, could I?  I looked at it again and decided the best thing to do would be to pull the bloody part on into the inside of the casing, which meant that there was more drawstring on one side of the waist than on the other but hopefully I wouldn't get some detail-oriented clerk who would insist on getting that drawstring even before she rang me up.

I lifted up the hankie and examined my thumb.  The bleeding had definitely slowed down but it wanted to start back up when I wasn't applying pressure to the wound.  Drat!  I still had some blue jeans to try on.  Have you ever tried to put on blue jeans without using your thumbs?  Believe me, it is NOT something that is readily achievable.  I decided to just forget it and go buy the jacket and head to a drugstore for a bandaid.

 
Once I got a bandaid on my thumb, things were under control once more.  I was able to continue on to another store to find an outfit for my mom's birthday present and then head over to the grocery store for some menu ingredients.

The rest of the day was a lot less eventful.  I finished one of the fingerless gloves that I'm knitting out of a rustic alpaca yarn and started the second glove.  Should get that finished tonight what with all the great TV viewing on the agenda.....Hawaii 5-O, Castle, Dancing with the Stars. And there's NO vampire show on the schedule!

The Whole Truth

We had fun Skyping with our family overseas yesterday and look who is doing some walking?  Little Mika is now walking around while just holding onto someone with one hand.  She also has 4 teeth on top now and two on the bottom.  I can report that she continues to be a "hair prodigy" at 9 months old with hair that is long enough to braid now, if only she would hold still long enough.

I got such a kick out of Mika's antics.  At one point, they put her up on her daddy's shoulders.  She first tried to use her daddy's head as a drum, beating away on it enthusiastically.  Then she leaned over and gave him a good nip on the top of his head, after which she looked up with a big grin.  What a little monkey!  Sorry that these pictures are so blurry but I have to capture them via Skype and that's how they come out.

Anyway, on to another subject.  One of my blogging friends recently answered some questions on her blog and I thought it would be fun to participate over on my blog by answering the same questions.  It's always fun to see how folks answer some of these questions.  Here goes:

1.  What was the first meal you ever prepared?  The first meal I prepared was a meal of Russian dishes.  I can't remember all of the recipes I attempted but I do remember that the main one was a boiled dough concoction wrapped around a cherry inside.  Frankly, it was horrible.  I was going through my "Rudolf Nureyev" period when I was crushing on the dancer back in the 60's and on all things Russian, hence the Russian food.  My dad went back for 3 helpings and raved about how wonderful it was.  I thought he was nuts but realized some years later that it was his way of saying how much he loved me.

2.  What is your favorite worship song?  I love "Sing Your Praise to the Lord" - the arrangement done by Amy Grant on her album "The Collection."  I can remember playing that audiocassette over and over back when we lived in the Big Sur area as the kids and I would drive up along the coast to Monterey.  I'd be singing along with Amy at the top of my lungs and directing the music one-handed during the instrumental parts.  It just never fails to give me goosebumps.

3.  If you could do any occupation, what would it be?  I don't think I could limit it to one choice.  I'd probably be a writer, a meteorologist working as a weather girl on TV, and I think it would be fun to work on the ground control team for NASA space flights.

4.  What is your favorite flower?  That's easy.  It's Blue Gentian.  I love that flower, which is actually more of a wildflower, because it is what grew wild out on our farm in the pastures.  I'd pick it as a kid and bring a handful back to the house where we'd put it in a vase.  Whenever I see Blue Gentian growing alongside the road, I'm instantly transported back to the farm.

5.  Would you rather wear one pair of shoes all the time and switch purses, or only carry one purse and have different pairs of shoes?  I hardly ever change my purse so I'd have to go with different pairs of shoes.  Actually, I tend to find a pair of shoes that I find comfortable and then buy multiple pairs of that style in different colors so I guess you could say that I wear one pair of shoes and use one purse, for all intents and purposes.

6.  Name one fashion fad you hope never comes back.  Mini-skirts.  I didn't have the legs for them back in the 60's and I don't have the legs for them now.

7.  Would you rather handwrite in cursive or print?  It's faster for me to write in cursive so I'd have to say I'd rather use cursive but I'm also a good printer.  My mom was a 3rd grade teacher so she made sure I knew how to print very well.

