How many battles make a war?

I know you were all dying to hear an update on the moth situation, right? Or maybe just assuming there was no update because I killed all the buggers?

There is, sadly, an update.

First of all, the downstairs freezer still looks like this.

So it's a really good thing we have an extra freezer downstairs. There are also shawls and sweaters shoved into the freezer upstairs, not to mention all the sweaters that went into my mother's chest freezer.


Last month I laundered EVERYTHING in our closet, took all the coats and suits to the drycleaners, scrubbed the HECK out of our closet with Pinesol, and moved the bookshelf that had my yarn and scrubbed the heck out of that whole area. I vacuumed our rugs every day for a few weeks. And I felt okay, because I'd done everything that I could reasonably do.

And then I found a wool cardigan in the bottom of another closet, complete with holes and moth poop.

Deep breaths. It looked like old damage. No larvae or moths or pupae to be seen. Scrub the closet. Wash all the things. Okay. Deep breaths.

Well, I had the vacuum out, so let's clear the dust bunny out of the twins' closet. Which has no wool. Just some shoes, some bins of baby clothes, some duffel bags on the floor.

Except look ... an old forgotten glove on the floor next to the duffel bags.

Freak out. Throw away the glove. Pull out the duffel bags. Find a LIVING MOTH running away from me! VACUUM IT TO DEATH. Scrub! Wash! PANIC! And while we're at it let's throw ALL THE TOWELS AND SHEETS from the linen closet in the washing machine and dump the rest of the Pinesol in there and banish the baby-towel basket to the deck for two weeks!

Because the last time I talked myself out of overreacting apparently I missed the moths.

That was two weeks ago.

Today, I found this.

A fingerless glove that was waiting for its missing mate in a bucket of odds and ends. The little white sandy stuff is either eggs or poop, and the whitish cylinder is either an old pupae or casing. There was a moth living at the bottom of the bucket.

Blargh.

Whenever enough time passes that I feel safe, perhaps up to tackling the yarn in the freezer, I find another place the moths have landed. The hard part is not knowing whether it's new or was simply there all along.

And we're under attack ...

What would be the opposite of a yarn along post? Probably something like this.

That's my husband's scarf that I didn't finish in time for Christmas last year. It's been sitting at the bottom of the basket for months. During naptime this afternoon, I pulled it out and put it back on the needles. I found my place on the chart. I turned on my podcast. I knit a row. I shook the whole thing out onto the couch beside me.

A piece of the end came off in my hand.

I blinked. I held it up. I saw holes. I saw ... mealy stuff. Maybe that milk I'd spilled on it and wiped off--not super thoroughly--shortly before I set the thing aside for the summer?

A worm poked its head out at me. The same shade of blue as the yarn. The beautiful Brooklyn Tweed yarn.

I dropped the scarf. Jumped off the couch. Maybe indulged in a little shriek before venting my horror on Facebook. 

Slowly I did what I needed to, working up the courage for each step. Shoved all the yarn in the basket into the freezer; wait five minutes. Take out all the papers that were in the basket and throw them out in a ziploc bag; wait five minutes. Shove the scarf into a plastic bag and then into the freezer. Wait again. Examine the basket, notice moth bodies in the bottom, set it outside to deal with later. Vacuum, put the vacuum bag into a ziploc and throw it out. 

I vacillated about the scarf itself. The actual damage was all within the first foot of the scarf. The remaining yard or so was hole-free. As it sat in my freezer while I looked at the stash on my shelf, I decided to just throw it all out. Better safe than sorry.

But when I unfurled it onto the deck ... it was a hard decision to make. I cut off the damaged part ... and noticed that the rest of the scarf was peppered with moth corpses. That answered my question.

still in disgrace

 I plan on washing the basket with hot soapy water and letting it sit awhile to make sure nothing else hatches. Because I really, really love this basket. And I'd really, really like to still use it for knitting projects. But I welcome any words of advice or warning.

I will probably throw out the yarn in the freezer, except for a skein I need for a sweater (should I just order another??) and half a skein of Tosh Sock, which I guess I'll have to wash.

