A Good Day

Today has been a good, good day.  Why?  Because we finally got some rain last night!  

See my bucket?  

This is a five gallon, and it was slap empty yesterday.  And my little 2 gallon was completely full. 

I found some empty peanut butter jars and stored as much as I could for the dry season next summer.  Why?  Because a Venus Fly Trap is very sensitive to minerals and they must have either rain water or distilled water.  The more rain water I can collect and save, the less distilled water I have to buy.  

Anyway...I also checked my garden spot, and it seems to have settled very well.  There are still a few high spots I can shave down and scoot the dirt over into the lower spots, but overall, I'm pleased.  By the way, the little anti scratch cat spray didn't work.  I'll have to put the plastic stuff down in the rest of the beds, hopefully I can get to that after Thanksgiving and before I have to go back to work.   It doesn't take long, and the stuff is very easy to cut.  

In more good news, someone came and picked up all the stuff I was trying to give away -- even the stadium seats I've been trying to give away since September.  You'd think with it being football season,  someone would want them, but apparently they didn't.  

This guy, I think he runs a thrift store or something, because he's come and gotten junk from me before.  Some people would get all bent out of shape over this, but I'm OK with it.  This guy works as a security guard at a local factory, and they don't make any kind of money.  Whatever I can do to help someone out, and it helps me out as well by decluttering my house.  

In other news, I've been trying to figure out how to decorate my new baker's rack for Christmas, but couldn't come up with anything.  Everything I tried interfered with actually using said rack.  The best I could come up with was to hang some Christmas mugs on the hooks.  

Looking at this photo now, it looks like I have room for a couple more mugs.  I don't know why they included six hooks, when there isn't room in that space for six mugs.  The most I have been able to fit is five -- and that is really cramming them in there.

I've got the rest of the house decorated, except the outside lights.  

  

I noticed this year that several of my strings of lights are dim and flickering.  I don't know how fast they are supposed to wear out, but I do know that as much as I paid for this tree, they should have lasted longer than just five years.  That's not even counting the ones that were chewed up a couple of years ago by mice or whatever it was.

There is a customer service number you can call to order replacement parts, but I'm wondering if it's even worth it.  ON the other hand, if the mouse or rat or whatever damaged the strings that are dim and flickering, maybe I should get some new strings.  Oh, and I discovered my heavy plastic box I bought to store it in has a place to put a lock.  I won't need a lock, but I can put an s-hook in there just to make sure nothing can get the lid open. 

Abrupt change of subject.  Apparently when I repotted my Christmas cacti, I got a sprig of the red mixed in with the pink. 

It's going to stay that way until I repot them again, too.  

And finally, I've spent pretty much all day cooking the stuff I'm going to take down to Jackson tomorrow.  I even made two pies -- which I'm not taking down there.  Cody said they'd buy a pumpkin pie at...Costco, I think he said, so we don't really need mine.  I made them anyway...for me.  

All of that cooking has gotten the house pretty warm, but don't touch my thermostat. 

It's Sunday!

I woke up bright and early this morning, and my first thought was, "It's Sunday, and I don't have to turn my alarm back on!"  At least, not for a few more days -- which will go by way too quickly.   But for now, the good thing is I was able to get stuff done without feeling like I have to rush to get it completed by today...or not wanting to start stuff because I won't be able to finish it. 

I spent most of the day taking down and putting away my Fall/Thanksgiving stuff and starting to put out my Christmas decorations.  I'm a bit flustered because of my new baker's rack.  I usually hang a Santa and some elves on that wall, but with the baker's rack covering up most of that wall, I don't know where to put them now.  

I'll have to come up with something .... different.  I know.  Try to contain your horror.  I'm the kind of person that has to put everything in the same place year after year.  I even take photos to make sure I remember where it all goes.  

Not only that, I've got me a little problem with my outside lights.  I had four strings of this kind, 

and a couple of years ago, one of them went bad.  Try as I might, I could not get that string to work again, so that year, I only ran two strings across the porch.  Last year, I bought another box of those lights on Christmas...or so I thought.  

Turns out they weren't the same lights after all. 

Now I don't know what to do.  I don't have enough of either to do the whole front of the house.  I kind of want to use the bigger ones, and just run them along the front porch.  Or maybe use smaller lights, because I've got a butt load of these -- bought on clearance over the years. 

I also still have the white icicle lights that I put up a few years ago, but didn't really like.  I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'll come up with something.  

