I have quite a few knitting projects under way at the moment. This is nothing new really; I can’t work on just one thing at a time. At all times a knitter must have three projects in process.  A complicated project, a sock, and a simple brainless project.  So there is a project to grab for any situation.  If the kid is sleeping and you can sit in silence, grab the complicated one and knit a row. If you’re headed out the door to somewhere where someone else will hold your kid, but you still have to participate with other adults, grab the sock (it makes for good conversation itself too). And for those days when you know you’re going to fall asleep with the needles in your hands, work on the brainless project and it won’t matter if you can’t remember what row you’re on when you wake up!

1. Complicated

I cast on Caireen while Lottie’s Aunties were fighting over her all through Thanksgiving weekend. I cast on the correct number of stitches (a lot of them) but something was wrong after the first couple rows.  It turns out that I started knitting on the 2nd page of the pattern, skipping a big cable chart that I never printed out. I really didn’t want to rip the whole thing and cast on all those stitches again, so instead I unknit 2, maybe 3 rows.  Yes, it’s a lot of stitches, but I KNEW I had  the correct number cast on.  And UNknitting kinda felt like I was accomplishing something instead of ripping all those stitches out in less than a minute. ahem.  Once I got it back to just the cast on, I started again at the REAL beginning. I am just about done with the first skein of yarn which means one of two things. I am either 1/3 of the way done, or I don’t have enough yarn.

Caireen in process

This is a big complicated project.  I’ve given myself a goal because I’ve started plenty of big complicated projects and none of them are finished.  I am going to finish this shawl before the end of the year.  I’ve got a good start on it so I think I can do it.

Very cable-y!

2. Sock

I bought this sock yarn at Loopy when I was visiting my sister in Chicago last May.  I cast on a toe-up sock that night and have been slowly working on it for the past… 9 months.  I don’t know where the ball band ended up so I don’t know who makes this yarn, but it seems like it is really tiny. Almost like I need size 0 needles. Yeah, that’s the excuse I’m going with for why I’m barely past the heel on sock one of the pair.  Did I mention I have a really cute baby who rarely naps?  That might have something to do with it too.

First of the pair

3. Simple

This yarn is in it’s 2nd or 3rd reincarnation.  I bought it in 2009 and cast on a sock. The sock wasn’t working so I frogged it. Then cast on a scarf.  I’m at least halfway through the ball of yarn now and realize that the scarf isn’t working either.

Half of a scarf, headed for the frog pond

The death roll

The pattern is really easy, memorizable and looks good on both sides.  The yarn is really soft so I think I can handle it on my neck. BUT… even though the pattern has garter stitch along the edge it’s still rolling up. I thought about what I could do to save it, like an applied icord or crochet edging, but I don’t want to do that kind of thing.  I know it won’t block flat and stay that way.

I’ve been wooed by the Honey Cowl that Kay from Mason Dixon Knitting has been knitting repeatedly (she says without judgment).  I went through my stash and didn’t come up with anything that would work for the pattern, but then I realized that I wasn’t liking this scarf.  I think I can turn this into a Honey Cowl.  I think I’ll start from the other end of the yarn ball instead of frogging the scarf, when I get that far into the cowl, the scarf will unknit itself.

The Honey Cowl will replace the scarf in the Simple pattern category, so I’ll still have all three kinds of projects in the works. Not to mention at least two other socks in process, Lottie’s baby blanket and a little skein of pink cotton that needs to be something cute and girly.

Did you notice what all these projects have in common? They all seem to be the same colorway, all in different weights, fibers and made by different companies!  Strange. I might have to throw a 4th category into my theory that includes a fun color.  Pink booties anyone?

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It’s funny now to go back and read my previous post.  I’ll give you a quick run down.

August 6th.  The day we originally planned my baby shower for.  I had a feeling it would be too close to my due date (the 25th) so we moved it up to the 23rd of July.   My shower gift from my best friend Leah was a generous gift card to Baby’s R Us that came with the rule that we would go there and use it together.  We met in Lansing, roughly half way between our houses, and spent the whole day together.   We met at a VERY cute little breakfast place near the capital building called Soup Spoon Cafe.  The food was great and inexpensive.  We each left full and satisfied for about $10.  From there we headed to Baby’s R Us and spent a couple hours oohing and aaahing and squealing.  I filled up my cart with necessities and fun things.  We spent a good amount of time looking at the clothes trying to find the perfect outfit to bring the baby home in.  Of course we needed a boy version and a girl version.  I ended up finding a neutral outfit that was cute and snuggly.

