Football Is Back!

Football is back baby!  And yes, I had the multi-screen thing going for at least part of the time, and I'll set it back up once I'm done with this post. 

Texas and Navy both won.  LSU is in a lightning delay, and I've got Little Brother on the tablet.  I'll put Mississippi State on the computer once I'm done.  Alas, it is still way too hot to even think about putting out Fall decorations, but I did put my wreath on the front door. 

That's all, though.  I might get them out and put them up during the week.  Or I might not.  I don't know.  Depends on if it gets cool enough for me to be in the mood.  I'm not holding my breath on that one.  It got up to 103° on my thermometer, but I did manage to get the front and side yards mowed before the heat advisory took effect.  I was still drenched in sweat and suffering heat exhaustion, but I got 'er done.  In the morning, I'll go spread my fire ant granules, but other than that, I'm going to sit inside in the air conditioning and complain about the heat.  

You know, my usual.  At least they finally got some air conditioning in the plant.  I guess they had to since they are moving the lines back up to the front.  These young folks coming up aren't going to work in a plant were it's 99° in the summer!

They've put this new water dispenser thing up in the break areas, too.  It's pretty cool.  You can mix and match up to three flavors, plus two additives such as electrolytes and vitamins.  You can choose between hot or cold water, and still or fizzy water.  I'm still figuring it all out.  I tried one flavor called Autumn Sky, but didn't like that one.  The coconut was pretty good.  When we get back, I want to see if they have lime, so I can put the lime in the coconut and then I'll drink it down...

OK, I'll stop now.  

Oh, and I keep forgetting to tell you my Stalker is back to driving a truck these days.  Is it wrong that my first thought when I found out was, "I'll bet he's hit every lot lizard in the country!"  

Now, I'll really stop.  Back to your regularly scheduled blog post. 

I didn't even do anything in the garden today, other than fill up the drip bottles.  Well, I put together my three new raised beds, but I did that inside, in the air conditioning then I toted them outside and put them into place. 

I had these on my list, but hadn't planned on getting them until my wooden planters had rotted beyond usability.  I was going to put my mint into them.  But a week or so ago, Amazon had them on sale for only $35 for the set of three, so I gave in and got some.  I'll probably end up getting some more later on down the line, too.  

This isn't their final location, but it's pretty close to where I'm going to put them.  I still need to level the ground a bit, which I'll try to do in the cool of the morning this week.    

I'm thinking I'm going to move my rosemary into one, and put my lemon balm into one.  If I can find a pineapple sage, I'll put it into the third one.  I used to have a pineapple sage, but at the time, I didn't realize it was a perennial.  After the first frost killed it back, I pulled it up and put it into the compost like a dummy.  And I haven't found one since.  

I'd gotten the first one at Walmart, and have looked every year, both there and at Lowe's.  No dice.  Oh well, maybe one will show up.  I've still got that broad leaf sage, but I might pull it out.  It smells like feet to me.  I don't see how people want to eat that stuff.  

And finally, I made it up to the Farmer's Market on the square this morning, but left without buying anything.  I was hoping to get some muscadines, but those people weren't even there today.  That's the chance you take when you wait until the last market of the season, I guess.  I really wanted the seeds so I could start my own vines.  I've read that muscadine seeds are very difficult to get to germinate, but I'm taking that as a challenge.  

Hmmm, off to google where to buy them...

Laters.

He Came Back

I saw him today...that gray tabby tom cat that put the Incarnation of Evil into the hospital.  He came up into the yard, bold as you please, and started drinking from the deer trough.  I stepped out the back door and told him to get out of my yard.  He ran a few steps, then turned around and looked at me.  

"All the way out!"  I said, advancing menacingly, and he disappeared into the woods behind the house.  

"And don't come back!" I shouted after him, but I know he will.  

That was my excitement for the morning, unless you count my fire choosing today to be stubborn.  I don't know what its problem was, but it just did not want to light.  I finally got it to burning well, but by that time, it had warmed up enough that I didn't even need it.  

Even so, I refilled my wood box in anticipation of tomorrow's cold, which it's not even supposed to get out of the 30s, and possibly down into the teens by Monday morning.  

