As a side note – Morning Sickness is a misnomer… it’s just Sickness… morning, noon, and night. Luckily I haven’t actually had to make the mad dash to a receptacle yet… but I feel the need in varying degrees ALL THE TIME – if I eat too much, if a eat too little, if I stand too long, if I think too hard… ALL THE TIME. Nathen has actually run me out of the house three times in the last week trying to cook me something I can actually eat because even smells are grossing me out. Nothing tastes the way is should and I’m actually drinking more caffiene than before because Coke is pretty much the only thing that helps… and sometimes even that dosen’t work. I’ve eaten more sweets in the last month than I have in the last year… apparently the baby has his fathers’ sweet tooth – but completely and totally loathes sweet tea, which I found out the hard way.

So as a result I haven’t done much but sit in the recliner and feel miserable… in between going to work and feeling miserable. I started a Homespun Prayer Shawl in early July (I’ll post pictures eventually) that should have been a two week project tops… and I’m only about half way through it. Not to mention the other projects I was commissioned for before the Sickness hit me… and not counting the gift projects I still haven’t finished from earlier this year. Talk about a snowball affect.

Anyway – I just wanted to let everyone know I’m still here and still checking in… just feeling really crudy and unmotivated… when does the nesting start already.

So that’s a quote from the movie “The Three Amigos” in case you didn’t know – funny flick and a family classic in our house – Martin Short, Chevy Chase, and Steve Martin.

I now have a plethora of knitting needles.  I became frustrated last month that I didn’t have a set of 10 1/2 double pointed needles… and realized I only had 1 pair of double pointed needles period (because WalMart only carries size 3 double pointed needles. Period. What is up with that?). So anyway… the only 10 1/2’s I could find on line were like $8 and if I was going to pay that plus shipping then I’d drive my happy rear to either Evansville or Russelville and give the not-so-local-yarn-shop my money.

Frustrated, I did a search for Huge Knitting Needle Lot – and lo’ found one with a 120+ needles – most of which were double pointed! So I bid, and I won, and for about $35 got roughly 40 sets of needles – plus a vintage canister needle case, a set of cable needles, and a set of stitch holders.

FABU!

Vintage Knitting Needle Cannister

Vintage Knitting Needle Cannister - With Needles

 Completely unimportant – but when you move the cannister around it sounds like a rain stick!

Knitting Needle Bag

Vintage Straight Knitting Needles

Vintage Double-Pointed Needles

Vintage Circular Needles

Vintage Cable Needles and Stitch Holders

 With all these needles I needed a way to figure out what I had… so I downloaded an nifty little app onto my ITouch called Ewe Stash.  It’s $2.99 (most I’ve spend on an app) but so far it’s really handy! You can inventory your knitting needles, your crochet hooks, and your yarn. So far I’ve only entered the knitting needles but I inputted 51 sets of needles in about an hour.

Ewe Stash App

51 sets of needles! 

Really the one local auction was for a local lady who was a pillar of the community who had passed away and I was betting people would go crazy over her things. To be blunt, as I so often told I am, I figured the prices would be stupid and I wasn’t going to waste my time – after all, half of the art of Auctioning is picking the right Auction!

Well the 2nd art of the Auction is Waiting… and Mom did… and filled her Subaru Outback to the roof, twice, for all of $20.  Can you believe it? I’ve gotten close to that kind of haul once or twice, but it’s been a while. The best deal I’ve gotten was my $1200 worth of Rosenthal China for $30 (that was so awesome!) – but this is Mom’s Kudos! So… Kudos! With a ‘Dang’ thrown in there for good measure. And of course the icing on the cake was that Mom passed a ton of it on to me! Much to the disgruntlement of My Man – and the smugness of Her Man.

So lots and lots of cool vintage stuff!

29 balls of 100% Alpaca! SQUEEEEEEEEEEE!

29 Balls of 100% Alpaca!

10 balls of 100% Mohair.

10 Balls 100% Mohair

Penny's Mohair Yarn Label

Enough Tapestry Wool to pack a 64 quart plastic tote (not sure what I’ll do with that).

