Gettin’ It Pegged…Loom Knitter’s Clique

Hey, All!  :D  Just wanted to give you an update on our moving status…if you were interested, lol!  We’ve been in our new place since Sunday night, and it already feels comfortable.  We had the great plan of not bringing in our boxes until we were ready for them…we only brought in the furniture, and beds/dressers, etc…and a tub of essential “get-ready” items…and of course our cat, Gus. (We had much appreciated help from my sister, nephew, brother-in-law, and his 2 sons!)  We left all the boxes in the garage, in their ordered places by room (this idea was given to me by a friend at my work, and it is going swimmingly!).  We just grab a box when we’re ready for it, and unpack a little at a time.  That way we’re not shuffling through tons of boxes, like our several moves in the past. 

We still are working on bringing over some last items…everyday after picking up my daughter from school, we go over and pick up a load in my little PT, and take it over to the new house.  This Sunday, we will be going over to completely empty out the metal shed in the back yard.  This we have saved till last, as we want to thoroughly inspect every nook and cranny for spiders.  We don’t want to take any of those nasties with us to the new place! 

I really had a hard time without an internet connection.  I missed all my loomy friends online!  With all my frantic packing, moving, cleaning, more packing & moving….I didn’t have a lot of extra time to be very chatty…and then to be without a hook up even if I wanted to chat…that was difficult, to say the least!  We ended up having to have a technician come out to fix the wires at the box to the house.  In the meantime, I had the phone company forwarding all incoming calls to my cell…but it turned out, they had input the forwarding number incorrectly by one digit, and I was receiving all of someone else’s phone calls on my cell!  I’ll tell you, that person wasn’t very happy with the whole situation…as was I, to tell you the truth!  :P  But it all worked out, and now I have my computer all set up, with the wires neatly wrapped, and unsnarled, and the monitor all dusted, and shiny…I’m a happy blogger! 

Have a wonderful rest of the week!

Bethany~

Check out the new Free Looming Pattern featured on the Freebies Page!

I figured after we’ve had so much trouble with big ugly spiders, that I should ease my mind by creating a cute loveable one…Meet Spencer the Spider.

Happy Haunting!

 Bethany~

Well, I went to the entomologist specialist at the health department and she promptly said, without a second glance, that my 2 specimens of the spiders we’ve been having trouble with were NOT hobos.

Let me tell you that these guys looked exactly like all the photos of hobos I’ve been studying over the last month and a half.

Even though the “specialist” said these were not the real thing…how can I truly know unless she looks under a microscope and conclusively, scientifically finds without a doubt that what she states, is true? 

More to the point…how can I trust that the spider crawling across my living room floor is not the venomous, blood sucking monster it truly looks like?

If anybody knows…please be kind & let me know.  I’d truly appreciate it! 

Bethany~

Well…a spider, actually.

Yes, we finally caught one fairly large specimen in one of our many traps.  They don’t seem to be working as advertised…I think “pre-baited” doesn’t necessarily mean that they actually used Hobo spider pharemones as bait…maybe, beetle, or termite, or maybe moth pharemones.  This is a small accounting of what we have caught in our traps so far.  Yet, we did catch one in our kitchen trap…and only because it thought it was ducking under cover when my husband walked in and startled it!

So…off to the health department entomology division to get it positively identified.  Apparently, there are “look-alikes” that are really hard to tell from the real ones.  I’d be real happy if it turned out to be one of those guys!

Keep you posted!  Hope your week starts out great!     Bethany~

Well, my week has been so exciting! 

As noted in the blog before…we have had a little trouble with spiders.   Poisonous ones, to be specific.  Yep, Hobo spiders. 

Well, on Monday, when my daughters and I were going through their clothes to weed out, pass down, get rid of, etc…we were taking a bag of clothes for my younger daughter to still grow into, out to our storage shed, there were at least a dozen of their funnel shaped webs laced underneath the wooden pallet crates (yeah, not a good idea) we use as a floor to keep everything up off the ground.  Looking down we saw a very large specimen right at the door, practically waving at us and inviting us for tea!  I grabbed a stick and speared it…then armed with my weapon looked around for more.  I was rewarded with another, and I speared it too!  Call me the mighty spider hunter!