After Baby’s R Us we headed out to eat again.  This time Sushi Ya downtown on MSU’s campus. Wow. We didn’t realize we were ordering so much food, but it was literally a boat load of sushi.

Literally!

The entire day Leah kept rubbing my belly and saying, “Dinger, come out!” and “I want to know who is in there!” And other things along those lines.

After dinner we both headed home with tears in our eyes.  It was a perfect last girls day out together before baby.  I made it home and unloaded all of my purchases.  Took everything out of the packages and ready to wash and put away.  I stayed up late and then fell asleep on the couch.  It was very early Sunday morning, about 4am when I went to bed.  I was laying in bed thinking about the two more weeks of work I had before my due date.  About all the things I still needed to finish before baby-time.  And about how great it would be to have a few days off of work before the baby comes…  When my water broke.

Since it was about 4 or 5 am, I waited a couple hours to text Leah with this message:  “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!”

24 hours later my contractions were 5 minutes apart.  We headed to the hospital, meeting our doula there.  Shannon and Leah were there by 10am waiting with my dad and Ryan’s parents. After about 12 hours of labor and 2 and a half hours of pushing, our little girl arrived!

Violet Grace, born August 8 at 7:53pm

7 pounds 12 ounces, 19 1/2 inches

Our little early bird!

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Wow, this summer is flying!  When we first found out I was pregnant, I thought we had SO much time.  Sheesh, the end of summer is FOREVER away, right?!  HA!  well, Monday starts a new month, and I’m due at the end of it!

I snapped a quick pic with my webcam yesterday to show off my 36 week belly.  Does it look like a boy or girl in there?

Last weekend was my baby shower, thrown by my awesome little sister!  The weather was incredibly, stupidly hot and it stormed in the middle of the outdoor shower.  Appropriate, I guess, huh!  We had tents in the yard so we all stayed mostly dry.  I, however, WANTED to stand in the rain.  The humidity the rain brought really did a number on my hair, which makes me think all the pictures of me after the storm look awful.  I wish I had gone in and fixed my funky bangs!

We got SO many great, wonderful, thoughtful and generous gifts!  Many thanks to all who helped and were so generous in gift giving.  Namely my mom-in-law who bought us our whole supply of cloth diapers!  Wow!  It makes me so happy to not be putting all that paper and plastic in a landfill somewhere just so my baby can poop.  And I am incredibly thankful that my family is supportive of our decision to use cloth diapers.  These are the ones we chose.

Some highlights from the shower:

Cutting slits in my dress for some extra air-flow

My dress was nearly floor length.  While it was very thin cotton, it did not breathe at all!  so i decided to quick cut up either seam on the sides about 8 or 10 inches and worry about hemming it later.  It sure helped!

Shannon and I (note straightness of bangs)

How did Shannon manage to not sweat all her makeup off like I did?!

crochet'd viking hat displayed on grapefruit

My gift from mom-in-law! All her own pattern and so ME!

I LOVE this quilt and can’t wait for it to be back in my house!!! I think Baby has to come first though.  I suppose that is fair.   She actually thought I’d be concerned that she gave it to me unfinished…  Does she know who she’s talking to?!  Ryan got the 2nd of a pair of socks for Christmas in MAY.

Proud papa! (crazy post-rain bangs in full swing!)

The nursery is pretty much finished.  I painted it a couple weeks ago, we are waiting for the crib to be delivered and we have some work to do on the closet.  I also have a TON of laundry to do already.     Should be ready for baby by mid-week.  After that, I hope to get my new sewing room in order.  So far everything just got moved down into an empty bedroom in the basement. Nothing is organized or put away.  If I’m REALLY lucky, I might even get to sew a little bit before baby arrives!

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Since I don’t have anything to show for myself lately, I thought I’d brag about my husband Ryan, ok? He has been doing some amazing things lately!

This first is a sign for the storefront of The Artisan’s Bench in Brighton, MI. The Artisan’s Bench is a gallery that features work by Michigan artists. Our friend Colin owns it and has some great ideas and plans for his shop. So when it came time for the front of the store to get a makeover, he asked Ryan for help. From a picture of the shop’s logo and a little bit of conversation came this:

Hand-carved and painted sign for The Artisan's Bench

Another view of the storefront

I am beyond proud and impressed with Ryan’s skill and talent! He has the ability to take a drawing or an inkling of an idea and replicate it. Truly amazing.

