Lost a rug, gained my sanity

At long last, we seem to have found the favored place the cat has been sitting to clean herself, and thus the breeding ground for the continual waves of fleas she's been suffering from. Unfortunately, said place was under the living room rug.

Fortunately, it wasn't a very expensive rug, I'd been thinking about replacing it anyway, and we've got a rubbish skip at the moment since we're remodeling, so the rug went straight out. The living room carpet under the rug has been thoroughly shampooed with bleach, the couch that sits on the rug has gotten the same treatment, and everything's been doused with salt to keep the little buggies from returning. My skin is so dried out and peeling from all the cleaning, I don't think I'll need a costume tomorrow.

This means that finally, at long last, I can knit freely anywhere in the house! With any luck, I'll have my etsy shop restocked before Thanksgiving, and maybe get a rough draft going of a pattern for one of the sweater designs I'm working on. Hooray!

NaNoWriMo Looming...

I'm giving serious thought to participating in NaNoWriMo this year, because I actually remembered it before November 15th this time. The question is mostly what to write.

I have tons of stories already started, but one of the requirements is that you start from scratch. I'm leaning towards writing something set in my failed D&D setting. I have background notes and NPCs that could be converted easily into main characters, which I suppose would count as outline/character profiles, which are allowed. Maybe it would even help me fix the setting so we could actually run a game in it sucessfully.

On the other hand, maybe I should start completely from scratch, or even work on a Dr. Who novel (I know somewhere in my bookmarks are the submission guidelines for Dr. Who novels - wouldn't it be cool if I actually managed to get one published?)

Regardless, it'll be a bit of a challenge for me - I don't normally write in chronological order.

Witches in Space?

I had some of that ''just-add-hot-water" spiced cider today, and it got me thinking about one of my favorite books as a child. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the hell the title is.

The cider reminded me because the book was about a little witch
(well, warlock) named Witchard who lived with his aunts who were very traditional witches, and part of the story involved him going to the grocery store and buying all the ingredients to make an instant powdered version of their witches' brew. I think he and the little girl witch (who I want to say was named 'Witchina') ended up going into space at some point as well. It's been a while since I read the story.

It probably came out about the same time as the 'Little Vampire' books, because I associate the two. Anyway, if this sounds at all familiar to any of you, could you maybe let me know if you recall the title? It's really bugging me.

That time of year...

Well, it's official - I just got my Christmas knitting started.

I've got a couple of things I'm doing for my Etsy store, but I'm working on a few presents already, and planning a few more. With any luck, the patterns for some of the planned stuff will turn out nice enough that I might submit one to Knitty.

At the very least, I'll share here ;)

Back to hating the cat/neighbor

Despite being treated by the vet and shaved, I found three fleas on Miss Dummy-Fuzzbutt this evening (in retrospect, perhaps she should have been shave, then treated, but that's really too much kindness to ask from the universe at the moment.)

And of course, the cat was rolling all over the yarn I just bought today for stuff I was actually intending to sell. Needless to say, no sleep for me tonight as I scrub thoroughly, prepare to fumigate the couch, and stand ready to vacuum as soon as The Boy wakes up. (I'll be nice and not wake him up with the vacuum). All available advice leads me to believe that if I just stick the yarn in the freezer for a few hours, it should nip any possible flea problem in the bud. I can't tell you how tempting it is to do the same to the cat...seriously, has anyone looked into cryogenics as a chemical-free flea treatment?

Socky socky sock sock

The socks that I started for my *husband* (giggle) are coming along nicely. Maybe a little too nicely. My boss was severely eyeing them up at work. No one's really made anything out of the Rustic Wool yet, so everyone's been oohing and ahhing over how they're turning out. Also, I think everyone's a little impressed that I just sat down and started knitting a pair of socks, no pattern needed.

On the designing front, one of the other girls just headed out on vacation, and wanted a simple poncho pattern to knit in the round on the plane. So, partly to help and partly to show off, I whipped off a simple pattern with a few sketches. She was feeling up to the challenge of being a pattern guinea pig, so we'll see what the poncho looks like when she gets back.

Yarn withdrawal

Again with the cat.

She's a very pretty cat, perfectly sweet and loving, and the dumbest m***********g animal on God's green Earth. She is also, at the moment, covered in nasty little bugs.

I hate the little bugs.

Because of them, I cannot get my clothing moved over to my new house. More importantly, I don't want to move my craft supplies over, as I'm pretty sure she will want to lie on them and cover them in cat hair and little bugs.

In her defense, the little bugs are not her fault. We have scrubbed and treated the cat to within an inch of her life, and when the little bugs kept returning despite her lack of outdoors time, we realized the source of the problem.

You see, a month or two ago, my parents' neighbors generously gave us an awesome red leather reclining couch and matching chair. Free of charge, all we had to do was get them hauled off (I believe the exact reasoning was something along the lines of 'I went out and bought myself a new car and now the wife wants new furniture in exchange for not killing me in my sleep')

These are the same people whose cats and dog have been suffering from a three-month flea problem, and whose oldest son counted over 40 individual bug bites on his legs last week from an extended 360 session in the basement with said cats.

They gave us a giant red leather-covered flea nest.

Blankets with smallpox would have been easier to clean up after. I really wanted to have a nice relaxing week after the wedding getting my stuff moved in and arranging the house, but such was not to be.

I fear our only option is to shave the cat and fumigate the couch.

(well, the only option that The Boy will sign off on, at least.)

Finish line in sight

Two days until the wedding, and I've almost got everything finished up. The purse for the flower girl was finished yesterday at work, the wrap got finished tonight, I think the bridesmaids' necklaces are done, and I've got one of the handkerchiefs done. All that's left is the other handkerchief and the cape for miss flower girl.

In theory.

I swear, there's something I'm forgetting that has to be done before the wedding. No idea what, when, why, where, or how.

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Now playing: DeVotchKa - Queen Of The Surface Streets
via FoxyTunes

Fun with bathing cats

So yesterday was bath day for Miss Dummy-Fuzzbutt. Things did not go well.

First, she got me across the top of the foot while I was trying to set her in the tub (the *dry* tub, I might add), then she gouged me in the hand a couple of times once the water started. I'm a bit of a bleeder, so that meant that as I'm trying to scrub the cat, I'm ending up smearing blood all over her nice white fur.

As the grand finale, I turned the faucet over to the shower hose, thinking that I'd be able to get her rinsed off faster that way. Instead, it frightened her so badly that she suddenly lost bladder control. So of course, then after I finally got the cat rinsed, I had to scrub and disinfect the tub.

I grow to loathe the cat.

Then I went home and gave my mom's kitten a bath. I plonked him chest-deep into a sink of warm water, soaped him up, rinsed him off, and got nothing but a mild 'are you done *yet*' sort of noise out of him.