In other news, I forgot something yesterday.  The websites I was looking at said to put a baggie over my rosemary cutting to make a sort of greenhouse.  

After I posted, I ran in and did that.  It's kind of a pain taking it off to water the cutting, so it's a good thing I don't need to water it that often.  

This morning, I opened up my barrier stuff and put it down in the bed with my oregano and tarragon. 

It was plastic, so it was very easy to cut with regular scissors.  Right now I have bricks holding it in place, but in the spring, I'll get some of those stake things to hold it down, then I'll put mulch on top of it.  That ought to keep any and all critters out of the bed. 

And finally, all of my life -- since I was about 12 or 13, I guess-- I've heard that Giant Pandas aren't true bears.  I mean, as a small child, we always called them Panda Bears, but I remember somewhere along the way, I'd read or heard that they aren't true bears at all, and were more closely related to raccoons than bears.  I was sure I remembered reading articles in magazines about it, and all.    

Just a few weeks ago, I found out that Giant Pandas are indeed bears, in the family Ursidae, and suddenly my whole life was a lie. 

That was one heck of a Mandela effect.

Or so I thought...

Because I'm not the kind of person who can let something like this go, I dug into it a bit deeper and discovered that I wasn't as wrong as I suspected.  As it happens, for many years, there was confusion about the taxonomy of Giant Pandas.  As per Wikipedia:

For many decades, the precise taxonomic classification of the giant panda was under debate because it shares characteristics with both bears and raccoons.^[12] In 1985, molecular studies indicated that the giant panda is a true bear, part of the family Ursidae.^[13][14] These studies show it diverged about 19 million years ago from the common ancestor of the Ursidae;^[15] it is the most basal member of this family and equidistant from all other extant bear species.^[15][16]

Apparently, I missed that memo, but even so it wasn't as Mandelaic as I believed. 

Oh, and one more thing.  The person who wanted those glasses I was giving away never showed up.  Typical.  I guess I'll post them in the local groups again and hope someone else wants them.  Usually, it's the third or fourth person to claim an item that actually shows up to get it.  

One More Thing

Today was one of those days where there isn't a word in the English language that adequately describes how beautiful it was.  Breezy, sunny, and a perfect 75°.  I call them Robert Spaulding's Wife days.   I was able to keep the doors and windows open all day and get some much needed fresh air into this house. 

Before I get into today's news, I wanted to show you this:  

I joined the third color into my Demeter Fade hat last night, and am plugging away at it.  I really wish I'd taken a photo of her sample, just to have a reference.  Even so, I think mine is looking pretty good. 

Yarn:  Jem Luxe Fibers

Colorway:  Demeter Fade Minis 

Pattern:  I'm making it up as I go

Needles:  US 5/3.75 mm

OK, moving right along.  I got up this morning and went to the store to get my weekly shopping done.  I'm telling you, early Saturday morning is the best time to go.  There is hardly anyone up in that Walmart.  

As is my custom, the first place I went was into the garden center, and as I expected, they didn't have any flower pots, so I was unable to get a smaller pot for Gloria.  I thought about putting her into one of the temporary pots that you get when you buy plants, but I decided to wait until after Christmas to try to repot her. when they start putting the gardening stuff back out.  That's the recommended time frame anyway, so it'll be for the best.  

They actually had a couple of Christmas cacti with the pale cream blooms, and I thought about buying one, but didn't.  Maybe if Gloria finally succumbs to my ill treatment of her, I'll get one next year.  What they didn't have was any more rosemary plants.  They'd had some last week, and I started to get one, but didn't.  Now, I wish I had, because they apparently sold them, or they died.  

No matter.  After asking Grok, I discovered that you can in fact, propagate rosemary from a cutting.  As soon as I got home, that's exactly what I did.   I took a cutting and put it into a seed starting pot.  

I plan on keeping it inside the house over the winter, and if it works, by spring it ought to have enough root structure that I can plant it in my outside bed, right along side the plant from which I took the cutting.   

The last thing I bought -- from the garden center, I mean -- was a couple more bags of dirt, which was enough to fill up the last of my raised beds. 

They've taken the freeze out of our forecast, at least for the time being.  They were predicting upper 20s by Thanksgiving.  Now they're saying mid 30s.  That being said, I took a chance and planted my French Tarragon into that spot.  

I was able to get it out of its pot in a solid chunk of soil, with minimal disturbance to the roots, so hopefully it'll do OK.  I think I'll probably cover it with a bucket anyway before that frost, just to be on the safe side.   I'll also have to remember to bring my plants in from the back porch before I go to Cody and Brennan's house.  