Auction Tapestry Wool - 1st Layer

Auction Tapestry Wool - 2nd Layer

Auction Tapestry Wool - 3rd Layer

Auction Tapestry Wool - 4th Layer

Auction Tapestry Wool - 5th Layer

Check out these 2 sweater kits that came with coordinating material for skirts! So cool! (Course the yarn is 100% Virgin Wool…).

Vintage Sweater Kit # 1

Vintage Sweater Kit #2Mail Order Skirt Making Service!

5 balls of 100% Virgin Wool in olive drab.

100% Virgin Wool Yarn

This lovely lady apparently loved to cut out the material for sewing patterns because I’ve got 2 boxes of dresses ready to be sewn – they’re in the cutest vintage fabrics! (Well some are cute… some qualify for a ‘whoa’.)

Then there’s these neat tie making kits – those fabrics are gorgeous! I could use them as the focal point in a skirt… I need to hit Paula D up for some sewing!

Tie Making Kit # 1

Tie Makers Kit # 2

Tie Makers Kit # 3

Tie Makers Kit #4

Tie Makers Kit #5

Tie Makers Kit # 6 & # 7

There was also a partially completed crochet afghan – ah for the days of Avacado Green and Harvest Gold! Any Crocheters out there feeling like finishing this bad boy? From what I can tell all the yarn is there and I’ve got the instructions! Heck I think the hook is still in there!

70's Crochet Afghan Kit

70's Crochet Afghan Blocks

Auctions are so frickin’ cool!!!

I had purses from Paula D and 5 Paper Mache’ animals from Cindy M – sold 2 of the animals.

I presented Knit Scarves and belts, Flower Power (pins, hair barrets, and magnets) and lots of Jewelry. I love the little miniature soldier earrings! Lots of people looked at them but I had no takers.  The guitar pic jewelry was popular – I sold a pair of earrings and the bracelet. The Silver set and the Phoenix Set sold pretty quickly which made me very happy – they paid for my booth rental! At this rate I will still be $300 in the hole at the end of the summer… hmmm…. not counting the lights I haven’t bought yet…

Crap.

Earrings 1

Earrings 2

Earrings 3

Rhino Earrings

Patriotic Earrings and Bracelet

Silver Set - Sold

Phoenix Set - Sold

Horse Necklace

Guitar Pick Bracelet - Sold

Foreign Coins w/Animals Charm Bracelet

Pelican Set

Toy Policeman Necklace

Chain Necklace 1

Chain Necklace 2

Chain Necklace 3

Chain Necklace 4 & 5

Chamomile Plant

Texas Terragon

Patchouli Plant

Catnip Plant

Sweet Marjoram Plant

Cilantro Plant - flowering.

Last Years' Sole Surviving Rosemary

Cindy M thought I was crazy when I asked to use her truck to get these hog panels home – she couldn’t figure out why I wanted all that metal in my garden – well isn’t it obvious? Rot proof trellising baby! I’ve combined all my plantings so that I’ve got a Vine (or at least viney plant that needs support) going up the trellis staggered with a lower growing bush plant. This way the vines go up and the bushes go out! I’ve got Sunflowers going down the entire right hand border now – need to plant the ones on the left side but I haven’t gotten that far.

I originally had Italian heirloom tomatoes planted in the space pictured below – but I apparently suck at starting tomatoes and… lets just say they failed to thrive. So $10 and a trip to Rural King later and I’ve got 30 Beefsteak Tomato plants!

Beefsteak Toms - Fooled You Jalapenos - Sunflowers - May 2010

Fooled You Jalapeno

Beefsteak Tom

Beefsteak Tom 2

Crookneck Yellow Squash

Amaranth

Sugar Snap Peas

 I stopped by Lowes one night and checked their clearance racks – as I’m wont to do this time of year – and low I found strawberry plants for a $1! (Originally $3) – So I bought 20.  When I went back 2 days later the 30 that I had left behind were gone, darn it, but at least I got my 20! It’s past their fruiting cycle but their perennial so all I have to do is wait! They’re already producing runners and I swear the doubled in size overnight once I got them into the ground. They wound up in the spot I was going to plant cabbage in but it’s the most acidic spot in the yard (presumably) since it’s under a pine tree and it’s semishaded (which all the wild strawberries seem to like). Keep your fingers crossed that they make it through the winter.