8.  Would you rather see a bestselling movie or read the book? I want it all.  I either read a book first and then have to see the movie, if one is made from the book OR I see the movie and then have to read the book, if I find out the movie was based on a book.

9.  What is your favorite movie and why?  It has to be "Noises Off."  It is just such a comedy of errors.....like a Shakespearean farce.    I find it particularly appealing because of my theatre background.  It truly pokes fun at theatrical people but in a way that has you laughing hysterically.

Nine is a good number so I think I'll stop at that.  If you want to join in the fun, why not blog your own answers on your blog?    

Say, Teach?

 I didn't get my usual Fave Five posting written yesterday because I was busy packing my knitting bag and heading off to a local knitting event.  I was all signed up for a class with a nationally-known teacher and was pretty excited about the chance to learn a new technique from her.

We students all filed into the classroom, took the handouts that were offered, claimed our seats, and then it was time for class to begin.  Our teacher stood before us.

"I see that some of you have already started," she said.  "So why don't the rest of you go ahead and cast on 27 stitches and follow the pattern.  Oh, and knit the first row."   She sat back down.

My tablemate looked over at me with big eyes and I looked at her.  She leaned over and whispered, "Surely she's going to give us more direction than that, don't you think?"

"I would hope so," I replied.  I was wrong.

My new friend whispered, "I'm going to ask her to at least walk us through the first couple of rows."
That's just what she did and our instructor gave us a quick 3-5 minute explanation of the chart before us and sat down again.  Okey, dokey!  Looks like we were going to be pretty much on our own.

To give this lady her due, she DID come around if we had a question but her explanations sounded rather put out, as if she expected that we should have read about this already in her book or have already known how to do this technique.  Gosh, why did she think we were in the class?  I had the book at home.  I could have just gone on date night with my hubby and had some great Mexican food instead of sitting in class feeling frustrated.  Then I could have perused the book at my leisure.

Tablemate and I struggled along (and neither of us are beginning knitters, thank goodness) and slowly got the hang of it.  In the meantime we made like the little old men in the Muppets Show and traded comments back and forth under our breath, getting a special kick out of the over-exuberant fan who couldn't stop gushing about a scarf she had knit up from one of this instructor's patterns and how the symbols the designer had charted were such magical, mystical symbols and had such power.  They were obviously floating HER boat.  The rest of us were just trying to STAY afloat.

I must say, I've never taught a knitting class but I HAVE taken many of them.  I'm also trained as an educator.  I know what constitutes good instruction.  If you were teaching a technique that most people in the class had never done, wouldn't you expect to at least explain a little bit about the "rules" and the desired effect?  Wouldn't you have a few graphics to illustrate your points and go over them?  How about asking the group if there were any questions so that all the folks in the class could benefit from hearing the answers you gave?  My goodness!

After an hour of working on our little sample square, my tablemate leaned over to me and whispered, "Do you think she is going to show us anything else or are we just supposed to sit here doing this for two more hours, because if she isn't, I think I'd just as soon head on back to the hotel and sit and knit with my friends?"

To make a long story short, that was the extent of the class so we bailed.  When some class members when on up to the front to admire some of the books she had brought, we snuck out the back.  Yup, we were bad girls but honestly, I was thinking of a lot of things that I would rather be doing on a Friday night.  Thank goodness I love to read because I can see that I'm going to be fine-tuning this new knitting technique by going over the designer's book page-by-page.  Oy!

Podcast Blues

I don't know about you, but I enjoy listening to podcasts when I'm out driving in the car for longer than just a few minutes about town.  It helps pass the time and the miles just fly by.  Plus I never fail to learn something useful.  I download my favorite podcasts onto my iPhone and then plug the phone into my car radio system and listen to it over the car stereo.

Here are my favorite podcasts to date:  A Prairie Home Companion, Kindle Chronicles, NPR: Your Health, NPR: Technology, and Buzz Out Loud.  There are a lot of other podcasts that I'd like to subscribe to BUT I find them almost impossible to listen to.  Let me explain.