Heh, I was just thinking that one nice thing about not hosting Thanksgiving is not having to get the house company clean.  I can leave it everyday clean all the way up until Christmas now. 

Speaking of predictions, that five straight days of rain they were talking about has all gone around us.  It's rained to the north.  It's rained to the south, but we haven't gotten anything but a drizzle.  I checked my bucket this morning, and the bottom wasn't even damp.  I only know it rained at all because I heard it hitting the leaves when I shut the door before going to bed.  They're still saying we'll have a better chance for rain Monday night into Tuesday.  I hope it comes through this time.  We're still in drought conditions and desperately need it. 

But I digress...

I'm going to try to get the plastic barrier stuff I bought put into the oregano/tarragon bed sometime soon, but in the meantime, I remembered I had this stuff. 

  

It's supposed to be to spray on your furniture to discourage cats from scratching, so I thought heck, maybe it'll also discourage her from peeing in my garden beds.  It's made from water, lemon oil, and eucalyptus oil so it ought to be safe for my plants.  Even so, I tried to avoid spraying them directly, and sprayed the dirt around them.  I also sprayed the edges of the beds pretty heavily.  I'm hoping that'll be enough to keep her out of them until I can figure something else out. 

The only other thing I had planned on doing today was to start putting out my Christmas decorations, but I'm just not feeling it.   I dragged all of my boxes into the house, except for the tree, and there they sit. 

While I was in the shed, I got my new ladder out, climbed up onto the roof, and ran that chimney brush up and down my chimney a few times.  That's one more thing I can cross off of my list, which now looks like this. 

They say you only have to clean chimneys every 3-5 years, so next time, I think I'll make Cody do it.  I'm getting just a bit too old to be climbing up and down those ladders.  

By the way, I had my phone in my pocket, and if I had fallen and broken my neck, Edna, I was going to call you to come rescue me!  Fortunately, nothing untoward happened, though getting back onto the ladder was where I was the shakiest.  

Somehow, your brain knows when your body is getting too old for this. 

The trick is to listen to it.  

Just So’s You Know

Just so's you know I am not in the habit of murdering Christmas cacti, my other three are doing very well.   Here is the proof of life:  

That's partly why I don't understand why this one is struggling so much. 

I think one thing I'm going to try is to move it back into a smaller pot.  Most of the websites I've researched say they like to be just a bit root restricted, though not completely root bound.  It may be that her pot is too big.  I'm going to go look here in a little bit to see if I have a pot.  If not, I'll get one next time I go into town.  I may have to go to Lowe's, as Walmart probably won't have any this time of year.  

Ideally, I would wait until late spring early summer to move her, but given how much she is struggling, I want to give her the best possible shot at surviving, so I'm going to go ahead and re-pot as soon as I can. 

Speaking of, do you remember the bit I pulled up that looked like it was dying?  I had put it into a vase with water, but it didn't look like it was improving any.  I know people who can root Christmas cactus cuttings in water, but I've never been successful at doing that, so I took it out and put it into a pot.   

I've rooted multiple cuttings this way, so I'm a bit more hopeful that this will work.  If not, it will end up in the compost  -- which is where it would have gone anyway.   

While we're on the subject of plants, look at this!  Do you see?  The little green bits are my garlic coming up. 

I didn't expect them to grow so quickly.  I've got three, even though you only see two in the photo.  Full disclosure, these are the ones which had the most growth even before I planted them, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. 

And it looks like my celery is taking off, too.  It's definitely improved since I cut the wilted parts off.  

In other news, my big project for the day was to move all of my old firewood up closer to the house.  

There wasn't as much left as I thought there would be, but I also moved some of it over to this side.   

Most of this is smaller pieces, which I want to save for the fire pit, but that's neither here nor there.  The point is, I finally had the right side of this shed cleaned out

 and ready for my new firewood rack.   

Even though I took a couple of breaks to watch Special Forces: 

The World's Toughest Test, it didn't take long at all to put the rack together, and here it is:  

I even started putting a little firewood into it. 

That was all I did, because by that time my legs were aching from squatting down to put the thing together, and of course, this thing didn't even offer to help. She just sat there and looked disapprovingly at me.    Kind of like Inspector Gadget does.  

Once I get the dirt emptied out of my wheelbarrow, I'll start moving wood in earnest.  

