Ants

The first clue for Mystery Stole 3 is finally out!!!!!

Here is the first half:



I'm using Jaggerspun wool/silk and a teal 8 seed bead. However, this is my first major lace project, so it takes me a really long time to get stuff done, and a lot of concentration. And perhaps a bit of swearing.

The grey cardi was almost done when I mysteriously started running out of yarn. I bought what should have been plenty; I have been paranoid about this exact situation occurring. I don't know what happened there. In any case, I was pretty bummed about the whole thing since the yarn was expensive and I was sure that they wouldn't have any more. When I bought it about 2 months ago, I bought all but one or two of the balls in this lot. The knitting genie was smiling at me, though, because Lakeside magically had some left. I'll try to finish it up when I get done with the present MS3 clue.





For the final knitting news: I finished Orion's socks. Ope, no I didn't! GOTCHA!!! I had them all bound off, woven in and everything. He tried them on and one of them was at least 2cm too short. I cut the end off, and I'll add the proper length when I'm not so mad at them.




And here is the reason that I have been not been in touch with everyone this week:







If you will notice, those are hundreds of dead ants, lining my windowsill and frame. These are just a small sample of what I woke up to Monday morning. I felt something on my arm and woke to see a nasty little bug. I freaked out a bit about it and blew it off. A few groggy minutes later, I killed it on the wall above my bed with a paper towel. Then I happened to glance at the sill, where not one, not five, but hundreds of ants were streaming and swarming. It would have been bad enough if it had just been like an anthill, but no, there were also hundreds of winged ants beating themselves against the glass and buzzing around our room.

We alert maintenance, and God bless them, they were out that morning. But the ants proved too tough. They sprayed twice and laid out traps, but those ants were going nowhere. We stayed at a hotel one night, just so that we could get some sleep. They were only really bad in the morning -- the rest of the time the winged ones kept to themselves. Nothing brightens a day like waking up to a swarm of ants, though.

Finally, they called an exterminator on Thursday. I've decided that he and my dentist are my new heroes. I still have to wait 4 days before I can clean them up, but I can tough that out. We have to give the poison time to work.