A Catch-Up Post. Finally.

So much for sticking with blogging at least once a week for Thursday 13.  Since it has been a while, I have some catching up to do, so here are 13 things, not on a Thursday.  As usual, for this kind of post, not all of the pictures are related to the post. 

1.    We didn’t have any damage from Hurricane Ian.  I know a lot of people weren’t so lucky, but we didn’t get any of the horrible weather we were expecting.  We even had nice sunny weather by the end of that weekend.

2.    We went on vacation during my little blogging break.  We rented a house on Folly Beach for a week and got home on Saturday.  We had a great time and didn’t really want to come home.

3.    Our neighbors very kindly took care of the cats and were even fine with giving Howard his shots. 

 

4.    I’ve gotten a little better at giving Howard his shots. When your 15-year-old neighbor does it with no trouble, it kind of shames you into sucking it up a little more. 

5.    We timed our vacation quite well to avoid the cold for a while longer.   Our area had its first hard freeze and even dropped down to the 20s while we were gone.  This week it’s back in the 60s and 70s.  I’m happy to avoid the cold for a while longer!

6.    We ended up taking down a small-ish rose of Sharon tree in our backyard.  It had vines growing on it (I’m not sure what the vines were; it wasn’t anything we planted or wanted) that were growing on cable/internet lines.  Our neighbors were having internet trouble, and the technician who came out told them it was because of the vines on the lines. 

 

7.    I didn’t take a picture before because the original plan was just to take down the vines and some branches, but the project kept going.  There are power (service lines which apparently the power company doesn’t maintain or service), cable, internet, and phone lines there, and it seemed like every trim just moved branches closer to another set of lines, so we finally opted to take the whole tree down.  I don’t know what possessed someone to plant a tree there in the first place!

8.    Taking a tree down is seriously hard work!  It didn’t seem like a large tree until we started cutting branches, but then it seemed like a massive tree.  Our neighbors very kindly helped us with it.  They felt like it was at least partially their responsibility since it was their internet was having trouble, and we felt like it was our responsibility since it was our tree in our yard. 

9.    I’m very glad our neighbors are so nice and that we all get along so well!  And I’m so glad they helped us!  Even with their help, it took the vast majority of a weekend to get it done. 

10. I learned how to use the electric chainsaw during the tree removal.  I enjoyed using it and wouldn’t mind using it again when we have another project that we need to use it for.

11. After all of that, it turned out that the tree and vines weren’t the cause of the neighbors’ internet issues.  They’re having ongoing problems with it, and subsequent technicians have told them it sounds like the first one just didn’t want to do anything, so they blamed the tree and vines.  We don’t regret taking the tree down, though, because with it being near so many lines, it was probably only a matter of time before it did cause someone problems. 

12. I finally started work on the crochet cat couch for my sister.  Technically, I haven’t started on the couch, but I’m almost finished with the dust ruffle.  I think it’s looking like it’s supposed to, so that’s promising. 

 

13. I’ve also made two of the squares for the blanket.  I had hoped that the multi-colored squared would be different enough to use all multi-colored squares, but after I made two, I didn’t think I would like how the blanket looked with just those, so I’ve decided to make some solid-colored squares in some of the colors from the multi-colored yarn.  I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to do the blanket, so I’m open to suggestions and ideas.

 

So what have you been up to for the past month?