More recently this magic happened in our own home. Ryan had some very old salvaged wood that he’s been saving for the perfect project for our house. They are probably support beams from a VERY old building. The edges are not flat or perfectly square, and appear to have been hand-cut. We finally decided last week that we need a bookcase in the living room and cheap-o Target furniture just would not do. So our collaborative idea was to use a bunch of his stash of old books as the supports for the big beams he was saving.

We picked out the perfect arrangement of books, stacked them up, and laid the big boards across them (of course there was a lot more to it than that!) and this is what we came up with:

New definition of the word 'bookcase'

A couple days and quite a few coats of sealer later, (I have no idea the specifics here, the little one and I were kept well away from the fumes) we put the whole thing together with extra (hidden) 2×4′s for support and some screws and filled it with our favorite books!

We had to narrow down our favorites to just these books

I can’t stop admiring it! And I can’t stop telling everyone I know how awesome both of these projects turned out! I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next!

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It’s been a while since I’ve poked my head back into my blog.  Without going into a huge laundry list of reasons and excuses, I’ll just say that I have been doing some things here and there.  I did do a bit of knitting and I did get all but one of my Christmas gifts finished.  But mostly I’ve been sleeping.  And not feeling well.

While nothing really has been coming out of my sewing room or off my needles, I have been productive.  You see, I’ve been busy growing a tiny human!

12 week ultrasound

Here’s our little one.  We expect him or her sometime at the end of August.

My mom always told me that she never felt healthier in her life than when she was pregnant with my sister and I.  I always used that as a comparison when I heard pregnant women complaining about this or that.  And I always expected that I would feel the same way.  Healthy and happy.  I am an optimistic person, I always think ‘mind over matter’.  But the very day I took the at-home pregnancy test, I started to feel kinda crappy.  I had a headache for at least three days and didn’t know what I could take for it.  And each day after that was new uncharted territory. No way to tell if it was going to be a good day, a migraine day, an uber tired day or a lovely nausea day.  I never wanted to be one of those complaining pregnant women.  And I was really surprised to find myself not having so much fun during the first trimester.

There is so much to do! So many things I want to sew and knit for this little one and I can’t do anything but sleep!  I am in the last few days of the first trimester, so here’s hoping that it all changes for the next couple months.

Do you have any links for me, anything that I just MUST HAVE for a new summer baby?  I’m working on a quilt, a knitted blanket and a lace cardigan.  I already have the pink cabled cardigan and a dusty blue pullover that I never took a picture of.  Both of these sweaters STILL have no buttons.

And now, completely changing the subject.  I am turning off the snow on the blog.  Seriously… I’ve had enough of it.  While it’s beautiful and cozy out there from the warmth of the inside, I am totally over it.

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It is the Friday evening after my 3 day vacation.  Now it’s just a regular weekend after my 3 day vacation. Tomorrow is a family Christmas get together and following that, my friend Nicole and I will make cookies until the wee hours of the morning.  It was originally going to be an all day thing, and now has to be an all night thing since my family didn’t consult me when they planned our Christmas…  yes, the bitterness you sense in that sentence is intended.

So, I’ve been Christmassing it up here at home, getting lots of stuff done and sewing and knitting in the  middle of a work day and not feeling bad about it.  Since everything I’ve been working on can’t be revealed for another week (and possibly a couple days after that) I will show you something that has been done for a while and just recently given as a baby shower gift.

Sweet little sweater

It is the cabled cardigan pattern from Knitting Daily. Except that I swapped out the cables for a more gender neutral lace pattern from a stitch dictionary.  The yarn is Eucool (Eucalyptus and Wool) by Elsebeth Lavold in pale green.

Antique buttons

I just happened to have the perfect buttons for it.  I dumped out the big button jar from my Great Grandma and found lots of mismatched options but these were perfect and I only had three, which is how many I needed.

This sweater had so many problems.  Some of them were my own fault.  The problems started because I altered the pattern.  The stitch pattern I chose first was a pretty vine with leaves pattern to replace the cables in the original pattern.  The vine chart had leaves that pointed upward, like it was growing up the sweater.  I started knitting it and after a couple inches realized that, since I was knitting the sweater from the top down… maybe you can see the problem right away… the vines would be travelling down the sweater, with all the leaves pointing down.  I thought that would look unnatural, so I started over.  I tried to reverse the cable chart, but couldn’t figure it out.  I’m sure there is a way to do it, but it is beyond my skill level.  The other issues were just me not paying attention, I won’t go into it.

And here is the lucky mom-to-be!

Cutest mom ever!