Strawberry Plants

Strawberry Plants Planted

 The cucumbers have decided this is their garden and they are going to take it over dang it! I think you can almost watch them grow. They sprouted faster than anything else in the garden and are growing just as fast. They’ve already got fruit started! I direct seeded some basil in between the cucumber (don’t know how well that’ll do – apparently cucumbers don’t like aromatic herbs, which I didn’t know) – only about six sprouted which I suppose is pretty darn good considering I was supposed to start them indoors.

Cucumbers

Baby Cucumber

 I had to replace my Amish Canner Tomato seedlings and my Chinese Bell Pepper seedlings – none of them did well. Another trip to Rural King and I’ve got 20 Roma Tomatoes and about 34 California Wonder Green Bell Peppers.

These and the Cucumbers are interplanted with Marigolds and Nasturtiums for (hopefully) pest control.  Also the Nasturtiums are edible.

Roma Toms - Bell Peppers - Marigolds - Nasturtiums

 I’ve got Butternut Squash and Tetsukabuto Squash (Japanese Pumpkins) interplanted with Striped Toga Egglants – the Eggplants are pretty shimpy right now – not sure how well they’ll do.  The Tetsu’s have really pretty leaves with the white marks (which distinguishes them from the Butternuts) – apparently the Butternuts are required to pollinate the Tetsu’s.

Tetsukabuto Plants (Japanese Pumpkin)

 I’m having a battle with the pests this year – which is new for me.  The only real problem I had last year (that I knew about) were Squash Bugs (which suck).  This year I’ve got Bean Beetles (which I had last year I’m sure – I just didn’t recognize it), Vine Borers (which are so gross! They’re basically big maggots! ICK! The Ortho Pest book says to slit open the vine, find the maggot and pull out – then bury that part of the vine and hope it heals itself – well here’s hoping! I pulled out alot of those things! 

Bean Beetle

Vine Borer Damage

More Vine Borer Damage

 I actually think the ants killed these 2 vine borers – go ANTS! There were a bunch of ants at the base of the plant and these guys were very, very dead.

Dead Vine Borers

 I’ve already found 2 Squash bugs and some eggs.

In the morning we found that the ditch had gone over it’s banks, enough that it was flowing *over* the foot bridge, over our neighbor’s driveway and over the top of the culvert at the end of the street! There was so much water, moving so fast that it dug through the separation between the two pieces of metal culvert and left a man sized hole there!

Drainage Ditch and Foot Bridge

Debris from flooding in neighbors driveway.

Main Drainage Cluvert with Debris

Hole dug by the water over the culvert.

The storm damaged the back end of the garden – luckily we hadn’t planted earlier that day like we had planned - it would have washed out all my cucumber and basil seeds if we had.  As it is we’ll have to re-mulch… gar!

Garden Damage

Garden Damage 2

The ramp to the highway was flooded – the southbound on ramp always floods but this started 1/2 a mile back from the ramp and went all the way up under the underpass where the land rises just a bit. I was very annoyed at hubby for driving us through this… we didn’t, however, drive back through it to get home – we took the long way ’round.

Flooding approaching the highway ramps.

Flooding behind the truck stop.

Flooding off the Pennyrile.

The ‘long way ’round’ took us through Earlington – where the Earlington Lake’s spillway had totally exceeded it’s capacity and flooded the low lying areas around it.  All of these pictures are actually after the water had been receeding a bit – the height of the flooding hit between 2 and 4 AM, I believe, and the pictures were taken between 10 and 11 AM.

Earlington flooding - hope these folks moved their dogs!

Earlington Flooding

All the data for the last 3 months was lost so for the next month or so I’m going to be reposting the old stuff in between new posts so don’t get confused – I’ll probably make the first line on the reposts read something like ‘Hack Recovery Post’ or something.

Bleh.

Anyway – security has been updated – and to those on the mailing list, don’t worry. From what I understand your emails are listed through Feedburner which is separate from WordPress so you shouldn’t be affected in any way.

If someone posted a comment or question and didn’t get a response during this downtime – I apologize. Just send it again!