I have to tell you, I'm not a big fan of bugs. If they are outside, ideally in a foreign country, and they look exotic, I might be interested. I might even go on a night walk to find them, and take pictures. Until I reach the point where it all seems more creepy than exciting, and then I'll want nothing more than crawl into a bug free bed, in a bug free room. But at home, and especially in my house, I really dislike them. I don't care that spiders eat other bugs. They can go eat somewhere else (and please, bring their feast along with them). A giant house spider in my kitchen sink, not cool. A green cricket jumping out of my underwear drawer at 6 in the morning as I'm getting ready for work, not ok. These are just a few things we are dealing with right now, and they should probably be the least of my worries. We now have spider traps set up everywhere in the house, and this morning, I found one stuck in the trap, RIGHT NEXT TO THE HEAD OF THE BED. ON MY SIDE OF THE BED. I'm not sure if I should be grossed out or thankful. It was a big one. You know, I really wish that Noodle would chase them. I'm told he killed a giant house spider at my friend's house last year. Why didn't he kill the one we got? Graham warned me that I'm not allowed to put Noodle in the sink if that happens again and he's not home. I don't know, seems like a good strategy to me. The other night, he ate a giant mosquito, frog-style, just following him with his head along the wall, and then snap, getting it with his tongue. It was kind of amazing, and he totally got a cookie for it. 

It's interesting to see how our lives have recently evolved. We went from going out on Saturday nights to sanding and stripping off wallpaper. Sure, the glass of wine stayed, but the nice clothes have been traded for a t-shirt and old pants. I'm coming to realize that I tend to underestimate projects, or at least their length. Maybe it's for the best, removing the apprehensions, the questions. I would absolutely choose to do it again, but this remodelling sure is taking a toll. Saturday night, I suddenly had the impulse to rip out wallpaper from the powder room. It was not a rational decision, not a planned one, and I hadn't looked up any tips. I just started pulling. The first layer, blue with stars, came off like a breeze. And then I discovered the many, many layers underneath. There is the New Orleans scene, which I kind of like, and a few layers of flowers. Mostly, there is glue, and a huge mess. I obviously didn't make it very far, and then decided to go to bed. Shortly after falling asleep, I was woken up in panic by the smoke detectors. The fancy ones we got hardwired to be up to code, all connected together, that not only trigger a siren, but also talk: "fire, fire". I scrambled for my glasses, grabbed Noodle, and headed downstairs. When the electricians were installing the smoke detectors, the alarm went off a few times, and I had taken that opportunity to do practice drills with Noodle, taking him outside for a short walk each time. When the alarm went off in the middle of the night, while I was terrified, his tail was wagging, he had jumped off from the bed and was ready to go out. Luckily, there turned out to be no fire, and we suspect that the smell of old glue may have set it off. The moral of the story is, we probably should have gone out on Saturday.

I was going through the blog's knitting section, and I realized that I might have a grey problem. I am very partial to neutrals, and actually planning on knitting grey socks and a grey shawl next, once the frenzy of packing/moving has slowed down and I get some quiet time without being completely exhausted. We just got our new house, and are starting to move in, happy to trade our noisy construction-filled current neighbourhood for a much more peaceful one, close to friends and lovely parks. Graham is terrified that I'm going to paint our new hosue white and grey, and I'm terrified that he'll insist on bright colours. We'll need to meet in the middle, and I'm trying to include more colour accents in my design plans, while trying to convince him that a little white and grey has never hurt anyone. In an effort to meet him halfway, I've been taking baby steps. I've been painting my nails bright, spring-like colours, favouring mint and peach, realizing that my wardrobe is also predominantly neutral.

Lately, I've spent a lot of time scrolling down my Instagram feed, mostly when I'm trying to avoid getting up for work, or procrastinating on packing boxes for our upcoming move. I've started noticing these amazing rope baskets and trivets, and been thinking that they would look great in the new place. I had tried out this tutorial a while back, and totally failed (trust me, the fact that it's in a foreign language was the least of my problems). Although what I really wanted to make was this, I decided to exercise some caution, and try out a coaster first. I also didn't have much rope, which probably lessened my excitement too, along with the fact that my sewing machine remains to me a wild and unpredictable creature, with a mind of its own.

I spent part of last week home sick with a cold, and after sleeping 12hrs in a row, finishing this book and binge watching this TV show, I started to feel a lot better. I was still in my pj's, unshowered, and sitting on the couch. I thought, I have all this free time, I should probably try to learn how to knit two socks at once. Right? Doing a load of laundry also crossed my mind, but only very briefly. I started casting on, following the step by step instructions, and quickly became a little confused. I realized that maybe I wasn't totally back onto my feet, and should probably still take it easy.