Where did August go?

 Yeah... what the heck? August - I kept saying, "gotta get the blog done, gotta get the blog done..." and then - the rest of August happened. 

On August 11, a derecho blew through, 90-100 mph winds whipping through, and several tornadoes in Illinois. This tree limb was about 2 blocks from my house, and it's resting on power lines. 

We live in an older neighborhood, where all the lines are above ground - and no, the city is not going to bother burying them. We're stuck with it. When a grasshopper farts, or there's a slightly quicker breeze or a "not quite heavy" rain, we can be guaranteed to at least have our power flicker. Or go out entirely. 

Mind you - Tornado Season is April - June. And Tornado Alley was "officially" shifted to include Illinois. When I was a kid, we were always told that we were in "Tornado Alley" - while it was, according to the meteorologists, closer to the Great Plains, Iowa going west. Well, now we're actually in it. 

I was at work when the storms first hit. My office is a renovated 1960s bungalow -- with a cinderblock basement. The power flickered, first, and then went out. Then the sky turned black - like night-time black, and it was about 11 a.m. I sit by two large picture windows, and I saw the wind picking up, so I actually grabbed the flashlight, my purse and my keys and headed down to the basement. I hate the basement. It's small, cramped, and claustrophobic. But I hated the thought of being shredded by window glass even more. The power briefly came back on, so I popped upstairs. 

Then, about 10 minutes later, the sky...turned green. I scampered back down there and stayed there as the sirens were wailing, and the rain was hitting the windows so hard that I thought they were going to break. I was not happy. As soon as it cleared, I packed up the office (now definitely without power and no sign that it was coming back anytime soon) and tried to head home. I work in an older part of the town across the river from where we live. I navigated the old streets, and the many, MANY trees and limbs that were down; neighbors were already out there with chain saws and axes, trying to get the roads cleared and making sure there were no downed wires that were under the trees. Several trees blew over, roots and all. I tried to go my normal route home, and found the way blocked by what seemed like the entire town's supply of cops and emergency vehicles -- there was a large tree that had fallen and taken down live power lines. 

Turned around and went the other way home. It was a mess, so many traffic lights out, so much storm damage. 

We were without power for 3 1/2 days. Thank God for generators. It seems like the "music of the summer" here in the summer of 2026 is the hum of generators. We'll be looking at a whole-house system later this year for sure. I called my mom and asked, "Do I remember that I hated camping as a kid?" She said that both my sister and I were VOCAL in our disdain for camping. 

I still hate it. We were lucky, and I know that. I can't complain: we had generators running, kept the fridge and freezer going, Hubby's computer, one light, and a large fan. But we literally lived in 1 room. I slept on a blow-up mattress and Hubby took the couch (my preference, so don't flame him...I preferred it). 

The neighborhood wasn't as badly hit as some, in terms of trees down. But the power -- Wow. So many people out, ComEd was overwhelmed, and some folks who actually DID get those tornadoes? They were out for the better part of a week. 

And those folks in NW Indiana? Good Lord. They were POUNDED and some areas are still - we're talking since August 12 or so - without power. This is nuts. 

But hey... Global warming is a hoax, right? 

The Knitting...

Oh wow - I managed to pull off an entire FULL-SIZED afghan in FOUR MONTHS. Yeah, I didn't think I could do it either. This is the lovely Soft Serve Panel Throw from Plymouth Encore. It's using 2 tones of Encore Worsted yarn - my personal go-to fave for this and baby items - and I added a border, because I don't do fringe or tassles. 

It's for a wedding, the couple requested the panel colors, and I added the dark pewter with the image of "stained glass" in my head. I hope it worked; I think it does. 

Nerdy Notes: MC = 3 balls of Plymouth Encore Worsted, CC = 2 balls. Size 8 circular needles (24" cable does just fine here) and size I (5.5 mm) crochet hook

FYI, I used 2 balls of dark pewter yarn for the contrasting crochet to attach the panels to each other. You can just use mattress stitch, but my mattress stitch sucks, so... And then I did a double crochet around the perimeter of the entire piece to tie it all together. 

Also -- for some reason, I used 4 balls of the green. I have no idea why. The colors are discontinued - Shamrock Heather and Sunflower. 