I'm discovering that so many of the podcasts out there are produced with terrible sound quality.  There might be several people on the "panel" and one person's voice might be coming through loud and clear while the rest of the commentators' sound levels are very low.  So I find myself constantly adjusting the sound levels on my radio.  One minute I'm straining to hear and the next minute the podcaster is blasting over my speakers. I know that some people are interviewed via Skype, which can have "iffy" connections at times.  There's no getting around that.  But if you are doing a podcast in a room, please invest in the best sound equipment you can find and afford and realize that most non-commercial microphones are not made to pick up voices clearly unless you are close to that microphone.  If you are in doubt at all about how your voice levels are coming across, LISTEN to your podcast after you record it, at a normal playback level.  You might be astonished at what you are NOT hearing.

Other podcasters sound like they are speaking with a mouthful of oatmeal.  I mean, come one, folks.  If you feel that you have something valuable to say, for goodness sakes' please enunciate.  Have you ever tried to actually listen to yourselves after you record your podcasts?  I'm amazed at the way folks mumble, slur their words, swallow their words, you name it, I've heard it.  Now granted, I started out in the Army being trained as a radio broadcaster but a podcast is basically a broadcast and you are using it to communicate.  If you can't be understood, then you might as well be spitting in the wind.

Closely related to the problem of those who can't speak clearly, are those podcasters who spend a lot of time in their podcasts "laughing" at inside jokes.  If I want to listen to 2 minutes of conversation followed by 5 minutes of laughing and snickering between the commentators, I'll just head over to a friend's house.  There is nothing wrong with the use of humor in a podcast but there is an art to how to use it.  If your audience isn't participating in the joke or can't see what is funny, then you've pretty much lost your audience.

Another "killer" for me is a podcast that just rambles aimlessly.   I don't want to listen to someone "read" a podcast word-for-word.  Ugh!  But there should be a logical flow to a podcast with an introduction, transitions between subjects, and a wrap-up, or conclusion.  Just sitting around a microphone randomly picking things out of the air, so to speak, smacks of laziness or sloppiness to me and it definitely says "amateur."

If you want to listen to a podcast that is the epitome of a professional, well-produced podcast, listen to the "Kindle Chronicles."  It's a classy, informative, and well-organized podcast and it never fails to entertain and educate me. 

God bless you if you are considering getting into the podcasting arena.  It's a fascinating thing to do.  I'm not trying to discourage you.  But there are so many podcasts done poorly out there.  However, if you keep the things I've written about in mind and try to produce the most professional podcast you can, you can be an asset to the podcasting community.

Closet Gains

My brother told me the other day that his mother-in-law asked him "Is that your belly hanging over your belt?"  He said to me, "You ought to blog about THAT!"  Hey, you don't have to ask me twice.  It got me to thinking about our family's complicated relationship with food and weight over the years.  You see, my brother has been a little critical at times in years past about my battle with putting on pounds.  I started out pretty thin and was looking pretty good at his wedding, despite the fact that I'd had a baby just 3 months earlier.   His heart has always been in the right place but I usually wasn't in the mood for a lecture in self-control over the Thanksgiving holidays, with him explaining how easy it should be to eat correctly and forgo extra helpings of dessert.  John was the lucky one in our family.  He was pretty naturally thin and I will also give him credit.  He works out daily.....has a lot of discipline that way.

Our dad was thin most of his life, too.  And he also would give my mom well-meaning lectures on how easy it should be to eat correctly and keep your weight at the right level.  She took it about as well as I did.  So I was rather gleeful to find out that after I had left home, my dad started taking his trousers around the block to my grandma's house to have her alter the waistbands.  Seems he was gaining some weight around the middle and he didn't want my mom to find out.  Ha!  I hope he gained (besides the small amount of weight) a little understanding in how it's not always so easy to control your weight.

Looks like my brother's metabolism has taken a nose dive along with the rest of us.  Of course, it doesn't help that we both like to eat our sweets (and he does enjoy that occasional beer).  I think he now realizes that keeping slim isn't always quite as simple as it seems.  So I am trying NOT to chuckle about the "belly" comment....I truly am.  But I also can't help thinking, in my weaker moments, "Welcome to my world."