Well, the rain they promised us didn't arrive, though it's looked all day like the bottom could drop out at any point.  They're still saying we have a chance of scattered showers, but most of it has gone to the south of us.  We have a much better chance of rain on Tuesday, then it's going to get cold again.  If I had known we wouldn't get any rain, I'd have put a little fire in the fire pit and sat outside for a bit.  

As it is, I sat inside and finished this hat.  

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Plums

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8

And finally, the lady who wanted the glasses hasn't showed up yet, either.  I'm not too worried about it just yet, because if she planned to come by after work, it's still too early for that.  I'll give her until Monday, and if she hasn't come by then, I'll post them into the group again.  

Keep your fingers crossed.  

Oh, I almost forgot.  Spoiler alert, Jusse Smollett was one of the first people to get DQed from the Special Forces show.  Not surprising, all he did while he was there was moan about how nobody believed him when he faked that hate crime against himself. 

"I got attacked, and they all said I was lying!"  

Yeah, because the two guys you paid with a check to attack you said you paid them to attack you.  And the hardware store where you bought the rope and bleach -- which you paid for with a check -- said you bought the rope and bleach yourself.  Not only that, do you really expect anyone in deep blue Chicago would be claiming that it was MAGA country?  

Son, your story has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese and if you hadn't been pardoned by the Autopen, you'd still be in prison.  

I'm also getting tickled at Kody Brown getting a reality check.  He's running up against people he can't push around, and it's hilarious to me to watch those DIs stand up to him while he pees his pants.  

In fact, I think I'll go watch the last episode and see if he survives.  

Laters. 

I'm Free!

I had planned on going to the store straight after work this afternoon and getting that out of the way and over with, but I got so excited about being off until next month, I completely forgot and came home.  Oh well, I can always go one day next week -- except that I'm out of milk, so I guess I'll go tomorrow.  

Except that it's supposed to start raining tomorrow, and rain off and on for the next five days.  Then it's going to get cold again, so I got my little piece of visqueen out of the shed and put it onto my wood pile. 

It wasn't big enough.  I have a whole roll of the stuff somewhere, but I can't remember where I put it.  No matter, I still have all of this wood from the last batch I bought and the little tree I got cut down last spring, which I'm going to use up first.  

By the way, I got my Voya claim back, but instead of buying another garden bed, I bought a firewood rack.  I haven't put it together yet, because I want to move all of that wood on the right up to the house and stack it near the back door.  Then I'll clean that side out really well and put the rack there.  I'll feel better with the wood in a rack so that the stack is more stable than it just being piled up there with nothing but hope to hold it in place. 

As soon as I get that done, I'll start moving the new wood into the rack, and by the time I need it, it'll be good and dry.  I mean, it's already well seasoned.  My coworker told me it's been in a barn for about 7 years.  His son is the maintenance man/caretaker at someone's deer camp.  He takes care of the cabins and grounds, and whenever he sees a fallen tree, he cuts it up and puts it into a barn on the property.  When he has time, he cuts it up and splits it, then my coworker sells it for him.  

Heh, he told me when he pulled into the parking lot at work, he had people coming up to him asking how much he wanted for that wood.  He had to tell them that wood was already sold.  I told him, "See, I'm drumming up new business for you."

Speaking of projects, today's project was to move the pile of dirt that used to be here and I didn't think to take a before photo until it was too late, 

and combine it with this larger pile of dirt.  Size 9.5 women's house shoe for scale. 

So now, I only have one pile of dirt instead of two.  It's the little things.  I still need to get a dirt work guy to come take down the high spots, but that isn't going to happen today.  Maybe one day this week, I can get that call made.  

You know what isn't a little thing?  Goofball sized hail.  

Yes, this is a real tweet.  I went to NWS Memphis X account and verified it.   And yes, I do know it's a typo, but it's still funny.  Of course, my first thought was, "Hail as big as my cat??? WOW!"  Because she's a goofball, you know. 

When I got home this afternoon, I posted these glasses in the local free-bees group, and got a bite on them pretty quickly.  

She said she's going to come get them tomorrow afternoon, so fingers crossed that she shows up.  She also asked if I wanted a kitten, to which I said, "No, thank you."  

That's about all I have for today.  I've found a new season of Special Forces: World's Toughest Test on Hulu, and I need to watch it.  This season has Johnny Football (Manziel), Jusse Smollett, and Kody Brown on it.  

That ought to be interesting. 

I Can Haz

Firewood!