I'm back to socks, because I'll be doing some traveling. My mom's white Sophie Hood is going to wait till I'm done being on the road. White doesn't travel well... So I have a sock which I'll show you next time. Right now, it's just the first 6 rows, with my standard "roll" before I start the ribbing. Another vanilla one - using Opal's "The Little Prince" colorway. It's vaguely red-white-blue, which is only marginally patriotic - the tones are pretty muted, so it hollers "blue jeans" rather than "'Murrica!"

So this one is practically "vintage." A long, long long long long time ago, I took 12 balls/hanks of sock yarn, and put them in a large tote. I told Hubby, "Bag these in the brown lunch bags, one hank/ball each, and mark them for one month of the year, starting in January, because I'm going to knit a pair of socks a month for a solid year."

Yeah, no. It didn't work out. First off, I was relatively new at socks at that time, and I'm not the world's fastest knitter from the get-go. I got through the first quarter, sort of. Then, there were other projects: baby knits, a wedding gift, Christmas... and I started realizing that knitting a pair of socks a month just wasn't going to happen. 

I asked him to pull one of those bags for this "travel knitting," and he did - this was July, I believe. The plain vanilla will do well with this colorway, as it's looking like it's more variegated than self-patterning, but it's early yet. It feels nice to have my hands on socks again. 

I was finishing the afghan as the heat wave hit. Having a large wool afghan on your lap (even in the A/C) when it's 100 degrees outside is not optimal. But it's done and ready to hand over to the happy couple. 

Travel... 

Heading out to see Kid #1. It's the first time I'll have been out there in a couple years. Since before my hip replacement, actually. 

I have no pictures, but you'll have to trust me -- in order to prepare myself for the trip, I took a couple horseback riding lessons. I hadn't been on horseback in almost 8-ish years, and since then, with the hip replacement, I just wanted to be sure that I was ok. I ride Western, which is a whole lot more comfortable, given the new "hardware" (and yeah, even though it's been a little over 3 years, it's still "new" to me). 

I was able to ride at the stable where I volunteer, and I rode both Deuce and Zeus -- and yes, I know that sounds terribly confusing. Deuce is a lovely quarter horse, a big boy. Zeus is a Paint, a bit smaller. 

The picture here is Deuce; he's one of the horses I clean up after. Isn't he the cutest? He can be a bit spicy, but he is a very steady therapy horse. 

We have a new trainer in the barn, and she and I have really hit it off. I enjoyed my lessons with her, and I would like to book more - it was fun to get back on the horses, and while this was prep for trail riding, it was fairly easy - just walking, maybe a faster walk, learning (again) to steer, getting my seat back in order, and just moving with the horse. 

That's why I prefer Western. Posting - which I tried pre-hip-replacement - was not for me, and now with the hip, it's a no-go. I'm sure that if I had done it before, it would be different, but I dislike the constant up-and-down, and I want to just sit comfortably on the horse and follow its natural movements. More "Gary Cooper on a horse" rather than "Olympic dressage." 

The Garden...

I have 22 tomatoes. Only one of which looks like it might turn ripe before I have to leave for vacation... The squirrels got a lot of the green ones, and I'm hoping they've moved on to collecting the acorns which are starting to fall - for some reason, my tomatoes are late, even though I planted them on time. 

We had a weird summer, that's all I can tell you. 

And the hummingbirds are starting to migrate. My feeder has been like a Route 66 diner in the days of the Mother Road. The birds are ignoring the two bright red mandevillas next to the feeder and they're starting to fuel up for the big flight back toward Mexico. This little girl seems to be a frequent customer - but it's hard to tell them apart. We may just be getting more females this year. She posed so pretty! That's our maple tree behind her. 

Even though we tried for a second leafing-out of the red romaine, it didn't amount to much, and the basil all went to seed. What was left of all the plants after August 11 with the derecho - they were pretty beat up. The pink petunias seemed to handle things ok, though, and they're hanging in there. 

We didn't even get the fountain up at all this year. The birds had to do with the regular bird bath and the small solar fountain hanging on the lamp post. 

Current Affairs...

I thought I had some stuff to say about The State of Things... but I find that I really just don't want to deal with it. I want to go find dog grooming videos on YouTube. I'm not tuning out, honestly. I just need the mental break. 