Spittin' Images

My father

 I was talking to my hubby the other day about genealogy and we got off on the tangent of family resemblances.  I've always had this theory that firstborn children, for some reason, never have quite the strong family resemblances that later children do.  My half-baked theory on this is that the genetic pool is still working things out when that first baby is born and it takes awhile for things to get straightened out. Therefore, by the time the second or third baby comes around, features have pretty much gotten into alignment with the ancestral line and those kids tend to resemble their parents or an ancestor much more strongly than a first-born.  The exceptions are only kids.  Somehow, genes seem to realize that they've only got one shot at this and their self-preservation kicks into high gear and they get it together and out pops a kid who usually does resemble a parent from the get-go.  Don't quote me on this.  It's just what I happen to believe.

My mother

 I have never felt that I resembled either of my parents nor any of my relatives.  I wished I did.  My mother was a beautiful woman with dimples that didn't quit.  My maternal grandparents had some fantastic cheekbones and dimples and my maternal grandmother had a chest Dolly Parton would envy.  All I inherited were the hips.  Whoopie!  I did get my dad's two-toned eyes (blue with brown inner-rings) and hairline on the temples but that was about it from him.  But as a kid, I always felt that surely I must be adopted.  Did you ever have that feeling?

My maternal grandfather

My mother's father was a handsome devil, as was his father and all the uncles.  They all had those high cheekbones and aristocratic noses and piercing eyes.  I always thought my mom really resembled my grandfather.

My maternal grandmother

My maternal grandmother had the wide dutch hips, full body, and round face.  She and her sister, Sara had darker coloring that they inherited from their mother.  The other two siblings were much fairer.  From Grandma, I inherited her hips, her musical ability, her love of knitting, and her love of eating.
 

My paternal grandfather

My paternal grandfather, who was long deceased by the time I was born, had those piercing blue eyes, high forehead, and high cheekbones.

My paternal grandmother

My paternal grandmother, also long gone by the time I was born, had a cleft chin (I have always envied those who have that chin dimple) and thin lips.  OK, I guess I got the thin lips from her.  But it looks like that's all I inherited from her.  But looking at them all, there is just no one that you look at and say, "Wow, you are the spitting image of your ancestor."  I just think that would be so neat.  It would be like coming around the corner in a museum and finding yourself face-to-face with a picture of yourself only that picture would have been painted several centuries ago and you'd discover that it was an ancestor of yours.  How cool would that be?

This past summer, we came across a picture of my great-great uncle on my dad's side.  I took one look at him and thought, "My gosh, he looks like my brother."  I did a little photo editing (added a similar beard to my brother's photo) and here you have the two of them side-by-side.  Between Great-great Uncle John and my Great-Grandfather John VanRossum, who my brother also resembles, it isn't a stretch to see where my brother (the SECOND-born) got his looks.  I think my theory holds, in this case.

Me

 So I guess I'll have to be content with just  looking like myself.  Maybe some day I'll come across a picture of an ancestor and I'll do a double-take and see myself in that picture.  I can only hope.  In the meantime, I can always fantasize that I truly am adopted and that my actual parents are.......well, it's only limited by my imagination, isn't it?

Five Fall Faves

It's Friday and time to post a "Fave Five" reflection.  It seems like my week flew by but without a lot of dramatic things to write about so I thought I'd tell you about five things I really enjoy about the Fall season which is creeping into our area.

1.  With the colder temperatures, we can start sleeping with more covers on at night.  Now, this isn't our bedroom but since we were speaking of "covers", I thought you might enjoy seeing the type of "cover" that my family in Asia has to sleep under to protect them against mosquitoe bites.  This is their current apartment in a poor neighborhood in a big city over there.  Bringing things back to Pennsylvania, I've always felt "uncomfortable" sleeping without any bedcovers.  It's the same feeling that I get if I have to ride in a car without a seatbelt (which is hardly ever, thank goodness).  It just doesn't feel right.  I like to snuggle under covers.  Now that it is colder, I can burrow under a sheet and blanket to my heart's content.

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2.  The colder weather moving in gives me more incentive to get going on my knitting.  Here's a pic of the latest project I just finished.  It's called the "Wrap Me Up" Shawl designed by Chris de Longpre.  It's a long rectangular shawl composed of quite a few different blocks in various stitch patterns.  I did this shawl in Noro Cash Island accented with two different Noro solid colored yarns and a bit of Cascade 220 yarn here and there.  I still have to block it but I really like how it came out.  Quite a unique look.  Now I'm starting on some Christmas gift knitting.