In other news, the last of Brennan's gifts arrived today, and they are now safely wrapped and tucked under the tree.  She's been wanting to get into crochet, so I bought her a set of hooks and some yarn from Knit Picks, and a ball winder and yarn spool from Amazon.  My sister said she's going to look for some books to send her, so she ought to be set.  Her gifts are all done, but I'm still waiting on the last thing I ordered for Cody to arrive, and that will be it for Christmas shopping.  

Anyway, after that I sat down in front of the TV and barely moved for the rest of the day.  Well, first I sat down in front of the computer, because I signed up for my Colonial America course on Hillsdale College.  I watched the first lecture --which is really more like a documentary than a lecture -- then aced the quiz.  By the time I finished that, it was almost time for the march on, so I decided to wait until tomorrow to start the next episode. 

For some reason, Hulu wasn't able to get CBS, but I don't know why.  It kept showing that message that says we're having trouble playing this channel, and I thought for a moment I was going to have to re-up my Paramount + just to see the game.  I didn't, though.  I was able to sign in to the CBS Sports app with my Hulu account, so I watched the march on, the pregame show, then watched the Army-Navy game and thought for a moment Blake Horvath had completely forgotten how to play football, but they pulled it out in the end and Navy sang second.  

I will have to say, Navy also won the uniform battle this year.  Those helmets they were wearing were absolutely awesome.  Army looked like they would disappear in a snowstorm -- which actually happened back in 2017.  It snowed, they wore solid white, and at times you couldn't even see them.  It was hilarious. 

As soon as the ball game was over, I went to Apple TV and watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is free this weekend.  

And I finished my day by watching A Muppet Christmas Carol,

which we'd watched on Thanksgiving, but it's too good to only watch once.   

Just FYI, if you have Disney + and want to watch the version with that song in it -- you know the one they cut out because they thought it'd be too heavy for little kids -- you can go to the Extras tab and select Full Length Version.  It has the When Love Is Gone song in it. 

OK, that's about it for what I watched on TV -- and I do more than just watch TV.  Really, I do.  But once the kids are grown and gone, and I'm not at work, there really isn't much to talk about, unless you want to hear about me changing the sheets on the bed and doing laundry.  

Oh, I can show you this.  I bought myself a new wax melter last time I went to the store, because my old one had broken.  It was pretty old, after all.  Somewhere online, I don't remember where, I saw that to get the old wax out, you can put cotton balls in it while it's still melted.  Then once the wax hardens, it'll pop right out.  

Sometimes, these life hacks are just dumb, but this one sounded good, so I gave it a try. 

After a few moments, I pulled the cotton balls out and the wax came out with them, slick as a whistle. 

And it left me a nice, clean bowl for the next time.  

That's definitely a trick I'll be using again. 

And finally, more playing around with AI -- this time with Chat GPT.  

 This one looks more like a painting than the others, and I think I like that better. 

Monkey Off My Back

Finally!  I am so happy I got this monkey off my back.  I'm speaking, of course, of the Demeter Fade hat I've been working on for the last few weeks. 

I finished the thing...well, except for weaving all of those ends in, I mean.  I still have to do that.  Overall, I'm ok with how it turned out, but if I had it to do all over again, I don't think I'd do it the same way.  I didn't like knitting it with two strands, even though it made the color changes less obvious.  It still looks a little stripey to me, but I guess that can't really be avoided unless the yarn is specifically dyed to fade seamlessly.  

I bought the set to make a hat for my sister in law, but now I'm not even sure I want to send it to her.  I'm sure she'll like it, but I've sent her so many hats over the years that she may have hat overload by now.

The next monkey on my back will be to get my Christmas cards ready and mailed.  I want to send them, but I'm just not feeling it this year.  I'm going to greatly reduce the number of cards I send out for one thing.  Now, I don't expect to get a card back from every single person I send one to, but last year, I sent 40 cards and received three.  That was it.  It's discouraging.  

