Ghosts of Halloween Past

 

I loved Halloween. It was MY holiday when the kids were little. I didn't have to share them with anyone. No going to grandparents. No spending the day doing things that were an obligation. It was pure joy. I worked all month on costumes. Daughter and I made the front page of the county newspaper at one Halloween parade.

We had just seen Cats at the National Theater and you can tell I was very impressed. I'm Growl Tiger. She's Jennyanydots. 

My homemade costumes weren't always a hit. Dressing #2 Son up as Holly Hobby on his first Halloween was not well received. I still have the bonnet. 

#1 son got better reviews that year even though he didn't look very happy about all that itchy tulle. 

Once they were old enough to have an opinion they wanted store bought costumes like their friends. 

Lucky for me Daughter was still young enough to let me make costumes for her.

Those sure were the good old days. Everything is canceled here this year so I won't bother hanging the vintage pumpkin lights in the front window.

I might be making our traditional donuts but just a few. I hate to use up all my baking supplies. I am having trouble getting things again. I need my stuff to last.

Happy Halloween from 2017 me!

 Look....I still had a kitchen! Lol....

Stay safe and see you in November. 

TGIF

Well look what finally showed up. My new dryer. I gave up on Lowes and went Home Depot. Was the process any better? No. 
 

Of course it showed up yesterday morning when we had the remnants of a hurricane on top of us. Lots of wind. Lots and lots of rain. It dropped buckets on us all darn day. What a mess.

It was wrapped in plastic so we had the delivery guys leave it outside until we could figure out where to put it. We never got the old one out because the delivery people didn't call us to tell us they were coming. They just showed up. The cord also didn't show up. Home depot shipped the dryer and the cord separately and Fedex didn't show up with the cord until dinner time. Sigh. It's been too much drama. None of this bodes well for the kitchen does it?

In knitting news, Altheda has only 2 more colorwork rows on the yoke to go and then it's all stockinette. Lots of mindless knitting. Yay.

Bubbles is done-minus the front bands. I have to tackle all the ends first and there is about a zillion inside of it.

Since it's Friday Felines....if anyone ever asks me what I did in the pandemic I'll have just one answer. FEED CATS. Here is the latest outside kitty's new trick. He climbs up on the grill and bangs on the window until I notice his bowl is empty. Sigh. Everyone of the cats has become a monster. I've spoiled them all rotten. 

The Calm Before the Storm

 

Not again. What is it about these gulf storms that want to end up sitting on top of us? This makes the third one this year. 

The storm is hundreds of miles away but it was very ominous out on the bay today. We've got two days of heavy rain to look forward to so we thought we better get out.

We hadn't been down on this end of the boardwalk since the pandemic started and we were shocked by some the damage we saw that must have come from the other two storms. Folks on the water were getting ready for some coastal flooding-again. 

We ventured that far into town because we were pretty much the only ones out there. Even the pier was deserted. We haven't been on the pier since last February.

The feathered inhabitants were in abundance as usual. I wonder what they think of all the masked folks gawking at them. 

All of the town fall and winter festivities are canceled but that hasn't stopped them from decorating. It's not even Halloween and the Christmas stuff is going up....

....and up. I always wonder about the person who ordered the light up tulips and hummingbirds for the winter display. Dancing crabs I get-tulips, not so much.

Piling Up

 

My latest Pimpeliesse is done.

It started like this.....

....and then got spun....

....and now it joins my other two Pandemic Pimpeliesses.  The last two need to be blocked. They look much better after they've had a good stretching. 

I told myself that I was going to knit a pile of them for whatever reason and I am. I just wound up some more of my handspun. That's the BFL I just dyed for the TdF. 

It's not super soft but I think it will work.  

Barely A Stitch

 

It was one of those kind of weeks so sitting and stitching didn't happen much since last TNT. Yesterday I made myself pick up something even if it was just for a few minutes. Mr. Kitty got a little bit more border done and the right corner of his grin.

I really had wanted to get the second half of the kitty done on this one this year but alas....after getting it all framed up I didn't have the floss. It'll have to wait until next year. 

We did a grocery pick up order yesterday morning and I almost had more things that didn't make it in the cart than did. I hope this is not an omen of what's to come this winter. I suppose I better get more toilet paper.

I did get 6 apple cider donuts. They are not as good as Wawa's but they'll do. 

Sadly my Son in Law's sweet little grandmother is in the ICU on a ventilator fighting for her life after most likely picking up Covid during a recent doctor's visit. It doesn't look good. Stay safe everybody. This thing isn't nearly done with us yet in spite of what some folks are trying to tell us. 

Nothing to See Here

 

This. This is all I did yesterday. All day. I had a headache-again. It was raining-again so I claimed a corner of my couch from the kitties and sat and knit to old movies. All day. Today starts a new week, thank goodness. I sure hope it is better than the last one. 

You've Got to Be Kidding Me

 

So the new washer was delivered Friday morning and the matching dryer was supposed to show up yesterday morning. We got the confirmation the night before so when the phone rang at 7:30 am we were ready. The Mister had already unhooked the old dryer and drug it out to the curb but......

