Journal: Varmints and Bugs, Oh, My!

 

After a night of thunder, lightning, and a bit of rain, we had a cool day last Tuesday, with overcast skies and a high of 68°.

I didn’t get much accomplished that day.  After being sick during the night, I got up at 7:30 a.m., but soon went back to bed and stayed there until a little after noon. 

Later that afternoon, Hannah and Levi came visiting, along with their Australian shepherds, Willow and Chimera, to see how Larry was doing on Levi’s car.

I was in my recliner when Hannah and the dogs came in.  Chimera (on the right) in particular seemed quite worried about me, hurrying over to sniff at my face.  ‘Are you all right, are you all right??  What shall we do?!’

Willow, the black dog, is more timid; but she, too, came to sniff at me, giving my hand a quick lick, more of a ‘If you’re sick, get well soon!’ gesture.

I wash and curl my hair 365 days a year.  Except this year (unless I get sick again).  It will be 364 days a year this year, because I ran out of oomph to curl it (I did wash it) on Tuesday. 

And that’s the day I had company.  Murphy’s Law, ’tis, alive and well.

Remember those ‘gemstone’ mugs I once ordered?  These are the ones I supposedly ordered:  

And this is one of the actual mugs:  

The others were just as bad or worse.  These days, people have been finding them at thrift stores.  Someone posted the picture below and wrote, “Looks like someone else fell for the fake AI gemstone mugs!  hahaha!”

I was supposed to send those mugs back “when the shipping label arrives via email” – but it never arrived.  I tried contacting someone about it, because I didn’t want to get charged for them again, and some lady (on the phone) said very snippily (with an odd accent), “Ma’am, the directions WERE ALL ON THE REFUND SLIP.”  I had no ‘refund slip’.

I have no idea what I did with those mugs.  Maybe they’re still in a box in the basement?  Maybe they’re the ones people are finding (and laughing about) at thrift stores?

Hannah wound up with some pathetic Walmart ‘containers’ from China:  bags that, as she puts it, “would likely rip the first time a person tries to move them.”  These were part of fraud perpetrated on her PayPal and banking accounts; she did not place the order.  She wondered what to do with them.

I had the perfect solution:  “Give them to the nearest thrift store with a note:  ‘These are to carry home your gemstone mugs.’”

At 6:00 p.m., I couldn’t stand it any longer (and my setter was all sat out anyway), so I curled my hair.  

“You wanna come back and see me now?” I wrote to Hannah.

Wednesday, it was cloudy and foggy, and a little cooler than the day before, only getting up to 64°.  Feeling better, I was soon headed to my quilting studio to work on the first Dresden Plate flower, hoping the maid would come and do the dishes and dust and vacuum while I was up there.

Before starting to cut and sew this Dresden Plate, I refolded and put away all the fabric I’d used for the background on the quilt (and immediately needed some that I’d put away).

I opened the windows, the better to hear the birds; but the crickets and katydids were making much more noise than the birds.

Hannah had given us a huge peach and a huge apple, both big enough for two.  For once, Larry thought so, too.  When she pointed them out to him when he had come in a while later, he told her, “Those are so big, I’ll have to share them with Mama!”  😄

Wednesday afternoon, I sliced my half of the peach and ate it with cottage cheese.  Yum, it was delicious.

We didn’t go to church that evening, as we were still coughing and blowing our respective schnozzes, and we were no doubt contagious.  I still felt like a wet noodle.  (Mr. Micro Q. Soft thinks I should say ‘feeling like wet noodles.’  That’s ridiculous.  Who teaches him stuff like that??  It’s singular.  I am not noodles; I am noodle.  I feel like o.n.e.  n.o.o.d.l.e.  O.n.e.)  Anyway, I was definitely back in the land of the living.  Pasta, but living.

I managed to lose four pounds on account of the stomach bug I had along with the cold.  I’ve wanted to lose 5-10 pounds for months, but haven’t managed the feat, since I like to eat.  😏  Unfortunately, I know that when I lose weight when I’m sick, it doesn’t stay off; I usually gain it right back, because once I get better, I’m hungry, I tell you, hungry!