As expected, my coworker delivered the load of firewood right after work.  It took him two hours to unload and stack it all, and though I'm glad to have the wood, I was also glad when he'd finished and gone.  I can't ever seem to relax when someone else is at my house.  Even if it's only outside. 

I've got some visqueen in the shed, so tomorrow I'll cover the stack before the expected rains begin.  

Just out of curiosity, I looked it up in the blog, and it was two years ago almost to the day that my last load was delivered.  I still have quite a bit of that load left.  Maybe even enough to last the year, but that's something I don't want to run out of.  

Better yet, that's something I can mark off of my to-do list, which now looks like this: 

 

For reference, this is what my original list looked like. 

One day this next week, I'm going to try to get up on the roof and run that brush up and down my stovepipe a time or two, then that'll be one more thing I can mark off.  

Oh, and while he was here, the deer decided to make an appearance.  He called me out and asked if those were my pets, and was impressed at how unafraid they are.  I told him they are used to me being in the yard, and I can get almost out to the fence before they run away.  

In other news, I have one more day of work, then I'm off for the rest of the month.  As is their custom, the plant fed us today.  Chicken tenders and fried catfish, with fries, hushpuppies, and salad.   The food was good.  The process...not so much.  They gave us an extra 15 minutes, and it was a good thing, too because it took longer than that just to get through the line.  

I was silently fussing all the while:  "How many times do we have to tell you?  Have the plates made up ahead of time!"  Such a simple thing to make the process so much more efficient, but they never listen to me. 

By the way, Inspector Gadget is mad.  See, ever since they told us we had to start wearing steel toed boots a couple of years ago, they have a truck that comes around every year -- usually in November -- where we can get some, and the plant will cover up to $100 of the cost.  

Yesterday, IG told us at the morning meeting that we could not go out to the shoe truck during work hours.  We had to go before or after work, or on our lunch break.  It didn't make any sense, especially with as much time as we stood around doing nothing while waiting on work yesterday.  Well, someone went to HR and complained, and apparently word got back to the new boss.  He said they had to let us take turns going during work hours.  

You could practically see the steam coming out of Inspector Gadget's ears. 

I tried not to laugh.  At least, not very much.  I mean I didn't laugh very much, not that I didn't try very much. But I got me some new work boots.  I'm not looking forward to breaking them in, though.  Good thing I just bought a new pair from Amazon back in the spring.  I can still wear those for a while.  

And finally, I realized somewhere around noon today that I had totally whiffed on a very important day-- my twentieth blogiversary.  It was Saturday, and I'd wanted to do something really special, being that 20 years is such an important milestone, and I got so caught up in football that I completely forgot.  

I was going to highlight some of my favorite posts, and talk about how blogging has changed over the last two decades, and even about how it might be making a comeback, given how toxic most social media sites have become.  But I didn't do any of that.

Oh, well... maybe I can work some of that into future posts.  Right now I've got to go get a good night's sleep so I can start dreading the next phone call I need to make. 

Laters. 

About Had It

I've about had it with these Monday night games, I'm telling you.  Yep, the Cowboys played on Monday night for the second game in a row.  Of course, they had a bye week in between, but still...As usual, I fell asleep, this time at half time.  I woke up briefly with three minutes left in the third quarter, and the next thing I know, Kimmel was on.  

I turned that off really quickly and went back to sleep.  

Alas, the night was still too short and that alarm went off way too early.  I just wish my work day had gone by as quickly as the night did.  I was another one of those days when we spent more time waiting on work than actually working.  I hate those days.  They go by so very slowly.  

To make matters worse, we have Inspector Gadget standing over us every day, telling us to hurry up, get our numbers up, do better.  Just like all the others.  They can't seem to understand that we can't braze parts we don't have. I mentioned that to one of my coworkers, and she replied, "He's nervous about his job."  I'd heard he's already got two strikes.  If he fails at this, he's gone. 

Oh, don't get me wrong.  I don't think he's a bad person, but not everyone is cut out to be a supervisor.  I'm thinking, surely there's something else he can do out there that is more suited to his skills and temperament. 

On a similar note, my other coworker did come tell me, "I think I'm going to bring that wood tomorrow."  I started to ask him about his grandbaby's program, but didn't. I figured he's a grown man and can get himself to where he needs to go on time.  Then he told me he was going to bring the entire trailer to work and come straight over to deliver it afterwards.  

Knowing he wasn't coming today, I got my little garlic cloves together and planted them.  

I'm not exactly sure why I took a picture -- you can't see them.  Because they're planted.  Under the dirt.  But what can I say?  I am who I am.

