Mister Cockroach

I posted this on Ravelry, but I feel like this needs to be saved for posterity.

We’re at a beach house on vacation, and it’s our last night. We’ve stayed at another house through this company, and it was really clean and well kept. This one? Not so much. We got here before the cleaning crew (a lone man of one) was finished and discovered a dirty diaper under one bed and tons of other garbage littered around the patio. My SO and I didn’t have anything other than sheets until yesterday (supposedly, they were at the cleaners. I suspect otherwise, since we have twin beds and the queens and kings still had their covers).

Tonight just sealed the deal. We just found a four inch long cockroach in our closet. Now, I’m not bug-squeamish. And I’ve seen roaches before (a whole slew of them when we discovered a palm tree was infested before we even got it off the truck). But the antenna on that thing were a good two inches on top of that. SO GROSS.

My dad “rescued” my SO and I by squishing it, then promptly knocking on my sister and her friend’s door and saying in a terrifying voice while holding out the roach “It’s Miiiiiister Cockroach!”.

Thanks dad.

Planning for a Summer Road Trip

Two years ago, my family went on a vacation to Destin, Florida, with two other families. We rented a giant beach house, and drove about a million hours there. Unfortunately, I wasn't really into knitting at the time, so all of that potential knitting time in the car was wasted. Instead, I tried to sleep and my sister kicked me in the head. I did however manage to get a wicked sunburn and read Gone with the Wind. My sister managed to be terrified of jellyfish and refused to go anywhere near the water.


Here I am, saving her from the terrifying jellyfish

Now we're going on the trip again. This time however, I'm going to be prepared. As if cramming four people into my father's truck wasn't enough, along with plenty of stuff, we're squeezing in my SO as well. We're only going with one other family, and my SO is going to be tortured entertained by their little boy. I predict there will be plenty of video games.

I am thoroughly excited about it. Not because we're going to the beach, because frankly, if I wanted to go to the beach, I'd just go into my parents' backyard and pretend. I'm excited about it because it means I get to knit for a million hours while we drive through Louisiana, which I assure you, is a lot less exciting when you realize you're not going to see any actual vampires.


This is my beautiful friend Veronica, aka VeeBee over on ravelry. You can see a small snipped of the backyard in this photo. I assure you, it's even more awesome in person.

I have great plans to stock up my iPod with audiobooks and podcasts and knit through a great many projects. What exactly those projects are going to be is up for debate. It's a bit too soon for me to plan now, but I do have some general ideas.

I want to knit a Summer Flies for starters. I love this pattern, and I even know what I'm going to knit this in. I have a partial ball of Naturally Caron Spa or County (not sure which) in a pale pink that I think would be lovely for this, especially considering how many people have knit it in the same yarn. By then I should be off my stash diet, so I won't feel back about picking up some more yarn to finish it.

I want to knit something with lots and lots of mindless knitting. I get carsick if I try to do much other than knitting garter stitch or stockinette, so it'll have to be something super simple for most of the car trip.



Finally, I want to knit hamsters. Lots and lots of hamsters. I've got a box full of partial balls and the like that's pretty much exclusively there for toys, and hamsters are my favorite toy to knit. I want to knit at least one a day. And they won't just be for me- not only is my sister obsessed with them, the other two kids on the trip will want some as well, I'm sure. So hopefully I'll get quite a bit of those done- I think we'll be there for 7-9 days, and if I can get at least one done a day, then I'll be all set.