In Which I Start a New Project

    During the hurricane, it again occurred to me that I wasn't working on any particular project. All I was doing was listening to the TV while playing mahjong on my laptop. I decided that I needed to be making something, so I went stash diving. I found some pretty Malabrigo I had forgotten all about, two balls of purple, colorway Uva, and several of colorway Plena. I will only need one of those.


    I thought I'd start another felted bucket bag, and those yarns will look nice together. This time I'll write it down, as I do it, so I can present the pattern for those who wish to use it. I start, as before, with a crocheted circle for the bottom.


   Also this time I shall take photos of the progress, as well as before felting measurements. I hope. We all know that measurements when felting are kind of flexible.


    I started on Sunday evening, I believe, and got the bottom of the bag done on Monday. Here's a photo of the bottom, not complete yet:

     I finished the bottom, then picked up the stitches with a circular knitting needle. I knew I wanted to do this one differently than the first one; I wanted a row or two of contrasting color at the start of the body, so I picked up with the 2nd color, and then knit a row. After switching back to color 1, this is how far I had gotten as of yesterday afternoon:

     I am planning a nice, wide stripe of color 2 further up the body. When I get there, I will take a photo or two, and make sure I update you all!

My Frankenstorm Report

    Well, it seems that the worst of this hurricane has passed us. We were actually very very lucky. We only lost power very briefly, and just the once. Although Hubs tells me that his alarm clock was flashing again at 4 a.m., so that means it must have gone out again.


    It seems we have no horrendous damage. The creek in the back yard, that flooded so high with Irene, is hardly running hard. No flooding at all. It could be because we didn't have so much rain with this storm, as we did with Irene. This storm was mostly very high winds. I have seen photos of the riverfront in Poughkeepsie, where there was some flooding.


    None of our trees, or the trees in the wooded lot next door, are damaged. I consider that a blessing. I had left my deflated (and water puddled) pool mattress float in the yard; it didn't even blow away! However, Hubs had a hunting blind set up between the wooded lot and the pool fence, and it's nowhere to be found.  He set it up to air it out before he used it, and didn't take it down. It was staked to the ground with six stakes, he thought it would be safe enough. It seems he was wrong.


    Now I'm wondering if the supermarket is open, we need a couple of things. Maybe I'll go take a ride and see what damage there is around town. I am totally amazed that we still have power! We are usually the first ones to lose it.


    From the Weather Channel maps, it looks like the worst of it is over for us, the storm is south of us, and has moved further inland. I hope all my friends and blog readers in its path stay safe.


   

Before We Lose Power....

    I want to get this posted, before we lose power. It's very windy, but the official "Wind Advisory" doesn't start until 9 a.m., 15 minutes from now. It's not even raining, but I heard on the radio that the Hudson River will reach flood stage by 9 a.m. Then it will go even higher, like 8 feet higher. Let me repeat, it's not even raining yet!


    We live close to the river, but that's not the body of water I worry about. We have the Crum Elbow Creek in the back yard, and every spring it floods. In last years hurricane, I posted photos of how much it flooded. If this storm is worse, I'm wondering how bad it will be!


   I'm hoping that everyone I care about stays safe and warm, and that we ride out this nasty Sandy successfully. If you don't hear from me for a few days, it'll be because we have no power. Rest assured I will take notes when I get ideas for posts!

Battening Down the Hatches

   So here we are, once again waiting for a big, bad hurricane to hit. This one seems like it's going to be quite a bit worse than the one last year. So we have stocked up on water, and Hubs finally found someone who still had some candles. We already have a wind-up radio, now all we need to do is find our favorite backgammon set.


    We used to play backgammon every night, when we were working together. Usually at lunch, from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. Hopefully all this storm nonsense will blow over quickly, and the power won't be out for too long.

  
    That reminds me, I need to go dig out the propane powered coffee maker that we bought after the last big power outage. Remember the time when the whole North East and part of Canada was out? I had seen the coffee maker with the camping stuff in Dick's, and said to Hubs, "Seriously? A coffee maker?" Then after we lost power, I would have killed for one. Shortly after that, we bought one. This will be the first time we'll use it.


    I can live without many things, for a time, like a hot shower, and television, but I can't live without my chocolate coffee!

Note to Self...

    It seems that people are taking this hurricane seriously. Even though it remains up in the air which way it will end up going, it's better to be prepared. Either way, we are probably gonna get blasted. It just remains to be seen how hard we get hit.


    So my note to self reads: Do Not Try to Go Grocery Shopping When a Hurricane is Forecast in the Near Future.....


   The fracking supermarket was packed. There were people everywhere. I have never seen the store so crowded before! And the lines? They were long and s l o w  m o v i n g.... I thought I was never gonna get outta there!


    But I made it home, and now I have to start dinner. You all stay safe!

Waiting for "The Big Storm"

    Well, here we are, waiting for the Big Storm. All day I've been waiting. Early this morning, I woke up to thunder, and thought "Here it comes!" But no. After a little while it stopped thundering, and raining. As the morning went on, the sun even came out!


    All day, I've been watching the Weather Channel. And all day, they've been saying that it's coming. Before I left to sit with Miss Malia, I went down and brought in all the pool toys, and my Queen chair. Also all the towels came in, and whatever else I could carry that might get blown away by "The Big Storm".


    While I was with Miss Malia, I was still checking the weather on a regular basis. After a while, they added a tornado warning to the whole mess. And the sun was still shining. As I sit here and write this, it is finally starting to look like it might just do something.


   To me, the most disturbing thing is our new-neighbors-from-NYC. They put up a big tent type awning thing over the fourth, when they had a party. It is still up. I wanted Hubs to call them and ask them to take it down, and tell them that if it ends up in our pool and damages the liner, they will be buying us a new one.


    These are the very same neighbors who, when the hurricane hit our area last year, never even put their umbrella down on their umbrella table, much less take it inside. Here Hubs and I were, closely watching a tree on the corner of our lot, fearing it could come down (it didn't). We all got very lucky with the hurricane, it didn't hit us too badly. But it could have.


    It seems to me that preparing for the worst just make sense. Wouldn't you feel guilty if something you owned got blown somewhere and caused someone to get hurt, or Goddess forbid, killed? I know I would. That is why I run out there, even in the rain, to bring inside any projectile type stuff. It's not like I have to worry about my hair getting wet or anything...


    Hubs has gone to work, and I get to spend the evening here all by myself. I think it's time to go look for some candles... you know, just in case.