I finished my 150 Signs of Justice postcards and they'll be mailed out in a few weeks, as a nudge to voters. 

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: This I will say -- If you have a mail-in ballot - DO NOT MAIL IT IN. Do a search or call your County Clerk's Office and find out where the authorized drop-boxes are. Drop your ballot in there. Don't trust the USPS. There's something brewing, even though there's a court order against it. 

Court orders are - apparently - suggestions. 

Ahem. 

Anyway, our local Clerk's Office has almost a dozen locations for drop-boxes, including several public libraries. I like to drop mine off at the Clerk's Office because the box is bolted into the concrete, has lights on it 24/7, is monitored by a camera, and there's usually a Sheriff's Police car sitting somewhere close by. I don't call that "election interference." I call it "Safeguarding my right to vote." 

The Demented Current Occupant and his merry band of under-equipped and stupid sycophants are determined to hold onto power any way they can. They've been TOLD that they can't implement any part of the SAVE Act. But like the following: 

• The Rose Garden 
• The East Wing 
• The Kennedy Center 
• The cherry trees 
• The weeping willows
• The East Lawn
• The reflecting pool... 

None of that matters. HIS word - his executive orders (which, I will once again point out, are NOT LAW - AND THEY ONLY APPLY TO THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH)... that's all that matters because Congress and SCOTUS have abrogated their responsibilities. 

John Roberts -- NOW you're thinking he's got too much power? Dude. Dude. Seriously? 

Oh. I guess I actually DID have something to say. 

Random Picture...

Who actually eats flour? I'm not kidding - I'm honestly asking. 

I was doing a very rare mid-year baking of cookies, and this label on the top of the flour bag just hit me weird. I mean, when I was a kid, we made paste out of flour and water, and yeah, a kid or two (not me, honestly - I thought the whole thing was gross) would taste it. We used to mix it up, tear newspapers into strips, and then we'd "paste" them over balloons. Pop the balloon and make a "bowl" as a gift to our moms. Hey, it was art. 

But who actually EATS raw flour? 

The cookies turned out fine, but it was certainly weird to make them in August instead of November, like I usually do. 

Now, I am going to go find those dog-grooming videos... 

I'm Speechless...

...and anyone who knows me knows that that's nearly impossible. 

This is why:  http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/11/18/2960371/walmart-food-drive/

Yeah, baby - shop Wal-Mart. Shop even on Thanksgiving, but hey - can you go there BEFORE the holiday to drop off some food so that their EMPLOYEES can actually feed their families??

Speechless not so much, as a matter of fact. Look at the facts. "Notoriously low pay." Yeah, poverty-level, actually. The average Wal-Mart "associate" makes $25,000 per year. You want to know what the Federal poverty level is for a family of four? It's $23,550. 

Twenty three thousand five hundred fifty dollars. To feed and house 4 people. It really can't be done. Here is a story on the vast discrepancy between what Wal-Mart management and their workers make... And yeah, it's ok for a CEO to make more than frontline employees. But I can't possibly believe that a man who decides what cheap crap Americans will buy next needs to make more in ONE HOUR than his employees make in ONE YEAR. 

A brain surgeon? A teacher (I wish)? A person discovering the cure to cancer? Yes, THOSE people can - and SHOULD - make tons and tons and tons of money. But not the guy who's screwing his employees out of a living. 

Here's a Daily Beast article on Wal-Mart, too, which you may be interested in. 
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/18/walmart-s-dumb-blame-game.html

I think I'm off my Wal-Mart rant. I don't shop there. I know, I know. I'm an elitist snob. Well, yeah, probably. But also, I am lucky enough to have other options. I know a friend of mine, a die-hard liberal, finds it hard to walk into her local Wal-Mart. But she lives in "Nowhere-ville" and has no other options. So you drive 35 miles with gas at nearly $4/gallon or you swallow your distaste and shop where you're at least staying in town. 

Yoga...

So I submitted my first book report (I have 3 more now). I have set up my one private lesson; I have another to set up, and I'll just coerce my kid into it... He'll go along. I also have a "Karma class" I have to do and I've got that in the works. I'll have to have a sign-up sheet on that, because I want to do it for the staff at Will-Grundy Medical Clinic. I have to limit it to no more than 12; usually, unless you've been teaching forever, or you have assistants, a dozen is all you can handle. Or at least all I want to handle!

