Thermalgal’s Temperate Mumblings

Quick Update

I did some surfing and it seems that a tornado was spotted about a mile from my house on Friday. I knew it was pretty close based on the map in the newspaper, but I was thinking it was a bit further East than it really was.

I did manage to get some time on my sweater last night. After three tries I finally figured out what I was doing. I’m working on the V part of the top of the front. I have that about half finished and then I’ll start shaping the neck. After that, I’ll join the two pieces, knit the last sleeve and then put in the sleeves and I’ll be finished!

I have power!

We left the house about 5pm to go to a reunion dinner for the Honduras trip. While we were gone, Ivan went through the area. I read in the Washington Post that Ivan generated 30 Tornados in VA in the day it took to get through the state. There was a little map in the newspaper which I scanned in that showed about fifteen or so reported sighting of tornados from Friday. Some of them were a little too close to home for my liking.



Our house made it through just fine. There were lots of trees down because of the wind.




One of the new houses under construction in the field next door didn’t fair that well. The second floor and roof were just put up last week.



We arrived home about 10:30 Friday night. Our driveway is about 0.3 miles long. We had to stop twice to get trees out of the driveway. The second time, there was no way to move the tree, so we had to leave my car there and walk the rest of the way to the house to get axes and DH’s truck. When we got to the house… no power. So, we found some candles and changed and headed back out. This is what both sides of the driveway looked like after we got it cleared.






I of course call the power company to report our outage. The recording said that there were no other reports from the area. But I’m pretty sure eveyone else was with out power. DH called again Saturday morning and got the same recording. And when I called about 5, yep, same recording. We left about 8 or so to go get dinner and to enjoy and place with power. As we were leaving, we noticed that all of our neighbors had power. Not fair! Just because they all live next to the road… So, when we got back, we called again. Finally the recording changed. They were finally “aware” of our outage. Sunday morning, DH called yet again. This time they said that someone was in the neighborhood. Yeah! Three hours later, we left to go on a hike and we passed a truck from our power company. So, it looked like we would finally have power. We got back from our hike about 2:30 and yep, we finally had power! Yeah! Now I can get down to some serious crafting! Oh and take showers and flush the toliets. The bad thing about having a well is that when power goes out so does the water.

Gatsby Progress

I’ve been concentrating on my sweater Gatsby lately. I want to finish the front before I move on to another project. I was doing really well last weekend but then on Monday evening, I found a mistake. I had just finished the arm hole shaping and I realized that I had too many stitches on my needles. I ripped it out at lunch yesterday and last night I tried again. I got to about the same point and yep, had too many stitches again. Ripped it out a third time and when I noticed something. I was reading the directions as “Decrease at end of the needle every other row 3 times”. That is much different from what it really said, “Decreased at *each* end of the needle every other row 3 times.” Ah… that makes more sense. It really didn’t seem right the first two times, but I just trusted that it was. It is fixed and I’m almost back to the point where I was Monday evening. I still have one flaw, but it is little and I don’t think it will be noticeable.

I have a short day today at work. Okay not really short, since I got here almost two hours earlier than I usually do. But I have to leave early to get to the Honduras Reunion. I’ll finally be able to see the movie that one of the guys was filming. He does one every year and it should be good.

Strangest Place I have found a needle…

This is a poll that has been on the Rotation Board for almost two years and I finally have an answer!

Honduras. I didn’t take any stitching with me or even any other type of craft. I didn’t take any of the bags that I used to transport my stitching different places. But one day I came back from the work site and sitting on the night stand was a slightly tarnished petite 26. I figure the maid must have found it while cleaning our room. I picked it up and knew it was mine but couldn’t figure out how in the world it got there. No one else in the house stitched or even did any kind of crafts. So, I packed the little thing and brought it home where it belonged.

Not much crafty stuff has happened since Saturday. I can’t even remember what I did after work on Monday. I think I just surfed a bit, ate dinner, lifted weights and then went to bed. Tonight I might actually get to do something since the next session of yoga doesn’t start until next week.

I did find out yesterday at band that our next concert which was going to be either the 16th or 23rd of October is going to be the 23rd. At first I was happy. This mean I could go to my nephews birthday party and even help with the haunted house. But then it hit me… the 23rd was the weekend of CATS. We had already made reservations to go from the 21st to the 24th. So, I guess we’ll just have to come back early and I’ll skip the dress rehearsal the day before. I am not giving up CATS!

Genetic Monsters, Haunted Caves, Alpacas, and the Civil War

Umm… yup, that about sums up my weekend. DH gave me a big stack of DVDs for my birthday (7 total). The first off the pile was Space Cowboys follwed by Space Camp, Space Balls, Star Gate, Armageddon, Titan AE and the last one on the pile, Lilo & Stitch. The theme was spaceships. Gee, I wonder why? And if you havn’t seen Lilo & Stitch or if you have only seen it once, please make sure that you see it at least twice to fully enjoy this little gem. The first time DH and I saw it, we thought it was an okay movie but Lilo was annoying. Then I saw it again and again and now I’m hooked. I think Stitch is the genetic monster version of Grommit! He is smart, funny, and really cute! I even have two little stuffed Stitchs at home. And come on… how can I not like his name!

Yesterday was the family gathering for my birthday. I decided that we should have a picnic at Harpers Ferry. DH and I went early and did a little 3 hour hike before meeting the rest of the family at 1:30. We went up to the Stone Fort on Maryland Heights and then stopped by the cliff overlooking Harpers Ferry. I got a cool panorama from the cliff. Click on the thumbnail below to see the full picture.

After the picnic, I opened my gifts from the family. My mom visted the LYS near her and picked up three skeins of Alpaca blend (with Brittany needles), pink pencil roving ready to spin, and the Big Book of Handspinning that I had requested. Now, I’m trying to figure out what my new alpaca buddies will become. She also picked up the business card for an alpaca farm not that far away. My sister had a little mystery for me. She gave me a series of small gifts and I was to guess what the main gift was. She gave me large and small glow sticks, binoculars, and then the final clue… head lamps. Knowing what I had offered as gift suggestions, I asked, “Does this have anything to do with the spelunking book?” Yup, she pulled out this cute little diorama of a cave. It had stalagmite and stalagtites. One of the stalagmites was even made of little “crystal” beads. Don’t worry, I’ll get a picture of it tonight. So, the gift is admission to Crystal Cavern at Hupp’s Hill. And she just send me email about a Haunted Cave on the 30th of October that I think we’ll do (Halloween is DH’s favorite holiday).

After lunch, the family piled on to the bus for the trip from the parking area to the town of Harpers Ferry and explored the town. More pictures can be found here