I was only going to plant three, and mince and freeze the rest, but the more I peeled, the more I found that had sprouted.  I ended up planting 8 cloves.  If all goes well, I'll have a nice garlic harvest next fall.  Or whenever you harvest garlic.  I'll have to look into that.  

Oh, and don't worry about that big hole.  That's the space I reserved to plant another rosemary plant in the spring. 

While I was out there, I trimmed some of the dead bits off of my celery, which I'm hoping will strengthen the new growth. 

Then I trimmed the dead bits off of my lemon balm, 

 along with the other transplanted herbs, but I didn't take pictures of the rest of them.  

Speaking of pictures, this one popped up in my Facebook memories.  This is what Gloria looked like a mere seven years ago. 

I do wish I knew what I'd done to have nearly killed her.  The good news is, she hasn't dropped any more segments since Sunday, so maybe she's on the upward way.  

New heights she's gaining every day

No higher plan that she has found

She'll plant her feet on higher ground...

OK, then, I guess that means it's time to stop for the day.  Maybe I'll go sing some hymns or something. 

Laters.

Last Week

Why is it that I can sleep fine all weekend long, but on Sunday nights I toss and turn all night?  So it was last night.  I don't think I got to sleep before midnight, but that alarm is relentless and went off at 4:30 anyway.  

I did not want to get up, I'm telling ya, but somebody has to pay the bills around here, so out of bed I got and off to work I went.  Shortly after I got there, I tracked down the coworker with the firewood, and said, "I've been checking the weather forecast, and it's supposed to rain on Friday.  We might need to re-schedule that delivery."

He replied, "I saw that too, and was going to come talk to you about it."  We chatted a bit, discussing options, and he said he'd get the wood to me before the rain moves in Thursday night.  I think we settled on them (my coworker and his son) coming tomorrow, but I'm not completely sure.   I'm mostly sure, because he said he's got to go to his grandbaby's program on Wednesday.  He didn't go into details, so I don't know if it's school or church, but it doesn't matter. It's his grandbaby and he's going to be there.  

I mentioned that the rain is supposed to start sometime Thursday night, so he may want to bring it before then.  That leaves tomorrow.  So I guess he's coming tomorrow.   I think that's what we decided on.  I guess I'll be surprised, too. 

In other news, I forgot to tell you yesterday that I got my second batch of sweet potatoes boiled down and mashed, and wouldn't you know it, I have enough for another casserole and another pie.  I thought I'd bought fewer.  I guess I didn't. 

While I was doing that and cleaning up afterwards, I discovered some of my garlic that I'd bought back during the summer to make pesto with had started to sprout.  

I'd intended to mince what garlic I'd had left over, but I never got around to it.   I asked Gemini, and he said, why yes you can plant that stuff and it'll grow.  Tomorrow after work, I'm going to sort out the cloves that have sprouted and plant them in this bed, next to the celery  -- which is finally looking like it might survive. 

The taller stalks look pretty pathetic, but it looks like new growth is coming up from the bottom.  So, squee.  I'm excited about that.  

At the other end of the spectrum, I'm pretty concerned about Gloria.  Friday morning, I came into the kitchen to discover she had dropped a lot of segments.  Leaves.  Whatever they are.  

Saturday, she seemed better, then Sunday she dropped another segment.  Only one, so that's a good sign.  She hasn't dropped any more since, and I'm hoping whatever was distressing her has passed.  I think I might have been overwatering her again, so I've cut way back.  I also found out that you're not supposed to let them get below 60, and I'd left mine outside until it got down into the 40s.  Maybe that's why mine have been struggling.  Next year, I'll know better and will bring them inside any time it drops into the 50s.  

In knitting news, I made one slight adjustment to this hat.  

The fabric seemed just a little too stiff to me, so I moved the hat to a larger needle.  A US 5, for my fellow knitters.  

For you knitting muggles out there, it's pretty common to knit the ribbing on a smaller size, then switch to a larger needle for the body of the hat.  I did not tink back to the ribbing before I switched, since it was only about half an inch.  Even so, it already feels better.  It's much easier to knit, as well.

And finally, as promised, I dug the set of 8 glasses out of the big box, and put them into a smaller box.  

Then I pulled these five goblets out and put them into a separate box as well.  

I haven't posted the photos in the give-away groups yet, but I will.  Cross your fingers that someone comes and claims them.  

I hate to just throw stuff like this into the garbage.