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I usually don't read except during the summer and it's a treat. I kind of go crazy in the library and grab anything that looks good. (I know, that whole judging a book by its cover thing doesn't really work! But that's what I tend to do.) Then friends recommend books and soon I have a long list of things I'll never get around to reading - kind of like my knitting pattern queue on Ravelry. Here is what's in my "reading queue" right now:
1. The Jane Austen Book Club - I'm reading this right now. So far it's okay but I'm not wild about it yet. Has anyone seen the movie? Is it good?
2. The Fixer Upper - I just finished reading Deep Dish by the same author and enjoyed it. The books are set in Georgia and it's fun to see landmarks pop up in the text.
3. The Swan House - Another Atlanta book that a friend recommended to me.
4. Magnolia Wednesdays - This book is set even closer to home and takes place in the suburb of Atlanta that I'm most familiar with. I'm 53 in line for it at the library right now.
5. Jane Austen in Boca - Okay, I know you are seeing a theme here - Southern books or Jane Austen books. :)
6. No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club - The cover and the title caught my eye. It had mostly good reviews on Amazon, so I'll give it a go.
7. Verbena - I'm not sure what drew me to this book. I guess the cover...
8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and the The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Mary recommended these to me. I watched the little video on Amazon and I think my husband might enjoy these on video tape. Does anyone know if a guy who enjoyed the Bourne books would also enjoy these?
9. Outlander - This is also on the list Mary shared with me and it has a ton of good reviews on Amazon.
10. The Other Boleyn Girl - I saw this movie so I'm not sure about reading it now. But it's also been recommended to me and had great reviews on Amazon. Any thoughts?
Well, my list is longer than ten but I'll play by the rules and stop here. (Sort of - I guess I cheated on #8!) If you'd like to share what you're reading, head over to Carole's and add your post to her list of contributors. If you'd like to participate regularly, Carole now has an email list that automatically sends out the topic on Sunday. Thanks, Carole!
Wow! There is so much information available online about clothes moths and how to disinfest them! Here is what I've found out. Hopefully I'll never have to refer to this again and neither will you!
Damage can come from webbing clothes moths, casemaking clothes moths, and carpet beetles. This fact sheet from Colorado State University has great photos for identification. Here are some other helpful articles (and the one from the other day just to have this all in the same place).
There are several ways to get rid of moths. The fact sheets have similar methods but differ on temperatures and lengths of time. (Note: I didn't investigate pesticides or traps. You may want to look into these methods if you have a moth problem.) Here is what I'm doing:
Freezing
I'm putting my wool (and other animal) yarn and fleece into Ziploc freezer bags and squeezing out any extra air. These bags are going into my chest freezer which is set at or below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. The bags will stay for at least 72 hours. Since freezing doesn't affects the eggs, the the bags will be brought to room temperature and remain there for at least 21 days to allow any eggs to hatch. The yarn will then be frozen again for 72 hours.
Heating
I'm going to heat my cotton yarn in the oven for 4 hours at 120 degrees F. Moth larvae won't eat the cotton yarn but they may lay their eggs there.
Washing
I'm washing all of my fabric in hot water and drying it on high heat. Again, the moths aren't in it but could be laying their eggs there.
Sunshine
Any fabric that is too sensitive to heat or too large to fit in the washer will be taken out in the sunshine and brushed off. (Moths hate sunlight.) I also did this with my loom bag. I turned it inside out and brushed it all out.
Cleaning
As I moved things from my sewing room, I washed the baseboards and vacuumed under them, paying special attention to the corners. All fabric and yarn was removed from the dark closet and will be stored in the sunnier room.
Storage
My wool was already in plastic bins but apparently that didn't help or the yarn went in after it was already infested. My yarn will now be stored in sealed Ziploc bags with extra air removed.
Prevention
The curtains will be open more often in my sewing room to keep it nice and bright in there. The floors will be swept more often and the furniture will periodically be moved away from the walls for vacuuming at the baseboards. Any new yarn will be inspected and stored in its own plastic bag.
And I will be sorting through my stash to remove yarn I don't use. I've found a group that needs yarn and embroidery floss. After I'm sure any moths are removed from the yarn, I'm going to donate a bunch to them.
Then I get to move on to the master bedroom because my husband says he saw a small moth flying around in there a couple of months ago! Hands off my knitted shawls and sweaters, moths!!!
Yesterday Lynne showed pictures of things that make her happy. I loved reading her post and I planned on doing the same thing today. It's been a good day with knitting with a friend, baking blueberry muffins this morning, and putting a big pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove to cook.