I know part of the problem is that stamps have gotten so high these days, which is why some of you will get American Flag stamps on your Christmas cards.  I bought two rolls back when they were still .55.  They're up to .78 now, and I can understand why people don't want to pay that much.  Unfortunately, USPS is a monopoly, and they can charge whatever they want because there is no competition and no other option.  

In other news, I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know my little candles turned on just when they were supposed to.  I'd gone outside yesterday evening and turned them on right around 5:00, then I walked out and took a picture of the outside lights. 

I was going to go take another photo once it got a bit darker, but it started raining and didn't stop until sometime after I'd gone to bed.   According to Raindrop, we got .6 of an inch.  Still doesn't completely relieve the drought conditions, but at this point, every little bit helps. 

Part of the reason is that we haven't had any hurricanes or tropical storms in the Gulf this year.  Not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S, which is highly unusual.  A lot of the storm chasers say that this is the reason why our Fall tornado season is expected to be especially sporty, because we haven't had any tropical systems to churn the heat out of the water.  So yay...Today is the last official day of hurricane season, by the way.  

Back to what I was saying...it was raining last night after it got dark, so I went out and took a photo tonight. 

My new neighbors and my been here longer than me neighbors both have their houses all decorated, too.  Even my across the street neighbors who don't usually decorate have bows up on their porch posts.  The neighborhood is looking really pretty. 

You know what else is looking pretty?  My biggest Christmas cactus.  

I don't know exactly what I'm doing with this one that is so right, but I'm not going to mess with success.   I need to prune some of the longer branches, but that's all I'm going to do to it. 

Well, Thanksgiving week is over, and I have to go back to work tomorrow.  I'm plumb sick about it.  Ole Miss fans are plumb sick because Lane Kiffin is now the new head coach at LSU.  I need to go to X and see what the former players are saying about that.  They had some pretty harsh words about the culture Brian Kelly had developed -- saying it's a culture of softness instead of competitiveness.  We'll have to see if Kiffin can re-build both the culture and the team. 

And finally, your meme of the day:

 Yeah, go ahead and judge.  Most of you are going to do it anyway. 

And I'm OK with that, because if it weren't for people judging me, I'd have never realized how obnoxious and unlikeable I used to be.  Hopefully, I'm a much better person now.  

But I still don't like the new kick off rules in the NFL.  

Settled In

After I blogged yesterday, I went ahead and cleaned (ish) my plant shelf off and got my Christmas Cactus all settled in for the winter.  

And yes, I know technically they're Thanksgiving Cacti, and there's a teeny tiny difference between the two, but they're all commonly called Christmas cactus, and so that's what I'm going to call mine.   They are both Schlumbergera.  

After I finished doing that, it was such a nice day outside, I went and sat by the fire pit for a little while. 

I only made a small fire with twigs and such that had been knocked down by the wind during Wednesday's storms.  Or Tuesday night's storms.  Whenever they came through.  Still, it was nice while it lasted.  I even had an audience for a little bit.  

It's not the greatest photo, but there are four of them out there, keeping an eye on me.  Also, I took the covers off of my Adirondack chairs.  It seemed a good idea at the time, but having them covered ...well, they just aren't as inviting this way.  I'll leave them off probably until it gets too hot to sit outside.  Or too buggy.  Or both.  

I'll run out and put them back on if we're expecting ice -- or in the rare event we have snow, but for now, I want to see the chair and spontaneously decide to sit in it.  Covers inhibit that.  

By the way, did any of you get to see that comet?  I tried several times, but I never saw this one.  Not complaining too much, though, because I saw the one last year really well. 

Anyway, since I'd moved the Christmas cacti off of the wood stove, I got up this morning and started a little fire in the box. 

It was nice and toasty.  I sure hope my coworker's son comes through with the firewood, because I do enjoy a nice fire.  Of course, it didn't take long for it to warm up enough that I let the fire go out, and was able to open some windows and let fresh air into the house.  That was nice, too, but I digress...

While I was in town this morning, I bought one of those sweeping logs, 

but when I got home and read the instructions, it said not to use it for the first fire of the year.  You're supposed to have two or three fires before lighting the CSL.  I brought up more wood for a fire tomorrow, because we've got another front coming through -- but this one isn't supposed to bring as much rain as the last one, at least not where I live.  Then probably Monday or Tuesday, I'll light it.  

