Random Saturday-morning stuff. (I'm in my office, waiting for it to be time to go over and set up - I'm doing a little teaching prep while I wait, so at least that'll be done for Monday).

* I should pull out the stalled pillowcase set I'm working on embroidering and make that part of Start-over. I see all these things that people embroider, and I love how it looks, but somehow it's just hard for me to get started on embroidery projects.

* I wish I had this kind of search-and-rescue sometimes.

* It actually might rain today. It's very overcast. I'm not holding my breath though.

* I envy the people in Seattle right now. A high of 58 sounds like fun for a change.

* I really want to start something new, then I look at all my piled up projects and decide I shouldn't.

* Crochet really takes a toll on my elbows. I'm having to do the edging of Bloom in small doses.

* I had to effect a small repair on two parts of the still-in-progress Monet scarf - something had nibbled on a couple strands here and there. (I guess I still have carpet beetles. Or something. We've had a big problem with crickets here this summer and I've had a few in the house, and crickets will eat just about any fiber. I try not to let my projects lie on the floor for any length of time, but sometimes something falls off the table while I'm at work). It breaks my heart to have to repair "munches" in something that's not even finished. I looked at the hole last night and wanted to cry - because it symbolized to me that even my knitting isn't something that stays done any more (That's one of the sanity-saving things for me about knitting - you don't have to go back and rewrite it, or you don't get it sent back to you with a letter saying there's no money to fund you now, or you don't use up what you've done for the week and have to start fresh on Monday). But if the bugs in this benighted climate are going to eat my knitting before I can even finish it - what's the point? I might as well be doing that Zen painting thing where you paint with water on a tablet and the painting disappears as the water evaporates. Or building sand castles. Or something.

It seems that merino wool, especially fine-weight merino wool, gets attacked far more readily than everything else. And I'm not ready to go to an all-synthetics lifestyle.

* All that said - I'm thinking that when I decide to start the saddle-seam pullover (from Interweave knits; it's one of the patterns I have in the queue), I am going to use the bright yellow (Elann Highland Wool in "Freesia") for it (if I have enough); the last time I wore yellow (I have a dressy yellow suit I sometimes wear to church) I got a lot of compliments on it, so maybe a big expanse of yellow on me ISN'T a bludgeoning sight.

* I would just be really happy if it would be 10 or 20 degrees cooler for a while.

* I've decided that despite my moratorium on buying things (mainly to allow my account to build back up after the big hit it took from the hot water heater replacement; I don't like dipping into my savings, even for stuff like that, if I can avoid it), I'm going to go to Longview over my upcoming mid-fall break (which cannot get here fast enough, as far as I'm concerned). I just need a day out and away and doing what I please. And somewhere where people can't call me and ask me to do stuff for them.

* The moratorium IS also partly to force me to use up some of my stash. That front isn't working so well - I'm slowly working through the various ongoing projects but not really finishing anything. I have a startling amount of yarn ahead - probably it's what the knitlist used to call SABLE (stash acquisition beyond life expectancy). I don't think I'll do a "destashing sale" like a lot of people, mainly because I don't think enough people read this to be interested in some of the stuff I have, and also, I look at the stuff and go, "but I paid $X for this back then and I won't be able to get that back for it." Or I look at it and go "But what if it has the tiny ticking time bomb of a carpet beetle larvae snuggled deep in one of the balls? I don't want to sell someone chewed up yarn and then have them be angry with me." So the stash continues to sit.

* I really don't think the carpet beetles - or crickets - or whatever (at least I know it's not moths; I haven't seen any since that freakout two summers ago, and now I think that was a meal-moth I saw) are as big a problem as I am making them sound like. The vast majority of my yarn shows no signs of being attacked.

The one thing I hate the most about living in the South is the greater abundance of bugs that will damage your possessions. Back when I lived in the Great Lakes region, we used to get the occasional meal-moth or some silverfish - but then a good cold winter would come along and get rid of them. Here, it rarely gets cold enough to successfully knock stuff back. And I'm unwilling to hire an exterminator to come in and toxify my living quarters.

* Has anyone ever tried those "high frequency sound" pest repellers that they sell on tv? The ones you plug into an outlet and they supposedly emanate sound waves at a frequency we can't hear, but that repels rodents and bugs? Every bit of my training tells me that should not work, but when I see those things advertised I wonder...could they be the solution to the occasional "waterbug" that blunders its way up the pipe chase and then causes me great dismay as it wanders across the bathroom floor? I don't want to buy one if they're a rip-off, but if they really truly work...I'd be willing to invest in those.