Turned the heel and began the gusset decreases on the second of the Southwestern Socks last night. I was, however, interrupted by a partial power outage (partial in that lights would go on but were weirdly dim). At the same time, police sirens started up and continued for at least 10 minutes, which creeped me out (it was after dark when all this happened).

Then, this morning, I discovered that I need to sweep the dining room floor EVERY night and I can NEVER get away with leaving an open box of anything around (everything from now on gets sealed in zipper bags; I will be the Ziploc company's greatest customer). In other words, ants discovered my dining room last night. One of the unspoken drawbacks of living in an older house in the South is that you will have bugs. Especially if you are a somewhat indifferent housekeeper like me. Double especially if you don't believe in using toxic chemicals (and so, will never hire an exterminator). OK, so I reneged on the toxic chemicals part - I sprayed heck out of the floor with some kind of bug killing stuff that claims to be safe for indoors.

I still won't hire an exterminator. I'd rather deal with it myself. I think I'm probably going to have to do something to the mounds that sprang up in my front yard.

Thank God they are just what folks around here call "sugar ants" or "pavement ants" and not the Red Imported Fire Ant. I have read that pennyroyal will repel ants, maybe I need to find a nursery that sells it and plant it all around my house.

some organic tips. They say ants hate the smell of peppermint. I may have to get a bunch of dried peppermint or soak cotton balls in extract and try this out. The worst that could happen is that I still have ants and have a house that smells like peppermint.

(incidentally, the "grits tip" for fire ants doesn't work. One of my friends tried it, she was very gratified to see the ants carrying the grits into the mound, but frustrated the next day when she saw them bringing the grits back out...)
more ant tips Peppermint is listed here, too, as is cinnamon.
If you wanna use chemicals (which I guess they sell)