Oh, and I should probably tell you I didn't go walking out at the lake this morning.  I was trying to figure out how I did it last year -- going walking, then shopping, and still getting home in time for the 11:00 football games.  About halfway to the store, I remembered.  

I went shopping on Thursdays last year.  I'm actually thinking about going back to that schedule so I can go walking on Saturday mornings.  For today, walking around Walmart had to be enough.

So, I didn't go walking but I did get up and put out my few Thanksgiving specific decorations.  

I usually put them out with the rest of my Fall decor, but this year for some reason, I held them back until after Halloween.  And this one, I usually put in the car port, but moved it to the front porch.

You can see it a lot better there.  I checked the clearance aisle at Walmart to see if there was anything good on sale, but didn't find anything I just had to have.  I found some inflatable turkeys on Amazon, but I'm still debating whether I actually want to buy one or not.  I really need to cut back my spending until overtime starts up again.  

On the other hand, I bought these.  

I'd seen this online a couple of years ago, and really want to try to make one. 

I'm going to pick up some smaller balls next week, but will have to order the silver sparkly yarn from Amazon.  I might run up to Batesville and see if they have some at Hobby Lobby, but I didn't find any on their website, so I don't know.   I'll also need to find some sort of ring to tie it all to, but I'm sure that won't be too hard. 

Look at this!  I found another little bluebonnet seedling this morning!  

That makes 12 so far, and there may be even more before spring.  I planted seven packets of seeds after all...

And finally, I'm not sure how much you've been paying attention to what's going on in Baton Rouge, but LSU has absolutely cleaned house.  They fired not only Brian Kelly, but also the offensive coordinator, and Athletic Director Scott Woodward.   Even Governor Jeff Landry got involved.  It was a mess, I'm telling you.  

Just in case you were wondering what the governor had to do with it, he said that the Louisiana taxpayer would be the ones having to pick up the tab for Brian Kelly's $53 buyout.  I guess the university is getting funding from the state.  Most of them do these days.  

Navy lost for the first time, and I fear it won't be the last.  Their next three opponents are Notre Dame, Memphis, and South Florida.  Then they play the one that matters most.  They are bowl eligible, and as long as they beat Army, the season is a success.  

At least as far as I'm concerned. 

Changes

I made a change to my blog layout, but I want to see if you can notice it.  I think if you're on your phone, you'll have to go to the web version to see it, but the first person to pick up on this change gets a shout out on the blog. 

Not that that means anything, but still...

OK, I'll tell you.  I moved the big, long list of blog labels from the right sidebar to the bottom.  It won't make that much of a difference in the big picture,  but maybe every once in a while, you can scroll down to the bottom and read one of the popular posts, and remember when the blog was good, and right, and interesting.  

I need to figure out how to get it to highlight different posts, instead of the same ones over and over again.  If that's even possible.  I'm sure it is.  I've seen other bloggers do it.  But then, they were on other platforms, and Blogger is still stuck in the 20th century.  

Speaking of dull, I woke up to another drizzly, damp day, so needless to say I did not go up to Batesville, since I wouldn't be able to work outside anyway.  Instead, I decided to start sorting through some of the boxes I've had in storage for a decade.  

I'd seen a meme a while back that said if something has been in storage that long, you don't really need it.  I've got several boxes of stuff that I really need to go through and today seemed the perfect day to start.  Alas, as it happens, I did not toss out a bunch of stuff, because once I started digging into that box, I found it was mostly filled with baby clothes my mother and grandmother had made for me.  

There was a whole lot more than this, but I didn't take photos of all of it.  I couldn't bring myself to toss that stuff.  Cody and Brennan keep saying they don't want to have kids, but maybe someday I'll have a granddaughter I can pass these things on to.  Or at least a great niece.  

I did toss a lot of Cody's old schoolwork, but kept a few things as mementos.  And I tossed all of the old newspapers he'd gotten his pictures in.  I clipped the photos out, but tossed the rest of the paper.  Really, why did I need to keep the entire paper for just one photo of my son?