Photo courtesy of Photos8.com

3.  Fall brings a riot of colorful "mums" to our area.  We have a small Farmers Market near our house that always has a great display of colorful mums and pumpkins set up this time of year.  I'll try to get a picture of them to put in the blog sometime soon but in the meantime, you'll just have to envision yards and nurseries filled with these great Fall plants.

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Photo courtesy of Photos8.com

4.  Apple cider is beginning to make its appearance once again.  On a cold night, I love to sip a mug of hot apple cider.  I have a great recipe that I got from a Navy friend years ago for "Old English Grog" that is wonderful, non-alcoholic, and makes your home smell terrific. I thought I'd share it with you:
Cloves
4 oranges
1 quart orange juice
1 quart apple cider
1/3 c. lemon juice
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3 sticks cinnamon

Stuff the oranges with 12 cloves each and then bake them for 15 minutes in an oven at 350 degrees.  Mix the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil on your stovetop.  Prick the oranges and add to the pot.  Let the grog simmer for a few minutes and serve warm.  Enjoy!

5.  It's the time for many of my favorite TV shows to come back from their summer hiatus.  I always hate it when I'm left with a cliffhanger and then have to wait months before I find out what happens next.  Thank goodness some of my shows are starting back up this week and next and some new shows are being introduced that sound promising.  That's when I do the bulk of my knitting.

If you'd like to write about your own Friday's Fave Five, visit Susanne's blog at Living to Tell the Story.  She hosts us each Friday and it's a great way to reflect back over your past week or to focus on the week to come.

On Bug Patrol

Photo from Baltimore Sun (Jerry Jackson)

They're coming soon, if they haven't already made it to your place.  I'm talking about the Asian Stink Bugs.  Ugh!  A recent newspaper article reported that we could expect to see them in record numbers invading our homes.  So far, there is no known predator to take them out.  The best they could suggest we do was to vacuum them up and release them outdoors.  Some help, huh?

I've run across these little "cuties" before.  Let me just go on the record to say that I hate them.  They are ugly, they fly, and they tend to land on you indiscriminately no matter how loudly you shriek.  They also release a pungent odor if you crush them.  I'm not really sure how to describe the smell.  It's not really a horrible smell.....more like a cross between pine needles and disinfectant but once you've smelled it, you know to start looking for a carcass when you smell that smell.

I have NO intention of vacuuming them up.  I plan to zap them!  Yes sir, I have my handy dandy bug zapper racket in hand and I'm ready to do battle with those things, should I come across one.  It's "swat" and "stir fry" for them.  Now my hubby is much more lenient.  He tries to gather them up in a tissue and flush them down the toilet.  Personally, I'd rather not take a chance on them crawling back out of the loo as I'm sitting on the throne doing my Yahtzee game.

So we'll see how the old zapper does with these critters this fall.  My daughter reports that these bugs are all over her house down in Maryland.  So far (knock on wood) we've been pretty lucky and I've not seen more than a few in the area.  However the article did say that the peak times of infestation would be in October-December.  Double Ugh!  So, until then, it's racket at the ready, Freddie!

From the Frying Pan Into the Fire

At my diet group meeting yesterday, our instructor read an article from a local paper about obesity.  We discovered that the Hanover/York area (just south of where I live in Pennsylvania) ranks 4th in the country for having the most obese people.  Sheesh!  It's so bad that the EMS folks have had to change their rules to increase the number of technicians that they have to now have on a call so they have enough to lift the injured person without putting the technicians at risk from trying to lift a heavy "object."    Their EMS techs were getting too many back injuries from hoisting heavies.  Hospitals and ambulances are having to order wider and stronger reinforced gurneys.  Oh, my!

It didn't really surprise us all that much to find out that our area ranks pretty high up there for obese people.  After all, Hanover is one of the snack capitals of the U.S.  They have potato chip manufacturing and pretzel making down to a fine art.  And if you are at all familiar with Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, you know that it elevates one major food group - Carbohydrates!

