Bitty Bits of Blather (The I Dropped Off the Face of the Earth Edition)

Hey I’m back!!!

OK fine, I wasn’t really ever gone. I just didn’t blog for three weeks.

Bad blogger! Bad blogger!

1.
It has finally stopped raining. I am just letting that soak in for a bit. June presented us with almost 9 inches of rain. The first half of July wasn’t much better. Poor HHBL had four baseball games rained out this season. We had so much rain that I forgot that sometimes I have to actually water all the flowers. My tomatoes have not been all that happy with all the rain. Even though they are in planter boxes and their little tomato toes drain well they still don’t like all the wet.

And it wasn’t just that we had rain every day. Oh no, it was that we had rain coming down in sheets at times.

But finally it looks like we are going to have a string of sunny weather. I must remember now that I actually have to water the plants.

2.
This is your PSA for the day. Do not make your garbage disposal try to grind up a big old bunch of cabbage leaves. Especially if your disposal is on the, shall we say more geriatric side of life.

I was in a hurry. We had our Pre-Marital mentoring couple coming over for their last session before the big day. Just as an aside, these sorts of things ALWAYS happen when you have company coming. There must be some sort of Murphy’s Law about it. So, I worked that day and then left the office a bit early to get home and make Pulled Pork sandwiches for dinner. We ALWAYS put Cole slaw on top of the pork. ALWAYS. But I have this thing about buying something that I can make better. Hence, I was in the kitchen grating cabbage to quickly make Cole slaw. I took a big handful of cabbage leaves and stuffed them down the garbage disposal in a frenzied effort to clean up. The little, white robed garbage disposal fairy sitting on my right shoulder said, “Ummmm, I don’t think you should do that.” The red robed garbage disposal devil on my left shoulder said, “Whoo Hoo! Live life to the fullest. You are in a hurry. Grind away!

I went with the left shoulder. GRRRRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDD. Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle……….water coming back up at me from both sides of my sink.

Mother Mary and All the Saints in Heaven! And if you think that is what I actually said…..you would be wrong. Fine, I know how to fix this. So I dig around under the sink and quickly realize several things.

1. There are three different things that have to be unscrewed before I can loosen the pipe.
2. Two of the three things that are needing to be unscrewed are already lose and in fact broken. Just unloosening them a bit made it clear that the pipe wasn’t all that secure and was in fact starting to leak.
3. The third thing that needs to be unscrewed is about as tightly wedded to the pipe as the Kardashians are to fame. Not budging.
4. Until I can get a plumber to come and fix this thing…..my kitchen sink is out of commission.

I will not bore you with the saga of trying to get a plumber to come out. Angie’s list failed me (for the first time). We got a recommendation from a friend, Thanks Dottie!!, and finally got Scott the Plumber to come out….on Tuesday…to fix the sink. I like to complain about the fact that for those four days I had to do the dishes in a tub in the kitchen sink and then dump the water out into the laundry room tub. But really, it was a first world problem.

3.
I just finished reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Yeah, I know, everyone else is reading it. Yes, I know, I usually try to avoid doing things that everyone else is doing.

Obviously, if I will wear this outfit to the office then I do not care what anyone else thinks.

Those of you who know me and have been to Chez Knit are wondering what there could be that needs to be gone through and tidied up. We did all of that before we moved right?

Well yes…sort of. But there are still SO MANY things that went from OCK to Chez Knit that probably shouldn’t have. Since we moved, almost two years ago, I have taken uncounted car loads of things to Goodwill. There is a huge pile of things in the basement right now that are destined to be gone fairly soon.

And I think that Marie Kondo is right, if you pick something up and it doesn’t give you joy, whether it is a kitchen utensil or a pair of hand knit socks, it has no place in your life and you should thank it and give it away.

There might be some previously loved, hand knit socks that are going to show up on Instagram pretty soon looking for their forever home. Keep an eye out over there.

And you will be glad to know that I didn’t hesitate…too much…in making the decision to throw out the picture of my father’s gall bladder after it was removed.

It was a wrench but I did it.

4.
We are in the midst of what I can only describe as “The Summer of Weddings”.

In about four hours I am going to be donning my wedding coordinator flats….

Paige and Jeremy are getting married! Paige went to school with TMO. In fact several of the bridesmaids also went to school with TMO. It is fun to see all of these girls get married.

After today that will be two weddings (that I am coordinating) down and three to go.

And I didn’t even mention the three weddings that we are attending as guests in the next six weeks. Good golly!!

5.

The Japanese beetles continue to be the bane of my small gardening existence. They seem to have a great love for my basil for some reason. They completely bypass the tomatoes. I am now keeping a container of soapy water out on the patio and whenever I see one I walk out, knock it in the water, screw on the lid and lit him swim with the other dead bugs.

You just have to find pleasure somewhere!

6.
Oh my gosh, we actually had someone play “Ding Dong Ditch” with our doorbell last night! It actually took me a second to realize that we had been pranked. No one every said I was the brightest bulb in the bunch. I have to laugh although the miscreants weren’t all that good with “hiding” afterwards.

Ding Dong Ditch looses some of it’s potency when, after the homeowner opens the door and stares out in head scratching wonder, the ditcher yells at his compatriots in the bushes and then runs away with about as much subtlety as an elephant charging through the underbrush.

Just sayin’

7.
Just a short knitting report because I know that you are dying to know. Right?

I have a lace project on the needles that is going rather slowly….because I am not working on it all that much.

I finished a pair of socks for HHBL. I am committed to knitting him a bunch of socks because he feet are always so cold in the winter. Black socks are the very devil to knit sometimes but I persevere.

There are a pair of Socks for Soldiers Olive Drab socks on the needles. These take A. LONG. TIME because each leg is 14 inches in length before you even get to the heel portion. But it is pretty much TV knitting. Straight stockinette stich so I don’t even have to look.

I am breezing through a pair of socks in my Vanilla Sock pattern. Also TV knitting.

And I am putting in effort on the Mitered Square Blanket of Gigantic Proportions. Yeah, no one ever said I thought it through when I decided to knit a King Size Bed cover with fingering weight yarn.

8.
Instagram. Because I can, that’s why!