Wednesday night, while watching a new episode of Strong Bad (he’s great for a laugh if you have a particularly weird sense of humor :)  ) on the computer, I see a big one quickly making it’s creepy way under the computer desk!  I luckily was holding a pair of my shoes (a minor miracle!)  and found it lurking behind some cords and whacked it…it tried to run away and I promptly, wearing both shoes on my hands smooshed it as hard as I could, with great success & satisfaction!

 Needless to say, we went out and bought some traps.  We have a box set into the ground made for holding fire wood, which right now only has one neatly wound hose, right outside our back door off the patio.  I had my husband, wearing thick gloves and armed with a hammer, open the lid so I could toss in a trap.  On the bottomside of the lid, we immediately saw 6 large hobos and some assorted babies hovering in their webs.  My husband promptly pounded them one by one with his hammer.  Then, as if this wasn’t enough, we noticed that they had company…2 black widows were slinking around, hoping we wouldn’t spot them!  My husband quickly dispatched them as well, while I…brave little me, (yeah, right ;)  ) stood shuddering and scratching.  We didn’t buy those traps any too early, let me tell you!

In knitting news, I’m working on something orange & wooly, which I’ll share with you soon.  But with all the creepy spiders and all the orange yarn, I feel like it’s already October 31st and I’m perpetually being boo’d!

My fifteen year old daughter said that if I could be a superhero, I should be Spider Woman…I promptly said, “No Way!  I’d have to get bit!” To which she replied that I wouldn’t have to go that far…all I’d have to do is dunk myself in a vat of radioactive materials and I’d be set! 

Bethany~

It’s definitely spider season! 

Now, my philosophy on spiders is to leave them alone if I find them outside (that’s their territory after all) and to smoosh them mercilessly if I find them in my house (that’s MY terrritory & they don’t belong!) 

Last week we had a GIANT spider crawling across our livingroom floor…towards me! Ack!  My daughters and I were watching a movie when my eldest suddenly shreeked, jumped up, grabbed a glass that was on the coffee table and trapped the thing inside.  I couldn’t really see it very well because it blended in with our carpet. (Happy thought if there are more of them lurking around!)  We slipped a thick white paper timidly under the glass so that we could carry it elsewhere and this highlighted it.  IT WAS HUGE!!!!  I’m talking approx 3inches across with legs!  UGH!  I had an uncontrollable shudder as I looked at the thing backing up and hunching it’s back at us. I’m sure it was hissing! (if spiders do :)  )  

We carefully carried the glass with our beasty outside to my husband.  He suggested we get a baggie and some cotton soaked in alcohol to gas it, so that we could take it intact to the health dept to have it identified.  We got him the only size we had in the house, a sandwich baggie…Ziploc, of course!  As we positioned ourselves to maneuver it inside, he paused and said, “Do we have any bigger baggies?”  We all laughed, because he had been so seemingly calm, but betrayed himself at that moment…how cute! 

Well, we still bravely continued…my daughter holding the glass, my husband holding the baggie, and me standing there shuddering  .  We almost got it in when the thing fought it’s way back out of the bag and we freaked and it landed on the ground where my husband, out of concern for all mankind, promptly smeared it as hard as he could.  My hero!

We’re pretty sure this was a hobo spider…yes, they’re poisonous!  If you click on the link, be sure to brace yourselves first…it’s nasty!

So, since then, needless to say, we’ve been shaking our shoes, plugging up the holes under the screen doors, and looking in every corner.  Last night, while my husband and I were watching Disturbia…an extremely tense remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”, we heard a shreek coming from the bathroom, and then our spider trapping eldest running into the kitchen to get another glass for the hunt.  She succeeded, but this time it wasn’t nearly so big (about as big as a quarter) and we’re not positive that it’s the same kind of spider as the first.  We did gas it, though, so that we could get a close look at it.  We’ll see.

A note on the movie…it was good, extremely tense in parts ( I thought my heart was going to beat it’s way right out of my chest a couple of times), but all in all, I don’t think it was as good as the first.  After all, even though Shia LaBeouf is a very talented up-and- coming actor…. who can beat Alfred Hitchcock & Jimmy Stewart?  

Bethany~