Yawwwwn. . . I need more sleep

Got up WAAAY too early this morning; thought I heard the dogs asking to be let out at 4:00 am so I got up only to discover them sound asleep still. Lucky buggers. I didn't think I'd be able to get back to sleep so I stayed up & brewed the coffee instead.

Alamitos Bay is having a sock yarn special this weekend in honor of the Sock Summit. I only found out about it this morning, but I will most definitely have to give it a peek. I don't know what it is about sock yarn that makes it so appealing. Besides, just because I'm *looking* doesn't mean I'll be *buying.* Right? Yeah, right. . .

As you can see from the photo (and as mentioned in the previous post), the jackalope is almost done. I'm hoping to have time to finish it today. I made one antler yesterday in white & sewed it on, but found it just disappeared into the white of the inner ear, so off it came. I started a new antler in some leftover Mountain Colors Twizzle in Gold Rush, a short-stripe yellow/red/green yarn that I used on one of the fish hats. I think it will look better than the white, and two of the three people I showed it to agreed (the third preferred the white). Next project in line is the garden snail. I was going to make the spider next, but after two octopi and a kraken I think I want to avoid multi-legged critters for a while. Although I would love a couple more octopi; I think that's my favorite pattern so far in the book.



Read an interesting story on Ravelry today. The OP said her boyfriend had gone to the yarn store to buy her birthday present. She went to the same store later that day & the owner kept giving her a "knowing" look. She didn't think much of it, just figured the boyfriend had said something typical of a non-knitter and the owner was giving her a look of pity. When she went home & opened her present, her boyfriend told her to look at the red in the middle of one of the balls of yarn. She opened it up a bit and saw not red yarn, but an engagement ring! What a great way to propose to a knitter :-) She said yes, of course.

Still having major ant problems. Terminex was no help; we have called several times to ask them to come back & re-treat, but our phone calls have gone unanswered and unreturned. I'm very disappointed with their lack of response and certainly cannot recommend them to others at this point. I always thought of them as a reputable company but now I have my doubts.

Anyway, the ants. The only solution I can think of to get rid of them--move anything and everything edible into fully-sealed containers--is not practical. Some of the things they have come in after that fit in the "fully-sealed is not practical" category are the aquarium, my toothbrush (OK, I guess I *could* put it in a ziploc), the cats' food bowl, the dogs' water dish, the food-trap screen in the kitchen sink, and cat barf. No, we don't normally leave cat barf lying around; it happened while we were at work & by the time Ralph got home the ants had already found it. I tell you it's a losing battle. It was suggested that we scatter coffee grounds outside where they are entering the house, but we can't find any place where they are coming from. I think they must have a colony inside the walls somewhere or in the crawl space under the house. About all we can do is spray them when we see them. We've been using a thyme oil-based pet-safe spray which kills the buggers, but doesn't prevent them from coming back. We also have ant bait "stations" placed in various spots around the house, being careful to put them where the pets can't get at them. Guess we'll just have to keep at it.