It is totally cute on that big belly!  They are leaving the gender to be a surprise, and I’m just going to put it out there right now, based on absolutely no knowledge or evidence; I think it’s a boy.

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Ok, I’m being dramatic again.  I am counting down the hours; 3 hours and 2 minutes to be exact, until I leave work and go on my mini vacation.  Everyone at the office has excitedly asked me, “Are you going somewhere warm?!”  I kind of giggle and say, “I’m not going anywhere, just to my sewing room.”  I got a few puzzled looks but a few of my coworkers got pretty excited for me.

I have a list (and still, on the 14th of December, the list is growing!) of at least 12 things to make as Christmas gifts.  I have 4 commissioned bags to finish (ahem, and start).  Two sewn gifts, and 6 things to knit… I think.  MOST of the knitted gifts have been started.  Of course, I can’t show you any of that.  But for the next three and a half days, I’ll be sewing and knitting my little heart out for my loved ones. You can be sure there will be a slew of pictures after Christmas.

To celebrate my little stay-cation or sew-cation I am offering a coupon code for 20% off any item at my Etsy Store!

Use the code VACATION during checkout

There is still time to pick out a great Christmas gift for someone you love or um… yourself!

A sampling from my Etsy store

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Ok, so maybe I’m being a little overly dramatic with that title.  It is a quote from my best friend Leah after I told her that everything I am working on right now are all Christmas and birthday gifts.  Since most of the recipients read this here blog, I can’t post anything to prove that I am alive and creating.  How many days in a row of pictures of Bella and Opal before you guys get bored?

I can’t show you the stuff I bought at The New Ewe with Leah a couple weekends ago.  I can’t show you the sweet baby shower gift that is almost done.  I could probably show you the sock for Ryan, but won’t risk it, just in case.  This is the only thing I can show you at this point.

They are MINE!

My mom bought me the yarn at least three years ago and I think it hung around for another year before I cast on for FiberTrends felted clog slippers for myself.  I know I cast them on last December because I was staying at Leah’s house and working on them while she decorated her tree.  After I got home from my weekend at Leah’s the slippers still made good progress for a while until something else (who knows what, probably socks) tempted me away from them.

So when I went back to Leah’s for another weekend trip at the beginning of  November, I dug out the slippers to assess my status and ETA to completion. I told her that the number one priority of the weekend was to finish the clogs and maybe even felt them at her house.  So what did we do that weekend?  Well, we did a lot of eating, made a trip to a great knitting/quilt shop.  And the only knitting I did all weekend was a little bit on Ryan’s sock and a little bit of progress on another gift.  Slippers were not even touched.

When I got home from Leah’s I decided I have to finish these clogs before Thanksgiving to take them with me to Chicago and if I didn’t make it to that goal, they MUST be done before December when it becomes more than a year since I cast on.  So I finished them up this week.  It’s kind of embarrassing how close they were to being done.  It maybe took one hour of knitting to finish them after they had sat lonely in a box for a good 9 months or more.

I felted them last night and set them in front of a register to dry.  By the time I get home tonight they should be completely dry and I can start planning what to needle-felt on them. Suggestions?

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October has just been flying by!  I didn’t even realize that it has been almost a month since my last post.  I have been keeping myself busy with a lot of knitting, but somehow nothing gets finished.  I shouldn’t make that sound so mysterious because I know damn well why nothing is getting finished.

Where to start?  Ok, let’s go chronologically by cast-on date.

I probably started this scarf two years ago.  It’s a simple feather and fan with tiny tiny mohair yarn.  I love it and it is really soft and an easily memorized pattern.  I just rarely work on it.  For as small as this yarn is and knit on size 3 needles the scarf goes pretty quick. But only if you work on it.  Not if it’s shoved in a bag somewhere for a year and a half.  I think I have about 12 inches of scarf here and lots more to go. The color is actually just the slightest touch of a minty green.

Feather and Fan, undeservingly neglected for years

Lets see… continuing chronologically the next couple would be hidden within these boxes.

decoratively hiding my problem with knitting monogamy

In here is the failed and now completely ripped back to nothing Cabled Shrug from the Knitting Olympics, a pair of felted clogs I started for myself last Christmas, and a scarf that I haven’t been working on out of the sock yarn labeled “Problem Two” in this post.

Whisper Cardigan.

knitting along until it's the right length... I mean I will after Christmas

This project has had absolutely NO issues.  It is easy, interesting enough to keep me working on it, but not so complicated that I need quiet time for it.  It is SOOOOOO close to being done but it is for me and now that Christmas is coming and I have gifts to make, it has been pushed aside.  Lovingly pushed aside if that makes a difference.