I've got several more boxes out there I plan on going through, but that was enough for today. 

In other news, even though it was still too wet to work in the actual garden, I got onto ChatGPT and after several adjustments, we came up with a layout that in close to what I want. 

It's still not perfect, in that the rectangles on the sides should all be attached to each other, but it's close enough to start planning.  In my final plan, there will also be two single beds enclosing the open end at the bottom, and a trellis connecting the two that I hope to grow muscadines on.  I wanted to add it to my drawing, but I needed a break from AI.  For some reason, it can't seem to understand evenly spaced.  

In the meantime, I finished a hat,

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway: Royal Gorge

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8

and I cast on a new one.  

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Green/Turquiose/Red

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8

And finally, word on the street is that LSU is parting ways with Brian Kelly, and giving him a $50-ish million buyout.  If you ask me, this is one of the biggest problems in college football.  They give these coaches these massive contracts with huge buyouts, so they're either stuck with the coach, or out beaucoups of dollars.  The coach makes out loke a bandit, so why should he care about winning when he rakes in the cash either way?  

It's the same with NIL.  The kids don't care about loyalty to the school, or even winning any more.  They're just going to go to the school that offers them the most money.  

All this, and the colleges are whining about being strapped for cash.  What did they think would happen?  

But what do I know...I'm one of those old folks talking about the good ol' days, and wishing things would go back to the way they were before, when players were in it for the love of the game. 

Not the love of money. 

Almost There

I'm almost there.  Almost to the crown decreases on this hat, but I didn't want to wait until I'd finished to show you. 

You'll get the finished object photo sometime tomorrow.  And I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who compliments me on my hats, but I have to confess that the yarn does all the work.  It's dyed to stripe that way.  Makes my job a whole lot easier, and the knitting mindless enough I can do it while watching TV, yes even football. 

Speaking of football, I ran across this graphic a few days ago. 

Full disclosure, I haven't gone back through all the games and counted how many times Arch has been  hit, so I can't verify its veracity, but what I've seen watching the games, it's been a lot.  He can't be who he needs to be when he's running for his life every play.  He doesn't have time to go through his progressions, and even when he doesn't get hit, it seems like he expects to, therefore rushes and misses his throws.  

I'd lay odds he'd be a totally different quarterback if he'd had the O-line Quin Ewers had last year. 

Enough football talk, on to more exciting things.  

Did I really just say that???

Wow...

But OK, here we go.  I hadn't planned on getting up and working in the garden spot this morning, but as I was enjoying my cup of coffee and folding laundry, I said to myself, "Self, you really ought to get out there and do some work in that garden spot before the rain comes tomorrow."  So I listened to myself and did just that.

I even got the ol' roto-tiller and knocked the high spots down a bit. 

 Then I spread a little dirt in the low spots, and it is finally starting to look like I want it to look.  I'll have to wait until the rain settles things, then re-evaluate, but I think we are just about go for starting to add the rest of the raised beds.  

I'll just have to figure out what to do with all the extra red clay I scraped out of the spot.  

I'll do that later.  Right now, I'm going to go finish that hat. 

Laters. 

Beautiful Fall Day

The cold front arrived right on time yesterday evening, bring with it much needed rain and much desired cooler temperatures.  Indeed, it only got up to 71° today, and I was able to leave the doors and windows open all day, even though I had to put a blanket on my lap while I was watching It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and knitting on a new sailor hat.  

I've decided to stop calling them charity hats, because that implies they're going to needy or poor people.  These aren't going towards that sort of need, but rather to people who have to work over Christmas, and may be missing family.  All they need is a reminder that people still appreciate what they do, and what they give up during the holidays.  

Speaking of the holidays, my cheesy Christmas movies have begun!  Actually, Great American Family started showing theirs last weekend, but Hallmark didn't start until yesterday.  Anyway, I was in the Great American Family app, marking my movies off on their checklist when I discovered they have a bingo card!  

You can send them a photo of your completed card for a chance to win a prize, but I'm just going to play for fun.  I'm not worried about winning anything.  I was able to get quite a few squares filled in just from watching the first two of this year's movies.  