....it wasn't the delivery company saying they were on their way. They were telling us they didn't have the dryer. It was out of stock. They would call us later in the week to let us know when it would be available. A VERY unhappy Mister had to drag the old dryer back in the house and hook it all back up. Having no washer is one thing. No dryer? Can't be done with humidity still in the high 80's.

There was a lot of grumbling about it between us all morning and then THIS happened. They sent me an email telling me the order had been CANCELLED. CANCELLED? Why? It took another half hour of phone wrangling to find out no one knew why but it was cancelled. Grrrrrrr........Now I need to start the process all over again. At least we got the old dryer up and running.

On a happier note it looks like fall has finally shown up in our neck of the woods. It's still too hot and humid but looking out of the window from my AC chilled house I can pretend.

I've even got some blooming stuff. I forget what this is but the front bed is full of it and it looks so pretty with the fallen leaves. 

Happy fall ya'll!

Wishy Washy

 

Look what came down my driveway at 8 am yesterday morning. Squee....

Ta da.......the new Mr. Washy is here. It had to spend the morning outside while The Mister and I got the place ready for it. Like big dummies we didn't think to measure the height with the lid open so we had to move shelves. We also had to remove doors to get it where it needed to be. 

I've already done 3 loads and I love the thing but it's so tall and deep I can barely reach down and pull the wet stuff out. I have to get up on my tippy toes and bend way over into it. The Mister might find me head first in it one day....lol.

Speaking of wishy washy, this week's Inktober projects don't look too bad all together like this but working on them was anything but fun after a day of slinging wet laundry. My hands are a disaster-broken nails, chapped skin and what I think is a sprained thumb. Ouch. 

Anyway they did get done-all but TRAP. I made the mistake of Googling the word and freaked out by what I saw. Ugh.

There is ROCKET (the cute little space shuttle), STORM (geomagnetic and snow), DIZZY ( I tried and failed to copy the VERTIGO poster), CHEF (I stole Babish's logo), CORAL (I had to work from a photo because I realized I had no idea what coral looked like), SLEEP (my go-to sleep aid channel Lepreezy on YouTube) and finally RIP ( I know it was supposed to be rip but my pandemic brain went to REST IN PEACE and COVID of course). 

One more week.....can you believe it? October flew by.

 

In Stitches

 

I am not sure how I managed it this week what with all the laundry I've had to do by hand but I did get some knitting done...in fact, quite a bit. The Kafe Fassett two-fer man socks are this big now. 

My Arne and Carlos Pairfect man sock is this big. Isn't it pretty? I love how it is designed with a contrasting ribbing, heel and toe all done for you by the yarn.

Bubbles will have its second sleeve finished tonight. The garter stitch edges are still making me crazy but I don't think there is a cure. Maybe blocking will help.

The latest Pimpeliesse should be done soon. I am ready to move on to the next one I've got lined up. 

Altheda needs to have her cable changed. I've got too many stitches now and they need to spread out. I had my first break in the yarn. They warn you about that but it's not a big deal if you are a spinner. Unspun fiber drifts apart sometimes especially when it runs thick and thin like this weird kind of Lopi does. 

And finally......the short rows on the Lofoten are DONE. That is HUGE. I struggled so hard with those. I had German short rows, neckline decreases and a back and forth colorwork pattern in knit and purl to follow ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It was terrible. Now I just have to figure out the 3 needle bind off for the shoulders and it will be time to steek this baby.

So Here's the Thing......

 

You know how I like to decorate the tops of my soap with salt chunks and glitter? Well, it's not such a good idea I just found out. 

Salt draws moisture from the air and when the humidity is this high for 5 months in a row it causes problems especially with pretty little bars of soap. This is my inside humidity with the AC set on morgue and two dehumidifiers running. The outside humidity is 88% today. It's been pretty much that way since early spring. Ugh.

So when I was pulling all my soap off my high drying racks in the soap room to send off to the giveaway folks I noticed that some of them were wet. Uh, oh....the salty topped beauties were weeping. It doesn't really affect the soap. It's just a cosmetic issue but I'm not sending weepy soap to anyone. 

Luckily I could save enough to send everyone a couple of bars but as I warned before-none of it is my best. It just hasn't been good soap making weather. I was going to make some this week and I'm glad I changed my mind. If I sent you some.....get it OUT of the plastic and into a dry spot ASAP and USE IT. Don't let it sit around. Throw in right in the tub and have a good scrub. That's what I am going to do with all my weepy ones. 

The plain old goat's milk soap seemed to handle the weather the best. The brown spots in it are just the sugar being heated to too high a temperature when I added the lye. I am still working on getting the perfect goat's milk soap but it is still been lovely to use. 

Since they are all precarious at best they are ALL going out today. The Mister is going to drop them off for me. Be on the lookout. 

I also want to thank a bloggy friend who sent me these masks. Have you ever seen anything so cute? I can't wait to wear them on the boardwalk.  Those are cards that she makes out of fabric panels in the back. How clever is that? Now I've got all the holidays covered.... thanks Ruth!