So far, though, it’s stayed off.

Aaarrrggghhh!  It drives me bonkers when I watch one of my favorite crafters/quilters on YouTube, trying to cut things with a rotary cutter whose blade must’ve been in use since 1963.  She saws (with energy!) back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until finally, finally, she gets a cut.  Looks like she hacked it with a butter knife. 

Her scissors are no better.  She saws along slowly through a single piece of fabric, while the fabric, rather than getting cut, instead just folds over those dull blades.  Through sheer willpower, she eventually chews the material into a mangled, haggled mess.  Siggghhhhh...

It was sunny and nice Thursday, getting up to 72°.  Midmorning, I peered out the window to see if any wayward birds had returned to the bird feeders – and discovered a big ol’ fat whistlepig (aka woodchuck) perched up on the rail, plump as you please, chowing down on the suet!  I knocked on the window, and he, apparently waaaay more convinced than the squirrels that I am Danger with a capital D, abandoned even the bite already in his mouth, bailed off the railing, thumping onto the deck, raced lickety-split for the steps, and then flung himself all the way down the first half-flight, landing with a THUD!! on the first landing, and then repeating the feat over the second half-flight to the ground.  Those pudgy little things are muscular and tough, and they have a thick layer of fur padding, too.

I started a load of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and played the piano.  When I made myself a tumbler of Blueberry White Chocolate cold-brew coffee, I noticed that the jug was nearly empty, and thought, How can that be??  I just made it three days ago, and didn’t have much for a couple of days!  Then I took a look at the little black dry-erase board that hangs from a jute cord around the neck of the jug, saw the date I’d written on it, and realized I’d made that stuff seven days earlier.  Time flies when yer a-havin’ fun.

I blow-dried and curled my hair, ate something, cleaned the kitchen, started another load of clothes, and got back to making Dresden Plate flowers.  I’ll appliqué the centers on at the same time I’m appliquéing the flowers to the quilt.

Now for our WGR (Weekly Grammar Report).  This is a comment someone wrote under a story about two young people who were killed in a tragic accident: 

“My heart goes out to uins.” 

Somebody corrected her:  “You’ns.”

And of course there was the oft-repeated, “Rest there souls”

Someone tacked a laughing emoji onto the ‘uins’ post, raising someone else’s ire (and yes, laughing emojis are inappropriate on tragic stories).  She wrote, “how ognorant to laugh at something you dont a thing about ,not too many smart people reading this post apparently ,”

She got lots of laughing emojis for that.  I wonder if she even knows why?

Each evening, I look up ‘National Days’ to see what the next day’s important day might be, then find a quilt to go with it, and post it on my Quilt Talk group.

On the ‘National Day’ webpages, one is given the option of offering one’s own ideas for new ‘National Days’.  Judging by what days are already in place, it would appear that people blindfold themselves, spin around, point, remove their blindfolds, and whatever they are pointing at makes the cut.  Last Friday was National Ceiling Fan Day. 

‘Ceiling fans,’ tsk.

Okay, let me give it a try.  >>...closing eyes ...<<  (I’d spin around, but I’m in my recliner, and it doesn’t swivel.)  >>... pointing ...<<  >>...opening eyes...>>  Okaaay. I can now submit my recommendation for “National Wolf Lamp Day”! 😆🤣😄😂😅

Tomorrow is National Elephant Appreciation Day, so I’ve posted a picture of this quilt on my quilt group.

I had planned to go to bed earlier that night.  Instead, I went on a lengthy YouTube tour of One World Trade Center. 

At least that was a little more conductive to sleep than the videos I’d been watching of the planes hitting the twin towers, the collapsing of the towers, and interviews with people who had narrowly escaped with their lives.  Many of those interviews were new, especially done for the 25^th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.  Some of these people have never told their stories publicly before.

A couple of days ago, deep in my rabbit hole of 9-11 videos on YouTube, I learned that there is an area in Brooklyn called ‘Dumbo’.  After hearing it a few more times, and seeing it in a video taken from the observation decks of One World Trade Center, I did a bit of research on it.