And I will look through my entire stash. I am fairly certain it's safe, as it was in another room entirely (and had no milk spilled on it), but I need to check. But not until my husband comes home. And not without a glass of wine.

In the meantime I'll just sit here jumping a mile whenever I imagine I see a flutter in the corner of my vision. 

Seven Quick Takes, aka Survival Mode Blogging (17)

1. Something about today struck me as a "mental health" sort of day and so I ended up eating an obscene amount of cookies. To make myself feel a little less guilty I gave part of every cookie to Michael. Go ahead and judge me. My kid thinks I'm awesome. :-P

2. I also watched too much Lark Rise to Candleford, until the speakers stopped working in the middle of an episode. Grrr.

3. My mom stopped by and treated us all to pizza which was fantastic. And Michael also ate grapes with lunch. So see, I'm not an entirely awful mother today.

4. While Michael napped the babies took turns falling asleep/staring at me mournfully from the bouncy chair until finally, finally, when Michael was stirring in his crib but not ready to really get up yet, Dominic was fast asleep and I figured Gregory and I could just cuddle on the couch for a sorely needed time-out. And then Dominic stirred, and started to fuss. And Gregory was pretty soundly asleep so I thought I could leave him on his own for a few minutes and ... well, I'm sure you can guess how that went. Don't get me wrong ... this is pretty much par for the course (one baby falls asleep, the other pops awake) and most days I can deal with it because (as I keep reminding myself) it is temporary. (I totally believe in sleep training.) But for some reason today it was just a bit much. Both boys started crying and I just couldn't. So I had to step away from them for a bit, and went to hide with Michael in his room for a few minutes.

5. Anyway, things have gotten a bit better in the hour since. And now Gregory is waking up, just as Dominic shows signs of drowsing off.

6. The upshot of all this is that Keith is bringing home thai food for dinner and I really hope he isn't late. Hopefully he will have left work precisely one minute ago. Not that I'm counting or anything.

7. Oh yeah. I'm also doing Jen's 7 posts in 7 days thing again. Or trying to. I don't plan for them to be posts like this. We'll see what happens!

In the meantime, linking up with her for these quick takes!

Gathering the Pieces ...

A week (two weeks?) ago, Keith bought a rosemary plant and some nasturtiums for the back porch. The idea is that the nasturtiums will climb the railing and be all pretty.

They haven't climbed much yet, but they've started blooming. As of today there are two orange flowers and one yellow. I keep meaning to take a picture of them; maybe tomorrow, if it isn't raining.

And the weekend before last we went to Ikea and bought some lights for over the sink, this lampshade (for a lamp that Keith will bring with him when he moves in), and we also ended up adopting another plant. (I collect yarn; Keith collects green and growing things. And we both collect books.)

I really love the lampshade. The last time my mom was here, I told her that it reminded me of a lampshade in my Great-grandma Ivy's house, and she had been thinking the same thing. It's funny, because I don't actually remember Great-grandma's lampshade, in the sense that I have a picture of it in my mind. But I look at this one, sitting on top of the bookshelf, and I have an image--part sight, part feeling--of sitting in her living room looking at it.

Anyway. Things are going well at the apartment; slowly but surely boxes are getting unpacked and belongings set up and furniture moved to its proper place (at least for the time being). The only bad thing is the fleas which I've finally pinned as the culprit for eating me alive for the past three weeks.

Yes, fleas. Ugh. I have NO idea where they came from; I'm glad, I guess, it wasn't bed bugs or mites or something harder to get rid of, because they don't bite ANYONE ELSE except me. But still, it's gross and itchy and a pain in the butt. On Thursday Keith is bringing over a vacuum and we'll sprinkle powder on the carpet and spray the couch etc and hopefully kill the HECK out of them. (In the meantime, my friend Stephanie tells me that they won't bite you if you take vitamin B. I would like this to be true, please.)

Rosemary-Kindle Fail

So, the Kindle that my future father-in-law gave me for Christmas?

I was folding laundry and I stepped on it.

And now it looks like this.



This is something only I could end up doing. >_<

Going to see about getting it replaced this week.