I haven't yet started to work on the thesis. I know what I want to do, but haven't started the research yet. Hubby will help me do the video. 

I organized a new sequence today; I'm gradually building up a "library" and I like that. Even though, sometimes, the sequence goes out the window when someone walks in with enough issues to make it not likely to happen. I'm very lucky in that I've been doing yoga long enough so that for the most part, I can wing it. And I'm also lucky that I haven't had a lot of problems I can't handle. I'm sure it'll happen at some point...

Oh, we had an employee meeting this past Sunday. Yep. Right in the middle of the hugely bad storms that swept through Illinois. Lucky for us, we only got the crummy weather and some flooding, along with a few trees down...

November Tornadoes...

...while the folks southwest of us got bashed. Hubby has an appointment to visit with a reporter from the Chicago Tribune because even way up here, he found debris in the park. We got no tornado winds. This stuff came up from the southwest; IRA statements, high school pics, a family tree... It seems that this beats the infamous Plainfield tornado of the '90s. Click here for pictures. Or just Google it. It'll knock your socks off. 

Donate, if you can. Lots of people are doing things locally, and there's a Facebook page around if you have some of the debris that flew up here. 

Knitting...

Start of sock...

The pink sock comes along nicely, thanks. Again, sorry for the crummy pics. It's the phone... I have to wait till March before I get the whiz-bang camera on the phone. 

I need to only add 4 more blocks to my charity afghan -- I should say, only 4 more blocks need to be attached, since they're already produced. Then I do a border, and then we're done!!

Cardigan next. Yep. I think I'm ready for that. Along with socks as fill-ins, and washcloths. You need some instant gratification when you're in a long-term project. 

As I go, I'm happy that I've decided on a plain pattern. I do have some lovely Opal that's "fall-ish" and I have a leaf pattern for the leg. But I kind of like no-frills for now. Very mindless knitting. I did quite a few rows last night watching the Bears win and the Packers lose. 

Still need to work on the Nephew Afghan. It's about 1/3 done. It'll go quickly, just that it's bulky and I have till at least February to finish it. At least for the shower. I think for the wedding, they're getting a Holy Family or something totally useless in crystal. 

Music...

Whew!! Plugging along on "All Bells in Paradise" as well as "It Is Well With My Soul" and "I Will Sing" -- Made it through two songs this past week being the sole alto. Of course, it helped that there were only 4 of us in the choir group! But that was also scary, because I had nobody to back me up. I would love it if we could recruit a few more alto women so that I can either sing tenor with Hubby or go back to soprano. 

Leg of sock

And I'm still practicing BOTH versions of "Silent Night" - last year, I played it in the key of A but this year, Tom said "Key of C" - but then he can't remember whether he wants that or not... We'll figure it out, and I know both versions anyway. 

Food...

Will begin The Baking on Thanksgiving weekend. Kid #2 and I are splitting the list again this year. He loves to bake, and I appreciate the help. Potica (po-teet-za) will be done over the Christmas break so we can have it for Easter. 

Cookies include Snickerdoodles, roskis (family recipe), oatmeal, 7-layer bars, cottage cheese crescents (another family fave) and gingerbread. Anyone with a good recipe to share, please use the comments section!! 

I usually over-bake. Then, I usually eat it. Not doing that again this year. Well, probably will over-bake, but I'm getting rid of as much of it as I can. Giving to others, I mean, not eating it!

Random Picture...

This is an old picture of my sister's first grandchild.  I'm ok to post it because I'm not telling you his name, and his mom has posted stuff on her FB page. Isn't he a cutie?? 

I can't wait to see him and his siblings over Thanksgiving. 

No, I'm not in a hurry for my own grandkids. I just enjoy these kids. I can give them back! 

I did go today, while buying mousetraps for my campus, and get Christmas gifts for my "grandcat" Larry. She (yes, it's a girl) now has 2 little bags of snacks and two toys: one of them is some sort of fluff-ball thing that you can drag along the floor, and the other is a light up ball that she can bat around and play with. 

Hey, I'm happy. She'll be happy. It's all good.