I was also able to finish the sailor hat I was working on, and cast on a new one -- which you can see in the first photo above. 

The yarn is Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn in the Kaleidoscope colorway.   The one I cast on this morning is also Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn, and it's the Blue Camo Stripe colorway.  

Becky, why do you have to tell us the yarn and colorway every single post?  We know what it is by now. 

Yes, my regular readers do, but this is for those who might have just stumbled on this post and are thinking, "Gee, that hat is so pretty.  I wonder what the yarn is."  It's a crafters thing.  

OK, moving right along...

As I said earlier, we got a good bit of much needed rain last night.  My Raindrop app said 2.1", and I was able to collect nearly a gallon of rain water for my Venus Fly Trap, Marty Mac. 

That's a good thing, because I was having to buy distilled water these last few weeks.  They're very sensitive to minerals, and can't handle tap water.  Just in case you were wondering.  He'll be going into dormancy soon, so he won't need as much water for a while, but I'll have to collect all I can during the rainy season to have on hand during the dry season.  

The rain did turn my garden spot into a mucky mess, though, but at least now I can see where the low spots are and what leveling I still need to do.  I'm going to let it dry out a few days, but with the cooler temperatures, I can get out and work in it after work.  But we're expecting another front next Saturday, so I don't know if it'll dry out enough.  We'll see.  

In football news, LSU lost and Texas won, but both looked pretty pathetic out there.  I'm not going to jump on the  "Arch sucks" bandwagon just yet, mainly because his o-line hasn't been able to protect him.  I think he's gotten jumpy and feels like he has to rush every play.  He has flashes of brilliance, but is too inconsistent.  

LSU on the other hand, doesn't have that excuse.  Sure, Nuss looks like he's still playing injured, but if he's not 100%, Kelly needs to take him out until he recovers physically. Still, the team's problems runway deeper than that.  Take it from someone who knows a whole lot more about football than I do, LSU legend T-Bob Hebert:

In my opinion, NIL and the transfer portal are ruining college football.  Players no longer care about being on a winning team.  They just want to go to whichever school pays them the most.  Coaches can't coach, because they're constantly recruiting -- their own players at that.  If you ask me, it all needs to go back to the way it was before -- back when men played for the love of the game, and for the love of their school.  But what do I know?  

Speaking of, my old Alma Mater is one of only four remaining undefeated teams in Texas.   Of course, they're D-III, but still, and by the way, they beat my brother's alma mater this weekend.  

And finally, your meme of the day:  

Of course he did!  Twice, at that. 

No New Tires For Me

I got up bright and early this morning, got dressed, and drove into town to get new tires for my car.  I got to Walmart and the lady behind the counter asked me what size my tires are.  

"I don't know," I replied, having never once been asked this question in all of the times I've bought tires at Walmart.  

"It's on the side of your tires," she said.   Yeah, I could have told her to look it up from the last time I'd bought tires, but she should have done that first.  Normally, they do.  The first thing they do is ask your phone number, then look up your record in the computer.  This one didn't.   She just said, "I have to know what size tire you need so I'll know if we have it in stock."   

So, I walked back out to my car, got into it, and left. 

I was so aggravated, I didn't even go get my dirt.  I drove down to another tire place, Gateway, pulled into the parking lot, then remembered how they'd cheated me a few years ago.  I'd gone in for a flat tire repair, and they said they'd fixed it, and they charged me for fixing it, but they didn't fix it.  This was back during COVID, and Walmart's automotive was shut down.  

When Walmart opened back up, I took the car there and they said I had a nail in my sidewall -- that apparently the techs at Gateway didn't find, which they would have done if they'd actually tried to repair the leak in my tire.  So I pulled back out, and came home and finished this hat while watching Texas finish Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry, and it wasn't even close. 

The yarn is Red Heart Supersaver in Icelandic colorway.  I have enough left in the skein for one more hat, but I cast on with more of my Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn yarn while watching Navy win a last second nailbiter against Temple and improve to 6-0 on the season. 

This colorway is Kaleidoscope.  I'm loving this yarn, I'm telling you.  It's so buttery soft it doesn't even feel like acrylic.  I'm pretty sure it'll be my go to yarn from here on out.  