Next up, three pair of socks.

None are really "a pair" yet...

Starting from the left, Christmas gift sock that I’ve been working on at work while papers feed through the copier.  In the middle is the 2nd of a pair of my first toe-up sock (Lorna’s Laces Shephard Sock in Mineshaft) and on the right, Zauberbol sock yarn.  All cast on at different times, obviously with no regard for any other project’s status and no explanation why I needed to have more than one sock in progress since they are all the same pattern and the two on the right are for me.  I can only say that I started the one on the left because I realized how quickly Christmas is coming. That’s as close to redemption as I can get.

This next one is probably to blame for why I cast on the Zauberbol sock above.  The cable pattern I chose to use on this gift knitting wasn’t working and I ripped and re-knit so many options that I eventually just needed to cast on another project that I knew would work.  Have you ever ripped and re-knit so many times that you wonder if you should cut and throw away the first couple yards (or way more) of yarn because it has become un-twisted and loose?  yeah… that was this one for sure.

**gift**

I can’t elaborate too much on this, which is why the picture doesn’t show what it actually is.  And I’m not going to even say if the color looks accurate in this picture.  I will just say that it is going well now and WILL be finished in time to give to the recipient.

I bought the kit for this yarn just before Mother’s Day in anticipation of needing something shiny and sparkly to play with and lift my spirits on that now dreaded holiday.

oooooh sparkles!

I ended up going to the in-law’s to celebrate mother’s day and having a very good time.  So I didn’t cast this on until a couple weeks ago. I have no idea why.  Maybe because I had the house to myself and had the patience and attention span to read the pattern and figure out the lace part.  It’s been a fun knit so far and I’d be working on it more if I didn’t switch over to gift-knitting-mode.  I have messed up my share of lace patterns in the past and decided this time to use a safety line.  I threaded some waste yarn onto a darning needle and ran it through the last row of stockinette before the lace starts.  That way when if I mess up the lace charts, I can easily and safely rip back instead of tink back one stitch at a time (or what is more likely, put the whole thing in a box and forget it exists).

I have some sewing to do for Christmas gifts too that I have to plan out.  Before that happens though I need to do some major cleaning in the sewing room.  I started to take a video of my sewing room this morning but decided it was too embarrassing to show.  I’ll have to snap a couple before and after shots, but it may not be at its worst yet.

And to end on some cute, Opal is doing well.  She is getting used to our little family and loves to snuggle into my neck while I read or knit.  Bella is still a little pushy about getting up close to her, but she is not as jealous as she was a month ago.

'scuse me, you have any lettuce for me? maybe a carrot?

Does she not have the cutest little chinny chin chin?!

I think my goal for this weekend will have to be to pick ONE of these projects and finish it.  Preferably something that will be a gift… or whatever is closest to being done… or whatever feels like the most fun at the time… or I had an idea to knit something cozy for Opal to sleep in…

… I’m doomed.

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My general routine when I get home from work is to come in and greet Bella and Opal and go right outside to play with Bella. Sometimes there is too much going on in the yards beyond our fence and Bella gets distracted by other animals, people or noises and has to chase them or bark at them (usually both). So she is too busy to play ball with me. When that happens, I go check things out in the garden. On this particular day I was greeted by quite a few bugs. Some totally disgusting and others quite cool.

First off I should say that when it comes to bugs I haven’t been a squealy-freak-the-F-out kind of girl in many years, possibly two decades. I don’t like spiders or things that sting, but I can handle myself for the most part. I’ve been known to let out a quiet, startled sound if something appears or lands on me and I’ve said my fair share of swear words after walking through a spider web. But yesterday, holy crap, yesterday will go down in history as “giant disgusting bug day” at the Kush household.

When I got home from work and walked up to our back door, something moving on the garbage can caught my eye. I saw a huge spider run up it’s web and hide under the HANDLE of the garbage can. This was no daddy long legs. This spider had an ass the size of a marble. And not a peewee either, a shooter. I’m serious. I’ve never seen a spider like this in person. We live in Michigan, not Australia. I made a mental note of the spider and went inside.

After greeting Bella and Opal, we went outside to play. Bella was too busy barking at construction guys next door and sniffing out whatever lives under our shed to play ball with me. I ventured into the garden and started picking some of the newer leaves and tiny florets of broccoli (Opal LOVES broccoli). When I looked closer into the broccoli, I saw two grasshoppers hanging out, um… having a piggy-back ride…

Grasshoppers do it in public...