Our instructor went on to read the rest of the "Top Ten" area in the country for obesity.  It didn't surprise me at all that Montgomery, Alabama was at or near the top of the list.  We were quite surprised that two areas in California made No. 2 and No. 3.  But my heart kind of sank when I discovered that Flint, Michigan came in at No. 5.  Oh, my!  I grew up in the Flint, Michigan area...spending my school months each year in that area but my summers on the farm in Minnesota.

It's no wonder that I seem to be on a perpetual struggle with my weight.  I went from the fifth most obese area in the country to the fourth most obese area in the country.  Personally, I think it is just one more good reason to move to Texas.  Yup, that just made so much sense to me as I was munching on my donut this morning over a cup of coffee.  Ah, sugar!  The inspiration in my DNA!

I Need a Viewing Secretary

I've been a delinquent girl lately.....delinquent in the fact that I haven't been blogging like I usually do. I'm blaming it on two things - books and DVDs.  I've discovered the joys of getting an entire TV season on DVD and going on a viewing marathon.  Yup, I finished up the entire (and ONLY) season of "Moonlight", worked my way through the first two seasons of "True Blood", got caught up on both seasons of "Vampire Diaries," (What can I say? I was raised on "Dark Shadows.) viewed Season 1 of "Being Human"  and the Commander and I are trying to start with Season 1 and work our way up to today with "Eureka."  I also have 3 other series sitting in my cupboard waiting to be viewed.

In addition to those, I have been enjoying reading on my Kindle and flew through an entire series by one author (9 books) in a week and a half.  Now I know I've shared with y'all that I'm a tad obsessive-compulsive and NEVER do anything just halfway so the only thing that stopped me on that reading binge is that I now have to wait for that particular author to write another book.  Humph!  Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on one's viewpoint) I have plenty more books to read.

And NOW, oh my......I sat down with the new TV Guide which has been full, just absolutely FULL, I tell you, of ravings about all the new shows coming out and the returns of all the old favorites and I tried to make up a list of ones that we plan to watch.  OK, here is what I came up with:

Dancing with the Stars - Mondays at 8
Castle - Mondays at 10
Hawaii 5-0 - Mondays at 10
Glee - Tuesdays at 8
NCIS - Tuesdays at 8
NCIS Los Angeles - Tuesdays at 9
Survivor - Wednesdays at 8
Vampire Diaries - Thursdays at 8
Mentalist - Thursdays at 10
The Good Guys - Fridays at 9
Eureka - Fridays at 9
Human Target - Fridays at 8
Being Human - Saturdays at 9
Amazing Race - Sundays at 8

Houston, we have a problem!  Thank goodness for FiOS and the fact that we can record 2 different shows while we watch another, I think.  Oy!

On the plus side, I AM getting a lot of knitting done when I watch TV.  This is the Dana Hurt square for my Great American Aran Afghan.  There are some boo-boos in it but that's ok.  It wouldn't be "me" without a few quirks.

Can't sign off without a pic of our little granddaughter, Mika, who is now pulling herself up and standing, according to our #1 son.  She also has two teeth.  Wow!  Can't wait to see her again.

Look Who Dropped in on Labor Day!

It's Labor Day here in the States and our little family overseas gave us a surprise call this morning (10 p.m. their time) via Skype.  The connection wasn't the best, hence the poor quality of the pictures but I'll take these over NO pictures any day.  It was so great to see the three of them.  Hasn't little Mika grown?

Even though it was late at night for them, everyone was in a good mood, including the baby and we had a fine chat.

Mika is now pulling herself up to stand on anything that will support her weight and this new-found sense of empowerment has given her a new case of the "wiggles."

"Who, me, Nana?  I'm not a wiggle-worm."

                                     

"Look, Mika!  It's Nana and PawPaw there on the little computer screen.  Can you wave at them?"

  "No, no....Mommy!  Let me go.  I have places to go and things to get into."

                                          

"Here, Mika.  Why don't you get up close and blow a kiss at Nana and PawPaw?"

            

"OK, Daddy.  It's your turn to entertain me."

"You are such an AWESOME daddy!"

"Ack, Mommy!  Where did my eyes go?"

 

"Ooh, these come off and I think I can make them into a toy."

"Or maybe I'll just eat them for a bedtime snack because it looks like Skype is shutting down.  Bye, Nana and PawPaw!"