But it turns out I just have one photo to show you and it's of something that makes me unhappy.
Aside from me needing a manicure, do you see what else is wrong in this photo? Yes, I think I have a moth infestation. :( I'm going to put all my wool and wool blend yarns in plastic bags and throw it all in my chest freezer for a while. Then I'm going to thoroughly clean the room and do more research on getting rid of moths. I've read that the freezer trick doesn't work for the eggs.
I will appreciate any and all advice on this subject! :)
Edited to add: After reading that freezing does work, doesn't work, may work... I called my local county extension office and they referred me to this document.
Garden 2009 was not a success. There were so many bunnies and they ate our tomato plants several times. I finally put one more plant in and put poultry netting (I call it chicken wire) around it. We did have a few tomatoes late in the season. Those rascally rabbits even ate our asparagus plants to the ground. So this year we didn't have any asparagus. Some finally came up so I'm hoping we'll have more next year.
I don't know if more hawks have moved in or if some of the bunnies have moved out, but we are having better luck this year. We did get our plants in kind of late so we won't have tomatoes for a while.
Peppers and tomatoes then and now
I'm afraid that there is a little too much shade for our tomatoes so we've put in some in our sunny flower bed, too.
The zucchini plants have gotten so much bigger!
But I think I am most excited about the cucumbers. We're growing them on a trellis this year and I like the way it looks.
Climb, cucumbers, climb!
And here is the most exciting part...
...baby cucumbers!
Oops! Guess I had an unintentional blog vacation again. I was in Chattanooga the first weekend in June then there was Vacation Bible School and blogging got away from me. Here are a few random snippets of what's been going on...
*I was in Chattanooga at the synod assembly as a voting member for my church. It was such a great experience! In addition to attending to the business of the church, we attended workshops, worshiped daily and heard several inspirational presentations. One was by the Rev. John Nunes. Among other things, he spoke about malaria and the effort to eliminate it by 2015. If you ever have a chance to hear him speak, you should go.
*Did you know that getting rid of malaria can be as simple as using a bed net, being educated, and getting quick treatment if you are infected? A $10 donation will buy a bed net and provide the education needed to use it effectively and learn the symptoms of malaria. If you would like to donate, you can do it here. (I would link to my personal fundraising page but it has too much personal info on it for me to put out on the Internet. Let me know if you want to donate that way and I'll send you a link.) Thanks for considering to help stamp out malaria! I'll try not to go on and on about this initiative but I'm pretty pumped up about it!
*Let's see, what else has been going on? I made fish tacos again with this recipe. Yum! I liked it better than the other recipe but Steve and Emma didn't.
*Oh yeah, I unbound (what is the proper term?) my Springtime Bandit and rebound off with a different method: K2, put the stitches back on the left needle, K2tog through the back loops, K1, repeat. I'm so glad that I found a stretchy bind off that works for me! There are actually points to my shawl now. That wasn't planned but it happened due to the new bind off. And I love the Cascade Venezia I used for this shawl!!! It's a merino/silk blend that feels so nice and is great to knit with.
*We've been gardening but I think that deserves its own post so more on that later. I'll just say that I'm really excited to see cucumber blossoms!!!
The color in the top two photos is correct. I'm excited because this goes with a skirt I just purchased!
Have a great weekend everyone!
We tried two new recipes last Friday and they were both very tasty. One was a recipe that Caitlyn recommended: Flourless Peanut-Chocolate Cookies. These cookies were very quick to make. I like the fact that there is no flour or butter in them. Somehow that seems healthier even though it probably isn't. Caitlyn recommended using milk chocolate chips and that was a good suggestion!
We had fish tacos for dinner. I love fish tacos! When I first heard of them I thought they were like regular tacos made with fish. Yuck! But then I read the description of them on a menu and gave them a try. I'm so glad I did! These were yummy but not as good as those I've eaten at restaurants. But we'll be making them again.
I have a question for you. Do you think cookbooks and printed cooking magazines are becoming obsolete? So many recipes are online that I rarely use a cookbook anymore. And when I do, I can still find the recipe online. Example: When I saw Martha Stewart's Everyday Food: Great Food Fast at TJMaxx, I bought a copy because so many people in blogland had recommended recipes from it. I used it to make the fish tacos then later found the recipe online so I could link to it. I still like holding a cookbook in my hand, looking things up in the index, and browsing through the photos. But if I can find the same thing free online, am I foolish to spend $15+ on a cookbook? What do you think?