Nothing gross or disgusting about that one, I’ve never seen grasshoppers doing it before, so that was cool. I continued picking broccoli and saw something else moving. This time small, black and fuzzy… shuddddder… another spider. I’ve seen these guys living in our mailbox (which totally scares the hell out of me). From extensive research on Google Images just now, I am pretty sure these are Black Jumping Spiders. I decided I had enough broccoli and backed away. As a side note, I really do not recommend googling “spiders”.

I continued around the garden to the zucchini bed. We have quite the infestation of squash bugs and cucumber beetles. If you recall, I took this photo in spring because I thought that little bug was cute sitting in that flower… not so cute when they are eating your actual zucchini. The squash bugs are just eating the leaves and at first I thought they were hanging out on the leaves that were already dead, but I think it’s pretty obvious now that those leaves are dead because of all the squash bugs hanging out on ‘em.

When I noticed the cucumber beetles were actually eating my zucchini, I went ahead and picked everything that was there, even the tiny tiny ones, only about 4 inches long. As I was reaching for the last one, I noticed something the color of a bumble bee, black and yellow. I pulled my hand back and looked closer and saw this.

Monarch catterpillar

I have never seen one in person before. I left it there and made another mental note to show Ryan when he got home. I really wanted to pick that weed and put the little guy in a jar and watch him go through his life cycle… but I resisted.

I made my way over to the jungle of cherry tomato plants. And I think, if you have ever gardened in your life, even for just one season, you know where this is going. I was happily picking cherry tomatoes; “happily” because I knew there were only about 30 ripe ones instead of the usual 100 or more in a day, now that the season is dwindling. All summer I had been bravely sticking my arm into my tangle of tomato plants, without much of a worry. I hadn’t seen any evidence of infestation. And today was no different. I reached in to get a couple tomatoes from the very center of the tangled plants and felt something soft and squishy, then wet on the back of my thumb. I pretty much knew what it was and when I pulled my hand back there was green liquid on my thumb. I was immediately and totally grossed out. I stood there for a second, dwelling on the grossness of the green liquid on me.

I slowly and carefully reached into the plant and moved the leaves around. There it was. A tomato horn worm. This is the 3rd or 4th year I have had tomato plants and this is my first tomato worm. I had been admittedly disappointed that I hadn’t had any tomato worms in years past. My mom always had plants in the back yard and we went out there every day to hunt for tomato worms. These guys are always so big and plump and disgusting that we couldn’t bear to step on them. We had two usual solutions. 1. Pick off the branch and hold it in the air near somewhere you know there will be wasps. The wasps come along and suck the guts out of the worm. Totally cool to watch and gross at the same time. or 2. Throw the branch into the road and wait until a car runs it over. (did I mention we are totally city-kids?)

On this day I opted for the wasp idea. I know we have wasp nests in various places around our yard, but haven’t seen many lately. With the weather switching between hot summer and fall days and back again so much in the past weeks, I think the wasps must be hunkering down for the winter, or just confused. So I picked the branch off the plant. Carefully. Still unsure if that ‘horn’ on it’s butt is a stinger and don’t really want to find out the hard way.

What's a word that means grosser than gross? More disgusting-er than disgusting.

I held the branch out for a while near a wasp nest but got no action. I ended up leaving it on a brick near the nest.

When Ryan got home I gave him the tour of bugs. The monarch caterpillar and the tomato worm. I told him about the giant-assed-spider living under the handle of the trash can and his response was not the “I’ll go kill it right now, dear,” I was hoping for. Instead he said, “Giant round ass?! No good can come from that. Many a man’s life has been ruined by things with a giant round ass…” Didn’t take me long to realize we were no longer talking about spiders. So the spider lives on and I did not take the trash out last night.

We continued to marvel at the grossness of the tomato worm and it’s poop, (seriously, have you seen tomato worm poop?! crazy.) discussed making a Bug Barn to keep the monarch catepillar in and I may have pleaded some more on the trash-spider squashing idea.

In the end, I think they all lived. The grasshoppers went on creating more grasshoppers, the monarch caterpillar hung out on it’s Wild Carrot greens, the spiders haunt me in their dark hiding spots and the tomato horn worm… well… I just left it on a brick, far from the tomato plants. I went out the next morning and it was gone and so was the little branch it was clinging to.

Ok, I’m going to go google puppies now; the only known cure for the creepy crawlies.

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