Dumbo, it turns out, is an acronym that stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.  Artists and residents who moved into the former industrial area in the late 1970s made up the goofy name on purpose, hoping a silly-sounding name would make the area sound unappealing and keep big real estate developers away. 

The plan did not work.  That catchy name eventually helped make the neighborhood famous and trendy.

Friday, it was warmer than it had been for days, with a high of 92° and a heat index 8-10° higher.  In addition to the usual myriad of Cabbage White Butterflies, there were Clouded  Sulphurs on the Autumn Joy sedum.  A couple of Monarchs had a fuss right outside my window.

I found a sparkly piece of pale lavender fabric amongst my purple fabrics, and matched it with a little darker lavender for this next Dresden ‘flower’.

My brain must’ve reckoned I needed to make up for the time I’d lost being sick, so it only let me sleep about three hours Friday night.  I awoke at 4:45 a.m., and that was the end of any sleep.

By 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning, the thunderstorms that had moved through during the night had mostly gone off to the east, and the temperature had risen to 68°.  The high would be 73° that cloudy day.

I showered and cut my hair, played the piano, made myself a tall tumbler of Raspberry White Chocolate cold-brew coffee, then blow-dried my hair and put a few curls in it.  

My hair gets just about to a length I like – but then it takes too long to curl, and it loses its curl too quickly, so out come the hair-cutting scissors.  And then, once again, it only takes me about ten minutes to blow-dry and curl it with my brush curling iron.

I mentioned this to Hannah, who remarked, “I still have a brush curling iron like yours, but I’d have to wear it to church if I tried it. 😬”  hee hee

Noticing the whistlepig/woodchuck/ground hog at the suet feeder again, I opened the window; but he didn’t race for the steps quite as quickly as he has been doing, even when I said, “Hey, what are you doing?!” 

He must be getting accustomed to me.  It won’t be long before he’s acting just like the squirrels do:  “Oh, hi!  How ya doin’?  Next time, get the kind with berries in it, wouldja?”

Wow, look at this:

The largest pumpkin ever recorded in Illinois weighs 2,492.5 pounds and was grown in September 2026 by Plainfield electrician Phil Groenewold.  This broke the previous 11-year-old state record by 347 pounds.  The pumpkin was officially weighed on September 12, 2026, at the Bluegrass Championship Weigh-Off in Hawesville, Kentucky. 

But the very biggest ever?

The heaviest and largest pumpkin in the world weighed 2,819 pounds and 4 ounces and was grown by twin brothers Ian and Stuart Paton from Hampshire, England.  The pumpkin was named “Muggle”.  It had a circumference of 21 feet, 3.8 inches.  It was grown in a greenhouse in Lymington, England.

The seed was started indoors in April 2025, and after 131 days of intensive growth, it was harvested and officially weighed on October 4, 2025, at the Wargrave Nursery Giant Vegetable Weigh-Off.

By 3:30 Saturday afternoon, I was about to fall asleep at my sewing machine, so I went and took a 45-minute nap.  Feeling much better, I went back to work on the Dresden Plate flowers, fortified by a snack of Mozzarella cheese.  Mmmmm, this is my favorite kind of cheese, especially when it’s dry and crumbly enough to make your teeth squeak.

Around 7:30 p.m., I went to fix supper, thinking to cook salmon and broccoli.

But when I looked in the freezer, I found Pizza Bites and popped those into the oven instead.

Yuck, they were lame.  The first ‘bite’ didn’t have much of anything inside it.  The next one unexpectedly had much more, some of which ended up dribbling down my chin.  Ow, hot!  One little box of frozen ‘Pizza Bites’ was supposed to be one serving; but I could only stomach half of them.  I was glad to have broccoli, at least.

By the time I quit sewing for the night, I had finished four Dresden Plate flowers, making a total of eight.

Later that evening, Teddy brought us a tall jar of thick potato soup and a couple of muffins.  Perfect for supper the next night after church.

There was enough soup that we were able to have it for supper tonight, too.

It was 59° at 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning.  The high would be 62°, and it rained and drizzled periodically throughout the day.  I was happy that we both felt well enough to go to church, though we didn’t loiter to visit afterwards, so as not to spread germs hither and yon.