In other news, my little bluebonnets seem to be doing really well.  

They're so much bigger and stronger looking than any time I've planted them before, so I think I might have just found the sweet spot for growing them.  

My other project for today was to fix this shepherd's hook.  It has been crooked from the first time I put it out, and it's always bugged me.  So, this morning I got out there and dug it back up.  I re-set it so that it was good and straight, tied it off with some yarn and tent stakes, 

then filled the hole in with red clay.  

I gave it a good soaking, and I'm hoping once it sets, the weight of the bird feeder won't pull it out of plumb.  Not that that affects its functionality.  It just doesn't look right. 

And what did I do with the dirt I dug out of that hole?  Why, I put it into one of my raised beds, of course. 

 It'll take a lot more to fill it up, but it's a start.  

But for right now, LSU is playing on the TV, and I need the computer to watch Florida vs. A&M, so I'm outta here. 

Laters. 

Oh, and Hook 'Em.  Geaux.  And most importantly Anchors Aweigh. 

Like The Wind

When I said I was going to knit by the wind, y'all thought I was joking, didn't ya?  I wasn't joking. 

I cast on this hat shortly after I posted yesterday, and got all the way to the crown decreases while watching football today. 

This is the  Painted Canyon colorway, and I Love the way it's knitting up.  I don't know if I'll buy more of it, though, because of how much white is in it.  The SCI asks us not to use white or pastels, because they're afraid the hats will get stained, and the sailor will end up disappointed.  In fact, I might not even send this one to them.  I might keep it to give as a Christmas gift.  I should have enough in the skein to do a second hat, so some lucky couple out there might just get a matching set. 

While we're on the subject, here is a progress photo of the other hat -- the one I'd been working on before I went to Hobby Lobby. 

The yarn is Red Heart in the Icelandic colorway, and the needles are my new interchangeable set I bought a few weeks ago.  By the way, I'd started off using one of the stitch markers that was included with the set, 

but I found it to be too stiff.  Maybe I just need to get used to these kinds of markers, but not right now.  At the end of the round, I switched it out for my loop of scrap yarn, which is what I'm accustomed to. 

As far as football goes, Air Force gave Navy a run for their money, but in the end the Midshipmen sang second in the first leg of the Commander in Chief trophy.  I had to laugh at the commentators, because they kept talking about the CIC being as important as this or that-- like when Navy beat Oklahoma in the Armed Forces Bowl.  I said, "No, the CIC is the only thing!"  Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather win the CIC than even a Natty.  

In the other game I watched, Texas apparently left their O-Line in Austin, because Arch spent the entire game running for his life.  They said he did a lot of growing up in that game, but they still lost-- and to Florida of all people.  Eh, Florida isn't as bad as their record indicates.  They completely outplayed LSU and would have won that game if they hadn't thrown 5 interceptions. 

OK, moving right along...

I know, I know.  I can hear you now.  

"Ugh, Becky!  Why do you keep showing us that pile of dirt?"

To that I say, take a good look, because this just might be the last time you see it without at least one raised bed in place.  I got out this morning and knocked some of the high spots down and filled in some of the low spots.  It's never going to be perfectly level, but I don't want standing water anywhere.  They're predicting a 40% chance of rain tomorrow night and into Monday, so maybe we'll get some, and maybe it'll get a good wetting down and I can see if there are any trouble spots left.  If not, I might just have to put the sprinkler on it and give it a good soaking that way. 

Speaking of trouble spots, look what I found growing while I was working in my garden spot:  

Those are spider lily bulbs -- the ones the landscammer was supposed to dig up.  This is not the first time, either.  I also dug up a bunch when I was running the roto tiller, along with some day lily bulbs -- all of which he was supposed to dig up.  

I'm beginning to think I should have just done it all myself.  It probably would have been less work, and my yard wouldn't be a wreck right now. 

Oh, well, no use crying over spilled milk.  The only thing to do now is clean it up and start over.  Well, not now, because it's already dark out.  Now, I'm going to finish that hat -- and this football game. 

Mississippi State vs. Texas A&M, in case you're wondering. 

Laters.