That afternoon, I walked into the kitchen barefoot and nearly stepped on a giant cricket.  In the time it took me to grab one of Larry’s boots, the horrid thing scuttled under the refrigerator.

Since I haven’t heard a chirp out of it, I presume it’s a female cricket.  It’s obviously full-grown, and it has probably decided that the warm, safe area under our refrigerator is the perfect nursery. 

A female cricket lays eggs over a period of about two months, starting when she is 8 to 10 days old.  She lays batches of 50 to 100 eggs every two to three days, and she can produce over a thousand eggs during her adult life.  She needs to re-mate every two to three weeks.  The eggs hatch in about 12 to 14 days if kept warm.

Meanwhile, Larry was still working on his Sunday afternoon nap.  Good thing I’m not the screaming sort.  Where’s the bug spray when you need it?!

Last evening was miserable, because, in addition to trying to tamp down this lingering cold, I was having much trouble with my eyes.  The left one burned, as usual; but the right one wound up with something in it right about the time we headed out the door to go to church.  I thought perhaps I’d finally gotten whatever it was out before bedtime by flooding the eye with eyedrops; but it was scratched by then, so I couldn’t be sure.  It was better when I awoke this morning.

We picked up a grocery order at Walmart after the service.

Hannah and Levi then came out to get his car; he was anxious to be able to drive it to school.  There were still a couple of quallyfobbles; Larry got those fixed this evening.

It needed a new, uh, ... maybe a Crankshaft Position Sensor?  Larry is asleep, so let’s ask AI.  Annnnd...  here’s what AI says.  If it’s wrong, it’s not my fault, I can’t help it, don’t blame me, I refuse to take responsibility!

“The instrument cluster tachometer gets its engine speed signal directly from the ECU (Engine Control Unit), which calculates engine RPM using data from the Crankshaft Position Sensor.”

A wire in this sensor probably got broken when the previous owner hit the post or whatever it was that also cracked the head and caused the insurance company to total out the car.  Larry got the new (remanufactured) motor put in a week or two ago.

Hannah drove the Elantra back to town, while Levi drove their Palisade.  She called shortly to say it was running rough (because of that sensor it needed) and was squealing (because the alternator belt needed to be tightened; Larry cannot hear that high-pitched noise).  He told her to pull over, turn the car off, then back on.  A couple times of that, and the sensor decided to work enough to take her home.

As I stood at my laptop typing this afternoon, I caught a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye.  I turned my head carefully to the right – and there was a mouse that had evidently popped out from under the stove and was sashaying along toward the back hallway.  He must’ve noticed me noticing him, for he paused, twisted around to look over his shoulder, and proceeded to size me up for a good while before scurrying on into the hallway and disappearing.

Wow, look at that AI picture I generated in Canva, after describing this field mouse.  It’s almost exactly as I saw it.

It first gave me this picture (below), and I requested that the head be turned more.  So that’s precisely what Canva did.  The only thing that gives it away as AI, I think, is that the front paw isn’t quite right; but most people would not notice.

I promptly stopped what I was doing, replenished all the mouse traps with fresh peanut butter, and made sure they were set properly.

Larry’s cousin, who lives in a nursing home and with whom I text nearly every day, wrote to say, “The aide was wondering why my bed was so high.  It’s because the aide who made the bed is tall.  He lifts it so he doesn’t have to bend over so far, and he just left it up.”

I then told her this story:

We once stayed in a motel in Colorado Springs that must’ve been designed and built by a basketball team, because everything was way higher than usual – not just the beds, but the light switches, the sinks, the clothes rods, the peephole on the door, the desk, etc.

I couldn’t look out of the peephole without standing on a chair.  I had to give a little jump to hang my jacket on the rod, and when I washed my face or brushed my teeth, the sink was so high I couldn’t lean over, so I wound up standing in a big puddle from all the water running down my elbows.  Everything in that room would’ve been too high for most people, not just me!

SSssssSNAP!  One mouse down.  Off I go to empty and reset a trap.  😜😝

I’d better git bizzy!  A customer needs me to do some quilting for her.

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,